Orwellian

Don’t Leave Home Without This

"Since 1986, the U.S. State Department has been informing the IRS of all persons who renew their U.S. passports using a foreign address. Since passport renewals require an applicant’s Social Security number, this information is also used by the IRS to see if applicants have filed income tax returns. An IRS official speaking in Zurich said a special effort was being made by the agency to track all U.S. citizens who’ve renewed U.S. passports while living in Switzerland. So, now we have two out of control U.S. government agencies that have the ability to track your private financial activity and revoke your ability to travel freely through your U.S. passport." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDon’t Leave Home Without This

Right-wing bloggers denied entry to UK for rally with anti-Muslim group

"Two prominent US bloggers who were due to speak at a far-right rally in Woolwich on Saturday have been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has said. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who set up Stop Islamization of America, and run the website Jihad Watch, have been forbidden from entering the country on the grounds their presence would 'not be conducive to the public good'. Matthew Collins, from anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate, which campaigned for Geller and Spencer’s exclusion, said the organisation was 'absolutely delighted' by the decision." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRight-wing bloggers denied entry to UK for rally with anti-Muslim group

Steve Wozniak: Snowden ‘Is a Hero Because This Came From His Heart’

"Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is more than a little distressed that the technology he helped develop nearly four decades ago is being used on a massive scale to invade people’s privacy. 'I think he’s a hero,' said the 62-year-old Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs and invented the Apple I and Apple II personal computers that launched a technological revolution. 'He’s a hero to my beliefs about how the Constitution should work. I don’t think the NSA has done one thing valuable for us, in this whole ‘Prism’ regard, that couldn’t have been done by following the Constitution and doing it the old way.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSteve Wozniak: Snowden ‘Is a Hero Because This Came From His Heart’

In WikiLeaks Probe, Feds Used a Secret Search Warrant to Get Volunteer’s Gmail

"The Justice Department used a secret search warrant to obtain the entire contents of a Gmail account used by a former WikiLeaks volunteer in Iceland, according to court records released to the volunteer this week. The warrant ordered Google to turn over 'the contents of all e-mails associated with the account, including stored or preserved copies of e-mails sent to and from the account, draft e-mails, deleted e-mails [...] the source and destination addresses associated with each e-mail, the date and time at which each e-mail was sent, and the size and length of each e-mail.' The warrant also ordered Google not to disclose the search to anyone." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIn WikiLeaks Probe, Feds Used a Secret Search Warrant to Get Volunteer’s Gmail

WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI

"In 2011, a cherubic 18-year-old Icelandic man named Sigurdur 'Siggi' Thordarson walked through the stately doors of the U.S. embassy in Reykjavík, his jacket pocket concealing his calling card: a crumpled photocopy of an Australian passport, a man with a unruly shock of platinum blonde hair and the name Julian Paul Assange. Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. Thordarson served two masters, working for the secret-spilling website and simultaneously spilling its secrets to the U.S. government in exchange, he says, for a total of about $5,000." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI

Obama promises he won’t ‘scramble jets’ to get Snowden

"US President Barack Obama said Thursday he would not 'scramble jets' to intercept any flights carrying fugitive leaker Edward Snowden and scoffed at spending political capital to win him back from Russia. His comments came as Snowden remained in Russia, where he fled from Hong Kong, stuck in the transit zone of a Moscow airport, apparently unable to travel on to possible asylum in Ecuador after Washington cancelled his passport. Obama, who has been embarrassed by the refusal of first China and then Russia to expel Snowden, insisted the real damage to the United States lay not in international humiliation, but in the exposure of key spying programs." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama promises he won’t ‘scramble jets’ to get Snowden

Glenn Greenwald: The personal side of taking on the NSA

"So that's the big discovery: a corporate interest in adult videos (something the LLC shared with almost every hotel chain), fabricated emails, and some back taxes and other debt. I'm 46 years old and, like most people, have lived a complicated and varied adult life. I didn't manage my life from the age of 18 onward with the intention of being a Family Values US senator. If journalists really believe that, in response to the reporting I'm doing, these distractions about my past and personal life are a productive way to spend their time, then so be it. None of that will detain me even for an instant in continuing to report on what the NSA is doing in the dark." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: The personal side of taking on the NSA

Man Indicted In Scheme To Blackmail Romney Over Tax Returns

"The court document says that Brown never compromised the accounting firm's computer systems, 'and falsely stated that he had stolen tax documents for Willard M. Romney and Ann D. Romney for tax years prior to 2010.' Brown then 'demanded US$1 million converted to 'Bitcoin' and instructed that this sum be deposited in a Bitcoin account for which he provide the account number,' according to the document, to prevent the release of the documents. The letters were printed not on Brown's computer but on a friend's, according to the indictment, as Brown had emailed the person to ask to use their printer, using the excuse that his own printer was out of ink." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMan Indicted In Scheme To Blackmail Romney Over Tax Returns

Catholic bishops: Indefinite detention ‘wounds the moral reputation of our nation’

"The top of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States on Tuesday called on U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. 'Detainees have the right to a just and fair trial held in a timely manner,' he told Hagel. 'For at least 86 detainees ‘a crime has not first been proven.’ The indefinite detention of detainees is not only injurious to those individuals, it also wounds the moral reputation of our nation, compromises our commitment to the rule of law, and undermines our struggle against terrorism.' Pates further said reports of forced feedings of prisoners on hunger strike suggested the U.S. was violating basic human rights." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCatholic bishops: Indefinite detention ‘wounds the moral reputation of our nation’

British inventor of the World Wide Web scolds ‘insidious’ Western governments over spying

"The British inventor of the World Wide Web accused Western governments of hypocrisy in spying on the Internet while lecturing repressive leaders across the world for doing exactly the same. Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989 as the Berlin Wall crumbled, said the West was involved in 'insidious' online spying that could change the way normal people use their computers. Berners-Lee said the revelations about U.S. and British spying could alter the way people use the internet, especially for younger generations who can use it in intimate ways. He also questioned whether the governments could safeguard sensitive data once collected." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBritish inventor of the World Wide Web scolds ‘insidious’ Western governments over spying