As Attorney General Holder faces possible perjury charges Julian Assange, the publisher of Wikileaks, discussed his case with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Amy Goodman asked Assange to comment on the AP spying scandal as well as a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, being listed on a warrant signed by AG Holder that lists the reporter as a possible co-conspirator in violations of the Espionage Act.

JULIAN ASSANGE: [28:16] Well, let’s look at this phenomena from two aspects. Don’t be deceived by what appears to be small maneuvers by the Department of Justice to go after AP, to go after Rosen, to go after us, etc. We have over here the bulk surveillance industry run by the National Security Agency that already has all these records. It has them all already. The National Security Agency—and this has come out in one court case after another—was involved in a project called Stellar Wind to collect all the calling records of the United States, every record of everyone calling everyone over years. And the result of that lay out the entire community and political structure, based upon who people are friends with. You can infer that by who calls who, and what the status is by the relative flow of calls around the country, to suck out the entire community structure of the United States. That has already been done. Those calling records already enter into the national security complex.

What we’re talking about here are mechanisms to use that information in a court case, and therefore it has to be clean. This is the dirty team; this is the clean team. And so, these are maneuvers to pull people into court cases that will become public to set a deterrent against national security journalism. And the most pernicious aspect of that is the abuse of the Espionage Act and other mechanisms to try and conflate the activities of a source with the activities of a journalist or a publisher, and to try and say that whenever a journalist deals with a source, they’re in fact engaged in a conspiracy. And if there’s an allegation—of course, allegations can be very easily made, placed on the table, just invented from thin air—that a source’s behavior affects national security and is therefore espionage, and therefore, extend that allegation over to the journalist and to the source—and to the publisher. In the case of Rosen, they have done that in order to get at Rosen’s emails and other records, to then back reflect onto the source or onto other sources. You know, it is simply a disgrace. It is unethical conduct. It is politically worrying conduct. It is chilling conduct. And it is—why is it being done? Because they believe they can get away with it. It is part of advancing the frontier of the national security state to roll on over the First Amendment and every other traditionally accepted U.S. value.

If Holder has an ongoing prosecution against Assange and Wikileaks it may not only have a chilling effect on journalism but invalidate his statement to the House Oversight Committee on having “never heard of” prosecuting the press for disclosure of material.

Xymphora: Bootstrapping with the GWOT - They already have all the information - and just think how useful Facebook and similar social networking sites have been to them, leading one to assume they have been backed by the national security apparatus for nefarious purposes all along - but what they have has been gathered illegally (essentially a global wiretapping operation without warrants), so they have to finesse the legislation, using the global war on terror and statutes intended to be used against actual spies, to sneak inadmissible evidence into the court system. Note the circularity - an allegation is made that national security is at stake, allowing the evidence to be heard, evidence which consists of a journalist and a source discussing issues that might be construed as involving national security, a discussion which is therefore a conspiracy in itself, thus confirming that the evidence should have been admitted, and thus cleaning part of their mountain of illegally obtained evidence.

The remains of hundreds of Palestinians killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War have been discovered in six mass grave sites in a Muslim cemetery in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa district. - An official of the Kazkhana cemetery said on Friday that the gruesome finding took place on May 29, when the ground caved in as workers carried out renovations. Eighty-year-old Atar Zeinab said that as a teenager he helped collect the bodies of people killed during the final months of fighting in 1948 and brought them for hurried burials in the graveyard.

Stephen Lendman: Evidence of Israeli Mass Murder Discovered

"The cruiser will ... perform a number of missions in an offshore oceanic zone as part of a group," Navy Commander Adm. Viktor Chirkov told Interfax. "Northern Fleet naval pilots will perform a number of missions on board this cruiser in the long-range mission."

The warship holds several sea-based fighters and helicopters, missiles, anti-submarine systems and a crew of 2,000 people. The heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser is the only one in Russia's fleet, so its deployment is an unmistakable signal of Moscow's seriousness about protecting their regional interests, some of which are directly tied to the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian port of Tartus.

Protests in cities across Turkey shook the Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday and over the weekend, amid rising discontent with his domestic policies and his support for the US-led proxy war in neighboring Syria.

The protests grew rapidly after police crackdowns on Friday morning at Istanbul’s Gezi Park and then on Taksim Square.

The sit-in had begun Tuesday, as lawmakers and officials of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), subsequently joined by the bourgeois opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), protested Erdogan’s plan to remodel Gezi Park, which is adjacent to Taksim Square. The sit-in initially gathered dozens and then hundreds of people.

