Iran sends 'warning to Israel via US officials'
Tehran says Israel should 'await consequences' for the recent killing of an Iranian general in an air strike in Syria.

Tehran said it sent a warning to Israel through the United States over the recent killing of an Iranian general in an Israeli air strike in Syria, the official IRNA news agency reports.

"We told the Americans that the leaders of the Zionist regime should await the consequences of their act,'' IRNA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian as saying. Israel has "crossed our red lines'', he added.

Amirabdollahian said Iran had sent the message on Tuesday through diplomatic channels to US officials, to hand over to Israel. He did not elaborate.

The January 18 strike in the Syrian-controlled part of the disputed Golan Heights killed Iranian General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards, along with six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling found guilty on all counts

A jury found former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling guilty of all charges against him under the Espionage Act. The government accused Sterling of illegally revealing classified information about a mission and thus putting American lives in danger.

Sterling was charged under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information about a mission meant to slow Iran’s nuclear program to New York Times reporter James Risen, who then wrote about the CIA’s Iranian plot in his 2006 book, “State of War.” The plan’s goal was to learn more about the country’s controversial nuclear program and impair its progress, and the schematics were reportedly funneled to the Iranians via a Russian scientist with the codename “Merlin.”

Risen was also critical of the plan in his book, saying it could have inadvertently helped Iran if they were able to identify what was wrong with the blueprints. Prosecutor Eric Olshan argued in court that these criticisms matched up with Sterling’s own view of the mission, and portrayed the CIA as unresponsive to potential risks.

The former CIA officer, who was fired in the early 2000s, was convicted of nine counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and other related charges. US District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema allowed Sterling to remain free on bond until his April 24 sentencing.

US Engaged in Massive Car Spying Program
Documents obtained by ACLU reveal vast expansion of DEA's license plate reader database

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operates a massive secret government database that tracks the movement of motorists across the country, documents reveal.

The documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Act, cast further light on the scope of government surveillance and raise significant privacy concerns, the organization says.

At issue is the DEA's national license plate reader program, which began aimed at vehicles in states along the Mexico border, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday:

The DEA program collects data about vehicle movements, including time, direction and location, from high-tech cameras placed strategically on major highways. Many devices also record visual images of drivers and passengers, which are sometimes clear enough for investigators to confirm identities, according to DEA documents and people familiar with the program.

Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads

Canada’s leading surveillance agency is monitoring millions of Internet users’ file downloads in a dragnet search to identify extremists, according to top-secret documents.

The covert operation, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, taps into Internet cables and analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files.

The revelations about the spying initiative, codenamed LEVITATION, are the first from the trove of files provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to show that the Canadian government has launched its own globe-spanning Internet mass surveillance system.

According to the documents, the LEVITATION program can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. It is led by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada’s equivalent of the NSA. (The Canadian agency was formerly known as “CSEC” until a recent name change.)