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Leaked Pentagon Documents: What You Need To Know
(CTN NEWS) – Less than a week has passed since the Pentagon launched a full-speed damage control effort to reassure allies and determine the extent of the leak following revelations of highly classified military documents on the Ukraine war.
The information on numerous slides has revealed potential flaws in Ukraine’s air defence capabilities and exposed covert assessments by allies on various intelligence issues.
This has led to concerns about whether the leak will damage allies’ confidence in the U.S. as a source of information or impact Ukraine’s plans to step up its conflict with Russia this spring.
According to a top Pentagon spokesman, the exposed documents pose a “very serious risk to national security” as a whole.
This article examines the nature of the documents, how they may have surfaced, and their possible consequences.
WHAT DO THEY DO?
The sensitive documents, none of which have been personally authenticated by U.S. officials, cover a wide range of topics, from briefing slides outlining Ukrainian military positions to evaluations of international support for Ukraine and beyond.
How many documents were leaked is not known with certainty. About 50 documents have been read by the Associated Press, although some estimates place the amount at hundreds.
WHERE DID THEY ORIGINATE?
Nobody is certain, not even the head of the Pentagon.
“We don’t know where they were on the web, who had access at that time, or where they were exactly, but they were there. At a press conference on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated, “We just don’t know.
“Until we determine the cause of this and its scope, we will keep looking into this and turn over every stone.”
It’s probable that the leak began on the Discord chat platform.
Discord is a popular social media site among online gamers.
The Discord website advertises itself as a location “where you can belong to a school club, a gaming group, or a worldwide art community” and offers real-time audio, video, and text conversations for groups.
Members would discuss the dispute in Ukraine in one of those forums, which were initially designed to discuss a variety of subjects.
One chat participant reported that a person who went unnamed posted documents that the poster claimed were categorised by first typing them out in the poster’s own words and then sharing photographs of folded sheets as of a few months ago.
The individual who claimed to be a forum member informed The Associated Press that another individual, known only online as “Lucca,” released the documents in a different Discord discussion.
They seem to have spread from there till the media took them up.
Many aspects of the tale cannot be confirmed right away. Furthermore, senior American officials openly admit they are still seeking solutions.
WHAT HAS BEEN DISCLOSED
The revelation of the leaks has brought to light how meticulously the United States keeps an eye on how its friends and allies deal with China and Russia.
Authorities in a number of nations have refuted or dismissed claims made in the exposed information.
According to the AP, American intelligence agencies discovered Russian operatives’ assertions that they were establishing stronger ties with the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich Middle Eastern country that is home to significant American military sites.
The UAE denied the charges, which referred to them as “categorically false.”
According to a Monday article in The Washington Post, the president of Egypt instructed his deputies to discreetly prepare to provide up to 40,000 rockets to Russia as it continues its conflict in Ukraine.
Egypt is remaining “noninvolved in this crisis and committing to maintain equal distance with both sides,” according to a representative for the Egyptian foreign ministry.
Other information has been leaked, including claims that South Korean officials were reluctant to provide artillery shells to Ukraine and that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency disagreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to reform the court.
The U.S. intelligence agencies, which receive $90 billion in funding annually, have broad authority to intercept electronic communications, employ spies, and use satellite monitoring.
Even in limited form, the effects of those powers are rarely displayed in public.
U.S. REACTION
To determine the impact of the leak on national security, the Pentagon has started an internal assessment.
Milancy D. Harris, the deputy undersecretary of defence for intelligence and security, is in charge of the review, a defence official told the Associated Press.
According to the official, members of the team come from the offices of legislative affairs, public affairs, policy, legal counsel, and the joint staff.
According to a second defence official, the Pentagon is likewise moving fast to limit who has access to briefings. Both officials talked under the condition of anonymity in order to talk about private issues.
The locations where the stolen slides are “being posted and amplified” are also being actively watched by Pentagon authorities, according to Chris Meagher, assistant secretary of defence for public affairs.
A separate criminal inquiry into how the presentations were acquired and leaked has been launched by the Justice Department.
William Burns, director of the CIA, described the leak as “deeply unfortunate” on Tuesday.
In remarks at Rice University, he stated that “the U.S. government takes it extremely seriously.” The Pentagon and the Department of Justice have now commenced a thorough inquiry to find out what happened.
WHAT’S THE IMPACT?
Senior military officers have been in touch with allies to deal with the consequences. This means making high-level phone calls to reassure them of our dedication to protecting intelligence and loyalty to our security alliances.
According to Meagher, these discussions started over the weekend and are still ongoing.
When U.S. officials travel to Germany next week for the next contact group conference, where representatives of more than 50 countries come together to arrange weapons and aid supplies for Ukraine, they are sure to encounter more inquiries.
But according to a senior defence official who spoke to The Associated Press anonymously to discuss sensitive issues, neither the meeting nor the allies’ willingness to continue supporting Ukraine militarily are expected to be impacted by the document leak.
Chris Skaluba, director of the Atlantic Council’s transatlantic security initiative, predicted that many allies will be more interested in learning why it occurred.
The leak raises concerns as to who “would have that much of an agenda to put it out there,” and whether the intention was to erode support for Ukraine, Skaluba added, given the high-level security clearance required to obtain the information in the first place.
Austin spoke with Lee Jong-sup, the defence minister of South Korea, on Tuesday to discuss the leaked documents.
Several of the documents were particularly sensitive to Seoul because they detailed American surveillance of its ally and South Korea’s concerns about sending weapons directly to Ukraine.
A “considerable number” of the stolen documents were falsified, the two defence chiefs agreed, according to Kim Tae-hyo, a deputy national security director, who was speaking to reporters.
He claimed that the leak wouldn’t have any impact on the two nations’ alliance and that South Korea will work to further bolster its partnership with the US.
Additionally, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made contact with their Ukrainian colleagues. Austin said on Tuesday that the leaks would not significantly affect Ukraine’s preparations for a spring attack.
The strategy of Ukraine “will not be guided by a precise blueprint. They have a fantastic plan to begin with, but only President Zelenskyy and his leadership truly know the specifics of that plan, according to Austin.
The lack of air defence munitions in Ukraine is one of the sensitive issues mentioned in the leaked slides.
U.S. military leaders have been pressuring allies to provide whatever systems they can, including the Iris-T systems pledged from Germany and the U.S.-manufactured Hawk air defence systems provided by Spain.
“Making the apparent anti-aircraft missile deficit public could reassure Russia. Kyiv will be appreciative if it encourages Ukraine’s allies to quicken the delivery of missiles and other air defence assets.
The bigger ‘known unknown’ is how much these leaks affect American political backing for Ukraine, according to Ben Barry, senior fellow for ground warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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