Monthly Archives: July 2013

Independent journalist Ben Swann now accepts Bitcoin for episode funding

"For two and half years I have heard day after day about media blackout, about corporations having too much control over media, about the need for honesty and truth. I have heard about how the American public is asleep and there is no one in MSM speaking about the issues of our disappearing liberties, no one to push back against the left/right paradigm. What I have done is stepped out in response to what millions of Americans from the Tea Party and Occupy movements, from independents to the fast growing Liberty movement have been crying out for. The opportunity is here… not MY opportunity, YOUR opportunity." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndependent journalist Ben Swann now accepts Bitcoin for episode funding

Ex-Obama Aide (Stupidly) Dismisses Glenn Greenwald as a Fake Journalist

"Steven Rattner, a former member of Barack Obama's Treasury Department, appeared on the news show Morning Joe on Monday offering an opinion about The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story about NSA spying. Rattner's opinion? Greenwald isn't a journalist. This is apparently because Rattner may not have seen how Greenwald's reporting has shifted public opinion and moved public policy. Rattner may actually be unaware of what journalists do. Perhaps this blind spot is because the journalists he hangs out with work for Morning Joe." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEx-Obama Aide (Stupidly) Dismisses Glenn Greenwald as a Fake Journalist

Life as a US drone operator: ‘It’s like playing a video game for four years’

"'It is a lot like playing a video game,' a former Predator drone operator matter-of-factly admits. 'But playing the same video game four years straight on the same level.' His bombs kill real people though and, he admits, often not the people he is aiming at. What Omer Fast's film does brilliantly is evoke the weirdness of people in Nevada endlessly trawling foreign countries for 'bad guys', whom they then get permission to fire on. A former US air force drone operator admits to making mistakes: 'You see a lot of death,' he says before pondering why he carries on – perhaps because if it was not him then it might be some 'new kid doing it badly'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLife as a US drone operator: ‘It’s like playing a video game for four years’

Police blame ‘poor lighting’ after killing innocent grandfather, 72, while searching the wrong home

"Fort Worth, TX., police have blamed poor lighting after responding May 28 to a burglary alarm, searching the wrong home and shooting dead beloved husband Jerry Waller. The city of Fort Worth has had more than one incident involving misidentified homes this year, the second resulted in the wrong house being bulldozed. Mr. Waller’s home is across the street from the home the police should have been responding to. ‘We were disturbed by suggestions that the police may have felt threatened by a man in his own garage faced with unknown trespassers yielding flashlights,’ Waller’s daughter Angie told media the following day." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPolice blame ‘poor lighting’ after killing innocent grandfather, 72, while searching the wrong home

‘It was like a firing squad’: Deputies shoot Florida man in his own front yard

"Middleton told the News Journal that two deputies shot him early Saturday morning when he turned to face them while getting a cigarette out of his mother’s car, saying he was bent over inside the car when he was ordered to 'get your hands out where [the shooter] could see them.' The News Journal reported that a neighbor called authorities after seeing someone reaching into the car, prompting the unidentified deputies to respond to what they thought was a burglary in progress. The two deputies have been put on paid leave. Middleton told the News Journal the deputies did not check the license plate on the car or provide an explanation for their actions." Continue reading →

Continue Reading‘It was like a firing squad’: Deputies shoot Florida man in his own front yard

Democratic establishment unmasked: prime defenders of NSA bulk spying

"Now, a bill to ban the government from collecting the telephone records of all Americans, while expressly allowing it to collect the records of anyone for whom there is evidence of wrongdoing, is - in the language of the House Democratic Leadership - a bill to Protect The Terrorists. This is the same Nancy Pelosi who spent years during the Bush administration pretending to be a vehement opponent of the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program after it was revealed by the New York Times, even though (just as was true of the Bush torture program) she was secretly briefed on it many years earlier when it was first implemented." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDemocratic establishment unmasked: prime defenders of NSA bulk spying

A History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information Technology Sector

"Not only does it deny consumers more and better products and services, but they also may pay higher prices or higher taxes extracted by the corporate-government agreement. Moreover, economic growth slows as entrepreneurs pursue unproductive influence and capture activities rather than productive entrepreneurship. Cronyism also raises the specter of greater government control of the Internet and of the digital economy more generally. When policymakers dispense favors, they usually expect something in return. They may also become accustomed to having greater informal powers over the sector receiving favors." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information Technology Sector

Dr. Joseph Bonneau Wins NSA Award, Calls For NSA To Be Abolished

"Engineers and researchers like Bonneau have a unique and important role to play in fighting back against NSA oversteps. As Michael Hirsh noted in the Atlantic last month, tech companies have contributed enormously to wiring up Big Brother -- companies like Palantir Technologies, Eagle Alliance (of Computer Sciences Corp. and Northrup Grumman) and Booz Allen Hamilton. The only way the government gets to spy on everyone is when people who are intelligent and innovative enough to build scalable surveillance technologies decide to help them. Hopefully Bonneau’s example will inspire more cryptographers and security engineers to speak out." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDr. Joseph Bonneau Wins NSA Award, Calls For NSA To Be Abolished

Snowden’s father criticizes Congress, Obama over spy programs

"Lonnie Snowden, in an interview with NBC's 'Today' show, said lawmakers were 'complicit or negligent' in allowing the National Security Agency's massive electronic surveillance program to continue. 'I am extremely disappointed and angry,' he said. 'The American people - at this point, they don't know the full truth, but the truth is coming.' Lonnie Snowden told NBC he was confident in his son's actions. 'I believe that my son, when he takes his final breath whether it's today or 100 years from now, he will be comfortable with what he did because he did what he knew was right.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSnowden’s father criticizes Congress, Obama over spy programs

The Worldwide Evil Empire

"Did you know that our taxes pay for an 'Office of Global Strategies' at the TSA? Victoria Reeder from that 'office' recently enjoyed a junket to the Bahamas at our expense. After Bahamian pols and bureaucrats kissed her butt a while, she and various other Amerikan bureaucrats connived with those tinhorns to 'engage in co-operation activities in the area of civil aviation, establishing, among other things, screening standards, comparable to those implemented in airports in the USA, for both passengers and checked baggage departing Bahamian Pre-clearance airports bound for the United States.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Worldwide Evil Empire