What’s at Stake When the Government Seizes Phone Records

Glenn Greenwald: The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties

it is remarkable how media reactions to civil liberties assaults are shaped almost entirely by who the victims are. For years, the Obama administration has been engaged in pervasive spying on American Muslim communities and dissident groups. It demanded a reform-free renewal of the Patriot Act and the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, both of which codify immense powers of warrantless eavesdropping, including ones that can be used against journalists. It has prosecuted double the number of whistleblowers under espionage statutes as all previous administrations combined, threatened to criminalize WikiLeaks, and abused Bradley Manning to the point that a formal UN investigation denounced his treatment as "cruel and inhuman". But, with a few noble exceptions, most major media outlets said little about any of this, except in those cases when they supported it. It took a direct and blatant attack on them for them to really get worked up, denounce these assaults, and acknowledge this administration's true character

Democracy Now: Are the FBI and IRS Secretly Reading Your Email Without a Warrant? [Um.. Yes]

Kristen Gwynnne: Why Cops Bust Down Doors of Medical Pot Growers, But Ignore Men Who Keep Naked Girls on Leashes

Strange, isn’t it, that hunches and vague tips about potential marijuana growing (in a state that recently legalized the drug!) is motivation enough to send a SWAT team busting down a door? Compare that to recent reports that police in Cleveland, Ohio ignored years of tips and calls about strange things going on in the home of the three Cleveland men suspected of holding captive, brutally raping and beating three women for nearly a decade. Before the big break on Monday, neighbors say they knew something was up and claim that they repeatedly called the cops. The police did not appear concerned; they certainly lacked the enthusiasm many law enforcement officers display when going after drug crimes (and non-crimes)

Truthdig – Google’s Spymasters Are Now Worried About Your Secrets – Robert Scheer

WashingtonsBlog: Multiple Polls – Americans Are More Afraid of the GOVERNMENT than TERRORISTS

A Fox News survey polling a random national sample of 619 registered voters the day after the [Boston] bombing found[] for the first time since a similar question was asked in May 2001, more Americans answered “no” to the question, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?” .. This is not entirely surprising. As we noted in February: For years, “conservative” pollsters have said that Americans are furious at the government. Rasmussen noted in 2010 that only a small minority of the American people think that the government has the consent of the governed, and that the sentiment was “pre-revolutionary”; Gallup noted in 2011 that a higher percentage of Americans liked King George during the colonial days than currently like Congress .. The Washington Post reported in 2011 that Congress was less popular than communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill or Nixon during Watergate; Public Policy Polling added last month that Congress is also less popular than cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesman and Genghis Khan

May Day Is Around the Corner, and the FBI Wants Us to Know They’re Watching

In the past 24 hours, FBI agents in Seattle and Olympia have reportedly been showing up at people's houses, favorite jogging locations (a park), schools (Seattle University), workplaces, and at least one nonprofit (which serves street-involved youth), asking: "Do you want to talk about May Day?" .. The Seattle agents, according to people who were present for the conversations in the past 48 hours, are primarily two guys in a gold SUV wearing jeans, button-up shirts, and vests (perhaps polar fleece) .. in one case yesterday, the agents reportedly turned up at a public park to intercept two joggers. The joggers said "no, thanks" and went home. About 20 minutes later, the agents reportedly showed up at their house

A Door to Door Search in Watertown MA

FOCUS | The Morality Brigade | Robert Reich

US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email – Technology on NBCNews.com

ARGUS: The Next Generation of Surveillance

Anarchists strike back against Seattle’s expanded surveillance camera network

On Wednesday, a photo and short announcement was posted on the website Puget Sound Anarchists declaring that anarchists had "removed and destroyed" 17 security cameras in the Puget Sound region of Washington state .. The Barefoot Bandit Brigade's destruction of surveillance cameras comes on the heels of Seattle's recently-expanded waterfront camera network that is being funded by the Department of Homeland Security and jointly controlled by Seattle police

Glenn Greenwald: The ‘war on terror’ – by design – can never end

In October, the Washington Post's Greg Miller reported that [] "among senior Obama administration officials, there is broad consensus that [gwot] operations are likely to be extended at least another decade." As Miller puts it: "That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism." .. There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation

Renewing Warrantless Eavesdropping

Naomi Wolf: Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages

Glenn Greenwald: GOP and Feinstein join to fulfill Obama’s demand for renewed warrantless eavesdropping

Yesterday, Feinstein stood up on the Senate floor and began by heaping praise on her GOP comrade, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, for leading his caucus to join her in renewing the FISA act without any reforms. She then unleashed a vile attack on her Democratic colleagues - Wyden, Merkley, and Udall, along with Paul - in which she repeatedly accused them of trying to make the nation vulnerable to a Terrorist attack. Feinstein insisted that one could support their amendments only if "you believe that no one is going to attack us". She warned that their amendments would cause "another 9/11". She rambled about Najibullah Zazi and his attempt to detonate a bomb on the New York City subway: as though a warrant requirement, let alone disclosure requirements for the eavesdropping program, would have prevented his detection. Having learned so well from Rudy Giuliani (and Harry Reid), she basically just screamed "Terrorist!" and "9/11" over and over until her time ran out, and then proudly sat down as though she had mounted rational arguments against the transparency and oversight amendments advocated by Wyden, Merkley, Udall and Paul.

