Exposing the NSA: A Public Service Worthy of a Pulitzer Prize

Earlier this week, journalism's most prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize for public serice, was given to two newspapers for their exposés of mass surveillance by the U.S. government. The award citation praised the Washington Post for "its revelation of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, marked by authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security.” The Guardian was recognized for "aggressive reporting" that helped "to spark a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy.”

Pulitzer Prize Winners 2014: Edward Snowden NSA Leaks, Boston Marathon Coverage Win Awards

President Obama wants NSA to come clean about Heartbleed-like bugs

Leak suggests NSA can keep schtum about software bugs that may benefit its activities, but must disclose details about everything else

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Stuxnet, the malware designed by the United States and Israel, used four zero-day vulnerabilities to cripple Iran’s nuclear program.

Lavabit case undermines claims NSA had Heartbleed early

If the NSA really did have Heartbleed "for years" as was claimed recently by Bloomberg news, they wouldn't need to go after Lavabit. They wouldn't even want to.

Snowden-inspired crypto-email service Lavaboom launches

Lavaboom, a German-based and supposedly NSA-proof email service, will go into private beta this week. Its mission is to spread the Edward Snowden gospel by making encrypted email accessible to all.

‘Zero knowledge privacy’: NSA-proof email service goes online

A new email service that protects its users from the prying eyes of the NSA and other spy agencies has gone online. The service’s creators say it will make encrypted messaging accessible to all and curtail internet snooping.

Germany-based Lavaboom was inspired by Lavabit, the encrypted email service that was believed to have been used by whistleblower Edward Snowden before it shut down its operations in August last year. The service pioneers a new system called “zero-knowledge privacy”, which allows users to personally encrypt and decrypt their mail from their browsers using JavaScript codes.

Lavabit loses contempt of court appeal over Edward Snowden encryption keys

Court ruled against Lavabit for refusing to hand over encryption keys to government investigation into NSA whistleblower

Edward Snowden Email Firm Loses Appeal On Contempt Charge

Here's the software that helps Edward Snowden avoid the NSA

Edward Snowden hasn't escaped the NSA's watchful eyes purely by exploiting lax security -- he also uses the right software. He communicates with the media using Tails, a customized version of Linux that makes it easy to use Tor's anonymity network and other tools that keep data private. The software loads from external drives and doesn't store anything locally, so it's relatively trivial for Snowden and his contacts to discuss leaks without leaving a trace.

Has the European Court of Justice just holed Obama’s NSA data gathering reform?

The European Union (EU) Data Retention Directive was adopted in 2006, following terrorist bombings in London and Madrid, two incidents that created a political climate that allowed supporters to push through legislation in only 3 months. Getting laws passed in the European Commission can drag on for years.

NSA whistleblowers to speak at WCU

Bill Binney and Thomas Drake, both former executives with that agency, plan to discuss their views on the collection of personal data by the NSA as well as the risk taken by those who expose wrongdoings and violations of the law, according to a release from the university.

NSA has ‘piggybacked’ on corporate surveillance efforts

As online providers thrive on offering free products and services in exchange for marketing data, government has started piggybacking on these surveillance mechanisms.

The IRS is Taking a Page From the NSA's Playbook and Snooping on Social Media

According to Marketplace the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which loses an estimated $300 billion due to tax evasion every year, is using data from social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in order to investigate those who don't file taxes or file suspicious returns.

Is the NSA out of control?

An attorney and specialist on Constitutional Law, Shahid Buttar, was the third panel member. He is the Executive Director of the “Bill of Rights Defense Committee.” Buttar traced the history of government-sanctioned spying and warned that the NSA’s egregious conduct has currently reached Orwellian proportions and is a serious threat to “Freedom of Thought”

U.S. drone strike kills New Zealander, Australian in Yemen

New Zealand and Australia were drawn into the global debate on drone strikes Wednesday after confirming that a citizen from each country had been killed in U.S. strikes in Yemen.

Drone strike that killed Kiwi justified - expert

A security analyst has backed the killing of a New Zealander in Yemen at the hands of the CIA, saying if he was a member of al-Qaida, then he was a legitimate target.

Australian, New Zealand citizens killed by US drone strike in Yemen

Gordon Campbell: drone strikes & Judith Collins‘ last stand

Reportedly, US drone operators refer to their kills as "bug splat” - mainly because when the carnage is viewed on their screens thousands of kilometres away at home, it looks like an insect strike on a windscreen. The name has even been bestowed on the software used in the system. Since at least 900 innocent citizens in Pakistan have been killed in drone attacks, one of the local responses has been to create a huge art installation work called “Not a Bug Splat” that - if seen from the air - would require US drone operators to see the face of a Pakistani child killed by their activities.

