DhafirTrial

The program, which has largely gone unmentioned in the media, spans all government agencies and mandates that employees and their superiors seek out “high-risk persons or behaviors” tied to someone who might expose government wrongdoing. Those who fail to expose someone they belief to be a leaker face penalties that include criminal charges. (more…)

A few weeks ago, Edward Snowden blew the whistle on an ongoing program – involving the Obama administration, the intelligence community and the internet services giants – to spy on everyone in the world.

As if by clockwork, he has been charged with espionage by the Obama administration.

The US government is spying on each and every one of us, but it is Edward Snowden who is charged with espionage for tipping us off.

It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Prize, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice. (more…)

Glenn Greenwald  Guardian U.K.

Who is actually bringing ‘injury to America’: those who are secretly building a massive surveillance system or those who inform citizens that it’s being done? (more…)

McClatchy

If you tweet a picture from your living room using your smartphone, you’re sharing far more than your new hairdo or the color of the wallpaper. You’re potentially revealing the exact coordinates of your house to anyone on the Internet.  (more…)

Nat Hentoff CATO Institute

My Jewish parents had changed their lives — inner and outer — by coming to America. When their son was old enough to go to school, they were determined not to send him to the prestigious Hebrew school on the street next to where they lived in Boston. (more…)

Katherine:  I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie The Lives of Others recently and came across this 10 minute video about the Stasi files preserved after the fall of the Berlin wall; it has a lot to teach us about the times we are living in.  How many citizens here in the U.S. have files like this? And what will it take to make people here in the U.S. concerned about this kind of intelligence gathering?

Matthew Behrens Rabble.ca

The end of June marks 13 years of Mohammad Mahjoub’s Kafkasesque journey. The Egyptian refugee and returnee from torture originally thought he was walking onto a Hollywood set when he was surrounded by heavily armed men and arrested while getting off a Toronto streetcar in 2000. (more…)

by Stan Sorscher  Commondreams

First, let me say that I am 100% in favor of trade. Trade is when we do what we do best, they do what they do best, and we trade. Trade, done right, will raise living standards.(more…)