Associated Press

Associated Press


Like Daniel Ellsberg, others who leaked US government secrets have been seen as traitors and heroes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Daniel Ellsberg’s decision to leak a secret Defense Department study of the U.S. war in Vietnam — the Pentagon Papers — made him a traitor in the eyes of the White House and its supporters and an instant hero to opponents of the war. That’s been true of others who released top-secret […]

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Energy Department among federal agencies breached by Russian ransomware gang

The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said Thursday. But for others among what could be hundreds of victims from industry to higher […]

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White House promotes spying law, says surveillance has caught hackers, fentanyl smugglers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has used electronic surveillance programs to catch fentanyl smugglers and the hackers who temporarily shut down a major U.S. fuel pipeline, the White House said Tuesday as part of its push to have those programs renewed by Congress. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires at the end […]

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Judge in FTX bankruptcy rejects media challenge, says customer names can remain secret

DOVER, Del. (AP) — The names of individual customers of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading can be permanently shielded from public disclosure, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled Friday. Following a two-day hearing, Judge John Dorsey rejected arguments from lawyers for several media outlets and for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee, which serves as a government watchdog […]

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Lawyer wraps up Prince Harry’s phone hacking case by grilling ex tabloid reporter

LONDON (AP) — A lawyer for Prince Harry finished setting out the royal’s case against a newspaper publisher on Thursday, quizzing a former tabloid reporter about information inserted into stories by then-editor Piers Morgan. On the final day of evidence, attorney David Sherborne grilled former Daily Mirror royal correspondent Jane Kerr, whose byline appears on […]

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Former ByteDance executive says Chinese Communist Party tracked Hong Kong protesters via data

HONG KONG (AP) — A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company which owns the popular short-video app TikTok, says in a legal filing that some members of the ruling Communist Party used data held by the company to identify and locate protesters in Hong Kong. Yintao Yu, formerly head of engineering for ByteDance in […]

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Senators call on TikTok CEO to explain ‘inaccurate’ statements about how company manages US data

NEW YORK (AP) — Two U.S. senators are asking TikTok to explain what they called “misleading or inaccurate” responses about how it stores and provides access to U.S. user data after recent news reports raised questions about how the Chinese-owned social media platform handles some sensitive information. In a letter sent Tuesday to TikTok CEO […]

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Microsoft will pay $20M to settle U.S. charges of illegally collecting children’s data

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft will pay a fine of $20 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it illegally collected and retained the data of children who signed up to use its Xbox video game console. The agency charged that Microsoft gathered the data without notifying parents or obtaining their consent, and that […]

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Why are people in Britain talking about Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages?

LONDON (AP) — Critics accuse the British administration of running “government by WhatsApp” because of the popularity of the messaging app with politicians and officials. So it feels inevitable that a tussle over WhatsApp messages is at the heart of Britain’s official inquiry into how the country handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands of messages exchanged […]

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In gun law push, Tennessee governor’s office memo says NRA prefers to ’round up mentally ill people’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s administration accused the National Rifle Association of wanting to use involuntary commitment laws “to round up mentally ill people and deprive them of other liberties,” according to documents drafted by the Republican’s staffers as part of their initial attempt to pass a gun control proposal earlier this […]

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Utah district bans Bible in elementary and middle schools ‘due to vulgarity or violence’

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children. And the Book of Mormon could be next. The 72,000-student Davis […]

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Amazon to pay $31 million in privacy violation penalties for Alexa voice assistant and Ring camera

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amazon agreed Wednesday to pay a $25 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations it violated a child privacy law and deceived parents by keeping for years kids’ voice and location data recorded by its popular Alexa voice assistant. Separately, the company agreed to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds […]

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