DhafirTrial

The New Yorker published an interview with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden last night in which he explains why recent claims by Rep. Mike Rogers that he is a Russian spy are “absurd.” (more…)

Gareth Porter  Truthout.org

Contrary to President Obama’s promise to make it easier for American Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation to give one-fifth of their surplus income to charity, federal prosecutors continue to target Islamic charities and their donors, as illustrated by the recent prosecution of a Portland, Oregon, couple. (more…)

Nick Turse  TomDispatch.com

Since September 11, 2001, U.S. Special Operations forces have grown in every conceivable way, from their numbers to their budget.  Most telling, however, has been the exponential rise in special ops deployments globally.  This presence — now, in nearly 70% of the world’s nations (more…)

Aside from providing asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Ecuador has progressed leaps and bounds in the past two decades. From nearly going bankrupt on multiple occasions to creating a new constitution, the country is placing education and health at the top of its agenda. (more…)

Truthdig

Marc Schindler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, told me in an interview, “We are seeing in this country over the past 30 or 40 years a significant ratcheting up in the severity of penalties within our justice system, and [Blount’s case] is an example of that.” (more…)

Le Monde diplomatique

Video games are migrating from television screens to mobiles and smartphones. Even the nominally free games are being monetised and the information they generate about their players linked with other data to target ads. Where’s the pleasure in that? (more…)

Truthdig

In the course of writing her book, “Dragnet Nation,” ProPublica reporter Julia Angwin tried various strategies to protect her privacy. In this blog post, she distills the lessons from her privacy experiments into useful tips for readers. (more…)

Truthdig

The Washington, D.C., District Court of Appeals just eliminated the FCC’s already-compromised protection of a free and open Internet and moved to limit the federal watchdog’s authority over broadband. (more…)