As frustration continues to mount about the pace of investigation regarding the assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump last month, there has finally been at least a small step toward possible accountability for those responsible for the security lapses that fateful day in Pennsylvania.
The New York Post reports that the head of the Pittsburgh field office of the U.S. Secret Service has been placed on leave along with a handful of other agents, a decision made as part of its inquiry into the failure to protect Trump at his July 13 rally in Butler.
The employment actions against the agents were first reported by CBS News on Friday, and they were taken amid a continuing probe of the incident which left Trump injured, two spectators seriously wounded, and another rally attendee dead.
Internal affairs staff within the agency are working to unravel the decision-making processes and failures that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to open fire on the outdoor rally crowd.
The outlet reported that one agent working directly on Trump's security detail is among those placed on leave, though it remained unclear whether all those impacted were facing disciplinary actions or were on leave for a number of other possible reasons.
Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service spokesman, would not confirm details of the reported leave, declaring it an internal personnel matter.
He did, however, attempt to persuade Americans that the agency's “mission assurance review is progressing,” adding that the agency will continue “examining the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure.”
Not everyone is pleased with the pace of the probe or with the seeming delay in employment-related actions against those who may have been derelict in their duty to safeguard Trump.
According to the president of Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, Tristan Leavitt, the actions taken last week should have been done almost immediately after the shooting itself, or those involved should have at least been put on investigative leave at that time.
Leavitt continued, “If paid leave, the Secret Service has to abide by the 2016 law we passed that requires them to fish or cut bait: finish your investigation and propose a personnel action or put them back to work on admin duties.”
“Don't waste taxpayer dollars just giving them a paid vacation,” Leavitt added.
As CBS News further noted, numerous levels of discipline are possible in the Secret Service context, with anyone on administrative leave still likely collecting paychecks and performing paperwork or other duties inside an office.
As the Secret Service and congressional panels continue to pursue answers as to what went so terribly wrong in Butler, Pennsylvania last month, Trump is resuming the sort of large-scale event he loves most, seemingly as confident as he can be with the increased measures taken for his protection.
Just this week, the former president appeared at an outdoor rally in North Carolina, though the dais from which he spoke featured newly introduced bulletproof glass panels as an added element of security that could clearly be seen by all.
A federal judge imposed a preliminary injunction on Attorney General Letitia James' ability to crack down on the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers, Just the News reported. The case involves whether these centers can recommend abortion pill reversal services to women regretting their decision.
James is attempting to deny centers the right to advise clients that there is a way to stop chemical abortions once they're started. Using anti-fraud laws, James pursued pro-life pregnancy centers that called abortion pill reversal safe and effective in social media posts, promotional materials, and other ads.
This prompted the Options Care Center, Gianna's House, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates to sue the state. Now, U.S. District Judge John Sinatra's order Thursday halts that action against the plaintiffs.
Caleb Dalton, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom representing the organizations, celebrated the ruling. "Women in New York have literally saved their babies from an in-progress chemical drug abortion because they had access to information through their local pregnancy centers."
Leftists in government on both coasts have attempted to limit the dissemination of information about abortion pill reversal. Attorneys General have sued pro-life pregnancy centers, but the win against James marks the "first substantial ruling" against this action.
The decision came from a Tump-appointed judge who noted that even if the government crackdown fell under "commercial speech," which is more regulated, he would still rule the same. Still, it sets the precedent for other cases that could proceed similarly.
Notably, other challenges to these legal crackdowns provide additional avenues to fight back. For instance, Bob Ferguson, who is the Washington attorney general and gubernatorial nominee, abandoned his pursuit after the Obria Medical Clinics PNW threatened to countersue after its insurer nonrenewed the medical group's policy which provided ammunition for legal action.
Unfortunately, these attacks are not just coming in the form of legal action from government officials. Crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations have been attacked 93 times since the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, was leaked.
"While the Department of Justice continues to mercilessly target peaceful pro-lifers, violent activists like those who vandalized Aid for Women, escape relatively unpunished," a news release from the organization said Friday. Instead, the justice system mounts its own attack on those seeking to save babies.
