ne needs a wicked sense of humor these days to fully appreciate the present moment in American history, as a supposedly free country debates which police state practices to adopt, while ignoring any thought that maybe the United States should not be a police state at all. For a brief shining moment early on June 1, parts of the USA …
Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court’s decision on spying – Spencer Ackerman
The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months. The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he …
A Magical Mystery Tour of American Austerity Politics By Laura Gottesdiener
Something is rotten in the state of Michigan. One city neglected to inform its residents that its water supply was laced with cancerous chemicals. Another dissolved its public school district and replaced it with a charter school system, only to witness the for-profit management company it hired flee the scene after determining it couldn’t turn a profit. Numerous cities and …
Government Is Using Secrecy As a Weapon
Everyone knows Lord Acton’s famous quote: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But few have heard this equally profound quote from Lord Acton: Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Likewise, US Supreme Court Justice Brandeis said: Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for …
Cold War II to McCarthyism II By Robert Parry
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the U.S. government’s plunge into Cold War II would bring back the one-sided propaganda themes that dominated Cold War I, but it’s still unsettling to see how quickly the major U.S. news media has returned to the old ways, especially the New York Times, which has emerged as Official Washington’s propaganda vehicle of choice. What …
Ron Paul: CIA is a Secret Government Way Out of Control
While some may be cheering the expiration of the Patriot Act – however temporary it may be – former presidential candidate Ron Paul notes: before Americans applaud a minor step toward transparency, they should recognize the corrosive nature of the CIA, a secret government operating far above the law. “[The CIA] is sort of the President’s own Praetorian Guard,” Daniel McAdams, …
The Other Conspirator By Barbara Myers
The witness reported men being hung by the feet or the thumbs, waterboarded, given electric shocks to the genitals, and suffering from extended solitary confinement in what he said were indescribably inhumane conditions. It’s the sort of description that might have come right out of the executive summary of the Senate torture report released last December. In this case, however, the testimony …
Corporate Media Accused of Parroting Fear-Mongering over Patriot Act – Nadia Prupis
With key provisions of the USA Patriot Act nearing a long-awaited expiration date, there remains one last adversary to take down in the fight for privacy rights: the corporate media. The most recent case is the New York Times, which on Thursday quoted several anonymous White House officials who warned that allowing the Patriot Act to sunset is akin to “playing national security Russian roulette” …
Senior NATO Official Claims We’ll Be at War by Summer – Joshua Krause
Last week, former NSA intelligence analyst John Schindler posted a rather disturbing tweet. With a statement that one could only assume to be a reference towards Russia, Schindler wrote “Said a senior NATO (non-US) GOFO to me today: “We’ll probably be at war this summer. If we’re lucky it won’t be nuclear.” Let that sink in.” So who is John Schindler? …
Towards a Militarized Police State in America? Explosive New Revelations over “Jade Helm 15 Exercise” and Potential False Flags – Joachim Hagopian
A growing segment of the American population is waking up to the implications of the Jade Helm 15 military operation to be conducted by Special Forces in conjunction with local law enforcement, the FBI, DHS, the DEA and Border Patrol across the entire Southwest. This massive unprecedented exercise will also commence in June sooner than first announced and last for 10 weeks through the …