07.13.14
Links 13/7/2014: KDE Activity Surge
Contents
GNU/Linux
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Kernel Space
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Linux Kernel 3.2.61 LTS Officially Released with Support for New Devices
According to the changelog, Linux kernel 3.2.61 is a quite big release that introduces better support for the x86, ARM, PowerPC, s390 and MIPS architectures, improves support for the EXT4, ReiserFS, Btrfs, NFS and UBIFS file systems, fixes random networking and sound issues, and includes a plethora of updated drivers (Wireless, InfiniBand, USB, ACPI, Bluetooth, SCSI, Radeon and Intel i915)
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Applications
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MPV 0.4.1 MPlayer-Based Video Player App for Linux Released
MPV, an open-source video player application for Linux kernel-based operating systems, forked from the well-known MPlayer software and designed to be as lightweight as possible, reached version 0.4.1.
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Proprietary
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Dropbox 2.11.0 for Linux Brings a Revamped User Interface
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Dropbox 2.11 Got A Rewritten GUI. How To Install The Dropbox 2.11 Client On Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
The latest version available is Dropbox 2.11.0 (unstable), which has been released a while ago. Among others, it comes with a rewritten graphical user interface, file identifiers, new splash screens and a new headless setup for Linux systems. For more information, see the official changelog.
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Instructionals/Technical
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zivot: Still not the great game of ‘Life
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Bonus: Z is for zapped
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zonecheck: Check your zone, friend
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Manual disk partitioning guide for Deepin 2014
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Raspberry Pi web server tutorial
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create stylish screenshots with screenie
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Net-SNMP installation and configuration
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Obtain Linux kernel module information with modinfo
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Understanding Linux Security : /etc/passwd & /etc/shadow file
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Zoneminder CCTV tutorial
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Install The Drivers For The Most Popular Gamepads On Ubuntu 14.04 And Configure The Keys As You Like
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How To Install The NVIDIA 340.24 Driver On Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.04 And Derivative Systems
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How To Install Pale Moon 24.6.2 On Linux And Import Your Firefox Profile To Pale Moon
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Wine or Emulation
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Games
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Kickstarter Find: After Reset sci-fi RPG for Mac, PC and Linux
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Developer Teases With Darksiders On Linux Screenshot
We have good news for those of you who like action-adventure hack and slash games as we have a neat screenshot of Darksiders running on Linux!
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NS2:Combat FPS Reveals Plenty Of Footage, Coming Soon To Linux
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Unreal Engine 4 Now Has Linux Demo Games To Try
Thanks to the community a bunch of demo games built in Unreal Engine 4 now work on 64bit Linux, so give it a try! The current Unreal Engine only supports 64bit Linux, so remember that if you plan to try the test games.
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Retrobooster A Skill Based Survival Shooter Released On Steam, Our Thoughts
Retrobooster has just released onto Steam and brings with it skill based old school gameplay as you pilot your ship through caves trying not to bounce off too many walls and explode, oh and it’s bloody hard too.
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Worms Clan Wars Looks Like It’s Heading To Linux
Worms Clan Wars a reasonably high rated Worms game looks like it will come to Linux thanks to info taken from the excellent SteamDB.
I sitll have very fond memories of playing Worms on my old Amiga 600 with my brother and friends when I was younger, as back then it was easily one of the best games around.
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Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition (Steam) Works with Wine 1.7.22
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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green processes: multiple process architectures for everyone
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Support for Javascript prototypes and QML directory imports
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Kate C++ Helper plugin release 1.0.2
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Plasma Active on Qt5/KF5: Launcher
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Upcoming changes in the next plasma-nm release
It’s been 3 months since the last plasma-nm (Plasma networkmanagement) release and we have been working really hard to bring you again a better release than the previous one. Unlike previous releases, this one is focused on internal changes which are not mostly noticeable on the outside, but I believe they are welcomed.
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Tags Left Sidebar supports new action now
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Awesome people!
You might have seen that KDE has a new Konqi drawing. Like our previous mascot, you don’t see Konqi very often. That is not just because we don’t love Konqi (at least, I do) but also because we don’t have that many pretty pictures of Konqi.
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QmlWeb is not dead
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Frameworks 5.0 is out!
As I blogged before, I think this is a huge deal for Free Software on desktops AND mobile devices – it goes far beyond the KDE community. Qt is by far the largest Free Software ecosystem doing native (non-web, I mean) end-user software, but much of that is proprietary. Which makes sense – Digia and the other companies in and around Qt have to make money and don’t have ‘spreading Free Software’ as their prime goal. Frameworks introduces a genuine FOSS touch to that, hopefully bringing many of these developers in touch with the KDE community and the Open Source development processes.
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KDE Telepathy for Plasma 5 – helping was never easier
The first release of Plasma 5 is after years of active development finally just around the corner. But where is KDE Telepathy for Plasma 5 standing you ask? Well, a bit behind.
We have started with porting and have the basic applets moreless ready to be used, but that’s just a small part of the whole suite. The contact list, the chat application, the system integration module and all other parts needs to be ported to offer a good IM experience with Plasma 5. And we want to offer that.
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GSOC 2014 KDE KPeople AddressBook Status
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The one donation you will want to make today
In the first week of August 45 KDE people will meet at Randa in the Swiss mountains. They will spend a week of their free time and an uncountable amount of passion and dedication to work on free software. It needs money to bring them together and make the best out of their energy. You can help. We are running a campaign to make this happen. It ends today. Please donate now.
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Randa Fundraiser: The countdown is ticking
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Only 34 hours left…
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Building Converging UIs
On the Frameworks, one can soon expect to see releases of KDE’s Plasma Workspaces. A Technology Preview of Plasma 2 has already been released and this ambitious project has not lost any of its goals. Today, I noted that ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wrote about what he expects from Ubuntu in 2014. There, he quotes Jono Bacon talking about formfactor convergence. And the intarwebs are full of people making jokes that Microsoft is copying Ubuntu with their single UI for multiple devices. But let’s not forget where they got their ideas…
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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GtkInspector Moves Along For GTK Debugging
The latest GtkInspector code now supports showing more information, a style properties tab for widgets, property editor improvements, and a ton of other changes.
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Meld 3.11.2 Diff and Merge Tool for GNOME Has Been Released
Meld, an open-source file/folder diff and merge graphical software designed for the GNOME desktop environment, has reached version 3.11.2. This is a development release geared towards Meld 3.12 and includes a couple of new features, updated translations and many bugfixes.
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Distributions
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Screenshots
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Red Hat Family
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Scientific Linux 7.0 Alpha 2 Is Ready For Testing
he second alpha release to Scientific Linux 7.0 is now available for user testing.
