If you weren't already concerned enough with the abnormal trickle-down effects of the Donald Trump White House, there's something else you should worry about: the government potentially tracking you down because you visited an anti-Trump website.

The United States Department of Justice is trying to obtain visitor logs and IP addresses of anyone who visited DisruptJ20.org, a web resource for various resistance-based activities associated with January's inauguration. The DOJ is hoping to get information on more than 1.3 million IP addresses connected to the website from Dreamhost, the company that hosts the J20 website, in the hopes of connecting them to more than 200 people arrested during inaugural protests.

News of the measure comes in advance of a hearing to be held this Friday by the Washington DC Superior Court one that could shape how the government gains access to supposedly private First Amendment-protected free speech via online interactions. The move has been denounced by many in the digital rights community: the Electronic Frontier Foundation stated "no plausible explanation exists" for such an overreaching measure and it is monitoring the situation; digital advocacy blog Popehat called the matter "chilling" as the administration carries "overt hostility to protesters;" net neutrality nonprofit Fight For the Future simply stated that the issue is "outrageous government overreach;" and the ACLU wrote that there is a "vast danger" in letting the government target political speech in this way.

The DOJ's move appears to put many online dissenters in potential danger, and experts like Bennet Kelley, founder of the Internet Law Center, are concerned. Kelley believes people should be worried about the government requesting this kind of private data. "What's striking about this request is that they're seeking anyone who went to the site without limitation to day," Kelley tells POPSUGAR, explaining that DisruptJ20.org offered information on everything from the Women's March to maps of inaugural events.

Kelley contrasts a sweeping request like this to a "vacuum cleaner search," one that hones in on what information is needed instead of demanding it all, as the former "burdens free speech" by giving the DOJ too much information. As Dreamhost noted in a statement that resists the request and supports users, using a site like DisruptJ20.org is protected by the First Amendment as a means to "exercise and express political speech."

Yet this situation isn't entirely surprising. As Kelley points out, the leading web platforms have seen increasing numbers of government requests which have been shared in public reports. Facebook alone saw a nine percent increase in requests for user account data in the latter half of 2016. Moreover, technology users are mostly not protecting themselves, ignoring Edward Snowden's distrust of US cloud services as they risk NSA spying and rarely reading terms and conditions. People are not protecting their free speech accordingly and, as the DisruptJ20.org situation proves, tech users should be more vigilant in their online interactions.

At the heart of the issue is protecting online anonymity. Akin to Apple's opposing the unlocking of the San Bernardino shooter's phone, "Our success depends on our ability for people to feel secure on these platforms," Kelley says. "[Anonymous speech] has a long history in our constitutional republic. It's very highly regarded as a key element of speech."

Beyond encrypting everything, people should feel empowered in another way: reach out to your congressperson and similar representatives to express concern. "If you are concerned about this, talk to your congressman or senator," Kelley says. "Tell them you want to hold a hearing and that you want to restrict the Justice Department."

Image Source: Getty / Drew Angerer

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Read more:
The Government Is Seeking Information on Anti-Trump Website Visitors and People Are Concerned - POPSUGAR

hubpages.com

On the October 14, 2013 there was a report that, on a single day, the National Security Agency (NSA)s Special Source Operations branch collected 444 743 email address books from Yahoo, 105 068 from Hotmail, 82 857 from Facebook, 33 697 from Gmail and 22 881 from other unspecified providers, The Washington Post said, according to an internal NSA presentation.

Furthermore, according to a report published in July 2017, Zimbabwe is number one Most Hackable Country in the World. Four years on (2017), following the Washington Post report, what concerns us in the Zimbabwe Information Communication Technologies (ZICT) sector is the fact that each and every Government employee who has an email address, including ministers, deputy ministers, Members of Parliament, permanent secretaries, etc has either a Gmail, Yahoo or a Hotmail, and uses it as a means of Government communication.

ZICT is one organisation that supports the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media to reach out to the masses, but when it comes to official Government communication, officials should be stopped from using Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or any other FREE email provider and use emails that are provided by our Government Internet Service Provider (GISP) (lets work on making it efficient).

The ZICT move comes amid concerns about rising cybercrime and hacking incidents that are constantly recorded worldwide. With the other being the well-publicised WikiLeaks and revelations of the US NSA spying, Zimbabwe should be drawing up an Email Policy to help secure Government communications. The use of Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and the like is highly risky since these free email providers have their servers in the US and the NSA has been known to tap into their database systems. It is very clear that 100 percent, yes 100 percent of Zimbabwe Government officials use free email providers for official communication as all Government officials have a either a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail address as indicated on their official Government business cards.

I have a Gov.zw email, but the quality of our official Government email provided by Government Internet Service Provider (GISP) is not that great, as a Government official, you struggle to send or receive emails, hence the need to have a Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, a Government official added on condition of anonymity.

The Government of Zimbabwe has to come up with an Email Policy in the wake of spying allegations of the NSA revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks exposed by Julian Assange, to protect our Government communication channels. It is in the public domain that NSAs tentacles not only crept into the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington and its UN office in New York, but has also accessed email and chat messenger contact lists of hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens worldwide, according to media reports.

The Email Policy must be policy that states that all Government services, officials and ministers must rely on the GISP as the provider of a secure email service and that they cannot even forward email from their official Government email to their personal Gmail email.

It is a ZICT proposal that the Government of Zimbabwe provides a platform where ICT experts meet to find a lasting solution to the use of FREE email providers.

The move must be brought as a matter of urgency amid concerns about rising cybercrime and hacking incidents.

The Email Policy must seek to protect large amounts of critical Government data and aim to make it mandatory for Government offices to communicate only on GISP, not on commercial email services Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.

With TelOne having a Data Centre, these emails may be integrating in the TelOne cloud so that official data can be saved on a cloud platform and can then be easily shared with the concerned Government ministries, officials and departments.

