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Glenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes "False" Surveillance Claims, Snowden Risks Life to Spark NSA Debate

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 18 (News Report) - Obama distinguished his surveillance efforts from those of the Bush administration and reaffirmed his insistence that no Americans’ phone calls or emails are being directly monitored without court orders. Greenwald calls Obama’s statements "outright false" for omitting the warrantless spying on phone calls between Americans and callers outside the United States. "It is true that the NSA can’t deliberately target U.S. citizens for [warrantless] surveillance, but it is also the case they are frequently engaged in surveillance of exactly that kind of invasive technique involving U.S. persons,"

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If We Can't Stop Corporations from Hiding in Cayman Islands to Avoid Taxes, We All Need to Become Pirates

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Paolo Cirio - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - As usual, G8 members will advance measures aimed at maintaining, rather than resolving, these contradictions. Their proposals will not contain any changes that might distress corporate interests. A mere 100 miles southeast of the summit, Dublin serves as a tax haven and a center of massive tax evasion for many of the wealthiest corporations.

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Does the Government Understand the 4th Amendment?

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By David Sirota - Jun. 17 (News Analysis) - Let's for a moment set aside all those questions about the strong probability of criminal lawbreaking that were so powerfully raised first by the Guardian's NSA series, then by the Washington Post, by Bloomberg News and then by the Associated Press. Let's instead get to the heart of the huge constitutional principle at hand - the matter of probable cause.

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It's Beyond Ridiculous That Email (But Not Mail) Has Been Left Out of Privacy Laws

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - It's Beyond Ridiculous That Email (But Not Mail) Has Been Left Out of Privacy Laws

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Major Push to End Sexual Assault Epidemic in Military Turned Back in Senate

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Adele M. Stan - Jun. 16 (News Report) - Levin made the decision Tuesday, replacing the provisions of Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act with a measure that simply requires that any command decision not to prosecute a sexual assault case be reviewed by a high-ranking officer. But as demonstrated in at least one recent case—the overturning of the sexual assault conviction of Air Force Lt. Col. James Wilkerson by Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin—the top brass often exhibit the same deference to defendants as commanders lower in rank. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has condemned Levin’s decision.

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How Predatory Reformers Are Destroying Education and Profiting at Our Children's Expense

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Michael Gecan - Jun. 16 (Special Report) - Local people, connected to their communities, built successful schools based in large part on this pragmatic principle. But today this principle is undercut by political demands for ever-shifting versions of reform, by market demands for efficiency, by smothering student debt loads, and by the mistaken priorities of colleges racing for prestige. The debate over improving education—in the Midwest and throughout the country—often seems hopeless, but it turns out that we have long known what to do and are now suffering from the abandonment of the good methods we once pioneered and practiced.

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Edward Snowden Had a Breaking Point, Where He Decided to Risk It All to Fix This Country -- What's Yours?

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers - Jun. 16 (News Analysis) - Snowden sparked protest, lawsuits, criticism of the administration and US intelligence. His action shows the power that comes when someone inside the system break ranks and tells the truth. Successful movements depend on people breaking ranks: questioning, demurring, disobeying, defecting and withdrawing support. As Ken Butigan writes in Waging Nonviolence, the impact can start a metamorphosis for all of us:

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U.S. surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadata

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Barton Gellman - Jun. 16 (Special Report) - On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department’s top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal. ...

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Everything Americans Think They Know About Drugs Is Wrong: A Scientist Explodes the Myths

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Kristen Gwynne - Jun. 16 (Interview) - There are multiple false conclusions. There is a belief, for example, that crack cocaine is so addictive it only took one hit to get hooked, and that it is impossible to use heroin without becoming addicted. There was another belief that methamphetamine users are cognitively impaired. All of these are myths that have have been perpetuated primarily by law enforcement, and law enforcement deals with a limited, select group of people—people who are, in many cases, behaving badly. But to generalize that to all drug users is not only shortsighted and naive, it’s also irresponsible. The impact of that irresponsible behavior has been borne primarily by black communities.

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Secret Trade Agreements Threaten to Undo Our Last Shreds of Food Safety