Favorite As the immigration crisis continues and the Biden administration pursues a muscular enforcement strategy with an eye to public opinion and the 2024 presidential election, the Department of Homeland Security prospers. One obscure $6 billion program has grown silently: a network of over 1,000 surveillance towers built along America’s land borders, a system that…
All posts tagged surveillance
The $500,000 GoFundMe Charity Campaign for Wealthy Ex-FBI Official Andrew McCabe Is Obscene
Favorite In 2017, more than a half-million human beings — 553,742 of them to be exact — were homeless in the U.S. for at least some time. Last year was the first since the 2008 financial crisis that America’s homeless population grew. The 2016 U.S. census found that 12.7 percent of Americans — which translates to just over 43…
Dutch Official Admits Lying About Meeting With Putin: Is Fake News Used by Russia or About Russia?
Favorite Every empire needs a scary external threat, led by a singular menacing villain, to justify its massive military expenditures, consolidation of authoritarian powers, and endless wars. For the five decades after the end of World War II, Moscow played this role perfectly. But the fall of Soviet Union meant, at least for a while,…
Newly Obtained Documents Prove: Key Claim of Snowden’s Accusers Is a Fraud
Favorite (updated below) For almost four years, a cottage industry of media conspiracists has devoted itself to accusing Edward Snowden of being a spy for either Russia and/or China at the time he took and then leaked documents from the National Security Agency. There has never been any evidence presented to substantiate this accusation. In lieu of evidence,…
Rand Paul Is Right: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
Favorite On Sunday’s Face the Nation, Sen. Rand Paul was asked about President Trump’s accusation that President Obama ordered the NSA to wiretap his calls. The Kentucky senator expressed skepticism about the mechanics of Trump’s specific charge, saying: “I doubt that Trump was a target directly of any kind of eavesdropping.” But he then made a…
Watch How Casually False Claims are Published: New York Times and Nicholas Lemann Edition
Favorite Like most people, I’ve long known that factual falsehoods are routinely published in major media outlets. But as I’ve pointed out before, nothing makes you internalize just how often it really happens, how completely their editorial standards so often fail, like being personally involved in a story that receives substantial media coverage. I cannot count…
James Clapper Has a Classified Blog. It’s Called “Intercept.”
Favorite During his tenure as the director of national intelligence, James Clapper has maintained a classified blog. It’s called “Intercept,” and is only accessible to people within the intelligence community with clearance to access the government intelink site. It even offers a secret RSS feed so analysts will never miss a post. Clapper’s Intercept blog has no relationship…
Three New Scandals Show How Pervasive and Dangerous Mass Surveillance is in the West, Vindicating Snowden
Favorite While most eyes are focused on the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, three major events prove how widespread, and dangerous, mass surveillance has become in the west. Standing alone, each event highlights exactly the severe threats which motivated Edward Snowden to blow his whistle; taken together, they constitute full-scale vindication of…
100 milhões de brasileiros estão sem WhatsApp graças a um juiz estadual
Favorite (The English version of this article can be read here.) UM JUIZ ESTADUAL determinou que as operadoras de telefonia bloqueassem o WhatsApp, serviço de mensagens online extremamente popular em todo o país, por 72 horas. A decisão, emitida em 26 de abril, tornou-se pública hoje quando foi notificada às operadoras de telefonia. Ela entrou…
WhatsApp, Used by 100 Million Brazilians, Was Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge
Favorite (Para ler a versão desse artigo em Português, clique aqui.) A BRAZILIAN STATE JUDGE ordered mobile phone operators to block nationwide the extremely popular WhatsApp chat service for 72 hours, a move that will have widespread international reverberations for the increasingly contentious debate over encryption and online privacy. The ruling, issued on April 26, became public today…