Government surveillance

Matthew Harwood writes at Tomdispatch: The evangelical Christians of Greenville County, South Carolina, are afraid. There has been talk of informants and undercover agents luring young, conservative evangelicals across the South into sham terrorist plots. The feds and the area’s police want to eliminate a particularly extreme strain of evangelical Christianity opposed to abortion, homosexuality, […]

Domestic Surveillance

Snowden: I acted because Domestic Spying actually worsened under Obama

Juan Cole

The Guardian has released part two of the Hong Kong interview with Edward Snowden, in which he clarifies his reasons for going public. He talks about how the warrantless demand for Verizon phone records was the misuse of a USA Patriot Act provision intended to allow monitoring of an individual, but which was applied to […]

Government surveillance

Has NSA Spying Killed US “Cloud” services, Email in Europe, Brazil?

Juan Cole

Andrew Miller points out that European companies afraid of US industrial espionage just got far less likely to use American internet companies for communications and cloud data storage. American companies can be compelled by ‘National Security Letters’ from government agencies to turn over the data of non-US citizens, at will and without a warrant. Neelie […]

Government surveillance

Evo Morales of Bolivia joins in Offering Leaker Snowden Asylum

Juan Cole

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, on Saturday said that he would offer Edward Snowden asylum if asked. He joins the presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua in that offer. Morales said that he made the decision as a just protest against his own treatment last week, when his jet was denied overflight rights in France, […]

Government surveillance

Venezuela’s Maduro: Unlike US Asylees, Snowden didn’t Blow anything Up, just said ‘This is not Right’

Juan Cole

Globovision reports that President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela on Friday offered asylum to US leaker Edward Snowden, in order, he said, to protect him from “imperial North American persecution,” describing the US government as among the “most oppressive in the world.” He said he hoped Snowden would be able to live “quietly in the free […]

Domestic Surveillance

How Unreasonable Searches of Private Documents Caused the American Revolution

Juan Cole

Just FYI, the Restore the Fourth movement in defense of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution is holding protests all over the US today. On the Fourth of July, Americans should be celebrating the freedoms enshrined in the US constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. At one time, Americans minded when the government usurped their […]

Government surveillance

Snowden Fall-out: European Denial of Overflight to Bolivian President Angers South America

Juan Cole

As Bolivian President Evo Morales was returning from Moscow in a private jet after consultations on energy, his pilot was suddenly informed that France and Portugal had revoked overflight permissions, along with Spain and Italy. Spain ultimately relented, and Morales’s plane refueled there, before heading to Vienna to overnight. The Bolivian government is furious at […]

Government surveillance

Uncle Peeping Tom: US Surveils EU (Jamiol Cartoon)

Juan Cole

courtesy Paul Jamiol

Government surveillance

Furious European Parliament Members Warn US Spying could Derail Free Trade Agreement

Juan Cole

European Union officials are furious about revelations that the US is spying on them and on Continental Europeans as vigorously as it spies on China. Their anger derives in part from their negotiations over a free trade agreement with the US, given that they now believe their negotiating positions may have been penetrated by US […]