People who regret starting a chemical abortion have a right to know if there's a procedure that can halt the process that kills their babies. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit with the narrative pushed by pro-abortion politicians who attack life in the womb.
Proponents of abortion pill reversal claim that administering high doses of natural progesterone to women who have taken mifepristone, which blocks the hormone, negates the effects of the medication. Studies haven't specifically proven this, but an Ivy League-trained reproductive research chief told the New York Times that the mechanism "makes biological sense."
Even Planned Parenthood admits that the two-step drug protocol may not work if both drugs aren't given. "Studies on the abortion pill do show that if you take the first medicine but not the second, the abortion pill is less likely to work," a blog post on its site notes.
Another section outlining the protocol to induce abortion notes that the second medication, misoprostol, "causes the uterus to empty." This means if blocking progesterone doesn't kill a fetus, taking a pill that causes the body to expel the baby will finish the job.
It's no wonder the anti-life crowd doesn't want the public to know there may be an escape hatch before the second pill is taken. However, it's disturbing that they have the support of so many in the justice system to suppress that knowledge.
The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to toss a pro-abortion ballot initiative over administrative failures by the organizers, Just The News reported. Arkansans for Limited Government was attempting to enshrine abortion rights through an amendment to the state's constitution.
The decision means this issue will not appear on the ballot in November's general election. The lower court had thrown out the ballot initiative because Arkansas for Limited Government didn't provide documentation for the people who were paid to gather signatures.
The state's high court ruled in a 4-3 decision to keep the question off the ballot. "We find that the Secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification," the court said.
This decision is a blow to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president on a radically pro-abortion ticket. She and other Democrats have leaned into the issue this election cycle as Republicans continue to fight for the rights of the unborn.
The initiative the group proposed would have allowed abortion for all reasons up to 20 weeks in pregnancy, and up until birth for cases of rape, incest, and threats to the mother's health. Shockingly, abortion perpetrators at Planned Parenthood found it was too restrictive to back.
Arkansas for Limited Government was outraged at the decision that meant babies would escape the abortionists' instruments of death. The organizers called it a "dark day for Arkansas" in an emailed statement to the Associated Press.
"This effort has generated a wave of fiercely engaged Arkansas women. We are outraged," the group added.
"We will not back down. And we will remember this in November," Arkansas for Limited Government claimed. However, thanks to the Arkansas Supreme Court judges, their perverted priorities will have to wait.
The state's GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted to X that the reprieve for the unborn came about in part because of her leadership.
"Proud I helped build the first conservative Supreme Court majority in the history of Arkansas, and today that court upheld the rule of law, and with it, the right to life," Sanders said.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Democrats have doubled down on their crusade to keep abortion legal throughout pregnancy. As Politico pointed out, Democrats now speak of it in a way "once unimaginable."
Far from the "safe, legal, and rare" mantra previously embraced to make it more palatable, Democrats are now about championing abortion as a sacred right. That was the theme at this week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Harris sees this as a winning issue, as it has become front and center now that a bad U.S. Supreme Court precedent has been overturned. Democrats see it as a foundation for their platform and a way to win over women voters, but they won't benefit from the ballot initiative to drive turnout in Arkansas.
"Look at the immediate shift that we’ve seen with the vice president around trusting women. From a messaging standpoint, it’s really important because it’s setting up a broader kind of values framework for the policy to live in," Planned Parent CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said about the change in an interview.
The ballot initiative in Arkansas was defeated, and that is good news. However, the broader issue is that this is quickly becoming a nation where women believe they're only free when they have the right to kill their babies.
Target CEO Brian Cornell blasted Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for suggesting his store is price-gouging customers on groceries, CNBC reported. Harris has proposed a ban on the practice as part of her platform.
Last week, Harris said she would ban "corporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries" if elected president in November. Cornell was asked about this practice in an interview on the network's "Squawk Box" Wednesday.
That position has blown up in her face now that Cornell disputed the premise of this claim and noted the company's slight profit margins as evidence. "We’re in a penny business," Cornell said.
