Tag Archives: CIA
Parks Police arrest another activist without charge in Phili
Iraq war veteran Emily Yates was arrested on Friday after a dispute with police about where she could stand while playing her banjo during a protest against U.S. military action in Syria. Yates asks Federal Parks Police why she could not stand in a shaded area of Independence Mall in Philadelphia. http://youtu.be/yE_efOGFlho After several minutes […]
Indian police officer names superiors in illegal killing case
A high-ranking Indian police officer awaiting trial on suspicion of staging extrajudicial killings and passing them off as shootings committed during major terrorism arrests accused political leaders in the state of Gujarat on Tuesday of approving the executions. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/world/asia/indian-police-officer-says-leaders-approved-executions.html?ref=world The officer, D. G. Vanzara, said that two leaders of India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party — […]
Assange gets investigation into intelligence theft
The police opened an investigation on Tuesday after Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, urged them to find out what happened to a suitcase he thinks was stolen from him by intelligence agents as he traveled from Sweden to Germany in 2010. The suitcase contained three laptops with WikiLeaks materials, according to an affidavit that […]
Russia joins chorus doubting chemical weapons evidence
In an interview published on Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin said it seemed “completely ridiculous” for the government of President Bashar al-Assad to have used chemical weapons and that there was still not sufficient proof to justify the military strike that President Obama has asked Congress to authorize. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/world/europe/putin-says-proof-of-chemical-arms-attack-not-enough-to-justify-us-attack.html?ref=world Mr. Putin, speaking to The […]
Russia warns citizens abroad of US law enforcement overreach
“Warning for Russian citizens traveling internationally,” the Foreign Ministry bulletin said. “Recently, detentions of Russian citizens in various countries, at the request of American law enforcement, have become more frequent — with the goal of extradition and legal prosecution in the United States.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/world/europe/russia-issues-travel-warning-about-united-states.html?ref=world Citing examples in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Lithuania and […]
Brazil defies US over NSA spying, summons ambassador
Brazil’s government summoned the United States ambassador on Monday to respond to new revelations of American surveillance of President Dilma Rousseff and her top aides, complicating relations between the countries ahead of Ms. Rousseff’s state visit to Washington next month. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/world/americas/brazil-angered-over-report-nsa-spied-on-president.html?ref=world “This would be an unacceptable violation to our sovereignty, involving our head of state,” […]
18th American drone strike in Pakistan tribal belt this year
A drone suspected of being American killed at least four militants early Saturday in an attack on a compound in the North Waziristan tribal district, near the border with Afghanistan, a Pakistani security official and local residents said. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/world/asia/drone-strike-kills-suspected-militants-in-pakistan.html?hp&_r=0 The drone fired missiles at a building and a nearby parked vehicle in a village close […]
Snowden releases US intelligence budget, Post withholds info
The top secret budget request for the current fiscal year was obtained by The Washington Post from the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden and published in part on its Web site on Thursday. The newspaper said it was withholding most of the 178-page document at the request of government officials because “sensitive […]
Cameron hears the people, Brits vote “no” on war with Syria
The stunning parliamentary defeat on Thursday for Prime Minister David Cameron that led him to rule out British military participation in any strike on Syria reflected British fears of rushing to act against Damascus without certain evidence. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/world/middleeast/syria.html?pagewanted=2&hp British legislators rejected a motion urging an international response to the chemical weapons attack by […]
UN tries to forestall US aggression in Syria
Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, cut short a European trip and rushed home on Thursday to prepare for a weekend briefing by his team of chemical weapons inspectors on the ground in Syria. He implored President Obama to refrain from a threatened military strike and to allow the procedures enshrined in […]
End to marijuana prohibition a historic day in Drug War
The Justice Department on Thursday said it would not sue to block laws legalizing marijuana in 20 states and the District of Columbia, a move that proponents hailed as an important step toward ending the prohibition of the drug. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/us/politics/us-says-it-wont-sue-to-undo-state-marijuana-laws.html?ref=us Marijuana advocates praised the decision as a potentially historic shift in the federal government’s attitude […]
US Justice Department rules against reporter in CIA case
The Justice Department on Monday asked a full federal appeals court not to hear arguments from lawyers for a New York Times reporter, James Risen, whom prosecutors have subpoenaed to testify in a criminal leak case against a former C.I.A. officer, Jeffrey Sterling. A three-judge panel of the appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled in […]
China asks for evidence in West pretext for war with Syria
China, clinging to a longstanding policy of noninterference, said on Wednesday that it opposed military action against Syria and insisted that the truth about the chemical weapons attack against civilians last week remained unclear. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/29/world/asia/culprit-in-syrian-chemical-attack-is-unclear-china-insists.html?ref=world As momentum built for Western military strikes against Syria, China was unmoved by the conclusions of Western governments that […]
Americans draw parallel to Iraq WMD lie in Syria
A grim-faced secretary of state reading a bill of charges against a rogue Arab leader. The White House promising intelligence that will provide proof about weapons of mass destruction. Frenetic efforts to piece together a coalition of the willing. Breathless news reports about imminent bombing raids. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/29/world/middleeast/on-syria-a-drumbeat-with-some-echoes-of-iraq.html?ref=world The days since the deadly chemical weapons […]
Brits, Iran call for evidence in Syrian attack as war looms
In London, government enthusiasm for a rapid retaliatory strike against Syrian government targets seemed to evaporate late Wednesday when British leaders, facing dissent among lawmakers, signaled that they would await the inspectors’ findings. Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, aware of the sensitivities created by the Iraq war, said unexpectedly that a separate vote would be […]
Middle East questions validity of US pretext for war
Why would Syria’s Bashar Hafez al-Assad launch a deadly chemical attack on a scale not yet seen in his country’s civil war — as American and allied officials assert his loyalists did last week — when he seemed to be holding his own in the stalemated conflict, and just as international weapons inspectors arrived in the […]
Facebook gives over 21,000 users data to the US government
Governments around the world requested information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first six months of 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23852230 Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report, released on Tuesday for the first time, offered details on official requests from 74 countries. The US made by far the most requests, asking for information on between 20,000 and 21,000 […]
US and West looking for World War 3 in Syria
Iranian lawmakers and commanders issued stark warnings to the United States and its allies on Tuesday, saying any military strike on Syria would lead to a retaliatory attack on Israel fanned by “the flames of outrage.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/world/middleeast/strike-on-syria-would-cause-one-on-israel-iran-declares.html?ref=todayspaper The warnings came against a backdrop of rising momentum among Western governments for a military intervention in the […]
Julian Assange exposes Google collaboration with NSA et al
It has been revealed today, thanks to Edward Snowden, that Google and other US tech companies received millions of dollars from the NSA for their compliance with the PRISM mass surveillance system. http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm So just how close is Google to the US securitocracy? Back in 2011 I had a meeting with Eric Schmidt, the […]
American Civil Liberties Union lives up to their creed
In a detailed legal attack on the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone call data, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court papers filed Monday that the sweeping data gathering violates the Constitution and should be halted. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/us/nsa-phone-data-collection-is-illegal-aclu-says.html?ref=us The A.C.L.U. cited the writings of George Orwell and the comprehensive East German surveillance portrayed […]
Dirty Babylon 