What should give the Government of Zimbabwe goose bumps is the fact that NSA has a data-mining tool, called Boundless Informant, which gives details and even maps by country of the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks in any particular country. Considering that Zimbabwe is a sanctioned country and the passing of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, which is still in effect, there is no doubt that the Boundless Informant is definitely focusing on Zimbabwe.

As Zimbabwes elections are just round the corner, it will be ill-advised for the Government of Zimbabwe to ignore this information, considering that there is speculation that the Russians hacked the USA electoral system. How about us Zimbabwe?

Act now.

See original here:
Why Govt officials shouldn't use Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail - The Herald

WASHINGTON, D.C.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the Supreme Court to review and overturn an unprecedented ruling allowing the government to intercept, collect, and storewithout a warrantmillions of Americans electronic communications, including emails, texts, phone calls, and online chats.

This warrantless surveillance is conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law is exceedingly broadSection 702 allows the government to conduct surveillance of any foreigner abroadand the law fails to protect the constitutional rights of Americans whose texts or emails are incidentally collected when communicating with those people.

This warrantless surveillance of Americans is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

Yet the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ruling in U.S. v. Mohamud, decided that the Fourth Amendment doesnt apply to Americans whose communications were intercepted incidentally and searched without a warrant. The case centered on Mohammed Mohamud, an American citizen who in 2012 was charged with plotting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon. After he had already been convicted, Mohamud was told for the first time that information used in his prosecution was obtained using Section 702. Further disclosures clarified that the government used the surveillance program known as PRISM, which gives U.S. intelligence agencies access to communications in the possession of Internet service providers such as Google, Yahoo, or Facebook, to obtain the emails at issue in the case. Mohamud sought to suppress evidence gathered through the warrantless spying, arguing that Section 702 was unconstitutional.

In a dangerous and unprecedented ruling, the Ninth Circuit upheld the warrantless search and seizure of Mohamuds emails. EFF, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and New Americas Open Technology Institute filed a petition today asking the Supreme Court to review that decision.

The ruling provides an end-run around the Fourth Amendment, converting sweeping warrantless surveillance directed at foreigners into a tool for spying on Americans, said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mark Rumold. Section 702 is unlike any surveillance law in our countrys history, it is unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court should take this case to put a stop to this surveillance.

Section 702, which is set to expire in December unless Congress reauthorizes it, provides the government with broad authority to collect, retain, and search Americans international communications, even if they dont contain any foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime.

We urge the Supreme Court to review this case and Section 702, which subjects Americans to warrantless surveillance on an unknown scale, said EFF Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker. We have long advocated for reining in NSA mass surveillance, and the incidental collection of Americans private communications under Section 702 should be held unconstitutional once and for all.

For the petition: https://www.eff.org/document/mohamud-eff-cert-petition

For more on Section 702: https://www.eff.org/document/702-one-pager-adv

For more on NSA spying:https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

See the original post here:
EFF Urges Supreme Court to Take On Unconstitutional NSA Surveillance, Reverse Dangerous Ruling That Allows ... - EFF

Digital rights advocates asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to review the case of an American convicted with evidence gathered under FISA Section 702 warrantless National Security Agency surveillance authority meant to spy on foreign nationals.

Privacy and digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a petition Thursday with the nations highest court seeking review of the case ofMohammed Mohamud, an American citizen who was charged in 2012 with planning to car-bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. Information used to prosecute Mohamud was gathered using Section 702 of the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act.

Section 702 authorizes NSA to tap the physical infrastructure of internet service providers, like fiber connections, to intercept foreign emails, instant messages, and other communications belonging to foreign nationals as they exit and enter the U.S. But according to NSA, the program also incidentally sweeps up the communications of Americans corresponding with, and until recently, merely even mentioning foreign targets.

NSA is legally barred from searching through Americans communications without a warrant, but that wasnt the case with Mohamud. His emails were intercepted specifically by a program dubbed PRISM, the existence of which was leaked to the press by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013. PRISMgives NSA access to communications transmitted over internet edge services like Google, Yahoo, or Facebook.

Mohamud learned after his conviction that his emails were gathered under Section 702 and sought to suppress the evidence, arguing its gathering violated his Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure without a warrant. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit noted the governments conduct was quite aggressive at times but upheld the search, a move EFF, the Center for Democracy and Technology and New Americas Open Technology Institute call dangerous and unprecedented.

The ruling provides an end-run around the Fourth Amendment, converting sweeping warrantless surveillance directed at foreigners into a tool for spying on Americans, Mark Rumold, a staff attorney for EFF, said Thursday. Section 702 is unlike any surveillance law in our countrys history, it is unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court should take this case to put a stop to this surveillance.

The groups add weight to a Supreme Court petition filed by Mohamuds attorneys in July, and join a long list of battles from the courts to Congress over the legality of Section 702. Wikimedia and the ACLU are suing the government over the use of Section 702 in theFourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Congress has held several hearings this year to debate the laws renewal ahead of its expiration at the end of December.

Section 702 is at the heart of a dispute between Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, the nations top spy chief. Wyden has pressed Coats and his predecessor to provide an estimate of the number of Americans incidentally swept up in Section 702 that both claim is impossible to produce. The senator has further suggested the authority could be used to warrantlessly target Americans directly.

Congresss concerns over Section 702 have become a point of rare bipartisanship for some. Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul has fought alongside Wyden to peel back the curtain on Section 702. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham is grilling intelligence officials for information about what Section 702 gathers on lawmakers and other members of government, and if those intercepts can and are used to politically target government officials like former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

In testimony to Congress intelligence chiefs including NSA Director Mike Rogers have admitted Section 702 programs have a history of compliance issues, some highlighted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves more than 99 percent of the governments secret surveillance requests.

The typically intel-friendly court chastised the government for an institutional lack of candor on a very serious Fourth Amendment issue. One such opinion said NSA has engaged in significant overcollection . . . including the content of communications of non-target U.S. persons and persons in the U.S.

