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In the case of Amber Vinson, the Dallas nurse who flew commercially as she was becoming ill with Ebola, one health official said “somebody dropped the ball.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Vinson called the agency several times before flying, saying that she had a fever with a temperature of 99.5 degrees. But because her fever wasn’t 100.4 degrees or higher, she didn’t officially fall into the group of “high risk” and was allowed to fly.

Officials in the U.S. have been trying to calm fears over the Ebola crisis, but time and again events have overtaken their assurances.

In August, before the first U.S. infection, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said: “We’re confident that we have the facilities here to isolate patients, not only at the highly advanced ones like the one at Emory, but really at virtually every major hospital in the U.S.”

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Why would a soldier obey a commander-in-chief who sends you on a mission which has nothing to do with our country’s security and puts your life in jeopardy? If your pResident said to jump off a cliff, would you do it? It is not the duty of a serviceman to provide humanitarian aid to foreign countries. I understand that volunteers could serve in this capacity: that is their choice.

At some point, the epidemic in West Africa will not be contained. The first step is to recognize when this point will happen. Or actually to recognize that this point has already been reached. Even if a humanitarian effort could succeed (it will not), the numbers involved are not realistic based on WHO’s projections of infection. So why are we putting our sons and daughters in harm way for no reason?

I have no faith in this pResident and I see no honor in our military leaders who are sacrificing our soldiers as political fodder.

David DeGerolamo

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In an unprecedented move to protect U.S. troops that might be exposed to Ebola, U.S. military commanders are being given the authority to quarantine troops for 21 days at a Defense Department facility where they will be monitored for signs of the disease and treated if they do contract the virus, a Defense Department memo explained.

The memo, which was obtained by CNN, spells out the details of the military’s plan for the first time.

It does not reveal the location of the facility, but one U.S. official said it may be a site in the Washington, D.C. area. The quarantine will apply to troops evacuated from West Africa, if it is determined they have an elevated risk of exposure to Ebola.

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The second health-care worker diagnosed with Ebola had a fever of 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit before boarding a passenger jet on Monday, a day before she reported symptoms of the virus and was tested, according to public health officials.

Even though there appeared to be little risk for the other people on that flight, she should not have traveled that way, Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a news conference Wednesday.

“She should not have flown on a commercial airline,” Frieden said.

This health-care worker flew on a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth with more than 130 other passengers. She did not have nausea or vomit on the plane, so the risk to anyone around her is “extremely low,” Frieden said.

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by Bill Gertz

The National Security Agency should not be restricted from using software holes in overseas spying following disclosure Tuesday that Russian hackers conducted a major cyber espionage campaign using a flaw in Microsoft Windows, a former NSA official says.

The security firm iSight Partners, in cooperation with Microsoft, revealed Tuesday that sophisticated Russian hackers working for the Moscow government conducted the cyber spying campaign against NATO, a U.S. government agency and European countries using a previously unknown “zero day” flaw in the widely-used operating system.

The company called the Russian hacker group behind the cyber spying the “Sandworm Team” that has been active since 2009. The group’s use of the Windows flaw was detected last month, the company said in a statement on the flaw.

“We are actively monitoring multiple intrusion teams with differing missions, targets and attack capabilities,” the statement said. “We are tracking active campaigns by at least five distinct intrusions teams.”

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