The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence organization of the United States government, responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes – a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). NSA is concurrently charged with protection of U.S. government communications and information systems against penetration and network warfare.[8][9] Although many of NSA's programs rely on "passive" electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through active clandestine means,[10]among which are physically bugging electronic systems[11] and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.[12][13] Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in a large number of countries across the globe, where its Special Collection Service (SCS) inserts eavesdropping devices in difficult-to-reach places. SCS collection…

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States, appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924. He was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensiclaboratories. Late in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses…

Swedish prosecutors will shortly submit a new request to question WikiLeaks founderJulian Assange at the Ecuadorean embassy in London over rape allegations, the Prosecution Authority has said. On Sunday, the Quito government said Ecuador and Sweden had signed a pact after half a year of negotiations that would allow Assange to be questioned at the embassy, where he has been holed up for more than three years. Assange, 44, took refuge there in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he committed rape in 2010, which he denies. Assange says he fears Sweden will…

Edward M. House, usually referred to as "Colonel" House, gained fame as President Woodrow Wilson's closest advisor, playing a significant role in Wilson's major domestic and foreign policies. House was essentially Wilson's alter ego. Wilson would say in 1912, less than one year after first meeting House, "Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughts and mine are one." [1] In the winter of 1911-1912, House wrote the futuristic dystopian/utopian political novella, Philip Dru: Administrator: 1920-1935. Though publishing anonymously in 1912, House made his authorship known to a number of his close friends, and it became public knowledge. The book…

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life…