As a result, NSA in April suspended a Section 702 practice known as about collection when NSA sweeps up American emails and text messages exchanged with overseas users that simply mention search terms like an email address belonging to a target but isnt to or from a target.

The agency recently told Congress its working on a technical solution to reengage about collection.

All of the pushback comes as intelligence leaders pressure Congress not just to renew Section 702 but implement it permanently. Top Republicans and Democrats have endorsed the idea, including Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas and Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein of California.

In a recent interview, Snowden said using Section 702 to surveil Americans requires the agency to engage in little more than word games. Privacy advocates suspect the loophole created by Section 702 likelyamounts to millions or even hundreds of millions of warrantless interceptionsbelonging to Americans.

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Original post:
Supreme Court Asked to Look at Warrantless NSA Spying Powers - InsideSources

What's Quickly? It's where readers sound off on the issues of the day. Have a quote, question or quip? Call Quickly at 312-222-2426 or email quickly@post-trib.com.

Attention Quickly: Why not be creative and kind? How about having a TRUMP-FREE day!

Incompetence and ego have started more than one bloody war in history. This situation is exactly what most people feared about electing Trump.

We have a history of leaders starting wars to solve problems at home. If a few million people die, they think that's a fair price to protect their greatness. Any fool can start a war, but once it's started, it almost never goes as expected.

President Trump warned North Korea that his threats "will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes the world has never seen." Great, one unstable madman threatening another unstable madman. We could really use a thoughtful, sober, sane president right now.

Reading about the Buncich trial I found two interesting things. One was the e-mails about ethics and political activities on government time. And the concern about being recorded at these meetings. Everyone knew what they were doing was wrong, yet they were trying to cover their tracks.

Almost every day there is a comment from someone lamenting those who do not let this president "do his job." If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at Mr. Trump, he refuses to do any real work. He is the one that has broken rules and laws that have created a need for an investigation. Don't be mad at the people that criticize his shortcomings, they have that right.

It's been five days since Quickly has posted their hate the president comments. You don't think they ran out of hate, do you?

The Justice Department is siding with Ohio in a legal fight of their state's purging of infrequent voters from its election rolls. They think that if you don't vote in three elections you should be removed. People have the right to not vote in an election, that does not give the state the right to remove them.

Food for thought: If one is willing to betray their own country for money or power, they will turn on their co-conspirators in order to save themselves in a heartbeat.

President Trump promised to tackle the growing epidemic of opioid abuse in the United States after blaming his predecessor for not doing more to stem the surge of drug overdoses. But he offered no specific ideas for how he would do so. To recap, he was really, really bad. I will be really, really good. But I don't know what the heck that I am doing. Everyone good?

Sean Hannity is threatening to sue President Obama over illegal NSA spying. How could he have standing to sue unless he was harmed by unmasking? Another diversion to get the heat away from Russia?

Does anybody know who's picketing Regional Rental and why? They've been there for a while but they don't gave any contact info posted and there's nowhere to pull over to ask what's up. I also will never cross a picket line, so I can't go in and ask.

Fox News has so many problems with their staff. I think a bigger bombshell would be discovering a male Fox employee hasn't been a total creep to women.

President Trump's Department of Transportation just gave a $10 million grant to the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor to upgrade the facility. I wonder how many hypocrites will be there to accept the money and then go home to bash the very hand that feeds them. Will this sore loser syndrome ever end? The president is doing so many great things for our country.

Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico sent President Trump two Tweets. "Hey Trump, I'm watching this really bad reality TV show with low ratings called Survivor White House, I can't change the channel. Sad." "Leaving on vacation, huh? What for? If you're not happy with your job, just leave. After all, it was never for you."

On the Fox News website: "Would you even care if he was guilty?" It makes the argument that things are supposedly going so wonderfully in America under Trump, perhaps no one should care if Trump is guilty of conspiring with Russia to rig the election. This is the propaganda that Fox News feeds the brainwashed.

Trump said, "After 200 days, rarely has any administration achieved what we have achieved, not even close." Right, no administration has achieved this level of public contempt, unbridled stupidity or complete chaos this quickly.

Read more at http://www.post-trib.com/quickly.

See the rest here:
Quickly - Chicago Tribune

The National Security Agency and FBI violated specific civil liberty protections during the Obama administrationby improperly searching and disseminating raw intelligence on Americans or failing to promptly delete unauthorized intercepts, according to newly declassified memos that provide some of the richest detail to date on the spy agencies ability to obey their own rules.

The memos reviewed by The Hill were publicly released on July 11 through Freedom of Information Act litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union.

They detail specific violations that the NSA or FBI disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or the Justice Departments national security division during President Obamas tenure between 2009 and 2016. The intelligence community isnt due to report on compliance issues for 2017, the first year under the Trump administration, until next spring.

ADVERTISEMENTThe NSA says that the missteps amount to a small number less than 1 percent when compared to the hundreds of thousands of specific phone numbers and email addresses the agencies intercepted through theso-called Section 702 warrantless spying program created by Congress in late 2008.

Quite simply, a compliance program that never finds an incident is not a robust compliance program, said Michael Halbig, theNSAs chief spokesman. The National Security Agency has in place a strong compliance program that identifies incidents, reports them to external overseers, and then develops appropriate solutions to remedy any incidents.

But critics say the memos undercut the intelligence communitys claim that it has robust protections for Americans incidentally intercepted under the program.

Americans should be alarmed that theNSAisvacuuming up their emails and phone calls without a warrant, said , an ACLU staff attorney in New York who helped pursue the FOIA litigation.TheNSAclaims it has rules to protectour privacy, but it turns out those rules are weak, full of loopholes, andviolated again and again.

Section 702 empowers the NSA to spy on foreign powers and to retain and use certain intercepted data that was incidentally collected on Americans under strict privacy protections. Wrongly collected information is supposed to be immediately destroyed.

The Hill reviewed the new ACLU documents as well as compliance memos released by the NSA inspector general and identified more than 90 incidents where violations specifically cited an impact on Americans. Many incidents involved multiple persons, multiple violations or extended periods of time.

