War on Terror
- Blast from the Past: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war—"Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members." And Britain too.
- Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit
- Judge blasts FBI over Saudi family investigation
- Anti-terror surveillance law used in Iowa grain spy probe—"Investigators used a law designed to eavesdrop on foreign spies and terrorists when they probed Chinese seed company officials suspected of stealing trademark hybrid corn from Iowa."
- Government breaches at all-time high, press blunder under-reports by millions—"This is one of those articles that spoils your faith in mankind. Not only are government security incidents fully into holy-cow territory, the press is reporting numbers three magnitudes too low because someone misread a chart and everyone else copied that report."
CIA Torture Report
- Senate votes to release parts, not whole, of torture report—"Select aspects of the lengthy Senate report on CIA torture will be made public. The whole thing should be released." Salon
- Declassify: The Importance of Releasing the CIA Torture Report—"Unless a Senate committee votes to release the 6,300-page document, the Bush Administration's illegal, ineffective interrogation policies are bound to return."
- Leak the CIA report: it's the only way to know the whole truth about torture—"Unless, of course, you think spies redacting 6,300 pages of their own sins is transparency. Look how much leaks told us this week."
- State Department Official Freaks Out That Declassifying CIA Torture Report Might Make The World Angry
- Michael Hayden Says Dianne Feinstein Too 'Emotional' To Be Objective On Intelligence Report
- U.S. senator gets so angry at Cheney's torture defense that he offers to waterboard him
- Pelosi: Former VP Dick Cheney 'set the tone' for the CIA's use of torture
- Liz Cheney, Juan Williams Clash Over CIA Torture Report
- Tony Blair 'knew all about CIA secret kidnap programme'—"Former British PM was 'fully briefed' on CIA's interrogation programme after Sept 11 attacks."
- Jon Stewart Rips Cheney, Rumsfeld For Taking America 'Back To The Torture'
- It's Time the CIA Gets Some Serious Oversight
- Using the 'Top Secret' Stamp to Hide Lies and War Crimes—"By letting the CIA vet the torture report, the White House and Congress are giving Americans a new reason to have contempt for an illegitimate classification system."
Drones
- Suit challenging drone strikes that killed Americans, 16-year-old boy is tossed—"Judge says drone killings are US military and president's prerogative."
- Artists install massive poster of child's face in Pakistan field to shame drone operators
- Triathlete injured by "hacked" camera drone—"Operator claims someone 'channel hopped'control away." Who can say with 100% certainty armed military drones can't be hacked as well?
Cuban Twitter
- US Secretly Created 'Cuban Twitter' to Stir Unrest
- #CancelCastro: Why Is U.S. Policy Toward Cuba So Absurd?
- The Fall of Internet Freedom: Meet the Company That Secretly Built 'Cuban Twitter'
- Secret 'Cuban Twitter' program poses challenge for bloggers and exiles—"Finding that program funded by USAid could be damaging to groups working to increase access to technology, say analysts."
- The "Cuban Twitter" Scam Is a Drop in the Internet Propaganda Bucket
NSA Spying
- Snowden Speaks: A Vanity Fair Exclusive—"The most significant leaker in recent history spoke with Vanity Fair for an exclusive, comprehensive story about his life."
- Edward Snowden: US government spied on human rights workers—'Whistleblower tells Council of Europe NSA deliberately snooped on groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International."
- Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald address US campaigners via video—"Whistleblower and journalist warn human rights activists of dangers of NSA collection of metadata." Such as there being "no legal means currently exist to challenge such activities or to see penalties for such abuses."
- Snowden to Receive Truth-Telling Prize—"Edward J. Snowden and the journalist Laura Poitras, who helped him disclose the documents on government surveillance, will receive a Ridenhour prize." NYT
- DOJ Apologizes For Misleading FISC Concerning Evidence; Hints Strongly That It Used Opportunity To Destroy Evidence
- If President Obama wanted the NSA to quit storing phone metadata, he'd act now—"Obama's pen, not Congress, could stop NSA bulk telephone metadata collection immediately."
- Supreme Court passes on NSA bulk phone surveillance case—"Case will head to appeals court first, but will likely end up with the Supremes."
- NSA logs reveal flood of post-Snowden FOIA requests | Al Jazeera America
- Merkel ally says U.S. assurances on NSA spying 'insufficient'
- How Much Is NSA Spying Costing In Lost Productivity?
Surveillance and Privacy
- Assange: US Annexed Whole World Through Surveillance
- As gov't discusses expanding digital searches, ACLU sounds caution—"Proposed changes not 'minor'—'it is a major reorganization of judicial power.'"
- Big Brother's Facebook: UK, US intelligence 'infiltrating' social media
- Mohamed Mohamud deserves new trial due to 'unconstitutional' surveillance, lawyers argue
- EU court rules against requirement to keep data of telecom users
- Yahoo fixes Flickr invitation bug that leaked real names and email addresses—"Privacy flaw on photo sharing website initially dismissed as ‘working as designed’ and not making sensitive data available."
- FireChat's anonymous, off-grid messaging app arrives on Android
- Google Chrome bug: To Listen Without Consent – Abusing the HTML5 Speech
- Critical crypto bug in OpenSSL opens two-thirds of the Web to eavesdropping—"Exploits allow attackers to obtain private keys used to decrypt sensitive data."
- Big Data Is A Civil Rights Issue
Tech Cases
- The inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz—"More than a year after Swartz killed himself rather than face prosecution, questions about MIT's handling of the hacking case persist." Despite all their claims of neutrality, "e-mails illustrate how MIT energetically assisted authorities in capturing him and gathering evidence — even prodding JSTOR to get answers for prosecutors more quickly — before a subpoena had been issued." In related news, one artist is printing 250,000 pages of pirated JSTOR documents, in Tribute to Aaron Swartz
- Former Yahoo employee alleges he was harassed, threatened and lost job because of online interactions—"Ross Dmochowski, a 42-year-old tech professional, was unprepared when his online chats resulted in a bomb threat under his name that brought FBI agents to his Livermore home -- and contributed to his getting fired in September from his $120,000-a-year job at Yahoo."
- Barrett Brown Signs Plea Deal in Case Involving Stratfor Hack—"Barrett Brown, whose case became a cause célèbre after he was charged with crimes related to the Stratfor hack, has agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors, according to court filings." Complete with a gag-order... sigh.
Censorship
- Australia: Border Protection forces Facebook content removal through Twitter
- Google Appeals Turkey YouTube Blackout WSJ
- Philippines: Inching Toward Censorship
- Net Censors Arrested In China For Taking Bribes To Delete Unflattering Posts As Well As The 'Harmful' Ones
- US plan to end ICANN oversight could lead to 'Net censorship, lawmakers say
Press
- NSA Uses Corporate News to Spread Propaganda and Silence Dissent
- The Blade, pair of journalists who were held file FBI complaints
- Legal Schnauzer blogger freed from jail after 5 months; had been held on contempt charge
CNN and MH370
- CNN's Missing Plane Coverage Turns Up Garbage—In more ways than one.
- CNN, what do you even do anymore?—"Jon Stewart mocks CNN for its continued non-news coverage of Flight MH370." Salon
- Larry King Calls CNN's MH370 Coverage "Abysmal" While Ripping Networks' Use Of "Breaking News"—Bread and circuses.
- CNN 'Breaking News' 31 Days After MH370 Vanished: 'Families Frustrated by Media Coverage'
- Fox News Host Defends CNN's Plane Coverage: It's Not Just For The Ratings