Harris has a problem with her campaign as Americans feel the bite of inflation caused by President Joe Biden's administration. As his vice president, she is at least partly responsible for those policies and could begin to change things now.
To deflect from these inconvenient facts, she has attacked retailers for alleged profiteering. Cornell disputed her claim, explaining that Target has "reduced prices on 5,000 items" to ease customers' financial stress.
The store has slashed prices on items like diapers and peanut butter in the hopes of attracting customers who are struggling to keep up. Other companies are doing the same, including Walmart, which has reduced its prices, and McDonald's, which has added cheaper value items to its menu.
Moreover, Cornell explained that the nature of the retail business is not conducive to artificially raising prices for items even if they wanted to. "Is there a more competitive space than retail?" Cornell asked rhetorically.
He said that his company is "celebrating the fact that we delivered a margin rate of 6%" while CEOs in other industries "are delivering 20, 30, 40, or 50%" at the same time. "So, we're in a penny business," Cornell said.
Harris is scrambling to distance herself from the failed administration she's a part of by proposing awful solutions that will make things worse. Former President Donald Trump pointed out her role in the problem during his campaign rally Wednesday, the New York Post reported.
"Kamala Harris won’t end the economic crisis; she will only make it worse. I gave Harris and Biden an economic miracle, and they quickly turned it into an economic nightmare with a nation-wrecking agenda ripped straight out of Kamala’s San Francisco liberal playbook," Trump pointed out.
Democrats often see a problem and decide that adding more government control is the solution. Trump's plan is the opposite, as he correctly calls for less government regulation to ensure energy independence and ease inflation.
"At the center of our effort to bring the cost of living under control will be the all-out push to end the Biden-Harris war on a thing called American energy. We will drill, baby, drill," Trump said.
Harris is desperate to make voters forget about the reality of her involvement in inflation. Meanwhile, her proposed policies will only wreck the economy and cause untold numbers of food shortages and further economic issues.
The man charged with threatening to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh will go on trial in June 2025, ABC News reported. California resident Nicholas John Roske showed up near Kavanaugh's home with zip ties, a gun, and a knife after the draft decision on the overturning of Roe v. Wade was leaked in 2022.
U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte took the first step in the case Tuesday and set the date for Roske's trial for next year. If convicted, Roske could face life in prison.
Roske was arrested after allegedly showing up near Kavaunaugh's Chevy Chase, Maryland, home after 1 a.m. with what appeared to be ill intent. The then-26-year-old arrived in via taxi wearing dark clothing and carrying the paraphrenia of a would-be assassin.
Jury selection for Roske's trial will begin on June 9, though Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Gavin said the process "in this case could take a little longer" than usual. The trial is supposed to last only about a week.
Roske was arrested after calling 911 on himself, stating that he had suicidal thoughts and was carrying a gun, CNN reported at the time. He told authorities that he traveled from California to kill "a specific United States Supreme Court Justice."
The young man was incensed about the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as well as the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting that happened in May 2022. He believed that Kavanaugh would reject gun control laws even after the shooting that was later pinned on the failures of the town's police chief in an indictment.
"Roske indicated that he believed the Justice that he intended to kill would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws. Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice," an FBI report said.
Roske planned to break into Kavanaugh's home and commit a murder-suicide. He had a screwdriver, hammer, crowbar, nail punch, duct tape, and a pistol light, along with the other items that suggest he was prepared for several crimes.
This alleged crime came at a time when conservative justices were under additional threat. The news and political coverage of the forthcoming opinion brought protesters to justices' homes, though it seems Roske was the only one to carry out one of these threats.
One aspect of this case that received little attention was Roske's mental state. According to a Fox News report in August 2022, the FBI accessed several online profiles for Roske, and further analysis revealed disturbing evidence.
In his online world, Roske sometimes portrayed himself as a transgender woman named Sophie and sought perverse sexual activity. "I am looking for a Daddy to control my sexual life," one account the FBI linked to him said.
On other platforms like Reddit, Roske shared his "radical" opinions about abortion, including a post in October 2018 where he called himself a "negative utilitarian" who supported forced abortions. His post hints at a deep pain and twisted psyche.