Succeeding the initial Scientific Linux 7.0 Alpha from earlier this month is the second alpha that has various package updates / fixes for this OS that’s derived from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 code-base.
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Scientific Linux 7.0 x86_64 ALPHA 2
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Red Hat Extends Support, VMware Integration for OpenStack Platform
An updated support lifecycle, enhanced virtual machine support, improved workload distribution and more are part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) OpenStack Platform 5, the latest release of Red Hat’s (RHT) enterprise cloud computing solution.
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Fedora
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When Fedora Installations Pay Better
Even if I use Fedora I usually install Ubuntu in other people computers. The reason is the awesome Ubuntu distro upgrade plus the also awesome USC that has pretty much every application that is available for Linux.
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Debian Family
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APT 1.0.6 Has Been Released. How To Install APT 1.0.6 On Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems
While APT 1.0 brought the following new features: apt list, apt search, apt show, apt update, apt install, apt remove, apt full-upgrade, app edit-sources, APT 1.0.6 (the latest version available) also brings some changes, mostly bug-fixes. For information about this release, see the official announcement.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Upstart 1.13 Is Now Available for Download
James Hunt has announced yesterday, July 11, the immediate availability for download of version 1.13 of the powerful Upstart init system for Ubuntu-based operating systems, which introduces assorted bugfixes and improvements.
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This Feisty Linux Company Has An Interesting Plan To Topple Android
Canonical is a 650-employee software company best known for its version of the Linux operating system. Now its rich-and-famous, dare-devil founder, Mark Shuttleworth, is trying to re-create Canonical into the next Apple, knocking Google Android out along the way.
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Mir 0.5.0 For Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn Is Under Works
The latest stable version available is Mir 0.4.0, released a while ago, coming with a surface attribute for visibility, some improvements to the Mir Server code and a surface orientation API, among others. Also, the development of Mir 0.5.0 has already started, the developer getting it prepared for Ubuntu 14.10.
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Ubuntu 12.04.5, Using The Kernel And Graphics Stacks Of Ubuntu 14.04, Will Be Released On The 7th Of August
While Ubuntu 12.04.4 has been released in February 2014, Ubuntu 12.04.5 is about to come in less than a month, being scheduled for the 7th of August. The point releases doesn’t get new features added, only bug-fixes, newer kernels and updated GPU stacks, so that they can run well on newer hardware.
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Flavours and Variants
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Phoronix Test Suite 5.2.1 Adds Support for Linux Deepin
Michael Larabel had the pleasure of announcing a few minutes ago, July 11, the immediate availability for download of the first maintenance release for the 5.2 branch of his popular Phoronix Test Suite benchmarking software.
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Linux Top 3: Distrowatch, Deepin 2014 and the NSA
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Deepin 2014 Has Been Released. And It Looks Awesome!
Deepin 2014 is an interesting release because it uses the Deepin 2.0 Desktop, a lightweight desktop environment developed in HTML5 and GO, and uses Compiz for compositing window management. While it is specially developed for the Chinese users to compete with Ubuntu Kylin, it also comes with 10 languages (including English, Deutsch, French, Espanol) so everybody can use it.
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Chitwanix OS 1.5 Uses a Modified Cinnamon 2.0 Desktop Environment
Chitwanix OS, an Ubuntu-based operating system developed by a group of Linux users from Nepal that uses its very own graphical desktop environment forked from Cinnamon, has reached version 1.5 and it is now available for download.
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Devices/Embedded
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Phones
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Samsung Z mobe a NO-SHOW at Moscow Tizen Developer Summit
Samsung has suffered another setback in its quest to offer the world an alternative to Android, having failed to launch the first smartphone running its Tizen mobile OS as planned.
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6 Upcoming Linux-Based Smartphone Operating Systems That Aren’t Android
Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry 10 aren’t the only smartphone operating systems vying for a place in your pocket. There are other smartphone operating systems in development — and they’re all Linux-based.
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Android
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Android L now available on HTC One
Ever since Google’s I/O event we have been swamped under with L reports. We previously reported of the leaked L features, the L preview and most recently the L ROM developed for the Nexus 4 by the xda guys. It now seems the clever guys at xda have done it again!
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Free Software/Open Source
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Web Browsers
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Breach is a completely modular, hackable and open source web browser
When it comes to surfing the web, our options are limited: the market is dominated by three or four mainstream web browsers, all of which share major similarities in design and function. Unless you want to build your own browsing program, you’re stuck with their modern browsing paradigms. For San Francisco programmer Stanislas Polu, that wasn’t good enough, so, he created Breach — an open source modular web browser designed to allow anybody to tweak and modify it on a whim.
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SaaS/Big Data
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Business
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Semi-Open Source
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Openness/Sharing
Leftovers
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Bill Maher: Liberals Are Useless Obama Hacks [Video]
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Bill Maher: ‘Liberals Are Just Sometimes Useless Obama Hacks
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Maher Slams ‘Useless Obama Hacks’ Over NSA Domestic Spying
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Maher Rips “Useless Obama Hacks” Over NSA Spying: “Liberals Would Be Apoplectic” Under Bush
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Science
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Scholarly journal retracts 60 articles, smashes ‘peer review ring’
The reason for the mass retraction is mind-blowing: A “peer review and citation ring” was apparently rigging the review process to get articles published.
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Health/Nutrition
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Staggering $1.3 Billion Spent to Propagandize About GMO and Chemical-Intensive Foods
However, recent articles on its website and Facebook page paint a picture of industry-biased, agenda-driven organization focused on discrediting public interest organizations, organic companies, media outlets and scientists who question the safety of GMOs and pesticides, or who tout the benefits of an organic diet.
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But the relatively small amount of money spent by the organic industry to support mission-aligned nonprofits is nothing compared to the more than $1.3 billion that the agribusiness industry has spent over the last decade in lobbying and on PR front groups or “industry trade groups” to help spin a story about the safety of chemical-intensive and GMO foods.
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With the proliferation of industry-associated scientists, websites and opinion pieces attacking organic agriculture and spinning their narratives about the safety of chemical-intensive GMO foods, reporters and the public must probe deeper and question the real motives behind these so-called “independent” sources of information.
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Security
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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Periscope:ISIS is a Terrorist Organization with Distinction
The Soviet Union can be blamed with justifications for many things but not the creation of Islamic extremists’ terrorists groups and movements which is a registered trade mark of the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and its main aim was competing terrorism.
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Jordan reluctant to host U.S.-led Syria rebel training – officials
Jordan, where the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been covertly training Syrian rebels for more than a year, is reluctant to host an expanded rebel instruction program, U.S. officials said.
