Dustin Volz

How Talks Between Anthropic and the Defense Dept. Fell Apart

NEW: Our play-by-play on how Anthropic’s negotiations with the Pentagon fell apart, (and how Open AI swooped in). With @julianbarnes.bsky.social @cademetz.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/t...

Israel Hacked Popular Iranian Prayer App to Urge Defections, Resistance Israel hacked a popular Iranian prayer app to send notifications to potentially millions of phones Saturday morning urging the country’s military personnel to defect from the regime and join a fight t...

Sources say Israel hacked the popular Iranian prayer app BadeSaba to urge defections, resistance

www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Exclusive | Classified Report Finds Kristi Noem Created Security Vulnerabilities at Airports Homeland security secretary’s handling of change allowing travelers to keep shoes on at checkpoints fits pattern of incidents that have alarmed some national-security officials.

Exclusive: A classified report found that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem created "significant" risks with a policy allowing passengers to keep their shoes on at airport security

Two thoughts:

1. If you don’t live in or haven’t visited SF in the last few years, I cannot underscore enough enough how big/prominent the AI sector has become to local economy.

2. The Anthropic/DOD battle has the *potential* to cause the greatest DC-Silicon Valley rift since the Snowden fallout.

Trump Administration Moves to Allow Intelligence Agencies Easier Access to Law Enforcement Files “None of this has been thought through very carefully,” one official said of the plans, which upend long-standing restrictions meant to protect Americans’ privacy.

The Trump administration is loosening restrictions on the sharing of law enforcement information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, officials said, overriding controls that have been in place for decades to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Exclusive | Spy Agency Blocks Congress From Seeing Gabbard Whistleblower Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office rejected Democratic efforts to see all the underlying material about a foreign conversation that discussed Jared Kushner.

News: The Trump administration told Congress it won’t share the classified underlying intelligence—a conversation two foreigners had about Jared Kushner—that led to a whistleblower complaint against U.S. spy chief Tulsi Gabbard, citing claims of executive privilege. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Anthropic Accuses Chinese Companies of Siphoning Data From Claude The allegations mirror those made by OpenAI, which told House lawmakers that DeepSeek used ‘distillation’ to improve AI models.

Three Chinese AI companies—DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax—prompted Anthropic's Claude more than 16 million times, siphoning information from its system to train and improve their own products, Anthropic said in a blog post Monday. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

A Defector Explains the Remote-Work Scam Helping North Korea Pay for Nukes Kim Jong Un’s cyber operatives have faked their way into IT jobs at American firms and elsewhere, pocketing big revenue for the regime.

The story of Anton Koh provides a rare window into the tactics of Kim Jong Un’s digital warriors, who have faked their way into remote IT jobs to generate cash for the North Korean regime www.wsj.com/world/asia/a...

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

New story up on the Homeland Security Department’s new tactic: flood social media companies with subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts that criticize ICE or monitor the movements of ICE agents.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

NEW: Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

The government keeps doing it nonetheless.

www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Gabbard Whistleblower Complaint Based on Intercepted Conversation About Jared Kushner The substance of the conversation, which covered in part issues related to Iran, isn’t known.

News: The top-secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

“.. The allegations in the conversation about Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, would be significant if verified, according to other U.S. officials familiar with its contents.”

@wsj.com #SonInLawWatch
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Gabbard Whistleblower Complaint Based on Intercepted Conversation About Jared Kushner The substance of the conversation, which covered in part issues related to Iran, isn’t known.

Breaking WSJ:

The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Gabbard Whistleblower Complaint Based on Intercepted Conversation About Jared Kushner The substance of the conversation, which covered in part issues related to Iran, isn’t known.

News: The top-secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Whistleblower Complaint Addressed Foreign Intelligence Call About Person Close to Trump Call formed a key part of a complaint against Tulsi Gabbard filed last year by a U.S. intelligence official.

New: Whistleblower complaint based in part on NSA intercept of a phone call btwn foreigners discussing a person close to Trump. The call was at least in part about issues related to Iran, sources said.

www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Wyden, a long-tenured Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, frequently offers cryptic public warnings about classified programs—including, famously, the NSA's domestic bulk telephone records program that was later exposed by Edward Snowden

In a statement, CIA calls @wyden.senate.gov's letter referring to deep concerns he has about unspecified CIA activities a "badge of honor."

