NSA spies on lovers’ emails

More revelations have emerged that despite the NSA’s claims of strict safeguards to prevent abuse of its spying capabilities, the it systematically violated its pown privacy requirements in thousands of cases and committed even more illegal acts, with a judge ruling back in 2011 that the NSA had also been deliberately misleading the courts about what it has been doing. What a surprise! This information emerged as a result of the declassification of some documents in the wake of the uproar over what the Snowden revelations told us about the government spying on its own citizens. [Read more…]

Another harrowing tale of the dangers of flying while brown

A few days ago I linked to a story of Kadra Abdi, a young Somali-American woman who was profiled and harassed by immigration authorities on her return from a trip to Sweden. Now comes along an even worse story of TSA harassment on a domestic trip of Aditya Mukerjee, a young man of Indian origin. Mukerjee gives detailed account of his ordeal. [Read more…]

Interesting development in the propaganda war

Whenever whistleblower reveals government actions, especially those that seriously embarrass the government, their reaction is that they are angry because the leaks have endangered nation al security and/or put people’s lives at risk. This was dutifully picked up by the lapdog media and trumpeted far and wide. This was the charge made against Chelsea Manning and then against Edward Snowden. But at Manning’s trial, the prosecution could not make the case that her revelations had actually put people’s lives at risk. [Read more…]

We need more Mannings and Snowdens

So Bradley Manning will go to jail for telling the world what the US government is doing. I suspect that it was his release of the Collateral Murder video, in which US troops in a helicopter gunship shot people (including two Reuters journalists) walking along a street and then also gunned down passersby who stopped to help the wounded, all the while exchanging gleeful comments and congratulations at this act of cold-blooded murder, that triggered the desire by the Obama regime to have him punished as severely as possible. They now have their pound of flesh from Manning and seek to get the same from Edward Snowden. [Read more…]