"Polls show that public opinion on NSA spying shifts back and forth depending upon who is in the White House. In other words, liberal or conservative voters generally aren’t opposed to mass surveillance as long as their party is in power."
"Both parties suppressed this evidence of FBI abuse of the FISA process until after the FISA Amendments Act could be re-authorized. They didn’t want Americans to know how corrupt the surveillance system really is and how the US has become far too much like East Germany. That might cause more Americans to call up their Representatives and demand that the FISA mass surveillance amendment be allowed to sunset."
"Citizens of the United States tend to have short memories. The historical reality is that Iran did have a secular, democratic government, led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh between 1951 and 1953 — but Mossadegh was removed from power in a coup organized and funded by the CIA and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6."
"Powell, who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush, was much more than just horribly mistaken: He fabricated 'evidence' and ignored repeated warnings that what he was saying was false. Unfortunately, Congress never investigated Powell’s use of the intelligence he was given, so we don’t know many of the specifics."
"Former CIA Director John Brennan has been hired as a paid contributor by NBC and MSNBC, the media company announced. He led the agency from 2013 to early 2017, under President Barack Obama. That Brennan previously lied to an NBC journalist about the CIA’s attempts to thwart a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the agency’s use of torture was apparently no deterrent to his appointment."
"If they're going to be so explicit in their hostility to the anonymity and liberty those means of exchange offer people, we should take them at their word. Let's be clear in response that what they see as problems are the precise features we like about cash and cryptocurrencies. We support our well-worn folding money and bitcoin and its successors to come precisely because they put at least some of our activities beyond the reach of control freaks who want to monitor, tax, and regulate our lives."
"The city’s actions demonstrate how far governments will go to violate constitutional rights if meaningful judicial checks are not there to stop them. Charlestown’s mayor, Bob Hall, has long wanted to destroy Pleasant Ridge—where people can rent a home or pay a mortgage for a very affordable price. And so he teamed up with a Louisville businessman, John Neace, to hatch the following scheme."
"All too often those who continuously apologize for crimes committed by police officers are able to justify some of the most egregious instances of outright murder by claiming the officer was a bad apple. Almost as often, however, as TFTP has shown numerous times, the bad apple theory is exactly that—a theory—with no evidence to support it."
"A kind and loving local chef woke up Tuesday morning to a dozen cops and health department officials raiding his home. Khemuel 'Chef' Sanders had his business shut down, all of his equipment stolen by the state, and his life ruined because he made food in his home to give to the homeless."
"Lauri Love, who has Asperger's syndrome, is accused of involvement in a series of hacks in 2012 and 2013 into computers at agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. army, the Missile Defense Agency and the Federal Reserve. Charged with multiple offences in three U.S. indictments, he had been facing a life prison sentence in the United States if found guilty, a fate which he has said could lead him to taking his own life."