Many are beginning to wonder if the Internet was America’s great “Trojan horse” gift to the world, a clever way to get past barriers and into everyone’s private information. The recent PRISM spying disclosures have especially riled Europeans. But there are…
Category: Constitution
The Need for National Security Leaks
The attack line against whistleblowers Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden that they should have gone through “proper channels” ignores that those oversight channels have been badly corrupted over the past several decades. That has left Americans dependent on out-of-channel leaks, says ex-CIA…
Exposing the Global Surveillance State
In lifting the curtain of secrecy only slightly, the Obama administration says U.S. surveillance of telephone and Internet communications has helped disrupt dozens of terror plots and is subjected to rigorous checks and balances. But the continued secrecy shows the need for whistleblowers, writes ex-British…
Would Jesus Love Ayn Rand Economics?
Many on the American Right say they’re strong Christians, but have bought into Ayn Rand economics which disdains government help for the poor and needy. Other Christians, like Sojourners’ Jim Wallis, see Jesus’s teachings enshrined in the Constitution’s commitment to…
UK Grapples with Spying Disclosure
Exclusive: British authorities are scrambling to justify how they while hosting a global economic summit in 2009 spied on their guests with help from America’s National Security Agency. Some UK media outlets seem a little spooked themselves in getting commentary…
Obama, ‘War on Terror’ Captive
President Obama has alienated much of his liberal base by coming across increasingly as a toady to the Establishment, with his defense of drone strikes, his embrace of the surveillance state and his prosecution of anti-secrecy whistleblowers, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
A British Precursor to Snowden Case
More than a decade ago, as President George W. Bush sought legal cover for invading Iraq, the National Security Agency spied on key UN diplomats with the hope of blackmailing them. But British intelligence officer Katharine Gun leaked the secret and like Edward…
Richard Milhous W. Bush
From the Archive: Only public outrage global and domestic stands any hope of pushing back the National Security Agency’s “surveillance state.” As hard as that may be, there was success a decade ago disrupting President George W. Bush’s Orwellian Total Information…
Secrecy’s Tangled Web of Deceit
Exclusive: U.S. government officials insist that their secret surveillance techniques are so valuable in fighting “terrorism” that they must be kept completely in the dark along with the American people. This alleged imperative has justified even lying to Congress, as ex-CIA…
Fighting the Secrecy/Surveillance State
The emergence of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and now Edward Snowden represents just the tip of the iceberg of a popular resistance that is challenging the U.S. government’s excesses in secrecy and surveillance, a movement that Iceland MP Birgitta Jonsdottir discusses…