"If abortion were mandatory for pregnant women, no new people would be born, and thus no new people would experience suffering. If no new people are born, humanity will end and thus human suffering will end. I am aware how radical this view is, but I do hold it sincerely," Roske wrote.
Roske thankfully turned himself in before something terrible happened at Kavanaugh's home. However, this alleged crime points to a larger issue surrounding the interplay between the political climate the left created and what it does to people already experience mental health problems.
Vice President Kamala Harris has refused a third debate former President Donald Trump proposed, Breitbart reported. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has only agreed to one debate with his GOP counterpart, Sen. J.D. Vance.
The Harris campaign has attempted to make it seem like Trump is the one running from debating her. This is patently false, as Harris was reluctant to agree to the number of debates until this week.
Trump proposed three on different dates and networks after President Joe Biden stepped aside and allowed Harris to take his place. The Republican candidate offered to face off with Harris on Sept. 4 on Fox, Sept. 10 on NBC News, and Sept. 24 on ABC News.
On Thursday, the Democratic candidate finally said she would agree to two debates, with the first on Sept. 10 leading to another date in October as long as he shows up. Notably, she declined to spar with him on Fox or NBC.
Besides refusing a third debate for herself, Harris has agreed to just one for Walz versus Vance. The Ohio Republican shared the statement on X, formerly Twitter. "Tim Walz refused to deploy!" Vance captioned an image of the statement, playing on previous disputes about Walz's military service claims.
Tim Walz refuses to deploy! https://t.co/KqGkm3nOHQ
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 15, 2024
"Assuming Donald Trump actually shows up on September 10 to debate Vice President Harris, then Governor Walz will see JD Vance on October 1, and the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October," Michael Tyler, campaign communications director, wrote in the statement.
"Voters deserve to see the candidates for the highest office in the land share their competing visions for our future. The more they play games, the more insecure and unserious Trump and Vance reveal themselves to be to the American people. Those games end now."
This accusation about playing games is laughable, considering that Harris is a last-minute replacement candidate after the sitting president was likely pushed out of the position. Moreover, Harris and Walz are the ones shying away from a matchup, considering both have agreed to fewer debates than proposed by the GOP candidates.
Fox News shared Trump's response which became an opportunity to point out her glaring problems. In a post to Truth Social, Trump said he's "not surprised" by her refusal to face him because she can't "defend her record setting Flip-Flopping" on issues like "her statements that THERE WILL BE NO FRACKING IN PENNSYLVANIA and her HORRIBLE Performance on the Border."
Harris has been in office with Biden for the last four years, but now she's attempting to distance herself from his record. Biden is an unpopular president, and until the media started propping her up, Harris was even more disliked.
Now, she's also forced to back peddle on the radical agenda that defined her previous bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020. As the New York Post reported, Trump is correct that Harris has reversed her opinion on fracking and illegal immigration strategy, but she's also backed off on Medicare for All.
In fact, her chameleon-like habits were something Biden mocked her for during the 2020 primary race. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) rightly described Harris' agenda at that time as something "cobbled together to address various poll numbers."
With the media propping her up, Harris hasn't had to answer for much. The problem for her is that a debate puts her agenda front and center, and the more people hear her speak, the less they will want to vote for such a radical.
The FBI arrested Washington, D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. on Sunday on charges that at first seemed unclear, but later turned out to be for allegedly taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said that White was arrested around 2 p.m. and that he and the council had not known White was under investigation.
White was first elected in 2016 and represents Ward 8 in Southeast Washington.
“I’m anxious to get more details to understand what the situation is,” Mendelson told FOX 5. “You all know as much as I know.”
There were reports in March that White and his campaign owed over $80,000 in fines. At first, it was thought that he may have run afoul of the Fair Elections Program, a new initiative for public financing that has strict reporting requirements.
“The Washington City Paper reported last week that the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance levied a $20,000 fine against White and his campaign treasurer,” Fox 5 said in March. “On top of that, OCF says White owes nearly $59,000 in public funds he received through D.C.’s Fair Elections Program.”
“The Fair Elections Program is a relatively new program where candidates can be eligible for some public financing. If a candidate receives that money, though, It’s subject to a pretty thorough audit with reporting requirements,” the report added.
