In Brief: Russia Reverts to Typewriters; A Switch Down Under; Immigration Blow

Following the recent NSA spy scandals in the U.S., Russia’s Federal Guard Service has reportedly decided to go back to using more typewriters and paper documents.

The FSO, which protects Russia’s top officials and Kremlin communications, recently ordered 20 Triumph Adler typewriters, according to the newspaper Izvestia.

"After the scandal with the spread of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the revelations of Edward Snowden, reports of listening to Dmitry Medvedev during his visit to the G20 summit in London, the practice of creating paper documents will increase," an unidentified FSO source tells Izvestia.

One major reason for using typewriters is that each creates its own unique "signature" that can be traced, the newspaper says.

"From the point of view of ensuring security, any form of electronic communication is vulnerable," Nikolai Kovalev, an MP and former head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, told Izvestia.

THE U.S. presence in the northern Australian city of Darwin will rise from its current 250 troops to 1,000 next year and eventually to 2,200, granting a full Marine Expeditionary Unit an effective base of operations.

The move will likely annoy China, which has already expressed its disapproval of Australia’s agreement to base Marines at the port closest to the People’s Republic, AOL Defense reports.

The news was announced during a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies by the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos on the future of the maritime force.

WHEN House Republican leaders announced on Wednesday that the chamber would not take up a Senate-passed immigration bill, it came as a blow for U.S. defense companies.

House Speaker John Boehner’s office released a statement from the chamber’s GOP leadership that announced the lower chamber will pursue immigration policy changes in a "step-by-step" manner, Defensenews.com reports.

That means that the nearly $40 billion provision added to the Senate’s immigration bill that called for massive spending in new hardware, such as surveillance aircraft and sensors, now may not happen.