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UK spy powers draw US scrutiny over alleged Apple encryption backdoor demand
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U.K. surveillance laws drew scrutiny from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio June 5 amid warnings they could expose communications of officials and American citizens, according to reports.
The concern centered on the U.K.’s use of secret Technical Capability Notices under the Investigatory Powers Act, which critics say could make U.S. companies weaken encryption or create «backdoors» weaken encryption or create «backdoors» while preventing firms from disclosing requests without U.K. government approval.
Critics have argued this could undermine privacy, create vulnerabilities and limit congressional oversight with one former intelligence official warning of a «standing invitation to Beijing.»
«We have already seen how this ends,» former Department of Defense official Andrew Badger told Fox News Digital.
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Rep. Jim Jordan said Republicans are «the party of common sense,» and Democrats are «the party that takes these crazy positions.» (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
«There are legitimate privacy concerns here, and those have been well aired. The less examined issue is national security,» Badger said.
«A backdoor compelled by one ally becomes a standing invitation to Beijing, Moscow and Tehran so once one government can quietly compel access, others will demand the same, and a one-off concession hardens into a permanent vulnerability,» he warned.
According to the Telegraph, a June 5 letter sent by Jordan to U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, showed the Trump ally had called for a review.
The report said Mahmood’s decision had been to deny a U.S. company permission to speak with Congress about an alleged encryption backdoor notice.
Jordan was also said to have warned that a lack of bilateral coordination raised concerns about the «trust and effective partnership between our two countries.»
«Five Eyes works because every partner trusts the others not to weaken the systems they all depend on,» Badger, co-author of «The Great Heist: China’s Epic Campaign to Steal America’s Secrets,» said.
«If Washington also concludes that U.K. surveillance powers could inadvertently expose Americans and American officials to espionage, it puts real strain on the relationship and makes future cooperation on intelligence and cyber harder to sustain.»
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The Thames House headquarters of MI5 in London on Nov. 18, 2025. Britain’s domestic security service has warned of growing state-backed threats, including more than 20 Iran-backed plots uncovered in the UK, as lawmakers consider new legislation targeting foreign state-linked groups. (Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On the encryption issue, Badger noted that mainstream encrypted platforms now function as «de facto infrastructure for sensitive communication well beyond the consumer market.»
«Any access point built into them becomes a permanent target. It is not a private key the requesting government gets to keep to itself,» he said.
U.S. and British cyber officials have also repeatedly warned that an axis of hostile states — including Russia, China and Iran — poses threats to Western security and infrastructure.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, cyberespionage by groups such as Salt Typhoon, linked to China, has carried out operations targeting sensitive communications.
«China is actively running one of the largest state-backed cyberespionage operations ever uncovered. The Salt Typhoon campaign has targeted hundreds of organizations across roughly 80 countries and, through those intrusions, gained access to sensitive communications and networks used by senior Western officials,» Badger warned.
«Chinese state hackers didn’t defeat encryption. They walked straight through the lawful-intercept systems telecom providers had built, reaching the communications of senior officials and even information about surveillance targets.»
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The flag of China is flown behind a pair of surveillance cameras outside the Central Government Offices. (Roy Liu/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Reports also surfaced that U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper used a burner phone during a recent trip to Beijing and raising further concerns about state-sponsored espionage.
Badger noted that the episode reflects a broader pattern of Chinese targeting of British democratic institutions, including the «hacking of senior Downing Street officials’ phones and an Electoral Commission breach that exposed the data of roughly 40 million voters,» he said.
«The telling thing is that no one issues burner phones for a trip to Sweden or Germany,» he said.
«The precaution is itself an admission of the threat environment. The working assumption — correctly — is that anything digital taken into China should be treated as potentially compromised.»
The systemic vulnerability also highlights a fundamental contradiction in Western diplomatic strategy, according to Badger.
