The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.
The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provides the NSA with a loophole potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans".
NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens' emails and phone calls
Nuclear plant in Taiwan may have been leaking radioactive water for three years
Taiwan's government watchdog, the Control Yuan, has said The First Nuclear Power Plant, located at Shihmen in a remote northern coastal location but not far from densely populated Taipei, has been leaking toxic water from storage pools of two reactors.
An official of Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), which operates the island's nuclear power plants, said the water did not come from the storage pools, but may have come from condensation or water used for cleaning up the floor.
China study confirms 'cancer villages' along polluted river
A government study of "cancer villages" along a major Chinese river suggests economic growth is taking a heavy toll on the environment, officials say.
A rising cancer rate has been detected in regions along the Huaihe River, Yang Gonghuan, former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said. The cancer rate in the affected areas was 50 percent higher than the national average of 0.25 percent in 2004-05, the study found.
Sanjay Gupta: Americans 'systematically misled' about marijuana
CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta apologized Wednesday for publicly opposing marijuana legalization, saying there was "no scientific basis" to claim marijuana had no medical benefits.
"I think we have been terribly and systematically misled in this country for some time, and I did part of that misleading," he said.
Credit rating Industry wrote provision that undercuts credit-rating overhaul
Moments before the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to overhaul the credit ratings industry seven years ago, Republican and Democratic sponsors took turns touting its promise for ending an entrenched oligopoly.
The bill, they said, should break the vicelike dominance of three agencies – Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, Moody’s Investors Service and the smaller Fitch Ratings – in an industry that serves as a crucial watchdog over the nation’s financial system.
30 Democratic House members on trip to Israel paid for by AIPAC offshoot
Democratic U.S. Reps. Lois Frankel, Patrick Murphy and Joe Garcia of Florida are in Israel for the week along with more than 30 other Democratic House members — trips paid for by an arm of a powerful lobbying group.
Next week, freshmen Republicans head off on the same trip, paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, which Frankel in a news release described as an “independent, nonprofit charitable organization.”
South Korean road wirelessly recharges OLEV buses
South Korea has switched on a road which can recharge electric vehicles as they drive over it. The project's developer says the 12km (7.5 miles) route is the first of its kind in the world.
It means vehicles fitted with compatible equipment do not need to stop to recharge and can also be fitted with smaller than normal batteries.
Japan says Fukushima leak worse than thought, government joins clean-up
Highly radioactive water from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is pouring out at a rate of 300 tonnes a day, officials said on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to step in and help in the clean-up.
The revelation amounted to an acknowledgement that plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) has yet to come to grips with the scale of the catastrophe, 2 1/2 years after the plant was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami. Tepco only recently admitted water had leaked at all.
Study: Latino immigrants shielded U.S. workers from job cuts
Low-skilled Mexican-born U.S. workers shielded low-skilled U.S.-born workers from job losses during the Great Recession by returning to Mexico, a study found.
The lesser-skilled immigrant workers were much more ready to move for jobs elsewhere when the economy soured than comparably skilled U.S.-born workers, the study by the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research indicated.
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