The FBI has the e-mails of nearly all US citizens, including congressional members, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. Speaking to RT he warned that the government can use information against anyone it wants. One of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history resigned in 2001 because he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the constitution. He asserts, that the FBI has access to this data due to a powerful device Naris. This year Binney received the Callaway award. The annual award was established to recognize those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.

RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen – thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It’s not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?
William Binney: Yes, that’s what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the e-mails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and re-analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.

General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to join the NPT and allow IAEA inspectors. - The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear program for inspection “without further delay.” Israel’s advanced nuclear arsenal has long been understood to exist, although it hasn’t been officially admitted by the Israeli government. Many have argued Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons is what drives the accelerated Iranian program and causes other regional instability. The resolution was approved on Monday by a vote of 174-6 with 6 abstentions and calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty immediately and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It also offered support for a high-level conference to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East which was just canceled by the US and Israel, in order to protect Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly. If Israel agreed to dismantling its vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons and to a deal enforcing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East – a deal Iran and Israel’s Arab neighbors have repeatedly proposed – the supposed threats Israel faces in the region would virtually disappear.

Israel says it will not back down over a plan to erect 3,000 houses in disputed land on the West bank and East Jerusalem, an official stated. The plan stirred international condemnations with Israeli envoys being summoned by several countries. - An official from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office was quoted by Jerusalem post as saying that “Israel will continue to stand by its vital interests, even in the face of international pressure”. He added that “there will be no change in the decision that has been made.” "The Palestinian unilateral move at the UN is a blatant and fundamental violation of agreements to which the international community was a guarantor," the official was quoted as saying. "No one should be surprised that Israel is not sitting with its arms folded in response to the unilateral Palestinian steps." The news from the PM office comes after several states – Britain, France, Sweden, Spain and Denmark – summoned ambassadors from Israel to express concerns over Israel’s intensions and to show their disapproval of the decision.

John Glaser: Israel Expedites Plans to Bisect Palestine
Jason Ditz: EU Nations Summon Israeli Ambassadors Over Settlement Plan
PressTV: Israel to build 1,600 illegal settler units in East al-Quds (Jerusalem)

Egyptian Ambulance Authority head Mohamed Sultan said Tuesday night that 17 people have been injured so far in the protests at the presidential palace in Heliopolis, adding in a statement that the injuries are mostly bruises and difficulty breathing due to the tear gas. He reported that there have been no deaths. Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Central Security Forces did not withdraw from the area, but were relocated after protesters tried to cross the barbed wire around the palace. The minister stressed that the demonstrations at the palace and Tahrir Square are peaceful, adding that the CSF are committed to securing them. President Mohamed Morsy left the palace on Tuesday evening, two sources reported to Reuters, after protesters angered by his 22 November decree expanding his powers clashed with security forces outside. The Interior Minister said that the president left the palace after he concluded all his meetings, implying that his leaving was not because of the protest.

Morsi has fled the presidential palace according to Tahrir News
(عاجل.. هروب محمد مرسى من قصر الرئاسة بعد حصار المتظاهرين للإتحادي)

US Special Operations forces search a home during
a nighttime raid in Afghanistan.

The residents of a village in northern Afghanistan say American troopers raped several women during a nighttime raid in the rural community.

The locals said that the incident took place in a village in the Chahar Bolak district of Afghanistan’s Balkh Province where US special forces carried out house-to-house searches, Afghanistan Information Network reported on Sunday. However, the name of the village was not disclosed as the villagers said they had been threatened by the commander of the US forces with “consequences” in case of complaining about the issue. During the operation, the troopers separated the men and women of about 15 families and raped several women, the locals said. Since the beginning of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, American troopers have on different occasions abused Afghans. Last month, a US trooper involved in the mass killing of Afghan civilians in southern Afghanistan in March admitted to his crimes for the first time before a military court in the United States.

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has captured a US ScanEagle drone over the Persian Gulf waters upon its intrusion into the Iranian airspace.

