Orwellian

Liberty Slipping: 10 Things You Could Do in 1975 That You Can’t Do Now

"1. You could buy an airline ticket and fly without ever showing an ID. 2. You could buy cough syrup without showing an ID. 3. You could buy and sell gold coins without showing an ID 4. You could buy a gun without showing an ID 5. You could pull as much cash out of your bank account without the bank filing a report with the government. 6. You could get a job without having to prove you were an American. 7. You could buy cigarettes without showing an ID 8. You could have a phone conversation without the government knowing who you called and who called you. 9. You could open a stock brokerage account without having to explain where the money came from." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLiberty Slipping: 10 Things You Could Do in 1975 That You Can’t Do Now

New ID rules would threaten citizens’ rights

"Any citizen wanting to take a job would face the regulation that his or her digitized high-resolution passport or driver's license photo be collected and stored centrally in a Department of Homeland Security Citizenship and Immigration Services database. The pictures in the national database would then need to be matched against the job applicant's government-issued 'enhanced' ID card, using a Homeland Security-mandated facial-recognition 'photo tool.' Only when those systems worked perfectly could the new hire take the job." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew ID rules would threaten citizens’ rights

Glenn Greenwald: About the Reuters article

"The current criticism of Snowden is that he's in Russia. But the reason he's in Russia isn't that he chose to be there. It's because the US blocked him from leaving: first by revoking his passport (with no due process or trial), then by pressuring its allies to deny airspace rights to any plane they thought might be carrying him to asylum (even one carrying the democratically elected president of a sovereign state), then by bullying small countries out of letting him land for re-fueling. Given the extraordinary amount of documents he has and their sensitivity, it is incredibly foolish for the US government to force him to remain in Russia." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: About the Reuters article

You may already be a winner in NSA’s “three-degrees” surveillance sweepstakes!

"So far, we know that there have been about 20,000 requests for FISA warrants to surveil domestic targets since 2001, but if those warrants covered three hops from the suspects at the center of the requests—depending on how tightly or loosely the NSA defines a relationship—three hops could encompass as much as 50 percent of the Internet-using population of the world. Sure, I’m not calling terrorists, and NSA analysts are not intercepting my calls or rifling through my Gmail account. (Well—probably not.) But the chance that they are is significantly higher than the probability I would have put on that scenario two months ago, and that’s disconcerting." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingYou may already be a winner in NSA’s “three-degrees” surveillance sweepstakes!

How to Be a Rogue Superpower: A Manual for the Twenty-First Century

"Highlighted in all this has been a curious fact of our twenty-first-century world. In the Cold War years, asylum was always potentially available. If you opposed one of the two superpowers or its allies, the other was usually ready to open its arms to you, as the U.S. famously did for what were once called 'Soviet dissidents' in great numbers. The Soviets did the same for Americans, Brits, and others, often secret communists, sometimes actual spies, who opposed the leading capitalist power and its global order. Today, if you are a twenty-first-century 'dissident' and need asylum/protection from the only superpower left, there is essentially none to be had." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow to Be a Rogue Superpower: A Manual for the Twenty-First Century

NSA Spokesman Accidentally Admits that the Government Is Spying On Virtually All Americans

"The NSA has pretended that it only spies on a small number of potential terrorists. But NSA Deputy Director John C. Inglis inadvertently admitted that the NSA could spy on just about all Americans. Inglis told Congress last week that the agency conducts “three-hop” analysis. Given that there are now approximately 875,000 people in the government’s database of suspected terrorists – including many thousands of Americans – every single American living on U.S. soil could easily be caught up in the dragnet. There are tens of thousands of Americans listed as suspected terrorists … including just about anyone who protests anything that the government or big banks do." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA Spokesman Accidentally Admits that the Government Is Spying On Virtually All Americans

“What Is That Box?” — When The NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company

"They came in and showed me papers. It was a court order from the FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) for the intercept, with the agent’s name… and the court’s information. I think it was three or four pages of text. They wouldn’t let met me copy them. They let me take notes in regards to technical aspects of what they wanted to do. We had to facilitate them to set up a duplicate port to tap in to monitor that customer’s traffic. It was a 2U (two-unit) PC that we ran a mirrored ethernet port to. [What we ended up with was] a little box in our systems room that was capturing all the traffic to this customer. Everything they were sending and receiving." Continue reading →

Continue Reading“What Is That Box?” — When The NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company

Kerry vows to put the screws to Venezuela over Snowden

"US Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly promised his Venezuelan counterpart to close NATO airspace to the country’s flights and stop crucial oil product deliveries if Caracas grants asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Kerry reportedly threatened to ground any Venezuelan aircraft in America’s or any NATO country’s airspace if there is the slightest suspicion that Snowden is using the flight to get to Caracas. Kerry also reportedly promised to intensify the ongoing process of revoking US entry visas to Venezuelan officials and businessmen associated with the deceased President Hugo Chavez." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingKerry vows to put the screws to Venezuela over Snowden

NSA Phone Snooping Cannot Be Challenged in Court, Feds Say

"The Obama administration for the first time responded to a Spygate lawsuit, telling a federal judge the wholesale vacuuming up of all phone-call metadata in the United States is in the 'public interest,' does not breach the constitutional rights of Americans and cannot be challenged in a court of law. The administration’s filing sets the stage for what is to be a lengthy legal odyssey — one likely to outlive the Obama presidency — that will define the privacy rights of Americans for years to come." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNSA Phone Snooping Cannot Be Challenged in Court, Feds Say

Judge ‘Troubled’ by DOJ Position in Drone Strike Case

"A Washington federal judge today said she was 'troubled' by the U.S. Department of Justice's position that the courts are powerless to hear a challenge of the government's ability to target and kill U.S. citizens abroad. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Hauck argued there was a difference between having a constitutional right—which he said could be protected by the executive and legislative branches—and being able to make constitutional claims in court. Collyer countered that not being able to access the courts would deprive citizens of the ability to enforce their rights." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJudge ‘Troubled’ by DOJ Position in Drone Strike Case