CLibertyC

Brazil leaders to meet after 1 million protest in streets

"Brazil awoke Friday to city centers still smoldering after a night that shocked the nation: 1 million anti-government protesters took to the streets in scores of cities, with clusters battling police and destroying swaths of storefronts and government buildings. President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting about the protest with top Cabinet members Friday, after a largely silent and much criticized response to some of the biggest demonstrations seen in this 192 million-person country in decades. The majority of protesters have been peaceful, and crowds have taken to chanting 'No violence! No violence!' when small groups have prepared to burn and smash." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBrazil leaders to meet after 1 million protest in streets

Jacob Hornberger: Replacing The Welfare-Warfare State With A Free Society

"We live under a governmental system in which the president, the military, the CIA, and the NSA now wield powers that the greatest dictators in history have wielded. The powers to assassinate people, to indefinitely detain people without due process or trial by jury, to kidnap and rendition people, to torture people, to subject people to LSD experiments, to invade and occupy foreign countries, to support coups in foreign lands, to install, train, maintain, and support brutal dictatorial regimes, to spy on and monitor the activities of people everywhere. In other words, the dark type of things that Americans used to complain that communist or totalitarian regimes were engaged in." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJacob Hornberger: Replacing The Welfare-Warfare State With A Free Society

Bill Bonner: How to Disappear Without a Trace

"Twelve years ago – when the 'homeland' was first invented (a smooth adaptation of Hitler's 'fatherland') and TSA agents began frisking grandmothers – the whole thing seemed like a joke. It looked as though America's leaders had gotten themselves into a hysterical panic. They thought al-Qaida really existed... that there were terrorist sleeper cells in every hamlet and burg... and that these infiltrators were about to wreak havoc on the nation. It was a preposterous lie, but we figured they'd come to their senses soon. Instead of coming to their senses, America's leaders began to see the advantage of a war that could neither be won nor lost." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: How to Disappear Without a Trace

Web’s Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders

"Although Silicon Valley has sold equipment to the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies for a generation, the interests of the two began to converge in new ways in the last few years as advances in computer storage technology drastically reduced the costs of storing enormous amounts of data. The sums the N.S.A. spends in Silicon Valley are classified, as is the agency’s total budget, which independent analysts say is $8 billion to $10 billion a year. Current and former industry officials say the companies sometimes secretly put together teams of in-house experts to find ways to cooperate more completely with the N.S.A." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWeb’s Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders

Use of Tor and e-mail crypto could increase chances that NSA keeps your data

"Using online anonymity services such as Tor or sending encrypted e-mail and instant messages are grounds for US-based communications to be retained by the National Security Agency even when they're collected inadvertently, according to a secret government document published Thursday. The document, dated July 28, 2009, bears the signature of US Attorney General Eric Holder. It's hard to read the documents and not be struck by the irony that use of these services may subject people on US soil to a much higher likelihood that their communications will be retained by an agency that's supposed to focus on foreign targets." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUse of Tor and e-mail crypto could increase chances that NSA keeps your data

New Details on Skype Eavesdropping; Program Started In 2009

"Reread that Skype denial from last July, knowing that at the time the company knew that they were giving the NSA access to customer communications. Notice how it is precisely worded to be technically accurate, yet leave the reader with the wrong conclusion. This is where we are with all the tech companies right now; we can't trust their denials, just as we can't trust the NSA -- or the FBI -- when it denies programs, capabilities, or practices. Back in January, we wondered whom Skype lets spy on their users. Now we know." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew Details on Skype Eavesdropping; Program Started In 2009

Don’t Get Fooled Again — It’s Time to Dump Bonds Now

"The bond-market bust was a long time coming, if you’ve read my columns this year and last. But some investors — even big-time mutual fund managers — got caught flat-footed. Why? Just like real estate in the 2000s and tech stocks in the late 1990s, those bull markets were artificially extended for years, and those who got out early lost out on some of the biggest gains. But make no mistake. The real problem is what I’ve been harping on for several months: The bond market is a gigantic bubble, having been wildly inflated by too much cheap, easy money from the world’s central banks." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDon’t Get Fooled Again — It’s Time to Dump Bonds Now

Bitcoin’s Big Bank Problem: Why Did Mt. Gox Halt US Payouts?

"The world’s best-known Bitcoin exchange stopped paying out customers in U.S. dollars Thursday. Mt. Gox didn’t exactly explain what was going on, though. It blamed an 'increased volume' of transactions, and said it would suspend U.S. cash withdrawals for two weeks as it sorted things out. The issue 'is with processing the sheer volume through our banks in Japan, which is causing a delay,' said Mt. Gox’s Thomas Glucksmann-Smith in an email message. 'We are currently attempting to improve our services for this. In the meantime USD deposits are unaffected as are other currencies.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBitcoin’s Big Bank Problem: Why Did Mt. Gox Halt US Payouts?

NYPD ‘Hunting Of Man’ T-Shirts Seen On On-Duty Officers In Queens

"On-duty members of the NYPD's Queens Warrant Squad were spotted outside a city courthouse last week wearing T-shirts imprinted with a Ernest Hemingway quote, that in the context of the officers' work, could be considered very disturbing: 'There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.' Tipsters, who passed along the photo below, told Gothamist and SocialistWorker.orgthat the cops had badges around their necks, and that words on the front of their T-shirts read, 'Fugitive Enforcement NYPD.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNYPD ‘Hunting Of Man’ T-Shirts Seen On On-Duty Officers In Queens