Jordan’s reticence, confirmed by four U.S. officials, is a potentially serious setback for President Barack Obama’s proposed $500 million initiative, announced in June, to train and arm moderate rebels fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and al Qaeda-linked groups.
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Drone invasion needs regulation
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Cold War Ping-Pong
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A Nation of Cowards?
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Ithaca grandmother given 1 year in jail for drones protest
A grandmother from Ithaca charged in connection with a peaceful drones protest at the Syracuse Hancock Air Base was given the maximum one-year jail sentence on Thursday, according to multiple reports.
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Drone Resister Sentenced to One Year in Prison Base’s Order of Protection Begs Judgement
On July 10, grandmother of three, Mary Anne Grady Flores was sentenced to one year in prison for being found guilty of violating an order of protection. A packed courtroom of over 100 supporters was stunned as she was led away, and vowed to continue the resistance. These orders of protection, typically used in domestic violence situations or to protect a victim or witness to a crime, have been issued to people participating in nonviolent resistance actions at Hancock Air Base since late 2012. The base, near Syracuse NY, pilots unmanned Reaper drones over Afghanistan, and trains drone pilots, sensor operators and maintenance technicians. The orders had been issued to “protect” Colonel Earl Evans, Hancock’s mission support commander, who wanted to keep protesters “out of his driveway.”
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The return of George Orwell and Big Brother’s war on Palestine, Ukraine and the truth
The former US secretary of state and aspiring president of the United States, Hillary Clinton, was recently on the BBC’s ‘Women’s Hour’, the quintessence of media respectability. The presenter, Jenni Murray, presented Clinton as a beacon of female achievement. She did not remind her listeners about Clinton’s profanity that Afghanistan was invaded to “liberate” women like Orifa. She asked Clinton nothing about her administration’s terror campaign using drones to kill women, men and children. There was no mention of Clinton’s idle threat, while campaigning to be the first female president, to “eliminate” Iran, and nothing about her support for illegal mass surveillance and the pursuit of whistle-blowers.
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US losing the message war
What, exactly, does the United States stand for in the Middle East? More important, what would the average Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian or Yemeni say that it stands for? The suggestion that the United States is retrenching might seem absurd, given that Yemenis can hear the buzz of drones overhead.
Day by day, with chaos blossoming, it becomes clearer that if we do have a strategic narrative for the Middle East, we certainly have not articulated it effectively. In marketing terms, we are not making the sale.
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After lull, U.S. drone strikes kill 13 in Pakistan
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Would A Drone Video Game Be As Controversial As They Are In Real Life…
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UN calls for Israel-Gaza ceasefire
The UN Security Council has called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
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Hamas says it fired rockets on Israel
Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, said on Saturday that it fired rockets on the Israeli capital Tel Aviv in the light of a warning a short time earlier.
News channels broadcast the rockets flying in the sky over the Israeli capital live.
Israel’s channel 10 broadcast a rocket falling down in Tel Aviv, but it did not say whether the rocket attack had caused any human or material damage.
The brigades said earlier that it would target Tel Aviv with J80 rockets after 18:00 GMT.
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Gaza home for disabled hit by Israeli missile strike
The pair – one a member of Hamas, the other of Islamic Jihad, according to a neighbour – were not at home at about 4.30am yesterday morning when the strike found its target.
Instead, the missile killed Suha (47) and Ola Wishah (30), two disabled women who were among eight residents of the home run by the Mubaret Philistine charity, which accommodated orphaned and severely-disabled men and women in the building’s ground floor.
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Gaza death toll soars with no end in sight
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Gaza families bear brunt of Israel’s “pinpoint strikes”
The Israeli military’s “pinpoint strikes” on houses in Gaza have killed whole families and children but few of the wanted men they are meant to target because they have long made themselves scarce, Palestinian residents say.
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Gaza civilians waiting ‘for the slaughterhouse’
F., a woman from Rafah, also sees the ball of fire after every air strike. “The whole house shakes,” even when the explosion is far away, she says. Everyone experiences it: An explosion in Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, that cannot even be heard in Gaza City, rocks homes in the Shabura refugee camp. Everyone relates that there are bombers whose approach cannot be heard. Only the explosion itself can be heard, and then the plane as it returns to Israel. In previous rounds, they say, the planes were audible in both directions. The pilotless drones, meanwhile, never stop buzzing.
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Dreaming in Gaza
“I have a dream” said Martin Luther King in 1963 and I, in 2014, say the same. I have a dream to find my people living a life of love and peace. I have a dream to see my young brothers and sisters playing in their backyards not afraid of hearing drones or sudden bombings. I have a dream to see them going to their schools and going back from schools, in one piece. I have a dream to feel safe during my university classes and feel safe in my bedroom at home. But no, that’s not happening. There is no safe place in Gaza. We wake up like any American does, we wash our faces like any French does, we eat our breakfast like any Chinese does; however, we do not enjoy the silence of the mornings like they do. There is always a drone buzzing in our heads, there is always an ambulance siren ‘wewing’ rushing to rescue an injured or take a chopped to pieces body to the morgue. The dream of a good life is that of any human being living on this planet. It is not a crime, it is not a felony, and it is definitely not a violation of any law.
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UN Questions Legality of Israeli Airstrikes After Gaza Death Toll Passes 100
The United Nation’s is raising questions about the legality of Israeli airstrikes, claiming that they may violate international laws on the targeting of civilians.
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UN: ground combat now leading cause of conflict-related civilian casualties in Afghanistan
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Critics blast Israel for strikes on Gaza houses that claim civilian lives
The Gaza Health Ministry said that 89 people had been killed, many of them civilians, and more than 600 had been in injured since the start Tuesday of the Israeli offensive against the Islamist militant group Hamas and allied factions.
Volleys of rockets from Gaza continued to hit Israel, with at least one intercepted over Tel Aviv. Air-raid sirens sounded at Dimona in southern Israel, the site of the country’s main nuclear reactor. Two Israeli soldiers were reported wounded by mortar shell fragments.
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US prepares for Iraq
On July 9, CNN spread the news that the U.S. is planning to attack the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, with drones. The American press has also created the impression in the last few days that Washington might conduct an airstrike soon. Within this context, I was in Washington last week to grasp what the Obama administration is planning with regard to Iraq and Syria.
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Israel-Gaza conflict: Home for disabled hit in Beit Lahiya
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Targeting Gaza with leaflets and bombs
The call came to the mobile phone of his brother’s wife, Salah Kaware said. Kaware dlives in Khan Younis, in southeast Gaza, and the caller said that everyone in the house must leave within five minutes, because it was going to be bombed.