Russia Today: Tehran claims capture of US spy drone in Iranian airspace (Video) - Tehran has claimed it captured a US spy drone in the Persian Gulf after the unmanned aircraft entered Iranian airspace, Iran’s Press TV reported. The US Navy denied the claim, saying that none of its drones in the Gulf region were lost. However, Iranian media even showed the video footage of the ScanEagle, claiming it was that very flying object Iran captured. It is not the first time that US drones have been brought down in Iran. Tehran earlier reported about at least dozens instances of American spy drones shut down since the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. “The drone may be an unharmed surveillance aircraft, but according to international law, violation of a sovereign state air space constitutes an act of war and can be referred to the UN Security Council,” Press TV earlier reported.

PressTV: Drone capture proves US weakness

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an imprint of the UN, is holding its World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) from December 3-14, 2012. The stated purpose of the WCIT is to update the UN's "global treaty" on telecommunications to deal more directly and comprehensively with the internet. Knowing who controls the UN, it is not hard to see that a primary aim of the updated "treaty" will be to give credence to the regulation and monitoring of online activity in ways that are desirable to the (authoritarian) majority of member states.

Wired: Internet Hangs in Balance as World Government(s) Meet in Secret

US cell phone service providers could be required to log personal text messages for upwards of two years forever if a proposal submitted by a group of law enforcement professionals can successfully plead with Congress. - According to a report published this week by Declan McCullagh of CNet, the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association (MCCPA) has asked Congress to consider adding a provision to an electronic privacy bill awaiting vote that would make holding onto text logs mandatory for the country’s telecom providers. In recent weeks, the antiquated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) has been in the news due to congressional efforts to update the legislation to reflect the growing nature of the Internet. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment to the act that, if passed by Congress, will require law enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant to collect personal emails older than 180 days. Currently, only an easy-to-obtain administrative court order is needed to access private emails, meaning any archived correspondence contained on the digital cloud can be collected by the police without producing any probable cause to a judge. Should the MCCPA have their way, however, efforts to make it harder for law enforcement to eavesdrop on emails would be cancelled out by the widespread collection of text messages.

Roma gypsies in Britain and Europe are descended from "dalits" or low caste "untouchables" who migrated from the Indian sub-continent 1,400 years ago, a genetic study has suggested.

Gypsies have long believed they have origins in India, citing common Sanskrit words in their languages and photographs of darker-skinned ancestors in South Asian clothes, while earlier research has offered some scientific support for their suspicions.

Now a study led by Indian and Estonian academics, including Dr Toomas Kivisild of Cambridge University, has confirmed their origins in the Indian sub-continent, and even identified the location and social background from which they emerged. The findings have been welcomed by Britain's Gypsy Council, which said it would help to promote understanding of Roma people throughout Europe. "We are Britain's first Non-Resident Indian community," said council spokesman Joseph Jones. The study, which was published this month in the journal Nature, examined Y chromosomes in DNA samples to compare the genetic signatures of European Roma men with those of thousands of Indians from throughout the sub-continent.

Scientists from Hyderabad's Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology collaborated with colleagues in Estonia and Switzerland to compare more than 10,000 samples, including from members of 214 different Indian ethnic groups. They were analysed to match a South Asian Y chromosome type known as "haplogroup H1a1a-M82", which passes down male bloodlines, with samples from Roma men in Europe. While there were matches with samples from men throughout the Indian sub-continent, the closest match and the least genetic variation occurred with those from north-west India.

Lord Mandelson yesterday maintained his silence over the extent of his contact with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. - The former Business Secretary did not respond to questions about why the convicted paedophile’s ‘little black book’ featured ten entries for him and his partner Reinaldo da Silva. The online contacts book had 16 numbers for Prince Andrew and home numbers for politicians including Lord Heseltine and former Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward. There were also details of girls working at massage parlours. Epstein had assembled a powerful network of contacts encompassing the worlds of politics, business, royalty and celebrity and even Bill Clinton. The inclusion of Lord Mandelson and an office address for Tony Blair has raised questions about the extent of his relationship with the Labour government. But last night – some 48 hours after the link between Epstein and Lord Mandelson emerged – the former Labour spin doctor was still refusing to comment about his dealings with the disgraced billionaire.

Amsterdam is to create "Scum villages" where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision. - The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers. "Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together." Whilst denying that the new projects would be punishment camps for "scum", a spokesman for the city mayor stressed that the special residential units would aim to enforce good behaviour.