DhafirTrial

A secret federal court last year did not deny a single request to search or electronically spy on people within the United States “for foreign intelligence purposes,” according to a Justice Department report this week. (more…)

Guardian U.K.

It is time for members of Congress who truly care about rule of law, oversight and the financial security of this country to speak up. (more…)

Truthout

An attorney who represented prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay was found dead last week in what sources said was a suicide. (more…)

The Washington Post

Under the draft proposal, a court could levy a series of escalating fines, starting at tens of thousands of dollars, on firms that fail to comply with wiretap orders, according to persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. (more…)

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don’t seem easy to explain. In many ways the worst is what you mention, Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project. That’s an Obama initiative and it’s a very serious attack on civil liberties. (more…)

The violent Boston rampage triggered a local and federal response that, according to journalist Glenn Greenwald, adds a new dimension to troubling questions about government secrecy, overreach, and what we sacrifice in the name of national security. (more…)

Democracy Now!

The Obama administration’s assassination of two U.S. citizens in 2011, Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old Denver-born son Abdulrahman, is a central part of Jeremy Scahill’s new book, “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield.” (more…) and Part Two.

Edward S. Herman (co-author with Noam Chomsky of “Manufacturing Consent’) Video (12 mins.)