Security State

 How America Tortures by M. P. Denbeaux, & Seton Hall University. (2019) This report includes eight drawings by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo detainee, illustrating his experiences during torture sessions. Abu Zubaydah is also a figure in the movie discussed below. This report is really a short book, some 95 pages --->> read more -->>

In the current moment much of the concern about privacy online and otherwise has been overwhelmed by Trump, inequality, racism and other matters. The NSA and other spies, government and corporate, are not taking a vacation.  I wrote earlier about this in  “The Uses of Metadata – an experiment you can --->> read more -->>

We are within days of the anniversary of the first revelations from Edward Snowden’s archive of NSA documents. The drum beat of new stories emerging from this trove continues even to this moment. So, Glenn Greenwald’s book, No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State --->> read more -->>

The government and the press continue to refer to the FISA Court as a judicial review, a third party oversight of the government’s intrusions on our privacy. This misuse of words and concepts needs correction. 3657

With the recent revelations of the NSA vacuum cleaner collecting metadata about every aspect of our lives we have been subjected to calming incantations, “We are only collecting metadata, we aren’t looking at the content”. As I (and many others) have pointed out earlier, this is complete nonsense.  3640

Confronting the ruling powers (government or corporate) over their misdeeds has a long and honored history. Most recently the Occupy movement brought some new approaches and energy if not immediate success to protest. The Free Speech Movement at U. Cal Berkeley in the mid-sixties provides the famous speech by Mario Savio --->> read more -->>

NSA’s gathering of Meta Data Compared to Corporate Use of Information In the current discussions of the government’s wholesale seizure of the meta data of our personal digital lives there is regular comparison to the acquisition and use of information about our digital lives by corporations. At the moment corporate --->> read more -->>

There are those, in response to the recent revelations of the US government vacuum cleaning our lives through the NSA and other secret programs, who take the line that the innocent have nothing to fear from the government. Here is an example of why no one should take such a --->> read more -->>

There has rightfully been considerable outrage over this week’s revelations that the Federal government has been sucking up information on virtually every aspect of our lives, email, telephones calls, pictures, credit card and banking transactions, and so on. Unfortunately almost all of this discussion is taking place without a useful --->> read more -->>

Having successfully avoided much of the national moment for our politicians to blather on about the true meaning of 9/11, I was struck this morning by parallel between our “War on Terror” and our longest war, the “War on Drugs” (I have written earlier about this here). Some may be --->> read more -->>

The End of America – a film by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern Here is a summary  of the ten steps discussed and illustrated by Ms. Wolf in the movie. 10 STEPS THAT CLOSE AN OPEN SOCIETY 1. invoke an internal and external threat People who are afraid are willing --->> read more -->>

As another anniversary of the events of  September 11, 2001 passes, the endless reflexive bleating in the press and our politics about 9/11 reminds that Americans continue to be enormously ignorant and callous about our place in the world. The destruction on September 11, 2001 of a few buildings and --->> read more -->>

The current New York Review of Books has an article by James Bamford, “Who’s in Big Brother’s Database” that reviews the new book by Mathew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency . I have gotten in line at my local library to read --->> read more -->>

An article in today’s NYTimes about cyber crime, malware, etc. suggests to me that another line of attack may be through the Internet against our utilities, telecoms, or financial institutions. There have already been massive attacks against whole countries with successful breakdowns that lasted for hours and days. Ukraine, Lithuania, --->> read more -->>

An article in today’s NYTimes about cyber crime, malware, etc. suggests to me that another line of attack may be through the Internet against our utilities, telecoms, or financial institutions. There have already been massive attacks against whole countries with successful breakdowns that lasted for hours and days. Ukraine, Lithuania, --->> read more -->>