On Monday, however, The Washington Post reported that White is being charged with bribery charges and taking kickbacks for pressuring D.C. government employees to extend contracts that served at-risk youth.
The FBI said it has an informant and recorded conversations between White and the informant contractor, who dealt with White in the scheme.
White is accused of taking $156,000 in cash and trips to the Dominican Republic and Las Vegas.
“What you need me to do, man,” White told the informant in a recording after being given $15,000 in cash, according to the affidavit. “I don’t wanna feel like you gotta gimme something to get something. We better than that.”
But White took the cash, the affidavit said.
White will be arraigned Monday in front of a magistrate.
His campaign said he was going to give back $59,000, but did not address the bribery and kickback charges.
The American political landscape experienced something of an earthquake last month when President Joe Biden announced the end of his re-election bid after new concerns about his cognitive health came to the forefront.
Though Kamala Harris swiftly stepped into the role as the Democratic Party's standard-bearer for November, recent polling finds that a substantial majority of Americans believe she knew about -- and was therefore complicit in hiding -- the true degree of decline Biden had been experiencing for quite some time, as the New York Post reports.
The news of voter perception of Harris' awareness of Biden's condition came via a Fox News survey that was released last week.
According to the poll, a staggering 73% of respondents believe Harris had knowledge of Biden's faltering abilities in recent years.
In bad news for the vice president, just 21% of those who responded to the survey said Harris did not know about the president's cognitive state, which for many was brought into stark relief during his June debate against former President Donald Trump.
Making matters worse for Harris is the fact that clear majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, 58% and 90%, respectively, asserted that she had to have known of Biden's cognitive state, with 69% of independent voters also agreeing with that assessment.
It is not just rank-and-file voters surveyed by Fox News who believe Harris hid knowledge of Biden's condition from the public, with her rival for the White House, former President Donald Trump, also leveling such allegations in recent weeks.
Even before Biden's withdrawal, Trump accused Harris of complicity in the deception, telling a Florida rally crowd, “Joe, Kamala and the entire Democrat establishment have been caught red handed in the thick of the biggest scandal and the biggest cover up.”
“It's the biggest coverup in political history,” Trump went on, characterizing the situation as a “sinister plot to defraud the American public about the cognitive abilities of the man in the Oval Office.”
NewsNation's Steve Krakauer recently suggested that questions about Harris' complicity in hiding Biden's true state could persist as the election draws nearer, writing, “If all these other figures could see the country was being led by a very unsteady president, mentally and physically, wouldn't Harris be able to see that too? In what possible scenario is President Biden's vice president not directly involved in the cover-up?”
Krakauer further wondered, “Or, perhaps even more embarrassing, was she so detached from the day-to-day activities at the highest level of the administration that she simply hadn't noticed?”
Though Harris' supporters certainly hope that discussions about her role in camouflaging Biden's decline will fade away as the head-to-head contest against Trump heats up, it could be her own past statements that come back to undermine their wish to move on.
Just this year, Harris told ABC News, “I'll tell you, the reality of it is, and I've spent a lot of time with Biden, be it in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room and other places -- he is extraordinarily smart. He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of that might be the challenges we face as a nation or globally,” attesting to her belief in his capacity to remain in office.
Whether the mainstream media will fulfill its duty to press Harris on what she knew and when she knew it in terms of Biden's evident decline, however, remains very much an open question.
Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to build 3 million homes over four years to ease a nationwide shortage, Breitbart reported. This rings hollow after she and President Joe Biden failed on other infrastructure initiatives.
Harris made this promise as part of her pitch to become the next Democratic president. "There’s a serious housing shortage in many places," Harris told the crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina.
"It’s too difficult to build and it’s driving prices up. As president, I will work in partnership with industry to build the housing. We need both to rent and to buy," Harris went on.
"We will take down barriers and cut red tape, including at the state and local levels. And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals that are affordable for the middle class," Harris said.
Many Americans are suffering because of the high cost of housing, thanks to the economic conditions created by Biden and Harris. There is a shortage of affordable options and no relief in sight.
