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Retired US official and wife admit spying for Cuba

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - By Bbc - Nov. 20 (News) - A retired US state department official and his wife have admitted spying for Cuba for nearly three decades.

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Senators Press Holder to Declassify Key Facts about Patriot Act

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salem-News.com - Nov. 19 (News Report) - We believe that the information we referenced in those paragraphs – specifically about the use of section 215 – is essential to understanding the full scope of the PATRIOT Act, which is about to be debated in Congress. As we said in June, if you have concerns about declassifying the specific language contained in our letter, we ask that you work with us to find language that conveys enough information to allow for an informed public debate on the PATRIOT Act’s reauthorization

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Obama administration seeks to block wiretap suit

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Devlin Barrett - Oct. 31 (News Report) - The Justice Department invoked the state secrets privilege Friday to try to stop a lawsuit over Bush-era wiretapping -- the first time the Obama administration has done so under its new policy on such cases. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision in a California lawsuit challenging the warrantless wiretapping program begun after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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Obama to Set Higher Bar For Keeping State Secrets

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Carrie Johnson - Sep. 23 (News Report) - The Obama administration will announce a new policy Wednesday making it much more difficult for the government to claim that it is protecting state secrets when it hides details of sensitive national security strategies such as rendition and warrantless eavesdropping, according to two senior Justice Department officials.

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Declassified Docs Reveal Military Operative Spied on WA Peace Groups, Activist Friends Stunned

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By ANJALI KAMAT, Amy Goodman, - Jul. 28 (News Report) - Newly declassified documents reveal that an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance in Washington state was actually an informant for the US military. The man everyone knew as “John Jacob” was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. The military’s role in the spying raises questions about possibly illegal activity. The Posse Comitatus law bars the use of the armed forces for law enforcement inside the United States.

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Obama’s Military Is Spying on U.S. Peace Groups

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthDig - By Amy Goodman - Jul. 28 (News Report) - Anti-war activists in Olympia, Wash., have exposed Army spying and infiltration of their groups, as well as intelligence gathering by the Air Force, the federal Capitol Police and the Coast Guard. The infiltration appears to be in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act preventing U.S. military deployment for domestic law enforcement and may strengthen congressional demands for a full-scale investigation of U.S. intelligence activities, like the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s.

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What the CIA hid from Congress

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Jane Harman - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - Were members of congressional intelligence committees told everything about the Bush administration's surveillance programs? Not even close, reveals Jane Harman, the former top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

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UAE Blackberry update was spyware

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Ben Thompson - Jul. 21 (News Report) - A software update promoted by United Arab Emirates telecoms firm Etisalat appears to have been surveillance software.

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Spy Memo Author to America: No Apologies for Tapping You

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Kim Zetter - Jul. 17 (News Report) - John Yoo, the beleaguered former Justice Department official, hits back at a report slamming the memos he wrote justifying the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance programs.

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Report Says Wiretaps Got Too Little Legal Review

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Eric Lichtbau, James Risen - Jul. 11 (News Report) - The federal report also says that the effectiveness of the warrantless surveillance program approved by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks was unclear.

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Report: Too few officials knew of surveillance

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Pamela Hess - Jul. 11 (News Report) - Not enough relevant officials were aware of the size and depth of an unprecedented surveillance program started under President George W. Bush, let alone signed off on it, a team of federal inspectors general found.

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Mr. Cheney, You Did Not Keep Us Safe

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - May. 14 (Opinion) - If 3,000 Americans had been killed on your watch, in an attack that could have been prevented, perhaps you'd be a little hesitant to accuse anyone else of endangering America. And if you had advocated torture, and the torture produced false information that you used to mislead America into an unwise, unjust and unwarranted war, you might be a tad sheepish about defending the use of torture.

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Is the Threat of Homegrown Extremism Real?

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Michelle Goldberg - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - Last week's leaked DHS report has some asking if we need to train a closer eye on fringe political groups. But we shouldn't overlook the potential for abuse with government surveillance.

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Obama Administration Embraces Bush Position on Warrantless Wiretapping and Secrecy | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

eff.org - Apr. 06 (Press Release) - The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration's position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency's (NSA's) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday. In Jewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets." These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF's lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying. "President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

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US tried to gag Binyam Mohamed with plea bargain

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Telegraph - By Nick Allen - Mar. 27 (News Report) - He would also have been required to abandon a legal attempt to obtain documents which he believed could prove his innocence. Clive Stafford Smith, Mr Mohamed's lawyer, said: "This reflects the way the US government has consistently tried to cover up the truth of Binyam Mohamed's torture.

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The CIA responds to Seymour Hersh (via MinnPost)

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

minnpost.com - By Eric Black - Mar. 12 (Statement) - "I saw your story on Seymour Hersh’s recent allegations regarding CIA activities since 9/11. If you wish, you can attribute the quoted portion that follows to me, in name, as a CIA spokesman:

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Bush Adm. Weighed Restricting 1st Amendment

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By Michael Isikoff - Mar. 04 (News Report) - In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

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Requiem for Purity

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Citizen News Service - By Shobha Shukla - Jan. 08 (Special Report) - The shocking news of the alleged gruesome death of Dr Iffat Kamal has benumbed my senses. She, a doctor by profession, was allegedly assaulted by her husband in her house at Dundee, Scotland on 10 December 2008, and after battling for ten days, succumbed to her injuries. That she, a professionally qualified and financially independent person became a prey of the brutality of her husband, has once again put a question mark on all the so called shining progress made by Indian women in recent times.

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Total Information Awareness

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By James Grimmelmann - Dec. 11 (News Analysis) - Barack Obama deployed a campaign database that made the GOP's data-gathering efforts look like the work of amateurs.

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Spying on pacifists, environmentalists and nuns

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Bob Drogin - Dec. 09 (News Report) - Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by "Lucy" and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database -- and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency.

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Intelligence Policy to Stay Largely Intact

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Siobhan Gorman - Nov. 11 (News Report) - President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that is almost certain to create tension within the Democratic Party.

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Ramsey County Charges RNC 8 Under State Patriot Act, Alleges Acts of Terrorism

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

National Lawyers Guild Minnesota - By NLG Minnesota - Sep. 30 (Press Release) - Affidavits released by law enforcement which were filed in support of the search warrants used in raids over the weekend, and used to support probable cause for the arrest warrants, are based on paid, confidential informants who infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul.

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What Did Bush Tell Gonzales?

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Murray Waas - Sep. 27 (Special Report) - Although this president is famously known for rarely becoming immersed in the details--even on the issues he cares the most about--Gonzales has painted a picture of Bush as being very much involved when it came to his administration's surveillance program.

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Palin E-Mail Hacker Says It Was Easy

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Kim Zetter - Sep. 18 (News Report) - A person claiming to be the hacker who obtained access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail on Tuesday has posted a supposed first-person account of the hack, revealing the relatively simple steps he says he took to crack the private e-mail of the Republican vice-presidential candidate. The story was briefly posted Wednesday to the 4chan forum where the hack first surfaced. Bloggers have connected the handle of the poster, "Rubico," to an e-mail address, and tentatively identified the owner as a college student in Tennessee.

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New FBI Guidelines: More COINTELPRO?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Sep. 04 (Special Report) - [Disclosure: author is a NewsTrust staff member. The portion quoting Jeanne Roberts was added after her review and hence there is no reference to her relationship to the piece in her review.] At 9:30 a.m. on September 17, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing from Robert S. Mueller, III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the wake of complaints. I wait, wondering, what, if anything, will come out of this hearing--how much further will we erode our Constitution and how much further will we descend from our proclamation in our national anthem that we live in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."

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