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Corporate armies, drone terrorism, laser weapons – MoD’s vision of future
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US Drone Strike Destroys House, Kills Six in North Waziristan
It is the first US drone strikes against Pakistan in almost a month. The June 11 attacks killed 16 people at two sites in North Waziristan, and again none of the victims were ever identified.
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Frightening insight
Who is behind all this murkiness, this sabotage, this destabilisation of the world: Bahrain, the GCC, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are all targeted. President Putin, a former intelligence officer, is fighting very hard against this force, but I see that he has recently decided to back down. Obviously he has been warned of further action against him by these forces. It would be a fight that he, and Russia, would lose, but I have confidence that Mr Putin will find a way to maintain his vision of the world and its corruption and ruling elite.
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Camp X: Secret Agent School traces CIA roots to Canadian spy school
The spy school was established by a covert British intelligence organization in partnership with the Canadian government. The British had a vested interest in training the Americans in intelligence gathering, but couldn’t do it on American soil since the U.S. had not yet entered the war. Camp X Canadian location solved this problem; it opened just a day before the U.S. was forced into the war by the bombings of Pearl Harbour in December 1941. This set up Camp X as “a place of great importance for winning the war effort,” said Trojian.
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Canada had secret spy school
It’s hard to imagine an empty field in Whitby, Ont., was once a “deadly school for dirty warfare.”
That description opens History Channel documentary Camp X: Secret Agent School, which tells the story of an unlikely training ground for Canadian, British and American Second World War spies – some of whom went on to become the founding members of the CIA.
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Iraq Will Solve Itself When We Leave It Alone
President Obama recently sent a small contingent of American troops back into Iraq in order to support a weak and corrupt Iraqi regime that has been losing territory to a group of rebel fighters known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The ISIS is a spin-off of the rebel fighters that have been allied with the American CIA in its covert war against Syria. Interestingly enough, groups like ISIS are labeled “rebels” when they fight for America and “terrorists” the moment they cross the line. The lesson in all of this is the same one that has been repeating itself time and again over the last half century in the Middle East: interventionism causes more problems than it solves. The latest drumbeat for even more war is being banged on behalf of the American puppet-democracy in Iraq, and the American government is doing what it does best: refusing to mind its own business. Is it possible that the United States could ever return to a foreign policy that involves the legitimate defense of the United States and its territories – nothing more, nothing less? This would cost less, achieve more, and facilitate peaceful relationships. Here are three reasons to stay utterly uninvolved with Iraq.
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CIA Facility Expanding In Iraqi City
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Nobel Peace Laureates Slam Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth for Refusal to Cut Ties to U.S. Government
HRW’s proximity to Ms. Power damages HRW’s stated independence in light of her declarations that “the United States is the greatest country on Earth,” “the leader in human rights,” and “the leader in human dignity.” Shortly after leaving HRW, Malinowski similarly lauded the “bipartisan consensus for America’s defense of liberty around the world” and the “exceptional” nature of the United States at his own September 24, 2013 confirmation hearing.
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HRW Documents 255 Prisoner Executions in June; 96 Killed in Iraq Friday
A “secret” but well-known C.I.A. station adjacent to Arbil’s airport, in Kurdistan, is undergoing an expansion. Locals say that they have been hearing what they believe to be U.S. drones operating out of the facility.
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New Court Orders Signal More Drone Documents Are on the Way
For more than four years of Freedom of Information Act litigation concerning the government’s targeted-killing program, the government managed to avoid releasing a single document in response to requests filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and reporters for the New York Times. That changed with a federal appeals court’s release, just more than two weeks ago, of the July 2010 Office of Legal Counsel memorandum that authorized the killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen. Now, two separate rulings issued this week in the same case—New York Times Co. v. Department of Justice—make clear that additional releases of information are likely to be on the way. Together, the two court orders mean that the district court will proceed almost immediately to evaluate and prepare additional OLC memoranda for public release and will, perhaps shortly thereafter, decide whether the government must make public additional documents relating to the legal and factual bases for the government’s targeted-killing program.
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North Korea takes case against Rogen film to UN
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N. Korea files complaint over Seth Rogen film
“To allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war,” Ja wrote, according to Reuters, which saw the letter.
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North Korea Files Complaint With U.N. About ‘The Interview’
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North Korea Complains to the U.N. Over James Franco and Seth Rogen’s THE INTERVIEW
In the film, Franco and Rogen portray talk show host and producer who are recruited to try to kill the Korean leader. A letter was sent on June 27 to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam. The complaint references the film not by name but by this plot, which Ja Song Nam says “involves insulting and assassinating the supreme leadership.”
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Wentworth/My Turn: Meddling in the Ukraine
Since WWII, our nation has been illegally meddling in affairs of other countries (a U.N. Charter violation). Steve Weissman, writing for Reader Supported News, points out that the State Department controls the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development, a well-known CIA front, as well as other private groups like Freedom House that set up shop in western Ukraine a decade ago. State even bought a radio station.
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Disinformation: A Deliberately Devious Word
The CIA’s style guide makes a careful distinction between misinformation and disinformation
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The October Surprise Was Real
Wilson’s closest business associates included current and former high-ranking officials of the Pentagon and the CIA who would later be implicated in the Iran-Contra arms deals.
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Transparency Reporting
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The nomads of the digital age
Governments, militaries, corporations, banks: They all stand to lose the control they exert over society when information they suppress runs free. Yet some of the most ardent advocates for the free Internet have become targets of these very institutions, forced to live on the run, in exile or, in some cases, in prison.
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WikiLeaks: Bringing the First Amendment to the World
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Murder, human rights abuse and kidnapping: WikiLeaks cables reveal Prabowo’s brutal past
Gerindra party candidate Prabowo Subianto rose to military power under the autocratic Suharto administration, which ruled Indonesia for more than 30 years. Rising through the ranks of Kopassus, the Indonesian special forces, Prabowo soon developed a reputation for brutal and uncompromising tactics in putting down perceived threats to Suharto’s authority. Although they later divorced, Prabowo’s marriage to Suharto’s daughter Titiek bound him closer to the regime and gave him the resources he would later channel towards his bid for political office.
