Dissent

By Eva Galperin and Nadia Kayyali via EFF Imagine that you watched a police officer in your neighborhood stop ten completely ordinary people every day just to take a look inside their vehicle or backpack. Now imagine that nine of those people are never even accused of a crime. They just happened to be in […]

Dissent

Escaping Mosul and ISIS Assassination Campaigns

contributors

niqash | Special Correspondent | Mosul | Refugees from the Ninawa province, of whihc Mosul is the capital, queue to get into Iraqi Kurdistan. One local journalist explains why streets in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul are so quiet, what’s worrying his family and friends there the most and how he himself managed to […]

Democracy

90% of NSA Data from non-Targets, 1/2 accounts had info on US Citizens

contributors

By Jon Queally Washington Post reveals unprecedented look at how 'voyeuristic' spy agency manages private communications it collects New reporting by the Washington Post based on materials leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals an unprecedented view of how the private information of millions of "ordinary people" are caught up in the spy agency's massive […]

Barack Obama

If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance

contributors

By Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing In a shocking story on the German site Tagesschau (Google translate), Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz report on the rules used by the NSA to decide who is a “target” for surveillance. Since the start of the Snowden story in 2013, the NSA has stressed that while […]

Dissent

Not War on Poverty but War on the Poor: Washington’s Real Foreign Policy Aims

Juan Cole

By Noam Chomsky via Tomdispatch The question of how foreign policy is determined is a crucial one in world affairs. In these comments, I can only provide a few hints as to how I think the subject can be productively explored, keeping to the United States for several reasons. First, the U.S. is unmatched in […]

Bill of Rights

Police: No Searching Journalists’ Cellphones w/out a Warrant, Either (SCOTUS Decision)

contributors

By Josh Stearns According to the Supreme Court, police need a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. The unanimous decision, which was handed down this week, is being heralded as a major victory for privacy rights and a landmark case with implications far beyond cellphones. The New York Times reports, “The ruling […]

Books

What the Arab Youth Movements have Wrought: Don’t Count them Out Yet

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole via Tomdispatch.com Three and a half years ago, the world was riveted by the massive crowds of youths mobilizing in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand an end to Egypt’s dreary police state. We stared in horror as, at one point, the Interior Ministry mobilized camel drivers to attack the demonstrators. We watched […]

Arab Spring

Photo of the Day: Egyptian Youth Demanded end to Military Trials for Civilians

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Now On the June 30 anniversary of the determined masses gathered in their millions at Tahrir Square and in city centers throughout Egypt, demanding a recall election for then Muslim Brotherhood president Muhammad Morsi, Tahrir Square in Cairo was blocked off and deserted. Early on Monday, two bombs were detonated outside the […]

Democracy

A Subtle Alchemy: US Finds it easier to Occupy Abroad than to Withdraw

contributors

By Alan McPherson In 2003, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld infamously foresaw victory in Afghanistan and Iraq as demanding a “long, hard slog” and listed a multitude of unanswered questions. Over a decade later, as President Obama (slowly) fulfills his promise to pull all US troops from Afghanistan, a different set of questions emerges. […]