censorship

ITN reports :

Only post-Snowden did FISA Court even Consider if NSA Bulk Phone Collection is Legal

(By Michael Masnick) FISA Court Waited Until After Snowden Leaks To Actually Explore If Bulk Phone Record Collection Was Legal (via Techdirt) One of the most common defenses of the NSA’s bulk phone record collection (in which they get access to the record of basically every phone call in the US) is that the program […]

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The Ruling that Endangers the Internet as we Know It

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) A Washington D.C. federal panel has struck down the Federal Communication Commission position on net neutrality, threatening the corporatization of the internet. The reason readers of Informed Comment can reach it as quickly and conveniently as they can reach a multi-billion dollar corporate web site is the principle of internet neutrality, built […]

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3 Years after Democratic Revolution, Egypt Decides it Prefers North Korean Model

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) The title of this piece is provocative and a little tongue in cheek. Were I in Egypt as I publish it, I’m not sure, though, that the authorities would get the joke. The 2011 revolution, which was in part about dignity and personal autonomy and censorship and police torture, apparently went too […]

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Top Ten Things wrong with NSA Surveillance of Americans

contributors

(By Peter Van Buren) The debate Edward Snowden envisioned when he revealed the extent of National Security Agency (NSA) spying on Americans has taken a bad turn. Instead of a careful examination of what the NSA does, the legality of its actions, what risks it takes for what gains, and how effective the agency has […]

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Assange warns of Information Apartheid & Encompassing State: “This is the Last Free Generation”

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Wired notes that Wikileaks activist Julian Assange addressed the Chaos Communication Congress by Skype Sunday. Assange said, “This is the last free generation… The coming together of the systems of government and the information apartheid is such that none of us will be able to escape it in just a decade.” . […]

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Snowden’s Christmas Message on Privacy: Does NSA threaten 9th, 14th Amendments, ‘Inviolate Personality’?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Edward Snowden’s Christmas address, carried by the British Channel 4, concentrated on the disappearance of privacy. He said that a child born today might “never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought.” People walk around with a tracking device in their pockets, he noted, […]

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Dear Pres. Obama: Dissent isn’t Possible in a Surveillance State

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole In his stirring eulogy of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first president to be legitimately elected, by the entire South Africa people, President Barack Obama said, “There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing […]

Bush

Uygur: Bush Targetting of Juan Cole proves that NSA can’t be trusted with our Personal Data

Juan Cole

Cenk Uygur at Young Turks makes the point that the National Security Agency and other US intelligence (services who are ending up with massive amounts of electronic surveillance information on Americans –whether that is what they were mainly going for or not) keep saying we should trust them with the information. They maintain that they […]