Police State

The Ecuadorian Library or, The Blast Shack After Three Years

Citizens and rights have nothing to do with elite, covert technologies! The targets of surveillance are oblivious dorks, they’re not even newbies! Even US Senators are decorative objects for the NSA. An American Senator knows as much about PRISM and XKeyScore as a troll-doll on the dashboard knows about internal combustion.

Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution

Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth- certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.”

Edward Snowden Granted Asylum

Interview on Russia Today with BSNews Co-Editor Mike Raddie

Discussing the example Edward Snowden has set and the implications for future whistleblowers as well as the fallout from the NSA scandal in the EU and the way the telecoms companies, the backbone of the public internet, have gone above and beyond, effectively serving the interests of the intelligence community rather than their customers.

Inside Syria: Britain Violates Own Anti-Terrorist Legislation

The United Nations Security Council of which Britain is a member has al-Nusra on their terrorist list.

So in effect I think that Britain is simply towing the line in putting this terrorist organization on the blacklist while at the same time supporting them covertly in violation of their own anti-terrorist legislation.

This is true for Britain, but it’s also true for the United States and several other countries, which openly support the al-Nusra affiliate to al-Qaeda via the so-called Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.

End the Snowden circus now

We should focus on the consequences of Snowden’s decision to leak materials rather than be fixated on his whereabouts by Richard Falk (Al Jazeera) I find the discourse surrounding the Snowden Affair bewildering. The latest reports suggest that the United States is using maximum political leverage, including coercive diplomacy, to discourage small Latin American countries from granting asylum to Edward […]

No Innocence Left to Kill: Racism, Injustice and Explaining America to My Daughter

Those who deny the racial angle to the killing of Trayvon Martin can only do so by a willful ignorance, a carefully cultivated denial of every logical, obvious piece of evidence before them, and by erasing from their minds — if indeed they ever had anything in there to erase — the entire history of American criminal justice, the criminal suspicion regularly attached to black men, and the inevitable results whenever black men pay for these suspicions with their lives.

Only 1 Percent of “Terrorists” Caught By the FBI are Real

“The Terror Factory” author Trevor Aaronson exposes the Bureau’s undercover sting operations for the farce they are by Joshua Holland In the dozen years since the 9/11 attacks, we’ve watched as a classified new legal regime for government surveillance has been hashed out, local police forces have become heavily armed military-type units and a whole new layer of bureaucracy has […]

White Supremacy Acquits George Zimmerman

A jury has found George Zimmerman not guilty of all charges in connection to death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. But while the verdict came as a surprise to some people, it makes perfect sense to others. This verdict is a crystal-clear illustration of the way white supremacy operates in America.

Open Season on Black Boys After a Verdict Like This

Let it be noted that on this day, Saturday 13 July 2013, it was still deemed legal in the US to chase and then shoot dead an unarmed young black man on his way home from the store because you didn’t like the look of him.

The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year was tragic. But in the age of Obama the acquittal of George Zimmerman offers at least that clarity. For the salient facts in this case were not in dispute. On 26 February 2012 Martin was on his way home, minding his own business armed only with a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. Zimmerman pursued him, armed with a 9mm handgun, believing him to be a criminal. Martin resisted. They fought. Zimmerman shot him dead.