Free speech is now being considered a threat to national security, says Antiwar.com founder Eric Garris. - The website’s founder and managing editor Eric Garris, along with longtime editorial director Justin Raimondo, filed a lawsuit in federal court today, demanding the release of records they believe the FBI is keeping on them and the 17-year-old online magazine. Antiwar.com says this is one more example of post-9/11 government overreach, and a stark reminder that the First Amendment has been treated as little more than a speed bump on the road to a government surveillance state. The lawsuit is particularly timely, considering recent scandals in which the Department of Justice secretly seized months of journalists’ phone records at the Associated Press, and did the same and more to a FOX News reporter, while the IRS is acknowledging it singled out conservative groups that criticize the government for extra scrutiny.

A US Senate committee had passed a bill that would allow, if signed for the Obama administration to supply arms to Syrian opposition — a move that could threaten the entire region if these weapons end up in terrorist cells operating on the ground. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 15-3 vote showed bipartisan support among US politicians for arming the rebels.

Pepe Escobar: Assad talks, Russia walks

Assim Qansou, a representative of the socialist party in Lebanon’s parliament, told the Lebanese al-Nashrah newspaper that during the battle in al-Qusseir city, the Syrian army has arrested tens of French, British, Belgian, Dutch and Qatari officers. The EU’s anti-terror chief said in April that hundreds of Europeans are now fighting with rebel forces in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s government. Gilles de Kerchove estimated the number in Syria at about 500.Intelligence agencies are concerned some could join groups linked to al-Qaeda and later return to Europe to launch terrorist attacks.The UK, Ireland and France are among the EU countries estimated to have the highest numbers of fighters in Syria.

Lee Rogers: The Internal Revenue Service is a domestic terrorist organization. They have terrorized millions of Americans as part of an effort to scare them into paying an unlawful and unethical tax on their labor called the Federal Income Tax. The recent scandal involving the IRS specifically targeting various patriot and tea party groups who applied for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status is outrageous but really only represents a small portion of their criminal activity. For anyone not familiar with the nature of the scandal, the IRS has admitted that it made it difficult if not impossible for specific organizations related to tea party and patriot causes to achieve 501(c)(4) status. The IRS was actually requiring these groups to provide them with all sorts of ridiculous information including social media postings, donor lists and even reading lists as part of the application process. Some of these groups have reported that the IRS took years to process their applications. Other groups gave up seeking tax exempt status when faced with the absurd requirements and lengthy application times.

One of the methods used to extract information from Muslim inmates in Guantanamo was to apply sexual interrogation techniques, Terry Holdbrooks, former guard at the camp has told RT. Such a degradation methods, the former US soldier said, were used on innocent men. Holdbrooks, who wrote a book about GITMO prisoners, claims that it is the inmates’ religious perseverance in the face of pain and humiliation made him convinced that US was not fighting for the right cause.

RT: Were you given any orders as how to treat the inmates?
TH: Our interaction with the detainees was such that we were told not to talk to them, not to treat them as humans, to not engage in conversation with them whatsoever. And the army sort of made a mistake by allowing somebody who is inclined to sociology and to studying people by leaving me with individuals from all over the world unsupervised for eight hours. I was very low in rank so I was delegated all the work, while those who were higher in rank were sitting in the air-conditioned shacks, nurturing their hangovers. So the instructions I was given were simple – don’t interact, don’t talk, they are not humans.

A new report shows that US assassination drones in Pakistan have killed “scores of innocent civilians” instead of targeting terrorists. - On Tuesday, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) published a report entitled “Drones: Myths and Reality in Pakistan” that says the United States’ refuses to acknowledge that the CIA-led drone campaign “undermines efforts to assess the program’s legality.” The ICG called on Washington to “demonstrate respect for the international humanitarian law principles of humanity, distinction, proportionality and military necessity.” The report said the US must “establish clearer lines of authority and accountability, including greater congressional and judicial oversight.”

“The Obama administration should terminate any practice, such as the reported signature strikes, that does not comply with principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. It must also introduce transparency to the drone program, including its governing rules, how targets are selected and how civilian damage is weighed.”

Signature strikes target groups of men by using behavior patterns associated with terrorist activity rather than targeting terrorists with known identities. Pakistan’s tribal regions are often attacked by US assassination drones.

After a massive series of sectarian bombings killed 133 people on Monday, more bombings hit Tuesday, killing scores of additional people. They cap a solid week of fighting that has seen more than 400 people killed and many hundreds more wounded. - The month of April had sparked major concerns about the rise of sectarian violence in Iraq, with a death toll the highest it had been since Summer 2008. The overall toll was 460, for the entire month, meaning May is set to blow past it dramatically. Summer of 2008 was the period when the last sectarian civil war was winding down, and the Maliki government has been downplaying the significance of the recent attacks and insisting it has things in control. Still, the sheer number of deaths suggests that the next sectarian war may no longer be “coming,” it may have already arrived.

Income inequality increased by more in the first three years of the crisis to the end of 2010 than it had in the previous twelve years, before factoring in the effect of taxes and transfers on income, according to new OECD report and data. - The analysis says that the welfare state has cushioned the blow for many but warns that further social spending cuts in OECD countries risk causing greater inequality and poverty in the years ahead. After taxes and transfers, the richest 10 per cent of the population in OECD countries earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent in 2010, up from 9 times in 2007. The gap is largest in Chile, Mexico, Turkey, the United States and Israel, and lowest in Iceland, Slovenia, Norway and Denmark.

David Swanson: Our elected and unelected officials tell us that drone strikes target top level enemies of the United States who are imminent threats to us, and that killing innocent people is avoided altogether or minimized. Congressional hearings, with a couple of excellent exceptions, question outside academics about the legality of this purported strategy. The Obama administration declines to send any witnesses. But drone pilots have begun talking to the media. And they describe policies that bear a lot closer resemblance to reporting from the areas where the missiles strike. These pilots should be brought before Congress. Here is a stunning new interview with one of them.