Press Releases
Currently showing results in 2015 where the type is news_article
U.S. to Add Forces in Iraq, but Move Doesn’t Quell Critics
WASHINGTON-The White House, under pressure to fortify President Barack Obama's war policy in Iraq, formally unveiled plans to send hundreds of new U.S. troops to the country, but its choice of a relatively conservative military option didn't quell criticism over its approach. The White House said that in the coming weeks, the Pentagon would send up to 450 new troops to advise and support Sunni forces in Iraq's Anbar province, just weeks after Islamic State militants dealt Iraqi security … Continue Reading
June 10, 2015
US Orders More Troops to Iraq, but No Overhaul of Strategy
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama ordered the deployment of up to 450 more American troops to Iraq on Wednesday in an effort to reverse major battlefield losses to the Islamic State, an escalation but not a significant shift in the struggling U.S. strategy to defeat the extremist group. The U.S. forces will open a fifth training site in the country, this one dedicated specifically to helping the Iraqi Army integrate Sunni tribes into the fight, an element seen as a crucial to driving the … Continue Reading
June 10, 2015
Debate over authorizing force against ISIS to hit House floor
A senior House Democrat plans to offer an amendment to the annual defense spending bill this week to force Congress to vote on authorizing military force against the Islamic State. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, is among the lawmakers who have criticized Congress for failing to take up President Obama's draft authorization of military force (AUMF). Schiff's amendment would require Congress to debate and vote on an AUMF within 180 days, … Continue Reading
June 08, 2015
Cyberattack on federal workers linked to foreign government, Schiff says
The cyberattack on the federal Office of Personnel Management was orchestrated by someone working directly for a foreign government or in concert with a foreign state, a key member of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday. "There are only two possibilities here with an attack this sophisticated," said Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, the top Democrat on the panel. "Either a state actor or a group of private hackers who often work in concert with the state." But Schiff, speaking on "Fox … Continue Reading
June 05, 2015
U.S. Suspects Hackers in China Breached About 4 Million People’s Records, Officials Say
U.S. officials suspect that hackers in China stole the personal records of as many as four million people in one of the most far-reaching breaches of government computers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the breach, detected in April at the Office of Personnel Management. The agency essentially functions as the federal government's human resources department, managing background checks, pension payments and job training across dozens of federal agencies. Investigators … Continue Reading
June 04, 2015
Data Breach Linked to China Exposes Millions of U.S. Workers
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Thursday announced what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of federal employees' data, involving at least four million current and former government workers in an intrusion that officials said apparently originated in China. The compromised data was held by the Office of Personnel Management, which handles government security clearances and federal employee records. The breach was first detected in April, the office said, but it appears to … Continue Reading
June 02, 2015
Patriot Act Surveillance Powers Reclaimed As Obama Signs Bill Into Law
President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act into law on Tuesday, ending the NSA's authority to sweep up the phone records of millions of Americans and reining in domestic surveillance programs provoked by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The signing of the bill followed a Senate debate so contentious that portions of the Patriot Act expired after lawmakers failed to resolve their differences by a Monday deadline. Under the new law, federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies will … Continue Reading
June 02, 2015
Senate Advances Bill Renewing Spy Programs With Some Limits
The U.S. Senate is on course to pass legislation that would revive expired anti-terrorism programs with new limits, though any changes would require another House vote before a final version can go to President Barack Obama. The Senate Tuesday advanced, 83-14, the measure renewing spy programs that lapsed a day earlier. Senators plan to vote on amendments and perhaps on final passage later in the day. Any revisions would require the House to again take up the bill, and the surveillance … Continue Reading
May 31, 2015
U.S. Spy Programs Expire Amid Senate Dispute Over Extension
Three U.S. spy programs aimed at stopping terrorists expired early Monday amid a standoff among Senate Republicans over legislation to renew them. For the first time since soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, intelligence and law enforcement agencies can't initiate the use of these tools to monitor communications of suspected terrorists or seize records for counterterrorism investigations. Senators late Sunday advanced a House bill that would extend the three provisions … Continue Reading
May 29, 2015
If NSA surveillance program ends, phone record trove will endure
The National Security Agency will mothball its mammoth archive of Americans' telephone records, isolating the computer servers where they are stored and blocking investigators' access, but will not destroy the database if its legal authority to collect the material expires on schedule this Sunday, officials said Thursday. The NSA's determination to keep billions of domestic toll records for counter-terrorism and espionage investigations adds another note of uncertainty to a debate that pits … Continue Reading
