On Monday, the Washington Post reported that photo identification records for over 120 million US citizens are being stored in government databases to be used for police investigations.

“Facial-recognition” technology is currently used in 37 states to supply police investigators with potential suspects. The Post states that “[t]he faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations.”

The massive trawling of US citizens’ biometric data is yet another fundamental attack on the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Such information is being accumulated by the state without any connection to individualized suspicion of criminal activity.

Daisy Luther: The Great American Dragnet: Over 200 Million People Are in the Facial Recognition Database - You are probably participating in the facial recognition database whether you want to or not. Most likely, your visage is there to be easily identified, without your consent, even if you’ve never committed a crime. There is no way to “opt out” of this for privacy reasons if you intend to be a licensed driver in the United States. Have you noticed that now when you go to have a driver’s license picture, you aren’t allowed to smile? That’s because it can throw off the ability of scanners to “recognize” you, because it changes the shape of your eyes and can also obscure your eye color. For the same reason, you aren’t allowed to wear glasses, long bangs, or head coverings. Your face is being catalogued for future identification purposes. Only 13 states have not gone into full-out Big Brother mode with facial recognition…yet. However, even though they don’t have the technology to readily identify residents, they still have millions of photos in their databases. What’s more, it isn’t only our driver’s licenses that we have to worry about. Another, even larger, database exists. The US State Department has a database with 230 million searchable images. Anyone with a passport or an immigration visa may find themselves an unwilling participant in this database.

A 5-year-old girl set up a lemonade stand across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church compound, and now the group is targeting her. - Jayden Sink raised nearly $200 Friday while she sold lemonade outside the Equality House across from the Westboro compound, and the online effort has raised $15,000 and counting. "Jayden and I went out there to raise money for Planting Peace, to spread love, to spread compassion," said her father, Jon Sink. "Our mission was not to stand up to Westboro Baptist Church." The efforts have clearly irritated Westboro members, Equality House resident Davis Hammet said. "She was so awesome. She was such a sweetheart," Hammet said. "She was right in front of this hate group. She was unfazed and unafraid, and they are so very vile and rude to people."

Taliban will open a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar on Tuesday, Al Jazeera has learned. The office of the Afghan armed group in Doha will aim at facilitating peace talks. In March, Hamid Karzai [another US puppet], the Afghan "president", met the emir of Qatar to discuss plans for the Taliban to open an office in the Gulf state. He discussed "issues of mutual interest" with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the state news agency QNA said, without elaborating on the substance of their talks. Karzai also met Afghan and Arab officials and business people. The delegation travelling with the Afghan president included Zalmai Rassoul, the foreign minister; Salahuddin Rabbani, the head of the High Peace Council.

Britam Defence leaked email: 'Syrian Issue' Posted by Lori Price, www.legitgov.org 18 Jun 2013 The hacked Britam Defence email called 'Syrian Issue' from 24 Dec 2012 can be viewed here including email headers (.docx) and here(.jpg). Britam Defence is British private military company, operates mainly in the Middle East. It killed Arabs in Iraq and plans to invade in Iran and Syria. Look through leaked documents carefully. CW means chemical weapon, g-shell is short for a gas shell I guess. Help to distribute this info and let other people know about the threats.

"Is a Lack of Water to Blame for the Conflict in Syria?":

"In Syria, a devastating drought beginning in 2006 forced many farmers to abandon their fields and migrate to urban centers. There’s some evidence that the migration fueled the civil war there, in which 80,000 people have died. “You had a lot of angry, unemployed men helping to trigger a revolution,” says Aaron Wolf, a water management expert at Oregon State University, who frequently visits the Middle East. Tensions between nations are also high. Since 1975, Turkey’s dam and hydro­power construction has cut water flow to Iraq by 80 percent and to Syria by 40 percent. Syria and Iraq have accused Turkey of hoarding water."

If Syria ends up in the hands of 'al Qaeda', and therefore loses access to international law, Turkey gets to keep more water. Note how Turkey has been using the water that should flow to Syria and Iraq to pacify Turkish Kurdistan. "Ethiopian parliament votes to strip Egypt of rights to majority of Nile water" "Ethiopia, Egypt tone down talk of war over Nile dam" It is not all bad as the next attempt of the Jews to steal the waters of the Litani River will be the end of Israel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he agreed with his US counterpart Barack Obama to push all sides in Syrian to the negotiation table in Geneva. - " We have agreed to push all sides in Syrian to come to the negotiation table at the international Geneva conference,” Putin said after his meeting with Obama on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday. Russia Today website quoted Putin as pointing to the existence of different views on Syria, adding that both sides share a united goal of ending violence. “On some points, we still have a different stance, but we are united by an aspiration to prevent violence and solve the problem by peaceful means, including through negotiations at the international conference at Geneva,” the Russian President said. With regard to Iran, Putin stressed that Moscow and Washington hope the presidential election would contribute in settling the Iranian nuclear file.