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«This case perfectly underscores the contradiction at the heart of the U.K. Labour government’s China policy: chasing positive economic relations and expanded trade with Beijing on one hand, while being forced to take elaborate precautions against a state whose core interests remain fundamentally at odds with its own on the other,» Badger said.
«You can’t simultaneously treat China as a trusted economic partner and a hostile intelligence threat. It’s a fundamental contradiction. The need to use burner phones symbolically underscore this.»
national security, cybercrime, uk politics, privacy, united kingdom
El Banco Central de República Dominicana(BCRD) reportó que la inflación interanual alcanzó el 5.35 %, superando el rango meta oficial, lo que ha impactado de manera directa en los bolsillos de las familias dominicanas. De acuerdo con datos del propio Banco, este aumento en el costo de vida se produce en un contexto internacional marcado por el encarecimiento de los combustibles y la presión sostenida en los precios de productos alimenticios de consumo masivo.
Según el Banco Central de República Dominicana, el incremento observado por segundo mes consecutivo en la inflación interanual responde principalmente a los ajustes en los precios de la gasolina y el diésel, medidas adoptadas por el Gobierno dominicano tras los aumentos internacionales del petróleo, consecuencia de las tensiones geopolíticas en Oriente Medio.
La entidad monetaria detalló que la inflación acumulada entre enero y mayo de 2026 fue de 1.50 %, mientras que la variación mensual registrada en mayo fue de 0.31 %, cifra menor a la de abril, que había sido de 0.49 %. El rango meta que las autoridades fijan para la inflación es de 4.0% ± 1.0%, lo que significa que el dato de mayo se sitúa por encima de lo esperado por los responsables de la política económica.
El BCRD atribuye la reciente presión inflacionaria a factores exógenos, especialmente el alza en las cotizaciones del petróleo, que ha repercutido en el costo de los combustibles y, en consecuencia, en el precio final del transporte y de los productos básicos. En abril, la inflación anual ya había llegado al 5,11 %, según datos del Banco Central recogidos por la agencia, lo que marcó el nivel más alto en tres años.
De acuerdo con el portal Trading Economics, la inflación en República Dominicana ha mostrado una tendencia ascendente en los primeros meses del año, con un promedio histórico mucho mayor, pero con una clara aceleración desde marzo de 2026. El índice de precios al consumidor (IPC) reflejó en abril una variación mensual de 0.5 %, mientras que la inflación acumulada en 2026 alcanzó el 1.2 %. La entidad financiera internacional detalló que la inflación subyacente, la cual excluye los componentes más volátiles de la canasta familiar, se ubicó en 4.87 % para el mes de abril, dentro del rango objetivo de la política monetaria.
El impacto de la inflación se ha sentido con especial fuerza en la canasta básica familiar dominicana. De acuerdo con cifras oficiales, el costo promedio nacional de la canasta básica aumentó de 46,570.70 a 48,746.66 pesos en el último año, es decir, un alza absoluta de 2,175.96 pesos dominicanos, equivalente a una variación del 4.67 %. El aumento afecta principalmente a los hogares de menores ingresos, que destinan una mayor proporción de su presupuesto a alimentos y servicios esenciales. Entre los productos con mayores incrementos en el precio destacan el café, el agua purificada, los refrescos, los aguacates, los ajíes, el bacalao, las naranjas, la yuca, los limones agrios y los tomates.
El Banco Central también informó que, dentro de la canasta básica, los rubros de transporte y bebidas alcohólicas y tabaco mostraron subidas importantes. El transporte registró un aumento del 5.3 % en los precios, en línea con los incrementos internacionales del petróleo. En contraste, los precios de la ropa y el calzado disminuyeron un 1.4 % respecto al año anterior.
El presidente Luis Abinader garantizó recientemente que no habrá más aumentos en los productos básicos, luego de reuniones con representantes del sector empresarial. El mandatario explicó que el Gobierno mantiene un diálogo abierto con los principales actores económicos para evitar nuevas alzas y proteger el poder adquisitivo de las familias dominicanas.