Still, several indicators point to this as nothing more than a lofty campaign promise. The most pressing problem for such a goal is that mortgage interest rates have exploded during the Biden/Harris administration.
Many have priced many people out of the market already because of this, and Harris does not say whether interest relief will be part of her plan for this program. There's also the issue of logistics as her plan would translate to adding 750,000 homes per year, a number not seen since the period immediately following World War II.
However, Harris didn't specify whether her administration will add another 3 million homes or if she expects that to be total after four years, including what's already been done. In 2023, 1.5 million more homes were built.
If her number includes that amount, that would mean her plan is to add another 1.5 million homes over the next four years, which actually represents a 50% slowdown. However, expecting her to deliver on this promise at all is mostly an academic exercise in light of her record.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, Harris has already fallen short of a goal like this. For instance, the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed during Biden's tenure was supposed to provide broadband internet connections throughout the U.S.
Two years and $42.5 billion later, and not a single new Internet connection came of it, according to FCC Commissioner Brenda Carr. Notably, Harris was specifically charged with overseeing this project.
According to the Washington Post, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law had also set aside $7.5 billion to meet Biden's goal of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across the U.S. by 2030. Only seven operational EV charging stations have come online.
If Harris couldn't get these projects off the ground with funding from Congress and a mandate from voters, it would be difficult to see how she'll ever meet the housing target. However, getting anything done is not what these promises are really about anyway.
Democrats have historically run their campaigns with promises to give away all kinds of goodies funded by other taxpayers. This is about buying votes, and Harris will do or say anything to get elected.
A cyber attack has exposed the private data of millions of Americans, the Daily Caller reported. Their personal information, including social security numbers, was posted as a database for sale on the dark web.
One victim filed a lawsuit against the company National Public Data, alleging that it failed to keep private information safe. The legal action stemmed from the actions of the hacker group USDoD, which claims to have obtained the information from the company.
The group put the database up for sale on the dark web on April 8 under the name "National Public Data." It's asking $3.5 million for the trove of information, which includes the addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers of some 3 billion people.
The data goes back decades and even includes information on long-dead relatives. The size and scope of this hack rivals a 2013 Yahoo! data breach that impacted billions of the website's users.
The breach was the impetus for a lawsuit from California resident Christopher Hofmann. He discovered that his data made it to the dark web after being notified by an identity theft monitoring company.
The plaintiff is seeking monetary compensation and changes to the way data is collected and handled by companies like National Public Data. In his complaint, Hofmann notes that the company scrapes the data from private sources without the individuals' consent.
The company does this to perform background checks, which utilize a wide range of digital data sources. Cliff Steinhauer from the nonprofit National Cybersecurity Alliance told CBS MoneyWatch that the scope of this breach likely includes "everyone with a Social Security number," though the information hasn't been confirmed.
"It's a reminder of the importance of protecting yourself, because clearly companies and the government aren't doing it for us," Steinhauer added. From his view as the organization's director of information security and engagement, Steinhauer contends that this is a hole in the law system.
"They are data brokers that collect and sell data about people, sometimes for background check purposes. It's because there's no national privacy law in the U.S. — there is no law against them collecting this data against our consent," Steinhauer said.
Data breaches are a growing problem as information increasingly finds its way online through many sources. President Joe Biden attempted to keep it out of the hands of foreign adversaries with an executive order he signed in February.
CNN reported that the order was part of an effort to curb foreign nations' ability to compile data on Americans through online intermediaries. Transactions allow data brokers to siphon personal information, such as location, health information, and other useful data.
That information can then be used for anything from garden variety identity theft to international blackmail. Because of this exposure, the administration targeted problematic nations in its effort to clamp down on the practice.
"Countries of concern, such as China and Russia, are buying Americans’ sensitive personal data from data brokers," a senior administration official warned at the time. A report declassified in 2023 revealed that intelligence agencies from all over the world, including the U.S., use this as an intelligence-gathering tactic.
Cyberattacks are a novel threat to personal and national security, and the number of victims is growing. Lawsuits and other actions are vital to stopping this threat, though it's clear more work must be done.