For instance, thegovernment admitted improperly searching the NSAs foreign intercept data on multiple occasions, including one instance in which ananalyst ran the same search query about an American every work day for a period between 2013 and 2014.

There also were several instances in which Americans unmasked names were improperly shared inside the intelligence community without being redacted, a violation of the so-called minimization procedures that Obama loosened in 2011that are supposed to protect Americans identity from disclosure when they are intercepted without a warrant.Numerous times improperly unmasked information about Americans had to be recalled and purged after the fact, the memos stated.

CIA and FBI received unminimized data from many Section 702-tasked facilities and at times are thus required to conduct similar purges, one report noted.

NSAissued a report which included the name of a United States person whose identity was not foreign intelligence, said one typical incident report from 2015, which said theNSAeventually discovered the error and recalled the information.

Likewise, the FBI disclosed three instances between December 2013 and February 2014 of improper disseminations of U.S. persons identities.

TheNSAalso admitted it was slow in some cases to notify fellow intelligence agencies when it wrongly disseminated information about Americans. The law requires a notificationwithin five days, but some took as long as 131 business days and the average was 19 days, the memos show.

U.S. intelligence officials directly familiar with the violations told The Hill that the memos confirm that the intelligence agencies have routinely policed, fixed and self-disclosed to the nations intelligence court thousands of minor procedural and more serious privacy infractions that have impacted both Americans and foreigners alike since the warrantless spying program was created by Congress in late 2008.

Alexander Joel, who leads the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency under the director of national intelligence, said the documents chronicle episodes that have been reported to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for years in real time and are a tribute to the multiple layers of oversight inside the intelligence community.

We take every compliance incident very seriously and continually strive to improve compliance through our oversight regime and as evidence by our reporting requirements to the FISC and Congress, he told The Hill. That said, we believe that, particularly when compared with the overall level of activity, the compliance incident rate is very low.

The FBI said it believes it has adequate oversight to protect Americans privacy, while signaling it will be pushing Congress hard this fall to renew the Section 702 law before it expires.

The FBIs mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States, the bureau said in a statement to The Hill. When Congress enacted Section 702, it built in comprehensive oversight and compliance procedures that involve all three branches of government. These procedures are robust and effective in identifying compliance incidents. The documents released on July 11, 2017 clearly show the FBIs extensive efforts to follow the law, and to identify, report, and remedy compliance matters.

Section 702 is vital to the safety and security of the American people. It is one of the most valuable tools the Intelligence Community has, and therefore, is used with the utmost care by the men and women of the FBI so as to not jeopardize future utility. As such, we continually evaluate our internal policies and procedures to further reduce the number of these compliance matters.

The new documents show that theNSAhas, on occasion, exempted itself from its legal obligation to destroy all domestic communications that were improperly intercepted.

Under the law, theNSAis supposed to destroy any intercept if it determines the data was domestically gathered, meaning someone was intercepted on U.S. soil without a warrant when the agency thought they were still overseas. The NSA, however, has said previously it created destruction waivers to keep such intercepts in certain cases.

The new documents confirm theNSAhas in fact issued such waivers and that it uncovered in 2012 a significant violation in which the waivers were improperly used and the infraction was slow to be reported to the court.

In light of related filings being presented to the Court at the same time this incident was discovered and the significance of the incident, DOJ should have reported this incident under the our immediate notification process, then-Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote the FISA court in Aug. 28, 2012, about the episode, according to one memo released through FOIA.

TheNSAdeclined to say how often destruction waivers are given. But Joel, of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has supervised such waivers and affirmed they are consistent with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and the statutory requirements of Section 702.

Other violations cited in the memos:

In annual and quarterly compliance reports that have been released in recent years, U.S. intelligence agencies have estimated the number of Section 702 violations has averaged between 0.3 percent and 0.6 percent of the total number of taskings. A tasking is an intelligence term that reflects a request to intercept a specific phone number or email address.

The NSA now targets more than 100,000 individuals a year under Section 702 for foreign spying, and some individual targets get multiple taskings, officials said.

The actual number of compliance incidents remains classified but from the publicly available data it is irrefutable that the number is in the thousands since Section 702 was fully implemented by 2009, said a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The increasing transparency on Section 702 violations is having an impact on both critics and supporters of a law that is up for renewal in Congress at the end of this year. Of concern are the instances in which Americans data is incidentally collected and then misused.

Retired House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, a Republican who strongly supported the NSA warrantless spying program when it started under President George W. Bush, said he now fears it has now become too big and intrusive.

If I were still in Congress today, I might vote with the people today to shut the program down or curtail it, Hoekstra, who has been tapped by Trump to be ambassador to the Netherlands, said in an interview.

One percent or less sounds great, but the truth is 1percent of my credit card charges dont come back wrong every month. And in my mind one percent is pretty sloppy when it can impact Americans privacy.

This story was updated at 10:38 a.m.

See the rest here:
Newly declassified memos detail extent of improper Obama-era NSA spying - MTNV

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Risen is leaving The New York Times after nearly two decades, a distinguished run that included standout reporting on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administrations bogus case for invading Iraq, and rampant government surveillance.

Risen, a press-freedom advocate, successfully battled two Washington administrations trying to compel him to reveal a confidential source.

He is the latest high-profile Times journalist to take a voluntary buyout as the paper reorganizes its newsroom. His exit follows the news Thursday that influential book critic Michiko Kakutani also is departing.

Risen confirmed to HuffPost hes leaving the paper, but declined to elaborate.

Risen began his reporting career at the Detroit Free Press in the early 1980s. He spent 14 years at the Los Angeles Times before joining the Times Washington bureau in 1998.

He was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team covering intelligence and global terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and produced some of the Times most skeptical reporting on the Bush administrations case for invading Iraq, even asmore credulous reportinglanded on the front page.

Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Risen and then-Times reporter Eric Lichtblau broke the news in December 2005 that the Bush administration had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans a blockbuster story that helped net the pair a Pulitzer Prize the following year.

The timing of the NSA story came under scrutiny after it was revealed that Times editors withheld the article for more than a year under pressure from the Bush administration. Risen appeared to force his managements hand and spur publication by planning to include details of the NSA spying program in his own book.

Risen later recalled there was a massive game of chicken between me, my book and The New York Times. The book, State of War, was published in early 2006. The editors were furious at me, he said years later in an interview. They thought I was being insubordinate.

It was Risens reporting inState of War on a bungled CIA operation that prompted the Bush administration to open a leak investigation. Risen refused to reveal his source. The Obama administration, which prosecuted more government officials under the Espionage Act in cases involving disclosures to the news media, also tried compelling Risen to testify about the source for a chapter in the book. The longlegal ordeal finally ended in 2015, with the identity of Risens source still confidential.

Risen has been outspoken about the Obama administrations aggressive pursuit of leakers, calling the former president the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation. Shortly after the 2016 election, Risen wrote that journalists should thank Obama if President Donald Trump targets the press, arguing that the outgoing administration laid the groundwork for doing so.

Times colleague Matt Apuzzo, a fellow Pulitzer winner whose own reporting prompted multiple leak investigations during the Obama era, told HuffPost he considers Risen a mentor.

Long before he was an example of how to stand up for press freedom, Jim was the example of how to cover national security, Apuzzo said. His work will outlive us all.

This article has been updated to include highlights of Risens career.

The Morning Email

Wake up to the day's most important news.

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Pulitzer Prize-Winner James Risen Leaving The New York TImes - HuffPost

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 25, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: This is a "Fox News Alert." And we are broadcasting from the swamp in Washington, D.C. And welcome to "Hannity."

A brand-new bombshell from The Hill's John Solomon reveals the depth of the Obama era NSA spying and civil liberties violations. John Solomon, along with Circa News's Sara Carter -- they will join us tonight on this explosive story.

Also, the president has just landed at Joint Base Andrews. And earlier tonight, he took his message directly to you, the American people. He had a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, where he pushed his agenda and took on his critics. And that is the subject of tonight's very important transitional "Opening Monologue."

All right, during tonight's massive rally in Ohio, President Trump issued an urgent call, pushing Congress to finally get rid of ObamaCare and to replace it with something that actually works for you, the American people. It's time for these guys in the swamp, in the sewer here in D.C. to get to work. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're now one step closer to liberating our citizens from this ObamaCare nightmare!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And delivering great health care for the American people. We're going to do that, too. The Senate is working not only to repeal ObamaCare but to deliver great health care for the American people. Any senator who votes against repeal and replace is telling America that they are fine with the "Obama care" nightmare! And I predict they'll have a lot of problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And I predict he's right. But repealing and replacing "Obama care" is not the only urgent task on the president's agenda. Now, listen to the president earlier tonight reassuring the American people that building the wall on our southern border is not just an empty campaign promise. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: After spending billion dollars defending other nations' borders, we are finally defending our borders!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Don't even think about it. We will build the wall.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Don't even think about it.

I watch the media as they say, Well, he just had some fun during the campaign on the wall. That wasn't fun, folks! We're building that wall. And walls do work. And we're going to have great people come into our country, but we're not going to put ourselves through the problems that we've had for so many years!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Is Congress listening? Now, the president also promised to drive out violent cartel-linked gangs and to put an end finally to sanctuary cities once and for all. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The predators and criminal aliens who poison our communities with drugs and prey on innocent young people, these beautiful, beautiful innocent young people, will find no safe haven anywhere in our country. And that is why my administration is launching a nationwide crackdown on sanctuary cities!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: American cities should be sanctuaries for law-abiding Americans, for people that look up to the law, for people that respect the law, not for criminals and gang members that we want the hell out of our country!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, the president also spoke about lowering taxes in tonight's speech. Please lower taxes. Please stop burdening us! Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: My administration is working every single day to heed and honor the will of the voters. That includes working on one of the biggest tax cuts in American history. And actually, if I get what I want, it will be the single biggest tax cut in American history!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We have the highest taxes anywhere in the world, and this will really bring them down to one of the lowest. And we really have no choice. We will have growth. We will have everything that we've dreamed of having. It's time to let Americans keep more of their own money. It's time to bring new companies to our shores and to create a new era of growth, prosperity and wealth!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: What a great idea. Let's get Americans back to work, back in the labor force, and of course, out of poverty and off of food stamps. Republicans, what do you stand for?

Now, the president's rally didn't just include plans for the future. He also touted a long list of accomplishments. Now, despite what the left- wing mainstream establishment media is reporting -- well, the president -- he has been very busy the last six months, working on trying to push through his bold agenda despite pretty much zero help from any Democrats, and frankly, weak Republicans.

And here's the president talking about what he has accomplished so far these last six months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our 2nd Amendment is very, very sound again. That would have been gonzo. It would have been gone.

We've eliminated burdensome regulations at record speed, and many, many more are coming off. And boy, have we put those coal miners and coal back on the map. You've seen that, huh?

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We've achieved a historic increase in defense spending to get our troops the support they so richly deserve. We have signed new legislation to hold federal workers accountable for the care they provide to our great, great veterans!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: To protect American jobs and workers, I withdrew the United States from both the Trans-Pacific Partnership potential disaster...

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: ... and the job-killing Paris climate accord. Believe me.

Unemployment last month hit a 16-year low. Since my election, we've added much more than one million jobs!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Believe it or not, you're never going to hear that in mainstream media. And what you just heard is only a fraction of what the president has actually accomplished.

Also tonight, in true Trump fashion, the president fought back against his critics, the best part of the speech. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Sometimes they say, He doesn't act presidential.

(BOOS)

TRUMP: And I say, Hey, look, great schools, smart guy. It's so easy to act presidential, but that's not going to get it done. In fact, I said it's much easier, by the way, to act presidential than what we're doing here tonight! Believe me. And I said...

