Domestic Surveillance

Remember when the National Security Agency officials maintained that they were “only” collecting “metadata” from your cell phones? What they meant by that was that they weren’t listening in on your calls, just noting who you call and when. I said at the time that ‘metadata’ on cell phones inevitably includes information on where you […]

CIA

Tony Blair let the American NSA Spy on Millions of Britons and Store their Private Data

Juan Cole

The Guardian and Channel 4 News report that Tony Blair allowed the US National Security Agency to spy on millions of Britons, and to record and store their browser history and email. In 2005, the US had gone ahead and initiated the spying without British permission. Subsequent Prime Ministers, including the current one, David Cameron, […]

Domestic Surveillance

American Writers are Self-Censoring to Avoid NSA Scrutiny (McCauley)

Juan Cole

Lauren McCauley writes at Commondreams.org: Recent disclosures of the NSA's widespread dragnet program coupled with its frequent targeting of journalists are having a 'chilling effect' on American writers, stifling their freedom of expression at great detriment to society, says a new report Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self Censor. Published Tuesday by […]

Domestic Surveillance

How America’s Global Surveillance Empire made it a Helpless Giant (Engelhardt)

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com Given how similar they sound and how easy it is to imagine one leading to the other, confusing omniscience (having total knowledge) with omnipotence (having total power) is easy enough. It’s a reasonable supposition that, before the Snowden revelations hit, America’s spymasters had made just that mistake. If the drip-drip-drip […]

Domestic Surveillance

Elites Stick together against Us: Feinstein Slams NSA Merkel Tap

Juan Cole

The Snowden revelations that the National Security Agency was scooping up hundreds of millions of American cell phone records that show who they call and where they are was met with a big yawn in official Washington, D.C. If you are a feudal lord, you want to know what the peasants are up to. The […]

CIA

How the US Government Betrayed the Constitution and invented an Imaginary Fascist One

Juan Cole

The idea of having a strong Federal government was controversial in the early United States, and one of the ways Federalists reassured Americans that it wouldn’t become tyrannical was to append a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. That attempt to prevent despotism has failed, because the Federal government and its various agencies have set […]

Domestic Surveillance

No, NSA snooping didn’t foil 50 Terrorist Attacks (Elliot & Meyer)

Juan Cole

Claim on “Attacks Thwarted” by NSA Spreads Despite Lack of Evidence Justin Elliot and Theodoric Meyer write at ProPublica Two weeks after Edward Snowden’s first revelations about sweeping government surveillance, President Obama shot back. “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, […]

Domestic Surveillance

Snowden: Federal Spying makes us Less Secure

Juan Cole

Supporters of massive National Security Agency domestic and international electronic surveillance of millions of innocent civilians justify it on the grounds that it makes us safer. It does not. Edward Snowden makes the opposite point, which is that intense government surveillance harms our security. He revealed the secret warrantless monitoring of Americans (which goes beyond […]

Domestic Surveillance

Big Brother’s little Brothers: How Surveillance Companies Mine your Info for the Gov’t (Chatterjee)

Juan Cole

Pratap Chatterjee writes at Tomdispatch.com The Data Hackers Mining Your Information for Big Brother By Pratap Chatterjee Big Bro is watching you. Inside your mobile phone and hidden behind your web browser are little known software products marketed by contractors to the government that can follow you around anywhere. No longer the wide-eyed fantasies of […]