Putin and Obama - Both leaders looked tense and uncomfortable as they addressed reporters (Video)
Russia Today: Kerry condemns Assad for threatening peace talks as CIA prepares to arm rebels
The Null Device: Potemkin Village Northern Ireland

Ankara summons UK ambassador and says GCHQ allegations are 'scandalous' if confirmed. - Turkey, South Africa and Russia have reacted angrily to the British government demanding an explanation for the revelations that their politicians and senior officials were spied on and bugged during the 2009 G20 summit in London. The foreign ministry in Ankara said it was unacceptable that the British government had intercepted phonecalls and monitored the computers of Turkey's finance minister as well as up to 15 others from his visiting delegation. If confirmed, the eavesdropping operation on a Nato ally was "scandalous", it added.

Confidential documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that Britain’s spy centre, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at international summits, working closely with America’s National Security Agency (NSA). The documents relate to surveillance conducted on diplomats attending two G20 summits in London in April and September 2009. They were supplied by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents—some of which were posted redacted on the Guardian web site—were published just as the UK hosts G8 leaders for a summit in Northern Ireland. One refers to GCHQ’s use of “ground-breaking intelligence capabilities” to intercept the communications of foreign diplomats.

Jason Ditz: Nations Demand Explanation for Britain’s G20 Spying

"All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped." Despite the risks, his message to other potential whistleblowers was unequivocal: "This country is worth dying for."

The threat of imprisonment or murder will not stop the truth from coming out, Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who blew the lid on the massive National Security Agency surveillance program, told the Guardian in a live Q&A. The 29-year-old former NSA contractor in conjunction with Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian journalist who broke the story on the NSA’s two controversial data-collection programs which targeted Americans and foreign allies alike, took questions online regarding the fallout from the massive intelligence leak. Edward Snowden kicked off the session by describing the targeted campaign by the US government to paint him as a traitor, “just as they did with other whistleblowers." The smear campaign, he argues, has destroyed the possibility of a fair trial at home. In this regard, his decision to leave the United States was not based on any desire to evade justice, especially since he believes he can “do more good outside of prison.”

USA Today: Snowden Vows Details on NSA Access to Servers
PressTV: NSA leaker dismisses China agent claim
The Guardian: Edward Snowden flatly denies Chinese spy claims
The American Dream: 21 Facts About NSA Snooping That Every American Should Know

A single man has been standing still for hours at Taksim square to protest Turkish government. Others are joining one by one. - Turkey's "Standing Man": A single man stood silently in Istanbul's Taksim Square for hours in front of a portrait of the country's modern founder, inspiring many others to join him in a silent protest against police.

Der Spiegel: Erdogan Throws Fuel on Flames - He cleared out Gezi Park with brutal violence, disparaged the protesters as terrorists and railed against the foreign media. After a brief conciliatory respite, Prime Minster Erdogan is inflaming the conflict in Turkey once more. But the protest movement shows no signs of backing down.

Al Jazeera: Turkey threatens to deploy army to end unrest

Thierry Meyssan: The Turkish people are not protesting against Recip Tayyeb Erdogan’s autocratic style, but against his policies; in other words, against the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he is the mentor. What started on Taksim Square is not a color revolution over a new building project, but an uprising that has spread across the entire country; in short, it is a revolution that calls the "Arab Spring" into question. Across North Africa—with the exception of Algeria—the Muslim Brotherhood have been placed in power by Hillary Clinton. Everywhere, Turkish communications advisors are on board, courtesy of the Erdogan government. Everywhere, "democracy" was a facade which allowed the Brothers to Islamize firms in exchange for embracing the pseudo-liberal capitalism of the United States. It is important to remember that the label "Arab Spring" given by the West is a deception to make people believe that the Tunisian and Egyptian governments were overthrown by a mass movement. While there was a popular revolution in Tunisia, its goal was not to change the regime, but to achieve economic and social changes. It was the United States, not the street, that ordered Zinedine el Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak to step down. Then it was NATO that toppled and lynched Muammar al-Gaddafi. And it is again NATO and the GCC that have fueled the attack against Syria.

For the first time since President Obama took office Washington has publicly disclosed the names of inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp classified as “indefinite detainees” - those who [allegedly] pose "too great a threat" to release but "cannot" be tried in court. - The 48 inmates were first identified in 2009 when the Obama administration first announced plans to close the prison camp by executive order. Authorities examining the cases, though, determined at that time 48 inmates who would be impossible to try in court because of a lack of evidence, or because the evidence was too tainted. They are ineligible for release, though, because the government [mendaciously] has deemed them an immediate threat to American lives.

PressTV: 100s protest Yemenis detention at Gitmo

US Navy Seal Commander, Who Killed Osama Bin Laden, Commits ‘Apparent Suicide’ In Afghanistan. - Over 20 navy seals are now dead who killed bin laden, coincedence? Yeah.. right. There STILL isnt any evidence at all that we even killed him. My guess is that he was already dead and has been dead for years. The Osama Bin Laden shown in the videos at the abbotabad compound is a double. A fake used by whomever for propaganda purposes. It’s a omplete lie and shame like 9-11 or the jfk assassination investigation.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Osama bin Laden Myth
Paul Craig Roberts: Creating the bin Laden Reality
Paul Craig Roberts: Americans Are Living In 1984
Stephen Lendman: Lies, Damn Lies, and Bin Laden's Death
Stephen Lendman: Media Lies and Misinformation on Bin Laden
CNN: CNN, CBS confirm: No Bin Laden death photos to be released