National Security and Foreign Affairs

The State Department has approved a resumption of weapons sales that critics have linked to Saudi Arabia's bombing of civilians in Yemen, a potential sign of reinvigorated U.S. support for the kingdom's involvement in its neighbor's ongoing civil war.

The proposal from the State Department would reverse a decision made late in the Obama administration to suspend the sale of precision guided munitions to Riyadh, which leads a mostly Arab coalition conducting airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

There is a need for more technical expertise by lawmakers in Congress to address increasing privacy and security issues raised by internet-connected devices, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) told Bloomberg BNA in a video interview.

As one of only four members of Congress with a computer science degree, Lieu said he is working to make "cybersecurity one of the top priorities" for the U.S.

Just off your tinfoil hat because if WikiLeaks is to be believed, paranoia is perfectly natural. Julian Assange's whistle-blowing site published thousands of documents Tuesday it says reveal how the CIA hacks computers, smartphones and even TVs.

Your TV may be listening.

The crusading website WikiLeaks published thousands of documents Tuesday it says detail CIA tools for hacking into web servers, computers, smartphones and even TVs that can be turned into covert microphones.

The website claims the CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal," more than several hundred million lines of code that provide "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA."

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Cali.) is calling for an investigation into how thousands of secret documents - including CIA hacking tools - ended up in the hands of Wikileaks.

"I am deeply disturbed by the allegation that the CIA lost its arsenal of hacking tools," said Lieu in a statement.

Tuesday morning, Wikileaks published an archive of files including descriptions of hacking techniques used to turn targets' cell phones and televisions into surveillance devices.

Wikileaks said the documents came from a secure CIA network.

WikiLeaks on Tuesday began publishing what it claims is the CIA's secret "hacking arsenal" that reveals how the intelligence agency transforms smartphones, computers and internet-connected televisions into spying devices.

The cache allegedly comes from the agency's Cyber Intelligence Center, potentially spilling into the public domain an unprecedented amount of information about the CIA's electronic snooping. WikiLeaks called it the "largest ever publication of confidential documents" about the agency.

WikiLeaks on Tuesday dumped thousands of documents it said came from the CIA's cyber espionage department, a catastrophic breach that exposes sophisticated covert tools for hacking everything from computers to TVs to popular social apps.

The release is the first in a series called "Year Zero" that involves 8,761 documents and files from the spy agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Va., the group said.