Congress Receives Redacted Version of Whistleblower Complaint Against Gabbard Significant portions of the document had been blacked out for executive privilege.

New: The Trump admin has disclosed to select lawmakers a classified whistleblower complaint against spy chief Tulsi Gabbard, but significant portions were redacted due to claims of executive privilege, according to people familiar with the matter www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Exclusive | Classified Whistleblower Complaint About Tulsi Gabbard Stalls Within Her Agency Congress hasn’t seen the complaint, which was filed eight months ago with the U.S. intelligence community watchdog’s office.

".. Disclosure of its contents could cause 'grave damage to national security,' one official said. It also .. raises potential claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House, officials said."

@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Exclusive | Classified Whistleblower Complaint About Tulsi Gabbard Stalls Within Her Agency Congress hasn’t seen the complaint, which was filed eight months ago with the U.S. intelligence community watchdog’s office.

A Gabbard spox denies the allegations as "baseless and politically motivated" and said she is working to figure out a secure way to transmit the highly sensitive complaint to lawmakers. It is likely only top very top lawmakers may be eligible to see it.

www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

NEWS: A whistleblower complaint filed 8 months ago alleges wrongdoing about Tulsi Gabbard but has been stalled within her own agency from reaching Congress. The complaint is extremely classified, may involve "executive privilege" and is currently locked in a safe, sources say.

Exclusive | Spy Chief Tulsi Gabbard Is Hunting for 2020 Election Fraud The director of national intelligence earlier this week joined the FBI search of an election center in Georgia.

New: Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is leading an administration-wide effort to probe the 2020 election for fraud and regularly briefing Trump and top White House officials on her progress. Officials are discussing EOs on voting ahead of midterms.

www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

Exclusive | Trump Has Complained About Pam Bondi Repeatedly to Aides The president has privately criticized his attorney general as weak and ineffective in recent weeks.

President Trump has complained to aides repeatedly in recent weeks about Attorney General Pam Bondi, describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda, administration officials and other people familiar with his complaints said. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

News: A recent classified CIA assessment concluded Maduro loyalists were more likely to maintain near-term stability than opposition figures if Maduro was removed from power. Trump was briefed on the findings, which motivated posture against Machado. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Inside Operation Absolute Resolve, the U.S. Incursion That Deposed Venezuela’s Maduro President Trump and his top advisers had for months telegraphed their plans to take down Nicolás Maduro. And yet, when it happened, Washington and Caracas were stunned by the ferocity and speed of the...

At 10:46 Friday night, “Operation Absolute Resolve” was a go. Inside the months of secretive planning that brought an end to Maduro’s rule. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

CIA Team in Venezuela Since August Tracked Maduro’s Whereabouts Before Capture A Central Intelligence Agency team on the ground in Venezuela since August collected “extraordinary insight” into Nicolás Maduro’s daily activities, according to people familiar with the matter. The C...

CIA Team in Venezuela Since August Tracked Maduro’s Whereabouts Before Capture
www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Slowly but surely, workers are surrendering some of the WFH freedom that once eased them into and out of the weekend.

www.wsj.com/lifestyle/wo...

Chinese Spies Hit More Than 80 Countries in ‘Salt Typhoon’ Breach, FBI Reveals The campaign also touched some 600 companies, and went beyond conventional espionage, an FBI official says.

New: China’s historic Salt Typhoon hack targeted >80 countries, reaching across globe to a far greater extent than initially understood + let spies to surveil global movements of U.S. citizens. “It should really set off alarm bells for all Americans,” FBI cyber chief says www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

A Failed Microsoft Security Patch Is the Latest Win for Chinese Hackers The path to a worldwide hacking campaign began with a contest for cash and a free laptop.

“They are too big to keep failing like this." Inside Microsoft's faulty patch that opened the door to another Chinese cyber espionage operation.

www.wsj.com/tech/cyberse...

How to Spot North Korean Scammers in the American Workforce: Look for Minions References to the yellow agents of evil and other ‘Despicable Me’ characters are telltale signs of swindlers infiltrating U.S. companies

North Korean IT workers are bound by a few defining characteristics: total devotion to Dear Leader Kim Jong Un, a penchant for stealing cryptocurrency and an obsession with Minions, the cuddly yellow agents of evil from “Despicable Me.” www.wsj.com/lifestyle/no...