The Guardian has come under concerted pressure and intimidation designed to stop it from publishing stories of huge public interest that have revealed the "staggering" scale of Britain's and America's secret surveillance programmes, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper has said. Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee about stories based on the National Security Agency leaks from the whistleblower Edward Snowden, Alan Rusbridger said the Guardian "would not be put off by intimidation, but nor are we going to behave recklessly". He told MPs that disclosures from the files had generated a global debate about the powers of state agencies, and the weaknesses of the laws and oversight regimes they worked within. [...] Watergate journalist and author, Carl Bernstein, wrote an open letter in which he said Rusbridger's appearance at the committee was "dangerously pernicious". Bernstein said it was an attempt by the "highest UK authorities to shift the issue from government policies and excessive government secrecy in the United States and Great Britain to the conduct of the press".

Alan Rusbridger: What now for the surveillance state? (The editor of the Guardian)
ABC News: Guardian: We Have Published 1 Pct of Snowden Leak

Maine Governor's desire harks back to the the 'Hungry Forties' in Victorian England, when children worked in factories or as chimney sweeps | Gov. Paul LePage's goal of making it easier for minors to work will continue in January when the Department of Labor proposes streamlining the work permit process despite previous failed attempts to do so. Child labor in Maine has been regulated by state government since the mid-1800s and a key component of those regulations requires school superintendents to issue work permits for school-age children offered a job. Now the Department of Labor has proposed being the first contact for work permits during the summer months. The initiative falls short of LePage's stated desire to lower the legal working age to 12, but reprises previous unsuccessful attempts to make it easier for Mainers younger than 16 to earn a paycheck.

Global Research: Israel Charged with War Crimes and Genocide. Complete Judgment of Kuala Lumpur Tribunal ■ “The perpetrators had committed acts against the Palestinians, with intent to kill, cause serious bodily or mental harms and deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinians as a whole or in part.” “The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions. The Tribunal deplores the failure of international institutions to punish the State of Israel for its crimes and its total lack of respect of International Law and the institutions of the United Nations.”

(Al-Ray) - Israeli occupation forces raided on Thursday at dawn the house of Zine al-Majid in Jerusalem to arrest his 4- year- old son. | The father said to Wadi Hilweh Information Center that a large Israeli force stormed his house , telling him that they had an arrest warrant for his son Mohammed. He told the Israeli officer that his son is a 4 year- old child , but the officer did not believe him and insisted on to see him. The officer directed several questions about the child and his friends at his father and threatened to call the child for interrogation if he is found guilty of injuring a settlers. Israeli Military Forces arrested last Wednesday Ahmed Dahbour,9, Muhammad Hazeena,16, Fadi Ghafari,11, and his 6-years-old brother Mohammed.

Occupied Palestine: “Most Moral Army in the World”: IOF assaults a disabled girl at a military checkpoint

Another settlement scandal is emerging today in Israel, as bulldozers are moving against Palestinian-owned territory in the occupied West Bank, clearing it and setting up “temporary housing” in anticipation of yet more settlement expansions. It isn’t just that the Israeli government is taking yet more land away from its private owners for the illegal settlements, but the methods which are raising eyebrows, as Israeli NGO Peace Now and local Palestinian officials both detailed.

Washington's Blog: Congress Backs Terrorists In Syria … Then Says We Need NSA Spying Because There are Terrorists In Syria ■ However, the U.S. has been funding the Syrian opposition since 2006 … and arming the opposition since 2007. (In reality, the U.S. and Britain considered attacking Syrians and then blaming it on the Syrian government as an excuse for regime change … 50 years ago (the U.S. just admitted that they did this to Iran) . And the U.S. has been planning regime change in Syria for 20 years straight. And see this.) The New York Times, (and here and here) , Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, McClatchy (and here), AP, Time, Reuters, BBC, the Independent, the Telegraph, Agence France-Presse, Asia Times, and the Star (and here) confirm that supporting the rebels means supporting Al Qaeda and two other terrorist groups. Indeed, the the New York Times has reported that virtually all of the rebel fighters are Al Qaeda terrorists. The Syrian rebels are now calling for terrorist attacks on America. And we’ve long known that most of the weapons we’re shipping to Syria are ending up in the hands of Al Qaeda. And they apparently have chemical weapons. And yet the U.S. is stepping up its support for the Islamic extremists.

A school district in the state of Washington has stopped its use of biometric hand scanners at schools which uniquely identified each student after parents flooded a school board meeting last night to complain. Children had their hands scanned in order to pay for their lunches. ● Similar to a retina scanner, the hand scanners introduced by the Puyallup, Wash. School District identified the unique vein patterns in each student’s palm in order to deduct the lunch price from that student’s pre-paid school lunch account. “There has got to be other ways than scanning my kid to figure out who he is,” Tim Snyder, a father, said at last night’s school board meeting according to the News Tribune. This is not the first occurrence of a school district implementing invasive technologies which treat children like cattle. Last year, the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas forced students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School to wear RFID chips which could track their locations both inside and outside the school properties.