Washington Post

The White House sought to dis­tance it­self from re­ports that President Donald Trump is con­sid­er­ing an ex­ec­u­tive ord­er that would sub­ject tech giants like Facebook, Goo­gle and Twitter to federal in­ves­ti­gat­ions into al­leged po­lit­i­cal bias. For weeks, top tech com­panies have been on edge, fear­ing that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion could seek to regu­late the in­dus­try in re­sponse to the president’s tweets at­tack­ing so­cial media sites for si­len­cing con­ser­va­tives online.

The White House has “authorized offensive cyber operations” against US adversaries, in line with a new policy that eases the rules on the use of digital weapons to protect the nation, said National Security Adviser John Bolton. “Our hands are not tied as they were in the Obama administration,” Bolton said when unveiling a new national cyber strategy. He did not elaborate on the nature of the offensive operations or what specific malign behavior they were intended to counter.

A major technology company has been telling senators and their staffers that their personal email accounts were targeted by foreign hackers, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, claimed in a letter to leaders. He used the letter to question why the Senate sergeant-at-arms did not have a clear mandate to help protect the personal accounts and devices of senators and their staffers as well as the official ones. “This approach must change to keep up with changing world realities,” Sen.