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And I said, with the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that's ever held this office! That I can tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Do we really want a president who just acts? Now, tonight, the president sent a very important message that will reverberate across America and into the swamp and sewer that is Washington, D.C., where I am tonight.

And the president's not going to sit idly by and watch Congress fumble his agenda. He's going to take his message again and again directly to you, the American people. It's time to put pressure on lawmakers to finally do their job and get something done.

Here with reaction, author of the book "Putin's Gambit," Fox Business host, our sister network, Lou Dobbs is with us.

You know, every time the president goes directly to the American people, you see the reaction. There is not one iota's difference before the campaign. And every agenda item he has, which helped a lot of these senators and congressmen get elected, is supported by those crowds. What is Washington not getting? What are Republicans not getting?

LOU DOBBS, FOX BUSINESS: Just about everything, as you know, Sean. The president today was -- you know, as you say, this rally today was just like every rally that he carried out as a candidate for president. The love in the room for the president was palpable.

He is watching -- he doesn't need any extra energy, but he's drawing great energy from these people who are his supporters. They are also the people for whom he is working, not K Street, the lobbyists, the billion-dollar donors that expect to have the federal government heel and certainly the leadership of the Republican Party. They're so accustomed to them heeling to their every order and beck and call.

He is frustrating the establishment. That's what we're watching, is a conflict between this president, the status quo, and frankly, the defenders of the status quo, whether they're Republicans or Democrats. And he is winning, winning and winning. And the people in that room in Youngstown, Ohio, all 7,000 of them, know that very well, as do tens of millions of other Americans.

HANNITY: But Lou, if the Republicans don't do their part -- this is a seven-year promise to replace, replace "Obama care." They needed Mike Pence for the motion to proceed today...

DOBBS: Right.

HANNITY: ... which doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence that they're going to get this whole thing done or done in a way that they had promised for seven years. And think I think you got an economic plan so we can get Americans...

DOBBS: Right.

HANNITY: ... out of poverty, off of food stamps...

DOBBS: No, you're right.

HANNITY: ... back to work and get the border built and funded. And I don't think Congress realizes they will pay the price if they don't get the job done.

DOBBS: That is the sub-text here. You're exactly right again, Sean. This is -- this threat that is looming is for every one of those congressmen who are hesitant and hesitating to support this president and his agenda, and particularly the leadership, the speaker and the majority leader of the Senate, Ryan and Mitch McConnell. They had better deliver this time because it will be fundamentally a question of the survival of the Republican Party.

Donald Trump is -- what he was saying in Youngstown, Ohio, in my opinion, in addition to everything else that was so terrific about the economy, about turning this country around, he's serving notice that those are Trump Democrats in Youngstown, Ohio, which he lost by 3 points. But four years earlier, Barack Obama won that county by 27 points!

These are his people. And you heard Gino (ph), the man he brought up on the stage, and the chants for Gino from the crowd because he was talking about how much this president is loved by the forgotten man and woman. And all of those people in Youngstown represent much of the bread basket, where they've lost a third of the population of Youngstown, Ohio, their factories once one of the top steel producing cities in the country. And it's -- it's remarkable the notice that he served. And I guarantee you -- I don't know whether McConnell and Ryan got it, but I can guarantee you Schumer and Pelosi get it, and they're worried to death.

HANNITY: Yes. And by the way, a better way...

DOBBS: Oh, yes.

HANNITY: They -- there's no way for them, and especially after eight years of failure. Lou Dobbs, I know you stayed late for us tonight. As always, thanks you for being with us.

DOBBS: Great to be with you, Sean. Thanks.

HANNITY: And here now with more reaction to the president's rally in Youngstown, Ohio, we have Fox News contributor Herman Cain. One of the things -- I noticed that Chuck Grassley in the Senate is saying, Wait a minute. If outside interference from a foreign country is a big deal -- Russia, Russia, Russia -- OK, we've got evidence of collusion with Ukraine and influence in the election, as well. Also, we have the Uranium One deal. And then I look at House conservatives. They're pushing for a probe of Comey and Clinton and I know others are talking about Loretta Lynch.

The part of me is torn, Herman Cain, Mr. 999, positive ideas -- it's torn because it's not fair what we've been seeing, but the agenda the president talked about, repeal, replace and schools and borders and listing his accomplishments and Gorsuch -- at the end of the day, I suspect if he succeeds, that will push Republicans over the top in 2018 and 2020. I'm torn what to do.

HERMAN CAIN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: But many of them don't realize that. Sean, that speech in Ohio reminded me of the three rallies I attended in Georgia, where I helped to introduce this president. He is re-asserting results, results, results. That's why he got the reaction from the crowd that he got. The Democrats are all about resist, resist, resist, and it's not resonating with people.

Hip, hip, hooray that he's taking his message directly to the people because the mainstream media's not going to do it. So he's doing it himself. And I think that helps to re-energize those people that voted for him because of exactly the things he is able to do, even despite the pushback by RINOs, Republicans in name only, and Democrats.

HANNITY: We learned that in spite of, what, 60 to 68 votes, repeal and replace -- Herman, we're on the radio. We were telling our audience those are showboats because if they really wanted to repeal and replace in those votes, they would have used the constitutional authority and the power of the purse, and they never did it. And the one guy that tried to use it, Ted Cruz, was excoriated by the Republican Party. So we knew they were showboats.

But on repeal and replace now, we learned 100 House Republicans had no intention of keeping that promise. And now you see the Senate just for the motion to proceed needing Mike Pence. This does not bode well, in my mind.

CAIN: You're right, Sean. Here's the deal. They thought that the American people were going to have very short memories. That's what they still think. What this president is doing is reminding the American people of what these Republicans promised.

And I got to tell you, last night on your show, you challenged your viewers to do exactly what I challenge my listeners to do, send e-mails, make phone calls and let them know that you are paying attention. That's the only thing that gets their attention. That's what gets results.

