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Mike Johnson Put Anti-Porn Software on His Phone – Could National Security Secrets Be at Risk?

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Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, second in line to the presidency and the most powerful elected Republican in the United States government, says he installed third-party monitoring software on all his electronic devices, including cell phone and laptop, raising questions about possible national security implications.

Last year, Johnson bragged to an audience that he and his 17-year old teenaged son use a software service they have installed on all their devices to hold each other accountable to not access pornography.

“So, Covenant Eyes is the software that we’ve been using a long time in our household,” Johnson said in video (below) unearthed last week by social media user Receipt Maven, and reported on Sunday by Rolling Stone.

Johnson explained he had first learned about Covenant Eyes at “a Promise Keepers event in the early 2000s.” Promise Keepers is an evangelical Christian men’s group that has been accused of being anti-LGBTQ, and promoting patriarchal male superiority over women.

Calling it “accountability software,” Johnson said, “men’s Bible study groups will do it. That’s how it’s presented in Promise Keepers but they also mentioned, ‘Hey, when your kids become teenagers, especially if you have boys, dads, they’re talking to the guys at this event. You might want to think about doing this with your sons.'”

READ MORE: Combative Trump on Witness Stand Admonished After Lashing Out at Judge

He explained the software “scans every, all the activity on your phone or your devices, your laptop, tablet, what have you. We do all of it.”

“It’ll pick up almost anything, it looks for keywords, search terms and also images and it will send your accountability partner a blurred picture of the image,” which he notes can also be “unblurred.”

“Convicted reality TV star Josh Duggar and Lakers player Lamar Odom have also used the software,” Insider adds.

Rolling Stone’s report focused on what it called the “creepy Big Brother-ness of it all,” but Receipt Maven asked the key question which seems to have gotten lost in most of the reporting on the video.

“A US Congressman is allowing a 3rd Party tech company to scan ALL of his electronic devices daily and then uploading reports to his son about what he’s watching or not watching….” Receipt Maven wrote. “I mean, who else is accessing that data?”

Johnson said he installed the software, which scans all devices approximately once every 60 seconds, on all his devices.

Presumably he uses those devices for his work as a U.S. Congressman and now Speaker of the House.

Are there possible national security implications surrounding Johnson’s use of the software?

READ MORE: ‘I Am a Steadfast Christian’ and ‘I Refuse to Put People Over Politics’: Johnson’s Emails Sing Different Tunes

Back in June, WIRED’s Dhruv Mehrotra reported: “The Covenant Eyes app was developed by Michael Holm, a former National Security Agency mathematician who now works as a data scientist for the company. It captures everything visible on a device’s screen, taking at least one screenshot per minute. It then analyzes the screenshots locally before slightly blurring them and saving them on a server. Images the system marks as possibly ‘explicit’ are flagged for further review.”

WIRED’s Mehrotra described the extent of the access the Covenant Eyes app has to a user’s data and actions.

“While the images in the Covenant Eyes reports that WIRED reviewed are partially blurred, it is sometimes possible to discern sensitive information from them. For instance, one Covenant Eyes report shows a screenshot of [a user’s] device while a phone call was in progress. The report clearly shows the name of the person being contacted. Another shows screenshots of [that user’s] mother-in-law’s bank statements and her Gmail inbox, although the sensitive details in both are unreadable.”

The WIRED article focused on the legal and constitutional issues when the app is used “in a criminal- legal setting” to track behavior of people charged with certain crimes, but it also reaffirms another concerning aspect of the use of the software: “by indiscriminately surveilling whatever the phone is displaying, the app could collect sensitive data…”

Covenant Eyes, Mehrotra adds, does not only collect screenshots: “the app monitors every single thing a user does on their devices, then sends the data it collects, including screenshots, to an ‘ally’ or ‘accountability partner,’ who can review the user’s online activities.”

On its website (in a bulleted list altered here for ease of reading) Covenant Eyes says:

“The Covenant Eyes app captures a screenshot on your device at least once per minute. Our artificial intelligence (AI) program looks for explicit content in the screenshot. Next, the software shrinks the screenshot on your device, blurs it, and modifies it to protect your private information. We transfer the blurred screenshot to our database via HTTPS (a secure transfer protocol). We store the image on secure servers that use AES 256-bit encryption (the same encryption your bank uses). We don’t keep screenshots for more than 30 days. We then permanently and irretrievably delete them from our databases.”

Watch Johnson in the video above or at this link.
 

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Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip

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As Republicans continue their exodus from the House, a CNN analyst reveals that Democrats hold an advantage in party identification over the GOP, Democrats identifying as liberal just hit a 50-year high, and Democrats — he predicts — will take back the House in the November midterm elections.

CNN analyst Harry Enten reported that “the self identified liberalness of this country is at a 50-year high.” And he noted that “more folks are identifying as liberal than at any point since the Gerald Ford administration.”