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WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Responds to Hillary Clinton: Fair U.S. Trial for Snowden “Not Possible”
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Julian Assange on WikiLeaks, Snowden and His New Bid for Freedom
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DN! Goes Inside Assange’s Embassy Refuge to Talk WikiLeaks, Snowden and Winning Freedom
In a Democracy Now! special, we go inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interview Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He has been holed up there for more than two years, having received political asylum. He faces investigations in both Sweden and the United States. In the U.S., a secret grand jury is investigating WikiLeaks for its role in publishing a trove of leaked documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as classified State Department cables. In Sweden, Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct, though no charges have been filed. Late last week, there was the first break in the latter case in two years, when a Swedish court announced it would hold a hearing on July 16 about a request by his lawyers for prosecutors to hand over new evidence and withdraw the arrest warrant. In the first of a two-part interview, Assange discusses his new legal bid in Sweden, the ongoing grand jury probe in the United States, and WikiLeaks’ efforts to assist National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
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Wikileaks ‘Whistleblower’: Ex-Julius Baer Banker Rudolf Elmer Charged With Violating Secrecy Laws
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Swiss banker charged over Wikileaks breach
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Swiss ex-banker charged with giving data to WikiLeaks
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Ex-Swiss Banker Charged With Giving Data to WikiLeaks
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Former Swiss Banker Charged With Giving Client Data to WikiLeaks
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Switzerland: Former Banker Is Charged
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Celebrities monkey around with UK tax schemes
‘secret database’ of aggressive tax planners leaked to British newspaper
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Former Swiss banker charged with giving data to WikiLeaks
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Finance
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The 1 Percent’s Increasingly Popular Way of Buying Whatever They Want Before We Can—Online Scalping
Yep, the fact that there’s now an app for scalping restaurant bookings rubbed some people the wrong way. Of course, it could be that the critics were just jittery and irritable from too many days of wondering whether an eviction letter was about to arrive in the mail, but still: Even such a normally Silicon Valley-friendly tech press outfit as TechCrunch was impelled to decry the rise of the new “JerkTech.” When TechCrunch tells you to “go disrupt yourself,” it’s probably time for bleeding edge entrepreneurs to take a long hard look in the mirror.
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Switzerland: From Banking Paradise To Data Safe Zone
Swiss vaults have held treasures ranging from Nazi gold to Wall Street fortunes. Now they might become the guardians of the 21st century’s most precious asset. Think thick steel doors, timed locks, biometric sensors — all virtual, of course.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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WSJ’s Noonan’s Conspiracy Theory: Obama Deliberately Brought On Child Migrant Crisis To Pass Immigration Reform
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Republican Party for sale to highest bidder
The general public that expects our news organizations to tell the truth and nothing but the truth find out this is not always so and even lying is part of it.
Local newspapers like the Herald will always try to please the local sentiment, knowing where the money comes from to keep it going. A.P. Napolitano entitled his book, “Lies the Government Told You,” seemed to know about that subject.
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Kochs back Pompeo in GOP primary battle
A bitterly contested Republican congressional race unfolding in south-central Kansas is testing the political influence of big corporate money in the backyard of two billionaire brothers who have poured millions into races across the nation to advance their agenda of low taxes and less regulation.
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Verizon Is Twitter-Stalking Competitors’ Angry Customers
Verizon is monitoring Twitter TWTR +1.29% better than the NSA monitors phone calls. All companies have become pseudo-stalkers on social media, their Twitter specialists leaping into @ction when they see people complaining about a late plane, poor service, or high fees. We Twitter users all know the routine: “@MalignedCorpX: “Sorry to hear that! How can we help? DM us so we can help you privately.”
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Censorship
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Count On It: When Censorship Is Permitted, Gay Books Will Be Censored
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UNESCO reports advances and setbacks on Freedom of Expression in Latin America and Caribbean
Advances on the digital revolution, attacks on journalists, and state-media conflict have marked journalism in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to UNESCO’s 2014 report “World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development”. The document highlights state harassment of journalists, challenges reforming outdated media laws, media concentration, lack of journalistic resources and training, and drug-related journalistic deaths as some of the major problems facing journalists in the region.
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The Iron Dome of Censorship: How Free Is Israel’s Media?
This week, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, a massive offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the military to “take off the gloves” and declared: “Hamas chose escalation and it will pay a heavy price for it.”
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‘Stop Censoring Motherhood’ Movement Takes Aim At Facebook And Instagram
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Mothers To Protest Instagram, Facebook Censorship Of Breastfeeding Images
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Warner Bros. Censorship of Greenpeace LEGO Video Backfires (Updated)
Warner Bros. have removed a Greenpeace campaign video from YouTube in which the group criticizes LEGO for partnering with Shell. Greenpeace is outraged, describing the takedown request as an attack on free speech. The environmental group informs TF it will challenge the removal while encouraging its supporters to upload the video everywhere.
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Privacy
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A Hacker Artist Sent the NSA an Encrypted, Theoretically Uncrackable Mixtape
In late May, hacker artist David Huerta, co-organizer of Art Hack Day and Cryptoparty, sent the NSA one hell of a snail mail. Huerta built a DIY encrypted mixtape using an Arduino board and a transparent acrylic case, containing a “soundtrack for the modern surveillance state.” It’s a mixtape the NSA won’t be able to listen to because of the power of private key-based cryptography.
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Frank Church fought Big Brother Government
History has a way of repeating itself. Modern electronics has all but destroyed personal privacy. The tragedy of 9/11 changed the way the world looks at security – opening the floodgates to electronic evesdropping, domestic and international spying and Big Brother intrusion in everyone’s daily lives.
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Russia to extend Snowden’s asylum over continued ‘death threat’
Former U.S. based National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden’s plea to extend his asylum in Russia is expected to be approved soon, said a Russian migration official.
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Max Wilbert: The Modern COINTELPRO and How To Fight It
One reason is because few popular strategies pose real threats to power. That’s not an accident: the rules of social change have been clearly defined by those in power. Either you play by the rules — rules which don’t allow you to win — or you break free of the rules, and face the consequences.
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Privacy fight returns for cyber bill
Privacy advocates are dusting off a months-old campaign to block cybersecurity legislation that they warn would send too much personal information into government hands.
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Airborne police surveillance is a PVR for every car-journey in a city
America’s police forces have demonstrated a bottomless appetite for army-style crowd control and CIA-style surveillance, and the private sector has stepped up to the plate in a big way.
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The Ex-Google Hacker Taking on the World’s Spy Agencies
During his last six years working as an elite security researcher for Google, the hacker known as Morgan Mayhem spent his nights and weekends hunting down the malware used to spy on vulnerable targets like human rights activists and political dissidents.
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DOJ Opts Against Launching Criminal Probe in CIA-Senate Spat
The Department of Justice declined to launch a criminal probe after both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA accused each other of improperly accessing the other’s computers.
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What you need to know about the latest NSA revelations
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CIA Off the Hook: DOJ Won’t Probe Alleged Spying on Congress
Sen. Dianne Feinstein claimed in March the CIA improperly surveilled staffers.
