Concerns about personal privacy are on the rise, with a big majority of Americans saying the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone and Internet data intrudes on citizens’ rights without clear improvements in U.S. security, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the NSA programs are infringing on some Americans’ privacy rights, and about half see those programs as encroaching on their own privacy. Most of those who see the programs as compromising privacy say the intrusions are unjustified.

kenny's SideShow: Ubiquitous Spying and Cell Towers - The vote is in. The House rejects the Amash amendment to an upcoming Pentagon appropriations bill which would have barred the NSA from using a PATRIOT Act provision to collect the phone records of all Americans. The White House lobbied heavily against the amendment with Jay Carney, or Jay Carnage as he is also called, saying: "We oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism tools. This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process. We urge the House to reject the Amash Amendment, and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account the need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation." So much for Barry's 'debate' on the spying issue. Did anyone really think it would go otherwise? The shills against the amendment of course had to invoke 9/11.

The Swash: Cops to Congress: We Need Logs of Americans’ Text Messages [December 4, 2012]

[Part 2-10] [Full Documentary] - Controversial to its core, this hard-hitting anti-Western propaganda film, which looks at the influence of American visual and consumption culture on the rest of the world from a North Korean perspective, has also been described as ‘either a damning indictment of 21st Century culture or the best piece of propaganda in a generation.’

Slavko Martinov has spent nine years working on one of the most original documentaries to have ever been produced about the media and manufactured consent. "Propaganda" took centre stage in an international debate before it was even released. [It] was presented as a film that North Korean opponents purloined and made public to let the West see how North Korea portrays and describes the consumerist society of the Capitalist world. The documentary is presented by an anonymous professor from North Korea who takes the viewers on an eye opening journey, showing the contradictions, the lies and the truth about the world we live in.

"I do not associate the military with wars and bloodshed in a narrow sense. I actually associate the military with doing good, with bringing down tyrants, with releasing people's ambitions for their children." - General Sir David Richards

Lindsey German: ■ Despite his own role in Afghanistan and Iraq, General Sir David Richards does not allow catastrophic failure to get in the way of calling for yet more war, this time against Syria. It's that time of year again. ■ Another British army general retires, and marks the event with an interview in a right wing newspaper arguing the need for greater and more intense military interventions somewhere in the world. ■ This time it's General Sir David Richards, and his target is Syria. He tells the Daily Telegraph that a no fly zone in Syria won't be adequate 'to restrain the Syrian army'. ■ Given Richards' own role in an army which has presided over catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose government's no fly zone in Libya led to a further 30,000 deaths there, you might think he would be thinking first and foremost about restraining his own institution. But no one could accuse the British army of hesitating in further conflicts just because of failure elsewhere. ■ Far from it. In his interview with Telegraph defence correspondent Con Coughlin, the retiring army chief of staff raises the possibility of a full war in Syria.

Patrick O’Connor: Australian opposition leader demands military response to refugee “emergency” ● The opposition Liberal-National coalition yesterday proposed to place the Australian military in charge of targeting asylum seekers trying to flee to the country by sea. The policy would involve the domestic mobilisation of the armed forces for what was previously regarded as a civil law enforcement issue. ● The military has played a prominent role in successive Labor and Liberal governments’ anti-refugee programs. Under the former Howard government, so-called “border protection” to intercept refugee boats provided a cover for the expansion of Australian imperialism’s military and intelligence presence off the country’s northwest, adjacent to key strategic naval chokepoints in South East Asia. ● This continued after 2007 under Labor. Last year, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard appointed former Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston to head an “expert panel” on refugees. Houston’s panel proposed a series of reactionary measures, including a “no advantage” test under which refugees are detained, potentially for several years, as a punitive “deterrent” to others considering travelling to Australia. ● Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has since assigned the military a central role in his “Papua New Guinea solution,” involving the permanent deportation of asylum seekers to the impoverished Pacific state.

Stefan Steinberg: German report on horrendous treatment of refugees on Europe’s borders

Mr Mandelson's admission that New Labour sought out foreign workers is a stunning confirmation that governments led by Tony Blair, left, and Gordon Brown, right, deliberately engineered mass immigration. - In a stunning confirmation that the Blair and Brown governments deliberately engineered mass immigration, the former Cabinet Minister and spin doctor said New Labour sought out foreign workers. He also conceded that the influx of arrivals meant the party’s traditional supporters are now unable to find work. By contrast, Labour leader Ed Miliband has said his party got it wrong on immigration but has refused to admit it was too high under Labour. Between 1997 and 2010, net migration to Britain totalled more than 2.2million, more than twice the population of Birmingham. The annual net figure quadrupled under Labour from 48,000 people in 1997 to 198,000 by 2009. Lord Mandelson’s remarks come three years after Labour officials denied claims by former adviser Andrew Neather that they deliberately encouraged immigration in order to change the make-up of Britain.

U.S. sanctions against any country offering asylum to Edward Snowden advanced in Congress Thursday as the 30-year-old National Security Agency leaker remained in a Moscow airport while Russia weighed a request for him to stay permanently. - The measure introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., demands the State Department coordinate with lawmakers on setting penalties against nations that seek to help Snowden avoid extradition to the United States, where authorities want him prosecuted for revealing details of the government’s massive surveillance system. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the proposal unanimously by voice vote as an amendment to next year’s $50.6 billion diplomacy and international aid bill.