Malala Yousafzai: when a teenage ambition to change the world might actually work

Perhaps, also, her advisers and family believe she is protected by the glare of the international spotlight. One can only hope they are right. Although the history of Pakistan suggests otherwise, maybe it is unwise to underestimate the girl who told US President Barack Obama to his face that his use of drones in her country was wrong.

Fuel-filled wings, ability to swarm: Pentagon offers glimpse at future of drone fleet

The Pentagon is laying out a road map for the future of its drone fleet, which includes unmanned planes with fuel-filled wings that can fly more sophisticated weapons systems to more isolated hot spots and smaller drones capable of operating in unison to swarm an enemy.

The Killer Drone Goes Stealthy—Just in Time for a New Cold War

Why Marvel's 14-Year Movie Plan Should Cause Concern For Warner Bros.

A testament to clever (some say subversive) storytelling, the film has Captain America and his superhero allies responding to a deeply infiltrated and corrupted SHIELD by standing against illegal incursions into foreign territories, protesting NSA-style surveillance on U.S. citizens, and thwarting drones designed to preemptively strike at national and international targets without due process. Our heroes even pull off a WikiLeaks-style information dump of SHIELD secrets—all without stirring the ire of audiences on the political right.

PM unsympathetic to al Qaeda militant killed in drone strike

There are reports the man was "collateral damage" as the US targeted a key terrorist leader, but that makes little difference to the Prime Minister.

Haunting Instagram Series Shows What Drone Attacks Would Look Like in the West

Here’s What Drone Attacks in America Would Look Like

If U.S. citizens knew how it felt to be targeted by deadly flying robots, it might shape domestic attitudes toward the Obama administration’s drone program. Artist Tomas Van Houtryve is using video and photography to foster that discussion by putting average Americans under drone-like surveillance.

PM 'believes in death penalty' - Greens

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman has accused the Prime Minister of supporting unlawful executions following revelations a Kiwi was killed in a US drone strike.

'New low' for Prime Minister John Key- Greens

U.S. Efforts to Arm Jihadis in Syria: The Scandal Behind the Benghazi Undercover CIA Facility

In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the assault by a local militia in September 2012 on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others. The report’s criticism of the State Department for not providing adequate security at the consulate, and of the intelligence community for not alerting the US military to the presence of a CIA outpost in the area, received front-page coverage and revived animosities in Washington, with Republicans accusing Obama and Hillary Clinton of a cover-up.

America’s Great Leap towards Global Tyranny

Not only is there a quantitative difference now, there is a new qualitative difference. After the holocaust of Vietnam (3 million dead Vietnamese justify the term), the United States military realized that it could no longer depend upon citizen-soldiers in its colonial wars. It also realized that that it could no longer tolerate even a moderately free press nosing around its battlegrounds, thus was born the idea of an imbedded press in a professional army. Of course, in the intervening years, America’s press itself changed, becoming an intensely concentrated corporate industry whose editorial policies are invariably in lock-step over colonial wars and interventions and coups, almost as though it were an unofficial department of government. In addition, this corporatized press has abandoned traditional responsibilities of explaining even modestly world affairs, reportage resources having been slashed by merged corporate interests as well as by new economic pressures on advertising revenue, the result of changing technologies.

Why isn't the K.C. shooting suspect a 'terrorist?'

Frazier Glenn Cross is a former KKK leader with political ambitions accused of killing three people outside Jewish centers. The shooting seems to fit the Justice Department’s definition of terrorism: 1) premeditated, 2) political, 3) aimed at civilians, 4) and not carried out by another nation. And yet, this has been classified as a hate crime.

US Air Strike Kills Three Civilians in Eastern Afghanistan

An overnight US air strike against the Khost Province in eastern Afghanistan has killed three civilians, a woman and her two children. It also injured the father of the children.

Militias and mayhem: The truth about American military assistance in Libya

Is the U.S. secretly training Libyan militiamen in the Canary Islands? And if not, are they planning to?

That’s what I asked a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). “I am surprised by your mentioning the Canary Islands,” he responded by email. “I have not heard this before, and wonder where you heard this.”

