Human Rights

In an epic boxing match, we have in one corner 600 pound gorillas like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), head of the House Intelligence Committee that is determined to abet spying on you in your bedroom, and in the other corner we have 98 pound weaklings like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, who are without Rogers’s […]

CIA

Obama Administration Facing Congressional Rebellion, Civil Suits over NSA Surveillance

Juan Cole

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, among other important civil society organizations, are suing the Federal government over the National Security Agency’s unconstitutional domestic surveillance. The administration is also facing House hearings on the issue. By the way, the argument made by Homeland Security and other such officials that the NSA’s domestic spying could […]

Domestic Surveillance

The End of Dissidents: The National Security State wants a World without Thoreaus (Engelhardt)

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com It’s hard even to know how to take it in. I mean, what’s really happening? An employee of a private contractor working for the National Security Agency makes off with unknown numbers of files about America’s developing global security state on a thumb drive and four laptop computers, and jumps the nearest plane to Hong […]

Domestic Surveillance

A Century of America’s Imperial Deep State (McCoy)

Juan Cole

Alfred W. McCoy writes at Tomdispatch.com The American surveillance state is now an omnipresent reality, but its deep history is little known and its future little grasped. Edward Snowden’s leaked documents reveal that, in a post-9/11 state of war, the National Security Agency (NSA) was able to create a surveillance system that could secretly monitor […]

Afghanistan

Malala Yousafzai Pleads at UN for Universal Free Schooling for Girls and Boys

Juan Cole

“In her first speech since the Taliban in Pakistan tried to kill her for advocating education for girls, Malala Yousafzai celebrated her 16th birthday on Friday at the United Nations, appealing for compulsory free schooling for all children” [including for girls!] Channel 4 News has video

Government surveillance

How Obama has made Whistleblowers the Flying Dutchmen of the 21st Century (van Buren)

Juan Cole

Peter van Buren writes at Tomdispatch: As a State Department whistleblower, I think a lot about Edward Snowden. I can’t help myself. My friendships with other whistleblowers like Tom Drake, Jesslyn Radack, Daniel Ellsberg, and John Kiriakou lead me to believe that, however different we may be as individuals, our acts have given us much […]

Domestic Surveillance

Glenn Greenwald: Good journalism is measured by how angry you make the people you’re covering (Video)

Juan Cole

Greenwald’s video appearance at the Socialism conference in Chicago (via We are Many:

CIA

Syria, NSA Spying, Popular Mobilization and History: Cole Interview in La Prensa (Ricky Martinez)

Juan Cole

Interview with Juan Cole by Ricky Martínez (These are the English notes of the interview rearranged in pyramid form; they were translated and published in a different sequence in Spanish at La Prensa of Panama City). Many thanks to Mr. Martinez for a wide-ranging conversation! RM: How is Syria different from Libya? Syria is different […]

Human Rights

Chinese Humorists Satirize the Snowden/ NSA Surveillance Scandal (Video)

Juan Cole

Next Media Animation (a Taiwanese subsidiary of a Hong Kong firm) satirizes the Snowden/ NSA surveillance scandal by cartoon (English subtitles):