"The states’ methods can be aggressive: Issuing subpoenas to pore through credit card statements, bank transactions or phone records to track a taxpayer’s location, and sending auditors to interview doormen or confirm doctors’ appointments."
"What mattered then and matters now is that the material uncovered is true
"The FISA court was not advised that the Steele dossier was funded by the DNC."
"Trump officials have vowed to prosecute Assange and destroy WikiLeaks. The central oddity of Assange’s case — that he has been effectively imprisoned for eight years despite never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime — is virtually certain to be prolonged once Ecuador hands him over to the U.K."
"It’s not a stretch to say that it’s one of the most important lawsuits to ever cross the desk of a federal judge. The core of the Bill of Rights is in play, and a wrong result could formalize a slide into authoritarianism that began long ago, but accelerated after 9/11."
"The Narodowy Bank Polski (NFB) spent around 91,000 zloty (£19,430; $27,300) on Google, Facebook, and other websites, in a subversive smear campaign aimed directly at attacking the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies — such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc. NFB also paid prominent Polish YouTube network Gamellon to run anti-cryptocurrency videos without disclosing the fact that the videos were technically sponsored content."
"The whole thing shows you that wars can be caused by groups that you and I are not aware exist and that strings are being pulled by people behind the scenes. And wars can be avoided, I think, by honesty and transparency."
"The most telling thing about the entrapment prosecution is the sentencing memo, which blatantly lays out the feds' fear and contempt for any attempt to keep a financial transaction private, whether or not anything inherently illegal is happening."
"Officials no longer want to publicize what kind of transactions fall under the reporting requirement. They worry that making too much information public will give money launderers a road map to stay off the radar of regulators."
"Social media accounts and blogs with more than 5,000 followers on sites such as Twitter and Facebook will be treated as media outlets, which makes them subject to prosecution for publishing false news or incitement to break the law."