The Spy State Tightens its Grip

Naomi Wolf: The coming drone attack on America

30,000 of them are expected to be in use by 2020, some as small as hummingbirds .. Domestic drone use is here, and the meshing has begun: local cops in Grand Forks, North Dakota called in a DHS Predator drone – the same make that has caused hundreds of civilian casualties in Pakistan – over a dispute involving a herd of cattle. The military rollout in process and planned, within the US, is massive: the Christian Science Monitor reports that a total of 110 military sites for drone activity are either built or will be built, in 39 states. That covers America

FOCUS | NSA Whistleblower: All Americans Under Constant Surveillance

Verizon Files Patent for DVR That Can See You and Listen in on You in Your Home

Verizon has filed a patent for a DVR that can watch and listen to the goings-on in your living room. In the application, the company proposes to use the technology to serve targeted ads appropriate to whatever you’re doing in the, uh, privacy of your own home—fighting, cuddling .. Verizon gives two examples of the context-sensitive DVR’s use in a couple’s living room: sounds of arguing prompt ads for marriage counseling, while sounds of “cuddling” prompts ads for contraceptives

The Quiet Ones

In a 2006 interview David Foster Wallace said, “it seems significant that we don’t want things to be quiet, ever, anymore.” Stores and restaurants have their ubiquitous Muzak or satellite radio; bars have anywhere between 1 and 17 TVs blaring Fox and soccer; ads and 30-second news cycles play on screens in cabs, elevators and restrooms .. People are louder, too. They complain at length and in detail about their divorces or gallbladders a foot away from you in restaurants. A dreaded Amtrak type is the passenger who commences prattling on her cellphone the instant she sits down and doesn’t hang up until she gets to her stop, unable to bear an undistracted instant in her own company. People practice rap lyrics on the bus or the subway, barking doggerel along with their iPods as though they were alone in the shower

Glenn Greenwald: with “Disposition Matrix” Obama moves to make the War on Terror permanent

The Washington Post has a crucial and disturbing story this morning by Greg Miller about the concerted efforts by the Obama administration to fully institutionalize – to make officially permanent – the most extremist powers it has exercised in the name of the war on terror .. The creepiest aspect of this development is the christening of a new Orwellian euphemism for due-process-free presidential assassinations: "disposition matrix" .. The "disposition matrix" has been developed and will be overseen by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) .. the NCTC operates a gigantic data-mining operation, in which all sorts of information about innocent Americans is systematically monitored, stored, and analyzed. This includes "records from law enforcement investigations, health information, employment history, travel and student records" – "literally anything the government collects would be fair game". In other words, the NCTC - now vested with the power to determine the proper "disposition" of terrorist suspects - is the same agency that is at the center of the ubiquitous, unaccountable surveillance state aimed at American citizens

Huffington Post reviews our new rock n roll musical BARCODE

a day in the dystopian vision of Debbie Andrews and Mike Blaxill, writers of the new rag-tag, upstart, rock-and-roll musical Barcode .. Barcode follows the adventures of a group of digerati rebels, the Data Jammers, as they hack away at the edifice of global domination by Earth Corp., the parent corporation that has consolidated control over most of the globe. The rebellion is set against a love story between Dorna and Nest, played by the show's writers (a married couple, incidentally), who also serve as the keyboardist and guitarist for Gladshot, the live indie band that carries the rock operatic tunes. Barcode's occupop (rockuppy? occupunk?) score is bubbly, and it moves. (Seriously, I defy any show-watcher to sit quietly, under the influence of a single beer, and not, at the very least, bop your head along with the beat) .. Performed on a crowded stage with an austere set at the Bowery, Barcode has the handmade, bootstrap feel of a musical hoisted together by sweat and toil at an Occupy encampment, and in context it works. But, you get the feeling that, like the Occupy movement itself, it wants to be bigger. One rock anthem after another begs for bigger choreography. The CEO and dictator of Earth Corp., Mr. Ice (played by American Idiot alum Brian Charles Johnson), needs a bigger world to lord over and surveil

Reagan’s Personal Spying Machine – NYTimes

Naomi Wolf: The new totalitarianism of surveillance technology

A software engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military. Yes, I know: it sounds like a paranoid rant. Except that it turned out to be true