Tarihinde Yayýmlandý: What is Happenning in Istanbul?
Stephen Lendman: Anti-Government Protests Rock Turkey
Jason Ditz: Turkey Protests Continue to Surge: Over 1,700 Arrested
Jason Ditz: Turkey PM: Twitter a ‘Danger to Society’
Reuters: Simmering anger at Erdogan's authoritarianism boils over in Turkey
The Clarion Project: Massive Protests Against Erdogan's Islamism
Amnesty International: Don’t shoot the messenger
PressTV: Erdogan calls protesters extremists
The Independent: Almost 1,000 hurt as Istanbul anti-regime protests continue

To my friends who live outside of Turkey: I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because most of the media sources are shut down by the government and the word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support. Four days ago a group of people who did not belong to any specific organization or ideology got together in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Among them there were many of my friends and students. Their reason was simple: To prevent and protest the upcoming demolishing of the park for the sake of building yet another shopping mall at very center of the city. There are numerous shopping malls in Istanbul, at least one in every neighborhood! The tearing down of the trees was supposed to begin early Thursday morning. People went to the park with their blankets, books and children. They put their tents down and spent the night under the trees. Early in the morning when the bulldozers started to pull the hundred-year-old trees out of the ground, they stood up against them to stop the operation. They did nothing other than standing in front of the machines. No newspaper, no television channel was there to report the protest. It was a complete media black out. But the police arrived with water cannon vehicles and pepper spray. They chased the crowds out of the park. (İnsanlik Hali)

US military sites in Germany are playing a key role in the use of American combat drones to target the killing of people in Africa. - According to reports from the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and the ARD television programme “Panorama”, the Stuttgart-based supreme command of the United States Africa Command (US Africom) and the Air Operations Center (AOC) at the US air force base in Ramstein, in the state of Rhineland Palatinate, are directly involved in the drone attacks. Media reports claim that fighter pilots in the US are operating through a relay station on the Ramstein air base to maintain contact with combat drones employed in Africa. Quoting from an internal policy brief of the US air force, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and “Panorama” revealed that “the drone attacks in Africa could not be carried out” without the support of this satellite station. Up to 650 employees at the US flight control centre in Ramstein use 1,500 computers to monitor European and African airspace. They analyse drone and satellite images and plan new operations.

From economic turmoil to social dissolution and cultural chaos, it can no longer be denied that the once-opulent West is on the brink of collapse. In his new book, respected economist, author and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, explores the roots of this crisis and where we are going from here. This is the GRTV Feature Interview with your host, James Corbett, and our special guest, Paul Craig Roberts.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

Afghan authorities say the remains of six Afghan civilians missing for almost seven months have been found near a US base, Press TV reports. - The six villagers were among nine Afghans who disappeared in Wardak Province in November 2012. They were last seen being taken into a US Special Forces base. Afghan officials say the victims had been shot dead before being buried near the now-vacant US military base in Nerkh District. The US military has denied any involvement in the incident. On May 21, the footless corpse of an Afghan man missing since November was found near the former US Special Forces base to which he was last seen being taken, according to Afghan officials. Protests erupted earlier this year following claims that US-backed ‘death squads’ were operating in Afghanistan’s troubled province of Wardak. Since then demonstrators have protested against the continued presence of US soldiers in Wardak.

The advance of information technology epitomized by Google heralds the death of privacy for most people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism. - While Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Cohen tell us that the death of privacy will aid governments in “repressive autocracies” in “targeting their citizens,” they also say governments in “open” democracies will see it as “a gift” enabling them to “better respond to citizen and customer concerns.” In reality, the erosion of individual privacy in the West and the attendant centralization of power make abuses inevitable, moving the “good” societies closer to the “bad” ones.

The Syrian Army has seized two containers with poisonous sarin agent in a rebel hideout, SANA said citing sources. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly blocked the UNSC resolution set to slam Damascus’ offensive on the town of Qusair held by opposition forces. Syrian Arab News Agency reports that sarin, together with automatic rifles, pistols and homemade bombs (IEDs) was seized in the Faraieh neighborhood of the city of Hama. ■ On Saturday a UN Security Council (UNSC) assembly failed to adopt a British-drafted resolution on the situation in Qusair, which the Syrian Army has blockaded and is said to be eliminating a large group of opposition forces that occupied the town several weeks ago. Rebels besieged in Qusair are pleading for military help. They claim that many civilians have been wounded in the assault of the government forces and that these people are in desperate need of medical attention. The Syrian foreign minister says the country will allow the Red Cross into Qusair "as soon as military operations are over," he is cited by Syrian State Television.

A number of people have been killed in an exchange of fire between Syrian rebels and fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, say reports. - Lebanese security sources said the clashes took place on Lebanon's side of the border, near the town of Baalbek. Hezbollah is fighting alongside the army in Syria, but the clashes have rarely crossed onto Lebanese soil. Meanwhile the Red Cross has said it is alarmed by the worsening situation in the besieged Syrian town of Qusair. It has appealed for access to the town, which lies just 10km (6 miles) over the Lebanese border. Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped as pro-government forces - including Hezbollah fighters - battle [CIA's & Mossad's so-called] rebels.

PressTV: Hezbollah kills 20 Syria militants in Lebanon’s Baalbek