NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news | The Guardian
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.
The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.
Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.
The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Former drone operator says he's haunted by his part in more than 1,600 deaths - Open Channel
A former Air Force drone operator who says he participated in missions that killed more than 1,600 people remembers watching one of the first victims bleed to death.
Brandon Bryant says he was sitting in a chair at a Nevada Air Force base operating the camera when his team fired two missiles from their drone at three men walking down a road halfway around the world in Afghanistan. The missiles hit all three targets, and Bryant says he could see the aftermath on his computer screen – including thermal images of a growing puddle of hot blood.
Former drone operator says he's haunted by his part in more than 1,600 deaths - Open Channel
Brandon Bryant says he was sitting in a chair at a Nevada Air Force base operating the camera when his team fired two missiles from their drone at three men walking down a road halfway around the world in Afghanistan. The missiles hit all three targets, and Bryant says he could see the aftermath on his computer screen – including thermal images of a growing puddle of hot blood.
Former drone operator says he's haunted by his part in more than 1,600 deaths - Open Channel
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
The Sorrow of Trayvon Martin’s Mother. "We as a people are too forgiving". John Henrik Clarke
Sybrina Fulton hasn’t been able to visit her son Trayvon Martin’s grave site since the Florida teenager was buried 15 months ago.
“In my mind, I don’t believe he’s there. I believe, and I want to believe, that he’s in heaven, and I just want to believe that he’s looking down on me, and he’s smiling and he’s the one that’s helping God to help me move forward,” she told me in a nearly hourlong interview Wednesday morning in a New York City restaurant.
In that hour, Fulton talked openly about her pain, her loss, her hopes for the trial, her new role as a public figure and her overarching faith.
She is preparing for Monday, when George Zimmerman will go on trial for killing her son. Zimmerman claims that he shot and killed the unarmed teenager in self-defense. The prosecution — and Trayvon’s family — contend that Zimmerman profiled the boy, pursued him and murdered him.
The Sorrow of Trayvon Martin’s Mother
Joint Chiefs’ Testimony on Sexual Assault Dismays Senators. This is why you cannot trust any military or paramilitary force like police officers to supervise themselves. The very nature of their organizational structure fosters tribalism, corruption and cover ups. These organizations are necessary but they are inherently a necessary evil.
Bradley Manning Trial Transcripts
The US military has refused to release transcripts of Bradley Manning's trial. In addition, they've denied press passes to 270 out of the 350 media organizations that applied. Without public transcripts or a press pass, it's virtually impossible for media organizations to accurately cover the trial and for the public to know what the government is doing in its name.
In response, Freedom of the Press Foundation has crowd-sourced funding to place a professional stenographer in the media room covering the trial. We will post full transcripts shortly after each day's proceedings end. The morning session with be posted by 7 pm the same evening. The afternoon session will be posted by 9 am the next morning. The transcripts will be released under an Attribution 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.
Bradley Manning Trial Transcripts
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Hardball: McCaskill: You don’t confront sexual assault in the military by ‘just training’. These sexusal predators and the officers which have condoned this behavior need to spend at least twenty years in jail. Commanding officers should have absolutely no say over prosecutions.
All In : You cant keep a secret and neither can the government
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Monday, June 03, 2013
WikiLeaks Source Put Soldiers at Risk, Prosecutor Says - NYTimes.com
FORT MEADE, Md. — A military prosecutor told a judge on Monday that Pfc. Bradley Manning was no ordinary leaker, as the court-martial opened for the former Army intelligence analyst who has confessed to being the source for vast archives of secret military and diplomatic documents made public by WikiLeaks....
But a defense lawyer for Private Manning told the judge that his client had been “young, naïve, but good-intentioned” and that he had, in fact, tried to make sure that the several hundred thousand documents he released would not cause harm.
“He was selective,” said the defense lawyer, David Coombs. “He had access to literally hundreds of millions of documents as an all-source analyst, and these were the documents that he released. And he released these documents because he was hoping to make the world a better place.”
WikiLeaks Source Put Soldiers at Risk, Prosecutor Says - NYTimes.com
But a defense lawyer for Private Manning told the judge that his client had been “young, naïve, but good-intentioned” and that he had, in fact, tried to make sure that the several hundred thousand documents he released would not cause harm.
“He was selective,” said the defense lawyer, David Coombs. “He had access to literally hundreds of millions of documents as an all-source analyst, and these were the documents that he released. And he released these documents because he was hoping to make the world a better place.”
WikiLeaks Source Put Soldiers at Risk, Prosecutor Says - NYTimes.com
Sunday, June 02, 2013
Traitor or hero whistleblower? Court-martial is set for Bradley Manning - U.S. News
Traitor or hero whistleblower? Court-martial is set for Bradley Manning - U.S. News: "Pfc. Bradley Manning says he was driven by an unquenchable thirst for information and wanted to show the world the truth about the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military says he helped enemies of the United States. Now a judge will decide his fate. Manning, a 25-year-old former Army intelligence analyst, goes on trial Monday in a military court at Fort Meade, Md., for his release of hundreds of thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website."
(Via.)
Racist School Closings in Washington, DC
The District of Columbia's planned public school closings disproportionately affect minority and special needs students and there is no evidence the plan will improve educational outcomes or save the district money.
"I don't want my school to close because they have a lot of fun things that I like there," said 9-year-old McKea, a third-grader at Ferebee-Hope Elementary School in Washington, DC. "If they take that away, I won't have nothing else fun to play with or do.”
Dressed in their Ferebee-Hope cheerleading uniforms, McKea and her teammates were accompanied by Shannon Smith, who has two grandchildren at Ferebee-Hope, one of 15 schools slated for closure by DC School Chancellor Kaya Henderson. Smith led the children to a rally outside the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, where several DC parents, students and activists had gathered to support a lawsuit against the closings.
It turns out that all 15 schools are located east of Rock Creek Park, an unofficial dividing line between poor minority communities on the east side and affluent white neighborhoods west of the park, leading to allegations that school closings are an attempt to privatize public education at the expense of the city's most vulnerable residents.
"They keep taking things away from our kids and expect our kids to achieve," Smith told Truthout. "This is discrimination against our black kids.”
Racist School Closings in Washington, DC
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Who is the real Anthony Weiner? - Salon.com
The question is how much longer he’ll be able to straddle.
Weiner’s professional political life began in 1991, when he ran his maiden race for City Council. As Steve Kornacki detailed for Salon, he won a long-shot bid as a 27-year-old, in part by anonymously sending mailers linking his opponent to African-American figures (namely, Mayor David Dinkins and Jesse Jackson) unpopular in his white district. Appealing to the white ethnic constituency, he cultivated an identity in office as an outer-borough moderate, focusing on issues like graffiti, airport regulations and fire alarm boxes.
Who is the real Anthony Weiner? - Salon.com
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