As it happens, mention of this shadowy mission on the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa was revealed in an official briefing prepared for AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez in the fall of 2013. In the months since, the plan may have been permanently shelved in favor of a training mission carried out entirely in Bulgaria. The document nonetheless highlights the U.S. military’s penchant for simple solutions to complex problems — with a well-documented potential for blowback in Africa and beyond. It also raises serious questions about the recurring methods employed by the U.S. to stop the violence its actions helped spark in the first place.

Too High A Price

Why we need to #movethemoney out of the military and into healing people and the planet

Putin Jokes on Possible Reunification of Alaska with Russia: Who Needs It?

Russian President Vladimir Putin jokingly commented on a suggestion of unifying Alaska with Russia the same way as with Crimea. Alaska was part of Russia until 1867 and was sold to the United States for $7.2 million in gold.

Why CIA Director Brennan Visited Kiev: In Ukraine The Covert War Has Begun

Ukraine is on the brink of civil war, Vladimir Putin has said, and he should know because the country is already in the midst of a covert intelligence war. Over the weekend, CIA director John Brennan travelled to Kiev, nobody knows exactly why, but some speculate that he intends to open US intelligence resources to Ukrainian leaders about real-time Russian military maneuvers. The US has, thus far, refrained from sharing such knowledge because Moscow is believed to have penetrated much of Ukraine’s communications systems – and Washington isn’t about to hand over its surveillance secrets to the Russians.

CIA Directs Kiev Proxy Regime to Launch Military Assault against Rebels in Eastern Ukraine

CIA director in Kiev searching for missing mercenaries

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov revealed that CIA director John Brennan was in Kiev last weekend. One of his advisors told the newspaper Vzgliad that Brennan had not come to oversee the "anti-terrorist" operations conducted by the Ukrainian authorities, but to seek information and rescue twenty Greystone Ltd mercenaries of whom there has been no news.

CIA presence in Ukraine gives the wrong impression, senator warns

CIA Director John Brennan visited Kiev this weekend as pro-Russian militants seized control of a police station in eastern Ukraine. The reason for Brennan’s visit is still unknown.

Newly Revealed Portions Of CIA Torture Manual: Doctoring Tapes, Foreign Detentions & Interrogating ‘Defectors’

A tape player could free an interrogator from note taking, the CIA’s experts wrote, while also providing a live record of an interrogation that could replayed later. The manual’s author noted that for some of those interrogated, “the shock of hearing their own voices unexpectedly is unnerving.”

Details emerge from secret CIA torture report

In the 6,600-page report, it has also been revealed that the CIA operated a 'back site' torture facility at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where according to Al Jazeera America's Jason Leopold, “at least 10 high-value targets were secretly held and interrogated” at various times from late 2003 to 2004.

CIA chief must defend agency

CIA Director John Brennan is trapped — caught between the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is accusing his agency of lying about the effectiveness of its terrorist interrogation program, and his boss, President Barack Obama, who has told Brennan directly that he does not want him to defend the program.

CIA to take lead in censoring report that criticizes the CIA

CIA Allegedly Used Red Hot Chili Peppers Music To Torture Guantanamo Inmate

Songs from the Red Hot Chili Peppers would allegedly be blasted at excessively loud volumes on a constant loop in order to disorientate Abu Zubaida, a detainee at a black site prison being operated out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Guantánamo judge to CIA: Disclose ‘black site’ details to USS Cole defense lawyers

Secret CIA prison in Poland revealed

The truth was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been operating the prison secretly for many years. The purpose was for “rendition”, which is code for international kidnapping of people around the world. Most probably the final destination for many of these prisoners was Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where the US maintains a military prison, just outside the legal authority of the US constitution.

COMMENTARY: CIA torture report ought to disturb all our consciences

The report is said to describe how “CIA doctors monitored the prisoners’ body temperatures” for hypothermia as they were continuously covered with ice water, ensuring that their temperatures would not drop to the point of death so they could be tortured again. Reportedly, the torture got so bad at a “black site” prison in Thailand that “CIA employees left the agency’s secret prison after becoming disturbed by the brutal measures employed there.”

Letters: No amnesty for CIA torturers

Jeffrey H. Smith, a former CIA general counsel, predictably thinks that agency officers who conducted waterboarding and other acts of torture should not be prosecuted for "activities that were properly authorized and executed."

Those in the Bush administration and the CIA who authorized and carried out torture and other illegal acts should not hide behind dubious "legal" opinions written by people who knew or should have known the actions were illegal under U.S. and international law.

Digging out of the CIA-Senate quagmire

TMZ: Only US Television Program to Cover Latest Report of CIA Using Music to Torture Detainees