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Annals of the Security State: More Airplane Stories

"Over the weekend I related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials as he traveled across the country in his small plane. The picture above is not from that episode; it's an official DHS photo of its emergency-response agents being trained. Below and after the jump are two additional stories of the same sort. The first is a long account from Larry Gaines, a small-plane pilot from California who had a similar episode last year. The story is long and detailed, and will be riveting for those in the aviation world." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAnnals of the Security State: More Airplane Stories

NSA spying allegations mean U.S. could provide ‘virtually unlimited’ info on citizens to allies

"Britain’s foreign secretary took to television on Sunday to reassure Britons that London’s own spies had not circumvented laws restricting their own activity by obtaining information collected by Washington. In Germany, sensitive to decades of snooping by East German Stasi secret police, the opposition said Chancellor Angela Merkel should do more to protect Germans from U.S. spying and demand answers when President Barack Obama visits this month. In Australia, a government source said the U.S. revelations could make it more difficult to pass a law allowing the government to access Internet data at home." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA spying allegations mean U.S. could provide ‘virtually unlimited’ info on citizens to allies

Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower: ‘I do not expect to see home again’

"The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEdward Snowden, NSA whistleblower: ‘I do not expect to see home again’

All the Infrastructure a Tyrant Would Need, Courtesy of Bush and Obama

"Even if all the critics were proved wrong, even if the CIA, NSA, FBI, and every other branch of the federal government had been improbably filled, top to bottom, with incorruptible patriots constitutionally incapable of wrongdoing, this would still be so: The American people have no idea who the president will be in 2017. What we know is that the people in charge will possess the capacity to be tyrants -- to use power oppressively and unjustly -- to a degree that Americans in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, or 2000 could've scarcely imagined. To an increasing degree, we're counting on having angels in office and making ourselves vulnerable to devils." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAll the Infrastructure a Tyrant Would Need, Courtesy of Bush and Obama

Mint: U.S. bullion coin demand still at ‘unprecedented’ levels

"Demand for U.S. gold and silver bullion coins is still at 'unprecedented' high levels almost two months after an historic sell-off in gold released years of pent-up demand from retail investors, the head of the U.S. Mint said on Wednesday. His comments are likely to allay concerns among some traders that frenzied buying by mom-and-pop investors since mid-April after prices plunged to two-year lows had started to fade. Their interest has helped prices recover to above $1,400 an ounce, providing key support to prices after institutional investors fled the futures market and exchange-traded funds." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMint: U.S. bullion coin demand still at ‘unprecedented’ levels

Meet the world’s first Bitcoin baby

"Dr. C. Terence Lee, a fertility specialist based in Brea, Calif., flashes a photo of a beaming infant across a projection screen and announces: 'This baby was bought with bitcoins.' No, this isn't a black-market deal brokered in the Internet's shadowy corners. The child was born thanks to a frozen embryo transfer cycle paid for with bitcoins. Lee says it's the first time he's aware of that anyone has paid for fertility treatments that way. The baby is the biggest -- and definitely the cutest -- victory yet for Lee in his campaign to persuade his patients to pay him for his services with bitcoins." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMeet the world’s first Bitcoin baby

Intelligence officials overheard joking about how Glenn Greenwald should be ‘disappeared’

"A group of intelligence officials were overheard yesterday discussing how the National Security Agency worker who leaked sensitive documents to a reporter last week should be 'disappeared.' Foreign policy analyst and editor at large of The Atlantic, Steve Clemons, tweeted about the 'disturbing' conversation after listening in to four men who were sitting near him as he waited for a flight at Washington's Dulles airport. According to Clemons, the men had been attending an event hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIntelligence officials overheard joking about how Glenn Greenwald should be ‘disappeared’

Spying row whistleblower Edward Snowden urged by top official to leave Hong Kong

"A senior Hong Kong politician advised the US spying row whistleblower today to leave the city or face extradition to America. Edward Snowden outed himself last night as the person who leaked details of the US Government’s secret surveillance operations, snooping on the e-mails of non-US citizens around the world and on phone records. Mr Snowden, 29, a former technical assistant for the CIA who was employed as a contractor at the US National Security Agency, revealed that he had been holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong for the past three weeks." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSpying row whistleblower Edward Snowden urged by top official to leave Hong Kong