Surveillance, freedom of speech, civil liberties
With the advent of the National Security State many articles related to surveillance, freedom of speech, and civil liberties appear routinely. Links provided.
John Kiriakou | Hillary Clinton Email Investigation Shows Inherent Unfairness in U.S. Justice System
First, I want to be clear that I’m not angry at Hillary Clinton personally. I don’t like Hillary. I don’t support her. I don’t trust her. I don’t think she would be a good or trustworthy president. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is the inherent unfairness in the system.
Chris Hedges | Kshama Sawant: How to counter establishment politics (On Contact video)
Chris Hedges | Kshama Sawant: How to counter establishment politics (Video interview)
John Kiriakou | Obama Should Demand FBI Director James Comey’s Resignation Today
The FBI’s ongoing, long-term incompetence has led to the deaths of far too many Americans. San Bernardino and Orlando are only the beginning. If the FBI can’t do its job, if its only counterterrorism successes are when it entraps hapless idiots who don’t know any better and who never had any intention of committing a terrorist act, it should be scrapped.
VIDEO Chris Hedges | Days of Revolt: Militarizing Education
O'Brien: less than 100 people have degrees in Middle Eastern studies. Further to that, less than 1 percent identify themselves as Arab linguists. So this whole prevalent, common notion that after 9/11 the national security community had a boots-on-the-ground about-face and was interested in human intelligence, in human collection of intelligence, as well as language and cultural studies, is absolutely false.
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Campaign 2016 as a Demobilizing Spectacle
As the American people were demobilized from war and left, in the post-9/11 era, with the single duty of eternally thanking and praising our "warriors” (or our "wounded warriors”), war itself was being transformed into a new kind of American entertainment spectacle. In the 1980s, in response to the Vietnam experience, the Pentagon began to take responsibility not just for making war but for producing it.
John Feffer | Mouths Wide Shut: Obama’s War on Whistleblowers
Feffer: in basement offices in Washington, DC, secure locations in northern Virginia, and listening posts in suburban Maryland, the high priests and priestesses of a secretive cult are quietly toasting the president for a very different legacy: his fierce defense of a lawless and destructive fraternity that has only grown more powerful on his watch.
Tomgram: Karen J. Greenberg, The Mass Killer and the National Security State
Greenberg: Given the staggering array of tools granted to the national security state domestically since 9/11, it’s a wonder (not to say a tragic embarrassment) that such killings occur again and again. They are clearly not being prevented and at least part of the reason may lie in the national security state’s ongoing focus on “counterterrorism,” that is, on Islamic extremism.
▶ James Bamford on the NSA • Henry A. Wallace National Security Forum
The NSA began in absolute secrecy and has remained that way most of it’s life. How does an institution like exist within the framework of an open society and is it a threat to the very values it claims to be protecting?
Behind the Curtain: A Look at the Inner Workings of NSA’s XKEYSCORE
From the article: Around the world, when a person gets online to do anything — write an email, post to a social network, browse the web or play a video game — there’s a decent chance that the Internet traffic her device sends and receives is getting collected and processed by one of XKEYSCORE’s hundreds of servers scattered across the globe.
William Boardman: USA Police State Celebrated as Defense of Freedom
Boardman: The mindless rush to reinstate government police powers undreamed of in the Constitution was a bitterly comic charade of American democracy. Some now celebrate the USA Freedom Act as “a cultural turning point for the nation.” Others condemn the USA Freedom Act as “a significant weakening of the tools” to protect the country. People on all sides claim to “welcome the debate” on national security.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act Expires in June. Is Congress Ready?
You may have heard that the Patriot Act is set to expire soon. That’s not quite the case. The Patriot Act was a large bill, as were the reauthorizations that followed in 2005 and 2006. Not all of it sunsets. But three provisions do expire on June 1st: Section 215, the "Lone Wolf provision," and the "roving wiretap" provision.