May 28, 2015
Coalition hopes to pave the way for alternative to 710 Freeway tunnel
A coalition of organizations and elected representatives from Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena and South Pasadena announced Thursday a transportation initiative they hope has enough merit to unseat plans for a multibillion-dollar 710 Freeway tunnel. Members of the newly formed advocacy group Connected Cities and Communities held a press conference on the front steps of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters in downtown Los Angeles to launch their "Beyond the … Continue Reading
May 26, 2015
The Surveillance Debate Shifts As Patriot Act Nears Expiration
Following an unusual Friday-night session of Congress ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, Senators will reconvene in another rare holiday-recess vote on May 31 in the hopes of salvaging legislation that would end the NSA's bulk call data collection program and rein in its powers of surveillance. The USA Freedom Act, passed in the House earlier this month by a 338-88 vote, and backed by the Obama administration, would reauthorize surveillance powers under the Patriot Act while ending a … Continue Reading
May 25, 2015
Congress Pursues Deal on Phone Data Collection in Rare Talks During Recess
WASHINGTON - Senior lawmakers are scrambling this week in rare recess negotiations to agree on a face-saving change to legislation that would rein in the National Security Agency's dragnet of phone records, with time running out on some of the government's domestic surveillance authority. Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said a series of phone calls and staff meetings over the weeklong Memorial Day break should be enough … Continue Reading
May 25, 2015
Congressional Inaction Threatens NSA Spy Program
WASHINGTON-The National Security Agency's surveillance efforts lurched onto an uncertain new path during the weekend after lawmakers left town for a Memorial Day recess without agreeing on how to modify a program that sweeps up telephone records from millions of Americans. The spy agency's leaders ordered that the bulk phone-records program begin winding down operations after the Senate fractured about whether to overhaul the program or simply renew it on a short-term basis. The … Continue Reading
May 24, 2015
Defense Secretary Carter: Iraq’s forces showed ‘no will to fight’ Islamic State
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Iraqi forces "showed no will to fight" as the Islamic State militant group captured the city of Ramadi, and he rejected calls by Republican lawmakers to commit ground troops to the conflict. "What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday. "They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the … Continue Reading
May 23, 2015
Push grows to add Rim of the Valley lands to national recreation area
As a graduate student at California State University Northridge in the mid-1970s, the late Marge Feinberg began rabble-rousing for a "green belt" of wildlife habitats, parks and recreational areas encircling the San Fernando Valley. She even copyrighted the title she devised in her master's thesis - the Rim of the Valley Parks - a moniker that evoked the romance of the West's rugged peaks and sage-scented canyons. Over the years, politicians and conservationists took up Feinberg's cause, … Continue Reading
May 22, 2015
The Escalation of Unauthorized Wars
It seems like ages ago now. But it's worth remembering how America's latest war in the Middle East began. In early August, shortly after militants from the Islamic State had taken over Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, President Obama authorized a volley of airstrikes. The goal then was to save Yazidis, an ethnic minority, who were being slaughtered and displaced by Islamic State militants, and to prevent the terrorist group from slipping into the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the … Continue Reading
May 20, 2015
GOP division puts Congress on brink of ending NSA surveillance program
Congressional Republicans remain sharply divided over the fate of the federal government's bulk collection of private telephone records. As a result, national security officials are preparing for the possibility that the legal authority underpinning those collection programs could expire in less than two weeks. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who favors a long-term continuation of the existing phone-data surveillance program, said Tuesday that he plans to allow a vote on a … Continue Reading
May 19, 2015
White House Won’t Upend ISIS Strategy
WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday defended President Obama's strategy for countering Islamic State militants in Iraq, arguing that while the group's capture of the provincial capital of Ramadi had been a setback, it should not be taken as a broader sign that the American approach is failing. As Mr. Obama assembled his national security team to discuss the latest developments in Iraq and how to retake Ramadi, the largest city in Anbar Province, administration officials said that Mr. … Continue Reading
May 19, 2015
Top Dem Blasts Iraq's ISIS Strategy As Baghdad's U.S.-Friendly Leader Struggles
WASHINGTON -- Days after it lost a vital provincial capital in its fight against the Islamic State group, Iraq's fragile government is now seeing setbacks in another battle: the struggle for U.S. approval and support. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a prominent congressional voice on foreign policy, blasted Baghdad in a Tuesday morning Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "If Iraqis aren't willing to fix the … Continue Reading