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Justice Dept. Declines To Step Into Dispute Between CIA And Senators
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Ron Wyden glad Justice Department won’t investigate Senate staffers who examined CIA interrogations of terrorists
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Holder Refuses To Investigate CIA For Spying On Senate
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CIA-Senate intelligence dispute won’t lead to criminal investigation
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Justice Dept. won’t investigate CIA database search
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Justice Dept. Rules Out Criminal Probes In Senate-CIA Standoff
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Feuding CIA, Senate avoid criminal charges from Justice Department
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Showdown between the Senate and CIA ends without charges
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DOJ Declines To Investigate Alleged CIA Spying Of Senate Panel
Accusations had been thrown at the CIA by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee charging that the CIA had been illegally searching the computers of committee staffers.
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Did the CIA Illegally Spy on the Senate? Now We May Never Know
The Department of Justice will not investigate whether the Central Intelligence Agency illegally spied on staffers of the Senate Intelligence Committee and removed documents from committee servers, McClatchy confirmed Thursday. The CIA also claimed committee staffers took documents from the intelligence agency without authorization, and that claim will also not be investigated.
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DOJ Backs Off CIA/Senate Snooping Slap Fight
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Justice Department: No charges in CIA/Senate spat
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Justice Dept. Declines to Investigate C.I.A. Review
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Justice Department Declines to Open Probe of CIA ‘Spying’ on Senate (Updated)
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March’s Anger Over Senate’s Torture Report Fades To Silence
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U.S. prosecutors decline criminal probe in CIA-Senate dispute
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Obama adm refuses to pursue criminal investigation of CIA spying on Senate staffers
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Justice Dept. won’t make a federal case out of a Senate-CIA spat
The Justice Department has announced that it won’t pursue a criminal investigation of a dispute between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA over whether agency staffers poached on the committee’s turf and vice versa.
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Eugene Robinson on the NSA’s misguided mission
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NSA’s misguided mission
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High-Level NSA Official: the NSA Has Become “J. Edgar Hoover On Super Steroids”
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NSA overreach: Its latest spying recalls the days of J. Edgar Hoover
Before President Jimmy Carter enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, the executive branch had claimed for 40 years an “inherent” power to spy on anyone. Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon used intelligence agencies to investigate opponents for political gain and other federal agencies wiretapped nonviolent citizens, without warrants, for their political beliefs.
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This Shows NSA Privacy Violations Go Even Further Than We Thought
In what appears to be one of Edward Snowden’s final revelations, the former CIA and NSA agent has demonstrated conclusively that the National Security Agency has collected and analyzed the contents of emails, text messages, and mobile and landline telephone calls from nine non-targeted U.S. residents for every one U.S. resident it has targeted.
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Another ‘NSA-proof’ webmail biz popped by JavaScript injection bug
German startup Tutanota has admitted its webmail service was vulnerable to a cross-site scripting bug despite boasting it offered an “NSA-proof email service.”
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Whistleblower: not just metadata, NSA gets full audio recordings
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The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control
At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that’s a ‘totalitarian mentality’
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One Of The NSA’s Original Whistleblowers Says The Goal Is ‘Total Population Control’
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Anthem Film Festival – Yes, the NSA is Listening
Although Snowden garnered all the headlines, he is only one of a string of people who have revealed the constitutionally questionable activities of our nation’s spy agencies. In Before Snowden: Behind the Curtain, filmmakers Bill and Tricia Owen interview former NSA employees who have revealed the agency’s spying activities targeting Americans.
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80% of All Calls Stored By NSA Says Whistleblower
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Ordinary users outnumber targets in NSA intercepts
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iPhones threaten national security, says Chinese state media
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The curious case of NSA & Indo-US relations
As Harsh V. Pant, professor of International relations at King’s College London, points out, “The US has been doing its best to reach out to Modi and his government. India is key to the US’ ability to create a stable balance of power in the larger Indo-Pacific and at a time of resource constraints, it needs partners like India to shore up its sagging credibility in the region in face of Chinese onslaught.”
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Silent Circle Ends Phone Roaming Charges
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Silent Circle takes on Skype with encrypted calling service
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4th Amendment is getting a boost
The courts have generally permitted warrantless searches incident to an arrest. This began with the reasonable allowance that law enforcement needs to ensure that the arrest can take place safely and secure evidence related to the arrest.
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Whistleblower Counteroffensive Against the Feds Shakes Up Washington
The strongest public relations campaign to encourage government whistleblowers to-date launched Friday in Washington.
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NSA overreach
None of the men has been charged with a crime. The government declines to confirm they were monitored. To do so legally, officials would have had to convince a surveillance court that there was probable cause to suspect that the subjects were foreign agents engaged in terrorism. Given the absence of evidence or criminal charges, that seems dubious.
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The Problem With the American Press
Before we were all distracted by Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency leaks, the outrage of 2013 was the Obama administration’s snooping through the phone records of Associate Press reporters. The weirdly-similarly named James Rosen and James Risen – the former a Fox News correspondent, the latter a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times – have been lately entangled with the Obama administration, who have the best plumbers since Nixon’s boys. Rosen was spied upon for his alleged involvement with a State Department leak on a story about North Korea. Risen – a dogged reporter on NSA and CIA wiretapping and spying – has been on the brink of prosecution for years because he refuses to reveal a CIA source.
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The Fifth Surveillance: Corporate Spying On Non-Profits
In the age of innocence that was brought to an end by Edward Snowden’s revelations, we broadly knew of three kinds of surveillance: the classic kind, by countries against other countries; the industrial kind, by companies against companies; and – the most recent addition – the Google/Facebook kind, carried out by companies against their customers. Snowden made us aware that countries also carried out large-scale surveillance against huge numbers of their own citizens, the vast majority of whom had done nothing to warrant that invasion of their privacy. But there’s a fifth kind of surveillance that has largely escaped notice, even though it represents a serious danger for democracy and freedom: spying carried out by companies against non-profit organizations whose work threatens their profits in some way.
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Newly Obtained Emails Contradict Administration Claims on Guardian Laptop Destruction
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NSA chief knew of Snowden file destruction by Guardian in UK
Revelation contrasts markedly with White House efforts to distance itself from UK government pressure to destroy disks
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US knew United Kingdom threatened Guardian
The Obama administration knew in advance that the British government would oversee destruction of a newspaper’s hard drives containing leaked National Security Agency documents last year, newly declassified documents show.
