Archive | July, 2013

New Terrorist Suspect Definition: “Someone searching the web for suspicious stuff”

The Guardian’s scoop today on the National Security Agency’s XKeyscore included documents that showed the “standards” that NSA employees can use to target Americans and others to vacuum up their email and all their Internet-related information. Page 14 of the documents reveals one of the new definitions of terrorist suspect: “someone searching the web for […]

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Bradley Manning Verdict & WikiLeaks Movie

Bradley Manning got nailed today by a military judge for exposing the truth. The folks who committed war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq have almost all walked scot-free. The folks who made the policies that led to the abuses have never faced federal charges. Dreamworks has a movie on Wikileaks that will be coming out […]

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Bravo Rand Paul – the only ‘No’ vote for new FBI Chief

Sen. Rand Paul was the only senator to vote against confirming James Comey as the new FBI director.  The final vote was 93 to 1 – so nobody was crowding Rand on the high ground. As the ACLU noted last month, “While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he […]

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IMF Guilty of “Aggravated Pimping” of Third World?

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been charged with “aggravated pimping” by the French government. I thought “aggravated pimping” was the job description for the IMF  – at least in its function as a bill collector for the banks. Or maybe it is simply screwing the Third World after invoking the proper econometric formulas (with […]

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Best Birthday Wishes for Barack Obama?

  An email from Nation magazine alerted me to the opportunity to sign this birthday card for President Obama. So what sort of greetings should I give to Barack? “May federal judges continue helping cover up your crimes!” “May the Washington media (mostly) continue groveling at your feet…” The dude’s birthday is on August 4 […]

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Three Cheers for Justin Amash and the Anti-Spying Coalition

  Three cheers for Rep. Justin Amash and colleagues who came within a whisker of reining in the NSA’s illegal surveillance tonight in Congress! (Final vote on his amendment was 217 to 205). This is a huge moral victory – and the sign of civil liberty victories to come. And the floor debate helped reveal […]

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