And with the president giving the kind of patriotic, pressable (ph) results-oriented speech that he's given today, it reminds people that, Yes, if I send that e-mail, if I make that phone call to my representative or to my senators, it will make a difference. I think this is great for the direction that this president is trying to go.

HANNITY: All right, Herman Cain, always good to see you. We appreciate it.

All right, we got...

CAIN: Thank you.

HANNITY: ... a busy breaking news night tonight here. "Hannity" in D.C. In a mini monologue, we will lay out the scandals Congress and the DOJ should be investigating and we'll get reaction, Monica Crowley, Geraldo Rivera.

And also tonight...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm here this evening to cut through the fake news filter and to speak straight to the American people!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: President Trump calling out the fake news media at tonight's rally in Ohio. Mercedes Schlapp, Lanny Davis, Larry Elder will join us with reaction.

And tonight, a "Hannity" investigation. An explosive new report by The Hill's John Solomon. It is about the Obama administration's NSA spying and civil liberties violations you need to know about. John Solomon, Sara Carter join us as we continue from the sewer and the swamp that is Washington, D.C.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Your future is what I'm fighting for each and every day. Here is just a small sample what have we accomplished in just our first six months in office. And I'll say this, and you know, they always like to say, Well, I don't know. But I think that with few exceptions, no president has done anywhere near what we've done in his first six months.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Not even close.

Read more:
Cain: President Trump is reasserting results; Declassified memos reveal Obama admin. NSA privacy violations - Fox News

The National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation violated specific civil liberty protections during the Obama years by improperly searching and disseminating raw intelligence on Americans or failing to promptly delete unauthorized intercepts, according to newly declassified memos that provide some of the richest detail to date on the spy agencies ability to obey their own rules.

The memos reviewed by The Hill were publicly released on July 11 through Freedom of Information Act litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The NSA says that the missteps amount to a small number less than 1 percent when compared to the hundreds of thousands of specific phone numbers and email addresses the agencies intercepted through theso-called Section 702 warrantless spying program created by Congress in late 2008.

Quite simply, a compliance program that never finds an incident is not a robust compliance program, said Michael T. Halbig, theNSAs chief spokesman. The National Security Agency has in place a strong compliance program that identifies incidents, reports them to external overseers, and then develops appropriate solutions to remedy any incidents.

But critics say the memos undercut the intelligence communitys claim that it has robust protections for Americans incidentally intercepted under the program.

Americans should be alarmed that theNSAisvacuuming up their emails and phone calls without a warrant, said Patrick ToomeyPat ToomeyNewly declassified memos detail extent of improper Obama-era NSA spying Overnight Tech: FCC won't fine Colbert over Trump joke | Trump budget slashes science funding | Net neutrality comment period opens Appeals court decision keeps lawsuit against NSA surveillance alive MORE, an ACLU staff attorney in New York who helped pursue the FOIA litigation.TheNSAclaims it has rules to protectour privacy, but it turns out those rules are weak, full of loopholes, andviolated again and again.

Section 702 empowers the NSA to spy on foreign powers and to retain and use certain intercepted data that was incidentally collected on Americans under strict privacy protections. Wrongly collected information is supposed to be immediately destroyed.

The Hill reviewed the new ACLU documents as well as compliance memos released by the NSA inspector general and identified more than 90 incidents where violations specifically cited an impact on Americans. Many incidents involved multiple persons, multiple violations or extended periods of time.

For instance, thegovernment admitted improperly searchingNSAs foreign intercept data on multiple occasions, including one instance in which ananalyst ran the same search query about an American every work day for a period between 2013 and 2014.

There also were several instances in which Americans unmasked names were improperly shared inside the intelligence community without being redacted, a violation of the so-called minimization procedures that President Obama loosened in 2011that are supposed to protect an Americans' identity from disclosure when they are intercepted without a warrant.Numerous times improperly unmasked information about Americans had to be recalled and purged after the fact, the memos stated.

CIA and FBI received unminimized data from many Section 702-tasked facilities and at times are thus required to conduct similar purges, one report noted.

NSAissued a report which included the name of a United States person whose identity was not foreign intelligence, said one typical incident report from 2015, which said theNSAeventually discovered the error and recalled the information.

Likewise, the FBI disclosed three instances between December 2013 and February 2014 of improper disseminations of U.S. persons identities.

TheNSAalso admitted it was slow in some cases to notify fellow intelligence agencies when it wrongly disseminated information about Americans. The law requires a notificationwithin five days, but some took as long as 131 business days and the average was 19 days., the memos show

U.S. intelligence officials directly familiar with the violations told The Hill that the memos confirm that the intelligence agencies have routinely policed, fixed and self-disclosed to the nation's intelligence court thousands of minor procedural and more serious privacy infractions that have impacted both Americans and foreigners alike since the so-called Section 702 warrantless spying program was created by Congress in late 2008.

Alexander W. Joel, who leads the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency under the Director of National Intelligence, said the documents chronicle episodes that have been reported to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for years in real time and are a tribute to the multiple layers of oversight inside the intelligence community.

We take every compliance incident very seriously and continually strive to improve compliance through our oversight regime and as evidence by our reporting requirements to the FISC and Congress, he told The Hill. That said, we believe that, particularly when compared with the overall level of activity, the compliance incident rate is very low.

The FBI told the Hill that the Section 702 law is "One of the most valuable tools the Intelligence Community has, and therefore, is used with the utmost care by the men and women of the FBI so as to notjeopardize future utility. As such, we continuallyevaluate our internal policies and procedures to further reduce the number of these compliance matters."

The new documents show that theNSAhas, on occasion, exempted itself from its legal obligation to destroy all domestic communications that were improperly intercepted.

Under the law, theNSAis supposed to destroy any intercept if it determines the data was domestically gathered, meaning someone was intercepted on U.S. soil without a warrant when the agency thought they were still overseas. The NSA however, has said previously it created destruction waivers to keep such intercepts in certain cases.

