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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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‘Sedated and Seduced’: Fox Host Erupts Over ‘Chameleon’ Mamdani and His One Million Voters

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A Fox News co-host unleashed a furious tirade against New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and the more than one million Americans who voted for him in Tuesday’s election.

Emily Compagno — who recently blamed liberals for Cracker Barrel’s logo change — described the incoming mayor as a “blatant antisemite,” a “chameleon,” and an “absolute joke” whose “communism” will ruin the city.

“When you say, ‘Oh, I’m so excited for this city to have an immigrant mayor,’ I don’t care who he is,” Compagno declared. “He is a blatant antisemite who’s never had a job in his life, who enjoys a royal wedding in Uganda, who lives in a Chelsea multimillion-dollar apartment thanks to the hard work of people that he knows nothing about.”

When pressed to explain why he won, Compagno told her co-hosts, “I think that the million people who voted for him were because he was viral. Clearly, all of them are sedated, and they are seduced by the clickbait.”

READ MORE: Democratic Rep. Interrupts Speaker Johnson — Accuses Him of ‘Lies’

“They have TikTok,” interjected co-host Brian Kilmeade.

“Him jumping in the Long Island Sound, or the Hudson, or whatever it is, with this cheesy smile, of course, he’s gonna quote Eugene Debs out of the gate,” Compagno said, referring to early 20th-century Socialist presidential candidate Mamdani quoted in his speech Tuesday night.

“Of course, he’s gonna start shouting out of the gate. Because what we have seen, over his campaign, was a chameleon. We have anecdotal — people who went to college with him — that said, ‘Yeah, he was a drinking bro.’ He did whatever it was to be popular.”

“And now his insides are coming out,” she continued. “He won the election because people are enthralled by TikTok, not because anyone actually believed his policies will drive up affordability. That’s why everyone left.”

“I consider him an absolute joke, and I look forward to him totally failing, but I am horrified at the prospect of his policies, and his communism, and his antisemitism spreading even further across this rock.”

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Hunger Caucus Head Slams GOP for ‘Starving Children’ by ‘Weaponizing’ SNAP

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Democratic Rep. Interrupts Speaker Johnson — Accuses Him of ‘Lies’

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A Democratic member of Congress interrupted Speaker Mike Johnson during his outdoor press conference on Wednesday, denouncing his “lies” and demanding that he bring House and Senate leaders together to try to end the federal government shutdown. Now in its 36th day, this is the longest in U.S. history, surpassing the old record, also held under President Donald Trump.

“I am part of the American people, and I believe that —” U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) told the Speaker.

“You should respect free speech,” she continued, in response to him chastising her for interrupting him.

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Hunger Caucus Head Slams GOP for ‘Starving Children’ by ‘Weaponizing’ SNAP

“I’m asking you a question, if you’re ready to have a conversation with the other side,” Houlahan said. “You represent all of us. You are the Speaker for all of us, sir. You have an obligation not just to speak lies to the American people.”

“You have an obligation to call the leadership of both parties and bring us together and solve this problem together, Mr. Speaker,” she declared.

Houlahan was praised by her fellow Democratic members of Congress.

READ MORE: Trump Admin Faces Skeptical Supreme Court Over Sweeping Tariff Powers

“Way to go @RepHoulahan,” wrote U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL). It is also a permanent stain on @SpeakerJohnson that this is what those of us who want to do our job must resort to as we try to have Congress meet, open and do the people’s business.”

“Proud of my classmate and friend @HoulahanForPa,” declared U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX). “Mike Johnson has been only too happy to lock the doors of the House of Representatives, ignore the economic crisis in America, and pretend that he doesn’t have to sit down with Democrats for a path forward. Good for you, Chrissy!”

READ MORE: ‘Kamikaze Pilots’: Trump Says Democrats Will ‘Take Down the Country’ After Big Wins

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Trump Admin Faces Skeptical Supreme Court Over Sweeping Tariff Powers

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Trump administration Solicitor General D. John Sauer faced pointed and at times skeptical questioning from both conservative and liberal justices during Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments over President Donald Trump’s asserted power to impose sweeping tariffs by declaring a national emergency.

The tariffs, unilaterally imposed on approximately 100 countries, have dramatically altered not only national commerce, but worldwide commerce. Some legal experts point to the U.S. Constitution to argue that Trump has overstepped and usurped Congress’ Article I powers.

“Sharp, skeptical questioning on Trump’s tariffs from at least two conservative justices so far: Roberts and Barrett,” observed All Rise News Editor-in-Chief Adam Klasfeld, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

READ MORE: ‘Kamikaze Pilots’: Trump Says Democrats Will ‘Take Down the Country’ After Big Wins

“The Supreme Court is not friendly to the President today,” noted constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor took broad issue with Sauer’s assertions, telling him, “You say tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are.”

At another point, Justice Sotomayor rebuked Sauer, who had been asked a question by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and told him to just answer Barrett’s question.

Sauer insisted that the intent of President Trump’s tariffs was not to raise revenue, despite countless times Trump and his administration having bragged about the “billions” of dollars (or more) that they are bringing in.

The New York Times summed up a critical lynchpin for Wednesday’s hearing:

“An expected point of contention is whether Mr. Trump’s tariff actions run afoul of the so-called major questions doctrine. It is a principle that boils down to: If Congress wants to give the president power to take major economic action, it will say so plainly.”

Justice Sotomayor, challenging Sauer’s arguments, said: “So [President] Biden could have declared a national emergency on global warming, and then gotten his student [loan] forgiveness to not be a ‘major questions doctrine’?”

“That’s all Biden would have had to do with any of his programs?”

Sauer disagreed on student loan forgiveness but did not answer the climate change question.

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Hunger Caucus Head Slams GOP for ‘Starving Children’ by ‘Weaponizing’ SNAP

Justice Sotomayor also pointed to that doctrine in her early line of questioning.

“I don’t understand this argument,” she told Sauer. “That it’s equivalent, or that foreign powers, or even an emergency, can do away with the major questions doctrine. Didn’t we in the Biden case recently say an emergency can’t make clear what’s ambiguous?”

NBC News reported that “Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to be skeptical about the argument that the government is using to push for Trump’s tariffs.”

“Roberts said ‘the imposition of taxes on Americans’ has always ‘been the core power of Congress.'”

“Roberts also said the major questions doctrine ‘might be directly applicable.'”

“‘The statute doesn’t use the word tariff,’ Roberts said.”

Serving up a cautionary reminder, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, an MSNBC legal analyst, noted: “Don’t forget that it was Sauer, now the Solicitor General, who persuaded a conservative majority of the Court that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office, even if he ordered Seal Team 6 to take out a political rival.”

READ MORE: White House Backpedals on Trump’s SNAP Refusal — and Blames Dems for Delay

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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