The White House had publicly distanced itself on whether it would do the same to an American news organisation. The Guardian newspaper, responding to threats from the British government in July 2013, destroyed the data roughly a month after it and other media outlets first published details from the top secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
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Obama administration knew in advance about destruction of Guardian’s hard drives
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U.S. Knew of Snowden Files’ Destruction
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Obtained Emails Show NSA Officials Knew In Advance Of GCHQ’s Plans To Destroy The Guardian’s Computers
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US knew about Snowden file destruction at UK newspaper
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NSA Supported The Guardian’s Destruction Of Important Snowden Files
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New docs: US knew Brits would destroy NSA data
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US Fails in Attempt to Distance Itself from UK Snowden File Destruction
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NSA Surveillance – US Knew Of British Paper Destruction
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U.S. Had Heads-Up Over Destruction Of ‘Guardian’ Hard Drives
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US knew about Snowden file destruction at UK newspaper
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U.S. given heads up about newspaper’s destruction of NSA data
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US knew of Edward Snowden file destruction
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U.S. Knew Britain Planned to Erase Data at The Guardian
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The CIA Might Have Your Password After All
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Former Lake Ridge resident and state GOP candidate ‘shocked’ by NSA monitoring
A former Lake Ridge resident and Republican candidate for the House of Delegates 51st District was the subject of electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency according to information leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
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NSA surveillance data: UK access to information faces legal challenge
Case brought by alliance of privacy groups to be heard by IPT, the security services oversight body that normally deliberates in private
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Here’s Why Hillary Clinton Is Wrong About Snowden
Next, her assertions that his asylum in Russia is of questionable intent and demonstrates a lack of American patriotism. The accusation is one that Snowden himself addressed in an interview with NBC News. He called the question on his presence in Russia a “really fair concern,” but noted that he had planned to travel out of Moscow to Latin America and had found himself with a revoked passport. “So when people ask ‘Why are you in Russia?’ I say, ‘Please ask the state department,’” explained Snowden. The state department, in turn, said it had revoked his passport while he was still in Hong Kong, but that he had someone managed to get on the plane and had ended up in Russia. Had the state department successfully kept him in China, Clinton claiming his travels to China and Russia were suspicious would seem unfair.
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UK internet providers brand NSA, GCHQ villains at industry award show
The heavy hitting internet providers in Britain have slammed GCHQ and the NSA as being the biggest villains of the year for their work in surveillance
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For the Record: Yes, the Government Really Did Trash-Talk Our FISA Story
Wemple disputes two claims we made in the story: 1) that while we were reporting the story, officials at the Department of Justice reached out to Muslim community leaders and claimed that it would contain errors even though it hadn’t been written yet, and 2) that Justice Department officials refused to acknowledge our requests for comment.
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Spied On for Being Muslim
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Add “Racist” to the Long List of Things Wrong With the NSA
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Snowden reveals NSA targeted Muslim lawyers
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US rights groups condemn NSA spying, religious slurs against Muslim-Americans
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Five men suing Obama administration after falling into ‘suspicious activity’ file
From photographing public works of art to bulk-buying computers, five Americans now have a record on file with US intelligence agencies for carrying out everyday activities. Thousands of unsuspecting Americans are also tagged in the database.
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Latest NSA Leaks Include Racial Slurs
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Spied on for Being Muslim? NSA Targets Named in Snowden Leaks Respond to US Government Surveillance
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Investigation Proves NSA Spies on Americans Beyond Metadata Collection
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New Snowden leak: FBI and NSA spied on emails of prominent Muslim-Americans
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NSA Targeting: ‘Nobody Is Safe When One Group Is Singled Out’
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American Sikhs and Muslims Outraged by Official Documents Using Term “Raghead”
Classified NSA training documents using the racial epithet “raghead” surfaced this past week in a recent release of documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden put his life on the line in order to expose the US spy agency’s violations of human rights and privacy around the world.
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NSA Admits Retaining Snowden Emails Despite Claiming He Never Raised Surveillance Issues Internally
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Experts Say NSA Surveillance Compromises Internet Security; Here’s How to Protect Yourself
Since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began leaking the details last year of the NSA’s vast surveillance capabilities, the amount of collateral damage to individual privacy at home and abroad has put the agency under intense public scrutiny. Privacy experts, however, say that the now-infamous NSA surveillance programs such as Quantum and PRISM not only threaten individual privacy; they threaten the overall security of the internet as a whole.
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Rampaging Surveillance
Nevertheless, the CIA was Obama’s safety hatch to escape: “A central question, one American official said, is how high the information [CIA knew three weeks before about the planned arrest of its agent] about the agent went in the C.I.A.’s command—whether it was bottled up at the level of the station chief in Berlin or transmitted to senior officials, including the director, John O. Brennan, who is responsible for briefing the White House.” It is doubtful that heads will roll, but the reporters make a significant point (in line with my foregoing characterization of Obama), his obduracy, his absolute refusal to admit a wrong: “For all his concerns, Mr. Obama does not plan any extraordinary outreach to Ms. Merkel, an official said, noting that some in the administration also feel that Germany should not overreact to the case or conflate it with the privacy issues raised by the N.S.A.’s surveillance.” Heaven forbid such conflation (!)—in reality, the unified pattern (here NSA and CIA appear to be wearing each other’s shoes), this with respect to Germany, but in the larger picture conflation in the US as well under different terms: massive surveillance and abridgment of civil liberties.
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The Senate is giving more power to the NSA, in secret. Everyone should fight it
Politicians are still trying to hand over your data behind closed doors, under the guise of ‘cybersecurity’ reform. Have we learned nothing?
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The ongoing battle between privacy and protection
The bill breaks new ground in two important ways. First, CISA protects companies that share security-related data with one another and with the government from being sued.
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CISA threat: How cybersecurity may harm Americans privacy and hit whistleblowers
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CISA Bill Passed By Senate Committee Despite Privacy Concerns
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Emergency legislation gives UK authorities NSA-like powers
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Britain moves to force communications companies to store customer data
British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled emergency legislation Thursday to compel phone companies and Internet providers to store their customers’ records, arguing that data needed to track down criminals and terrorists could otherwise be deleted.
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Emergency Legislation to Monitor Phone and Internet Data Needed to ‘Keep the Country Safe’
The UK government will enact emergency legislation next week forcing internet and phone companies to log records of calls, text and online activity.
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Muslim American groups may file lawsuits against government over FBI spying
Several Muslim American organizations have announced they may file lawsuits against the U.S. Government over FBI spying that targeted American citizens who are of the Muslim religion and Arab heritage, and are demanding investigations by Federal authorities.
Two Washington D.C. based organizations are the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) who have expressed outrage at the spying.
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The revolution will not be monetized
For years, the internet’s biggest players have hoarded your personal data and sold it for billions. Now, a band of angry startups is demanding privacy and aiming to overhaul the social-media business forever.
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Last bastion of support: Obama most popular among Muslim-Americans
New polling figures give United States President Barack Obama only a 43 percent job approval rating among all Americans, but the commander-in-chief is statistically way more celebrated by Muslims.