In 1976, 30 percent of Democrats said they were liberal, Enten said.

“Look at where we are today: 59 percent — 3 in 5 Democrats — say they are liberal.”

READ MORE: Trump ‘Laser-Focused’ on Affordability Says White House After Calling It a ‘Hoax’

“This Democratic party is a liberal — it is a liberal party. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats now identify as liberal,” he continued. “That is also a 50-year high.”

Enten noted that “that is not the only good news for liberals.”

“The party ID margin, Democrats versus Republicans. Now get this, in the latest reading according to Gallup last quarter, it is an eight-point advantage for Democrats.”

“That looks nothing like what we saw going into the 2022 midterms when Republicans had a five-point advantage, and of course, took back the House. This is even better than what we saw Democrats had back in 2017, in quarter four, when they had a six-point advantage, and, of course, Democrats easily took back the House then.”

READ MORE: Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

“Democrats are gonna take back the House,” he said.

Enten also pointed to the prediction markets, which now say there is a 77 percent chance of Democrats taking back the House in November.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

Image via Reuters

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Democrat Demands DOJ and DHS Reveal How Many Pardoned ‘Insurrectionists’ Have Been Hired

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A prominent Democrat is demanding to know how many January 6 “insurrectionists” have been hired by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as critics warn that federal agents under President Donald Trump are increasingly engaging in violent enforcement actions.

“We know that several participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been rewarded with high-ranking positions in the Department of Justice (DOJ),” U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

“However, it remains unclear how many more have been invited to join the ranks of this Administration, including among the masked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and officers that have dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, shot, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike in communities across the country,” he added.

READ MORE: Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

According to Raskin, Jared Wise, a former Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “stormed his way into the Capitol Building” on January 6, 2021.

“As he did so, he taunted and threaten police officers defending the building and the ones inside, screaming: ‘You guys are disgusting. I’m former—I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting.”

Raskin included additional language attributed to Wise, then wrote that he “has never expressed remorse or contrition for his criminal actions.”

Wise was pardoned by President Donald Trump, along with nearly 1,600 others, “including hundreds of cop beaters.”

“Today, Mr. Wise serves as senior adviser in the office of the Deputy Attorney General, alongside another January 6th participant, Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney and head of the DOJ Weaponization Working Group,” Raskin wrote.

Congressman Raskin also blasted the recruitment and vetting processes being used by the Trump administration.

“For its part, DHS seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists. It uses white nationalist ‘dog whistles’ in its recruitment campaign for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that appear aimed at stirring members of extremist militias, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, which participated in the insurrection,” he stated. “The recruitment campaign began with a $50,000 sign-on bonus, removal of the college degree requirement, and a relaxed vetting process.”

“Who is hiding behind these masks?” Raskin demanded to know. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration.”

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

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Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News host turned Trump U.S. Attorney, appears to be quickly backtracking in her office’s investigation of Jerome Powell. The esteemed Federal Reserve Chairman announced on Sunday that he is being investigated by the Trump Department of Justice, sending markets — and prominent Republicans — spinning.

Pirro, in a Monday night social media post, insisted that Powell has not been indicted, saying: “The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s.”

According to The Daily Beast, Pirro issued her “ultra-defensive statement” after “major backlash” against her investigation into the 72-year-old Republican investment banker and lawyer who has steered the Federal Reserve since 2018, when President Donald Trump appointed him chairman.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

The Daily Beast reported that Pirro’s investigation is “an inquiry that even Republican lawmakers have blasted as a revenge plot against one of the president’s adversaries that threatens the independence of America’s central bank.”

Suggesting that Pirro may have gone “rogue,” the Beast added that reports suggest “Pirro failed to obtain the necessary sign-off from her superiors at the Department of Justice before subpoenaing the Federal Reserve as part of her probe, according to Bloomberg.”

It appears that others were also left out of the loop in the unprecedented, high-profile investigation.

“Sources also told NBC News that Pirro’s office did not contact the White House or the Treasury Department before issuing the subpoenas, and that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte—who spearheaded the push to investigate the Federal Reserve—was also allegedly left in the dark.”

“Investors are doubtful of her success,” Bloomberg News added.  “While U.S. assets initially sold off on news of the investigation in early trading Monday, stocks and bonds bounced back by the end of the day. That suggests traders think Republicans will find ways to dial back the probe given the critical importance investors assign to a Federal Reserve that’s free from political influence.”

On Sunday, Chairman Powell revealed that he is under a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, an investigation stemming from his congressional testimony on the renovation of Federal Reserve buildings. The Fed is fully self-funded, and that renovation is not funded by American taxpayers.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Laser-Focused’ on Affordability Says White House After Calling It a ‘Hoax’

 

Image via Reuters

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