The new documents confirm theNSAhas in fact issued such waivers and that it uncovered in 2012 a significant violation in which the waivers were improperly used and the infraction was slow to be reported to the court.

In light of related filings being presented to the Court at the same time this incident was discovered and the significance of the incident, DOJ should have reported this incident under the our immediate notification process, then-Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote the FISA court in August 28, 2012 about the episode, according to one memo released through the FOIA.

TheNSAdeclined to say how often destruction waivers are given. But ODNIs Joel said the FISC court has supervised such waivers and affirmed they are consistent with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and the statutory requirements of Section 702.

Other violations cited in the memos:

In annual and quarterly compliance reports that have been released in recent years, U.S. intelligence agencies have estimated the number of Section 702 violations has averaged between 0.3 percent and 0.6 percent of the total number of taskings. A tasking is an intelligence term that reflects a request to intercept a specific phone number or email address.

The NSA now targets more than 100,000 individuals a year under Section 702 for foreign spying, and some individual targets get multiple taskings, officials said.

The actual number of compliance incidents remains classified but from the publicly available data it is irrefutable that the number is in the thousands since Section 702 was fully implemented by 2009, said a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The increasing transparency on Section 702 violations is having an impact on both critics and supporters of a law that is up for renewal in Congress at the end of this year. Of concern are the instances in which Americans data is incidentally collected and then misused.

Retired House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra, a Republican who strongly supported the NSA warrantless spying program when it started under George W. Bush, said he now fears it has now become too big and intrusive.

If I were still in Congress today, I might vote with the people today to shut the program down or curtail it, Hoekstrak, who has been tapped by Trump to be ambassador to the Netherlands, said in an interview.

One percent or less sounds great, but the truth is one percent of my credit card charges dont come back wrong every month. And in my mind one percent is pretty sloppy when it can impact Americans privacy.

Go here to read the rest:
Newly declassified memos detail extent of improper Obama-era NSA spying - The Hill

The United States Embassy in Berlin stands in a prime location just next to the Brandenburg Gate, reflecting the country's role as one of the four powers considered to have liberated Germany at the end of World War II. Security guards are ever-present at the building's entrance, yet since John B. Emerson departed in January 2017, a new US ambassador to Germany has been missing.

That may be due to change now that US President Donald Trump has reportedly offered the post to Richard "Ric" Grenell, a 50-year-old former Bush administration diplomatic aide and frequent commentator on theconservative news broadcaster Fox News. Grenell met with Trump on July 12 at the White House, and though his nomination has yet to be formally announced, various anonymous administration officials have confirmed the offer, according to press reports.

Grenell's nomination comes at a tricky time: Trump is looking to show signs of action on any political front as his domestic policies stall, and the relationship between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Trump is decidedly cool.

A 'foothold' in diplomacy

Under the Bush administration, Grenell was the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy on the diplomatic team of four different US Ambassadors to the United Nations (UN) at a time when the US pursued a military-friendly "cowboy diplomacy" foreign policy. Key topics over the course of Grenell's tenure there included US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian and North Korean nuclear policy and the alleged involvement of Syria in Lebanese politics.

Grenell was a spokesman for hawkish US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton

That Trump did not nominate a political donor or business leader and that Grenell "at least has some footing" in the diplomatic community, even if he is not a career diplomat, is seen positively throughout Berlin, saidJanTechau, director of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum for the Study of Diplomacy and Governance at the American Academy in Berlin. However, Techau pointed out he cannot speak in particular for the German government or diplomatic network.

Read more: US Senate confirms Trump's contentious pick for Israel Ambassador

A master of media

Grenell served as a political advisor and media spokesman for various Republican politicians and campaigns, including John McCain's 2000 bid for the presidency. In 2009, Grenell founded Capital Media Partners, a strategic international communications firm. He continues to be a frequent media commentator.

The communication skillset that Grenell has amassed will aide him immensely, Techau said, though he pointed out that Grenell will need to learn to navigate the unique German media landscape.

"The German media works slightly different than the American media. It is a very different culture. Different outlets matter here," explained Techau.

Much like his potential future boss, Grenell often takes to Twitter to pour criticism on media outlets and individual journalists, while occasionally adding a splash of praise - sometimesfor the same outlet.

However, Grenell's Twitter trajectory has sometimes proven problematic. In 2012, Grenell's free-wheeling Twitter tendencies led to his resignation as the campaign foreign policy spokesman for then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney just weeks after being named the position. However, some media attributed the firing to pressure from socially conservative Republicans who objected to Grenell as the first openly-gay spokesman on a Republican presidential campaign.

Trans-Atlantic challenges

When he stepped down from his role in the Romney campaign in 2012, Grenell's resignation message expressed his sadness at not being able to "confront President [Barack] Obama's foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage." One of Obama's foreign policy legacies was a close relationship with Merkel, even in spite of the NSA spying scandal.

Now, six months of the Trump presidency has left Germany with both the feeling that it can no longer rely on the former solidity of the trans-Atlantic relationship and what Techau described as "a new wave of anti-Americanism in German public sentiment and publications."

Obama and Merkel had a close working relationship

A major challenge from day one for the future ambassador will be "representing a president here [in Germany] who is so unpopular," Techau said.

Beyond the image challenge, Techau thinks that, "Trade is the big issue that has the most potential to sour the relationship."

President Trump has accused Germany of unfairly running a trade surplus, thereby disadvantaging American industry and exports. If the White House ends up pursuing protectionist or retaliatory measures, such as increasing tariffs on imported goods, America's trade policy could become a revolving-door issue in Grenell's meetings with German officials and industry representatives. And it is an issue that Grenell has little expertise in, Techau pointed out.

All in all, Techau thinks Trump's reported nomination of Grenell sends a "mixed message" to the German government: he is at once both a "Trump loyalist" and "conservative foreign pundit" and a "real foreign policy person."

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Donald Trump's new ambassador in Berlin: Who is Richard Grenell? - Deutsche Welle