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Op-Ed: Why should Muslim Americans approve of Obama?
A recent Gallup poll showed an astonishing 72% of Muslims support the policies and presidency of Barack Obama. Although Muslim-American academics explained the reason he is supported, they ignore reasons Muslims should condemn Obama’s policies.
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NSA Implementing Fix To Prevent Snowden-Like Security Breach
A year after Edward Snowden’s digital heist, the NSA’s chief technology officer says steps have been taken to stop future incidents. But he says there’s no way for the NSA to be entirely secure.
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Rutgers prof not surprised NSA reportedly monitored his e-mail
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Journalists reveal NSA monitored Rutgers professor
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Loopholes In U.S. Law Could Make It Easier For NSA Surveillance
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Rutgers professor says NSA wasted time on him while missing real threats
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Opinion: The spies who didn’t love us
Eavesdropping on the chancellor, spying in the intelligence service and defense ministry – the US’s desire to know everything is alienating its friends. This is bad news, but it can’t be changed, says Volker Wagener.
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Glenn Greenwald says there is a second NSA whisleblower
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Edward Snowden’s Lawyer Confirms NSA Leaker Wants To Stay in Russia
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Civil Rights
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Blackheart Lady: Margaret Thatcher ‘personally covered up’ child abuse allegations against senior ministers
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Desmond Tutu plea for ‘assisted dying’ before historic Lords debate
Archbishop calls for ‘mind shift’ on right to die and condemns as ‘disgraceful’ the treatment of the dying Nelson Mandela
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CIA Style Guide: Using Good Grammar to Describe Despotism
When explaining how and why they violate constitutional protections of fundamental rights, leaders of the federal intelligence apparatus insist it be done with style.
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Losing Faith in Democracy
The two contenders in the disputed Afghan presidential election do not present a clear choice for us in the West to decide whom to root for, or root against. Both candidates are experienced, credible presidential timber, and we ought to be able to work constructively with either one as president.
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The Naked Truth About The American Police State
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself…Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.”—H.L. Mencken, American journalist
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How Democrats unfairly label Americans
How Demsunfairly labelAmericans
• If you criticize President Obama’s policies and leadership, you are a racist.
• If you do not feel abortion and birth control pills should be without any limitations, you are anti-women.
• If you believe in the integrity and sovereignty of national borders, you are a nationalist.
• If you believe that immigration reform should begin with securing our southern border and enforcing existing immigration laws, you are anti-Hispanic.
• If you believe in auditing and correcting abuses in the welfare programs, you are anti-poor people.
• If you believe the president should execute the laws passed by Congress and that he should not issue laws on his own, you are a constitutionalist and a rigid person clinging to the past.
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Exclusive: an unlikely victim of the ‘War on Terror’
He was arrested, tortured, imprisoned for almost a decade… for something he did not do. He reveals his story to France 24.
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Why the Return of American Torture Is Inevitable
Once upon a time, if a character on TV or in a movie tortured someone, it was a sure sign that he was a bad guy. Now, the torturers are the all-American heroes. From 24 to Zero Dark Thirty, it’s been the good guys who wielded the pliers and the waterboards. We’re not only living in a post-9/11 world, we’re stuck with Jack Bauer in the 25th hour.
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Dick Cheney’s sadistic America: Why torture persists post-W
Six years into Obama’s presidency, no one has been forced to answer for Bush’s illegal war on terror. Here’s why
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7 things you should know about Diego Garcia and renditions
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Rendition cover-up accusations focus on Britain’s Diego Garcia island -
Emails shed new light on UK link to CIA ‘torture flights’
Crucial logs revealing flights to a British overseas territory when it was allegedly used as a secret US prison are in the possession of the police, the Observer has learned.
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UK government says renditions evidence ‘incomplete due to water damage’
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Negotiations with Libyan put on CIA torture flight in Hong Kong ‘stalled’
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Remote Indian Ocean island holds key to understanding UK role in rendition
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Duo ‘high value’ Gitmo prisoners
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UK says records incomplete because of water damage
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British Foreign Office Claims Documents Relating to CIA Abduction Program were “Accidentally” Destroyed
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Our rights are under attack
Being that I include myself in the more reactionary segment of our society, I feel it’s important to respond. In 2012, President Barack Obama signed into law the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act). Sections 1021 and 1022 of this act give the U.S. government the right to indefinitely detain any U.S. citizen without trial, indefinitely. Another writer mentioned this very thing in a letter on Friday. This is not propaganda. This is a fact that anyone can look up and find.
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Congressmen who voted for NDAA detention face voters on Aug. 5th
The elections pit challengers against many incumbents who voted for the controversial National Defense Authorization Act’s (NDAA) standing provisions for the indefinite detention of US citizens, without charge or trial, when deemed by the government to be associated with terrorism.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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If TPP Is So Important, Why Are Those It’s Supposed To ‘Help’ Fighting Against It?
The USTR’s position on trade agreements is incredibly antiquated. It acts as if it’s an extension of “American business” and seems to believe that the only ones fighting against its various trade agreements, like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP) are these meddling “public interest” groups, which don’t understand the importance of big business. It’s why the USTR recently created a special “public interest” committee to pretend that it was listening to criticism while shunting them off to their own little corner to be ignored.
But the real problem is that the USTR doesn’t pay much attention to actual innovative business: entrepreneurs and startups that are doing much of the important work today that will be important for the future. Instead, they tend to only listen to the last generation of companies: the legacy players and behemoths who are looking to protect themselves against competition and innovation. So it was great to see during this week’s TPP negotiations (though held in even more secrecy than usual) the EFF presented negotiators with two important letters about different aspects of the TPP, signed by the organizations that the USTR would like to pretend its helping — and yet those organizations are not at all happy about it.
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership Could ‘Establish a War of All Against All’
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is coming, and it could give multinational corporations even more influence over global policy.
That’s what critics of the trade deal between 12 countries along the Pacific Rim (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam) are saying. It’s not helping that the contents of the agreement have largely been kept secret, even though the TPP is the biggest trade deal since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995.
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Copyrights
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VP Of EU Commission On Copyright Reform: ‘I’d Sing You Happy Birthday, But I Don’t Want To Have To Pay The Royalties’
This is a great start, and it highlights a key point of copyright law: it is supposed to encourage those kinds of things. The problem is that very little research has actually been done to determine if it actually does that. Instead, it’s often taken on the basis of faith that it must do that, without considering whether it really does, or if there are other limiting downsides to how it’s currently done. Some people claim that I am somehow “against” copyright. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am happy to support a copyright system that has been shown to actually promote creativity and innovation. I’ve just seen very little evidence to suggest our current system really does that.
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