El Banco Central de República Dominicana comunicó que mantiene una vigilancia permanente sobre la inflación subyacente, con el objetivo de orientar adecuadamente la política monetaria y mitigar el impacto de la volatilidad en los precios internacionales sobre la economía doméstica. Las autoridades económicas insisten en que el comportamiento de la inflación sigue de cerca los movimientos del mercado internacional de combustibles, que continúan representando un reto para la estabilidad de los precios internos.
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WATCH: Hearing turmoil as Jasmine Crockett unloads on MLK’s niece in wild racially-charged rant
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Rep. Jasmine Crockett erupted at Republicans, calling them a «majority… White» party and accusing them of using a member of Martin Luther King Jr.’s family as a prop to shield themselves from allegations of racism while interrogating the Southern Poverty Law Center’s funding of hate groups.
Crockett, who is leaving office next year after a failed Senate bid, lambasted Republicans for expressing outrage at the SPLC while not addressing the «literal elephant in the room» — a reference to Martin Luther King Jr.’s more conservative niece, Alveda King.
Crockett disparaged civil rights activist Alveda King as a right-wing prop while accusing Republicans of trying to trick the public into thinking a «Doctor King» was criticizing the SPLC’s work. King later questioned whether Crockett was calling her a «bastard» of the King name.
«The vast majority on that side of the aisle… are White men. White men are lecturing people of color because the vast majority, actually any semblance of diversity comes from this [Democratic] side of the aisle,» Crockett said.
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She said people of color don’t feel welcome in the GOP and «that’s why you have to parade someone who has the name ‘Doctor King’ attached to them so people can be confused.»
Notably, GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt, a fellow Black Texan, was on the committee’s dais and pointedly questioned SPLC leader Bryan Fair earlier in the day. Hunt often rebukes talk of race-based partisanship by quipping that he has been «Black my entire life.»
Crockett said Republicans were hypocritical in accusing the SPLC of funding hate groups, citing a debunked assertion about President Donald Trump’s comments following the 2017 White supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
She noted Trump had said there were «fine people on both sides,» but omitted that he later clarified he was referring to a community group opposing the removal of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s statue, a gathering that occurred before the neo-Nazi violence erupted later that day.
Crockett then claimed people on social media were wondering who the «Doctor King» was who was speaking out against the SPLC as the hearing progressed, and that Republicans were trying to make the public think the historic Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be on their side.
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Crockett said Republicans would be better served calling the Obama-supporting Martin Luther King III or his sister Bernice King to the hearing — suggesting they understand the civil rights icon’s teachings and positions better than Alveda.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, speaks at a public forum on the use of force by Department of Homeland Security agents at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)
Before her time expired, she accused King and Republicans of «caping» for murdered activist Charlie Kirk — quoting a controversial statement by the Turning Point USA founder about the Civil Rights Act.
She also claimed Republicans hauled Fair and King before the committee because they wanted to distract from their failure to hold a hearing examining associates of deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
When House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, gaveled-out Crockett’s time and passed the floor to Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., the Republican gave King a chance to respond.
«I am a bit emotional,» King said of what Crockett had claimed. «I’m going to watch what I say.»
Crockett did not appear to look back at Alveda King and was briefly seen closing her notebook as she prepared to stand up.
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President Donald Trump listens to Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during a meeting with inner city pastors at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1, 2018. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
«It seems as though you (Crockett) have suggested that I am bastard to the King family legacy. I am legitimately the daughter of Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams King and Dr. Naomi Ruth Barber King,» Alveda King said.
Rev. A.D. King was Martin Luther King Jr.’s brother.
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«We are a family who loves God. And I love you, God bless you,» King said before yielding back to Fry.
Fry then announced that, off-camera, Crockett had quickly left the room before King could substantively respond to her remarks.
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