The year's biggest stories and the trend toward an American police state. ■ While some “journalists” would have you believe the biggest stories of 2013 were about twerking celebrities and over-hyped real-life courtroom sagas, much bigger events were happening with far more lasting national significance. The foundation of an American police state is already laid and making its existence known, while most of the country remains blissfully focused on sports, reality shows, establishment pseudo-news, and other distractions. It would require an encyclopedia to cover all of the injustices, scandals, and brutality that took place in 2013. This list is designed to illustrate certain trends and significant stories from the past year. If Americans don’t fix their apathy and disengagement toward causes that matter, we can expect these trends to continue toward their logical conclusions: an increasingly repressive police state dominating the lives people inside these borders and beyond.

More than four decades after the U.S. halted a controversial ocean dumping program, the country is facing a mostly forgotten Cold War legacy in its waters: tens of thousands of steel drums of atomic waste. | From 1946 to 1970, federal records show, 55-gallon drums and other containers of nuclear waste were pitched into the Atlantic and Pacific at dozens of sites off California, Massachusetts and a handful of other states. Much of the trash came from government-related work, ranging from mildly contaminated lab coats to waste from the country’s effort to build nuclear weapons. Federal officials have long maintained that, despite some leakage from containers, there isn’t evidence of damage to the wider ocean environment or threats to public health through contamination of seafood. But a Wall Street Journal review of decades of federal and other records found unanswered questions about a dumping program once labeled “seriously substandard” by a senior Environmental Protection Agency official…

US airport officials report on Thursday that over 1,800 international and local flights have been cancelled and almost 3,000 delayed in a number of northern and eastern states due to heavy snowfalls.
Most of all, bad weather has hit the airports of Chicago (Illinois), Newark (New Jersey) and Cleveland (Ohio). However, there has been practically no air travel disruption between Moscow and New York. Electronic announcement boards at New York airports show no flight cancellations between these cities. Still, passengers are advised to contact airlines about possible changes in the timetable. National Weather Service spokesman Jason Tuell warns about more heavy snowfalls and a strong wind to come. On Thursday night snowfalls are expected to result in poor visibility, which is causing special worries. Meteorologist Hugh Johnson forecasts a drop of temperature followed by traffic problems. Blizzards have already brought about a larger number of car accidents. During a snowfall in Indiana a bus crashed into a car on a highway, as a result of which one passenger died and 15 were injured. Nine cars collided in New Hampshire. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called citizens to refrain from driving on Thursday night. It has also been decided to extend the New Year school holidays in New Hampshire due to bad weather.

The US National Security Agency is planning to build a "cryptologically useful quantum computer" in order to break almost all encryption worldwide. ● The latest documents revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden said the quantum computer will be “exponentially faster than other classical computers,” The Washington Post said in a Thursday report. "The application of quantum technologies to encryption algorithms threatens to dramatically impact the US government's ability to both protect its communications and eavesdrop on the communications of foreign governments," an internal NSA document said. The new computer would be able to crack nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business, and government records around the world. The project is part of a $79.7 million dollar research program titled, “Penetrating Hard Targets.”

VoR: NSA developing 'quantum computer' to crack privacy codes

The US has delivered dozens of missiles to Iraq to help "combat al-Qaeda". ● They said that about 75 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles had been sent last week. A shipment of unmanned ScanEagles surveillance drones is also expected next year. Iraqi troops have recently launched an operation against al-Qaeda militants in the desert province of Anbar, which borders war-torn Syria. US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Thursday confirmed the Hellfire missile delivery and said the drones would be sent soon.

Consortium of Defense Analysts: US sends missiles and drones "to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq" ■ More confused and confusing foreign policy from the Obama administration. While the State Department is “considering” forging closer ties with “rebel” jihadists in Syria, the same Obama administration just dispatched 75 Hellfire missiles to fight al-Qaeda jihadists in Iraq. The question must also be asked: I thought the U.S. war in Iraq had ended? - Didn’t Obama travel to Fort Bragg on December 21, 2011 and there, with great fanfare, marked the exit of the last American troops from Iraq, officially ending nearly nine years of war there and leaving Iraq’s future in the hands of its people?

Bill Van Auken: Iraq slides toward civil war ■ [The] fact [is] that Maliki’s own sectarian policies have fueled bitter resentment within the Sunni population, driven by lack of services, indiscriminate “terror” raids, imprisonment of thousands without charges, and a de-Baathification program that has been used to expel public workers from their jobs. The pretense that the government is simply engaged in a war on Al Qaeda terrorism has been utilized to secure backing from both Iran and Washington. The latter recently ordered shipments of Hellfire missiles and other advanced weaponry to the Iraqi security forces. Some of these missiles were reportedly used Thursday in the government assault on Fallujah. New acts of violence were recorded elsewhere in Iraq.

A Saudi terrorist who launched the recent deadly attack on the Iranian embassy in Lebanon took orders from Saudi Spy Chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Lebanese sources said. | On November 19, two bomb attacks outside the Iranian Embassy in Beirut killed 23 people and injured more than 146, including Iran's cultural attache Ebrahim Ansari. Lebanese information sources said that they have found information linking Majed al-Majed, the Saudi commander of the al-Qaeda affiliated group Abdullah Azzam Brigades who claimed responsibility for the attack to the Saudi spy chief. Al-Majed was arrested by Lebanese security forces on Tuesday. “A security force has confirmed the detention of Majed al-Majed, the leader of (terrorist) Abdullah Izzam Brigade by the Lebanese security forces a few days ago,” al-Mayadeen TV reported on Tuesday night. The two bomb blasts targeted just 10 meters away from the embassy in Beirut’s Southern neighborhood of Jinah, inflicting much damage to the compound. A few days later, the Lebanese police announced that they had identified the two suicide bombers who attacked the Iranian embassy. The police said Moin Abu Zahr, a 20-year-old Lebanese national and a follower of Sunni Salafi Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir, was responsible for carrying out the first attack, and Omar Sobheh was announced to have carried out the second terrorist operation. Following the Tuesday night revelation by the Lebanese security forces, Iranian officials disclosed that the Lebanese police had identified those who had provided the financial backup for the bombings.

Stewart, who suffers from late-stage breast cancer, was finally released from federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas on New Year’s Eve. She returned to New York on New Year’s Day, where she was met at LaGuardia Airport by a crowd of family, friends and supporters, including her husband Ralph Poynter, two daughters, and several grandchildren. She will be living with a son in Brooklyn. ● Lynne Stewart is well known in legal circles as a passionate defender of civil liberties and committed advocate for her clients. The charges against her stemmed from a technical violation on her part of prohibitions on communications between prisoners and the outside world. Stewart distributed press releases from the blind Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to blow up several New York landmarks. Stewart was indicted years later and did not stand trial until 2004. She was found guilty in February 2005 after a seven-month trial and jury deliberations that stretched over 13 days, in which a number of jurors reportedly held out for many days for acquittal. ● The prosecution of Stewart was both a vindictive attempt to punish her for her militant advocacy and a transparent effort to intimidate other lawyers who take on the cases of unpopular clients. The government went so far in the campaign against Stewart as to lobby for a longer sentence when District Judge John G. Koeltl imposed a penalty of 28 months in prison. The Court of Appeals upheld the verdict but sent the case back to the lower court for re-sentencing, and Koeltl later lengthened the term to 10 years.