The journalism world has been rightly outraged by the Justice Department dragging the Associated Press (and now a Fox News reporter) into one of its sprawling leak investigations. As we wrote last week, by obtaining the call records of twenty AP phone lines, “the Justice Department has struck a terrible blow against the freedom of the press and the ability of reporters to investigate and report the news." But there are several other important lessons that this scandal can teach us besides how important free and uninhibited newsgathering is to the public’s right to know.

Ed Hightower: New revelations of US government spying on the press

Bruce Schneier: I'm going to start with three data points. One: Some of the Chinese military hackers who were implicated in a broad set of attacks against the U.S. government and corporations were identified because they accessed Facebook from the same network infrastructure they used to carry out their attacks. Two: Hector Monsegur, one of the leaders of the LulzSec hacker movement, was identified and arrested last year by the FBI. Although he practiced good computer security and used an anonymous relay service to protect his identity, he slipped up. And three: Paula Broadwell, who had an affair with CIA director David Petraeus, similarly took extensive precautions to hide her identity. She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him. The FBI correlated hotel registration data from several different hotels -- and hers was the common name. - The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time.

I'm Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web

It was inevitable. A technology like 3D printing that essentially puts cheap labor, manufacturing, and retail all in the same place - upon one's desktop - spells the absolute, utter and permanent end to the monopolies and unwarranted power and influence of the corporate-financier elite who have lorded over humanity since human civilization began - a permanent end the elite will fight against with the total summation of their ill-gotten power and influence. The pretext being used to begin this war, is a 3D printed gun built and demonstrated by Defense Distributed in Austin, Texas. After designing, printing out, and firing the 3D printed gun, the US State Department demanded that the designs, distributed for free on the Internet, be taken down - claiming tenuously that by posting the designs on the Internet, arms export bans may have been violated - this the same government that is on record, openly shipping arms, cash, and military equipment to its own listed terrorist organizations from the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK or MKO) in Iraq and Iran, to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Libya, to Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.

After US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showed that the State Department was lobbying worldwide for Monsanto and other similar corporations, a new report based on the cables shows Washington's shilling for the biotech industry in distinct detail. - The August 2011 WikiLeaks revelations showed that American diplomats had requested funding to send lobbyists for the biotech industry to hold talks with politicians and agricultural officials in "target countries" in areas like Africa and Latin America, where genetically-modified crops were not yet a mainstay, as well as some European countries that have resisted the controversial agricultural practice. After a concerted effort to "closely examine five years of State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the strategy, tactics and U.S. foreign policy objectives to foist pro-agricultural biotechnology policies worldwide," nonprofit consumer protection group Food & Water Watch published on Tuesday a report showing in plain detail the depth of the partnership between the federal government and a number of controversial biotech companies that have slowly but surely pushed their GMO products on a number of new countries in recent years.

The White House has denied any prior knowledge of the Justice Department’s investigation of the Associated Press. US Attorney General has defended the probe, saying the “aggressive action” was in response to national security being put at risk. Just hours after the AP reported on Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors employed by the news agency, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP.” Meanwhile, US Attorney General Eric Holder defended the probe during a Tuesday afternoon press conference, but said he recused himself from the investigation because he was interviewed earlier by the FBI on the matter and didn’t want to provoke a conflict of interest.

Barry Grey: Obama Justice Department secretly seized Associated Press telephone records - In a brazen and illegal attack on press freedom, the Obama Justice Department secretly subpoenaed the telephone records of Associated Press editors and journalists and tracked ingoing and outgoing calls on at least 20 telephone lines, including the national headquarters of the press agency and its news bureaus in New York, Hartford and Washington DC. Among the lines tracked was the telephone used by AP reporters working out of the House of Representatives press gallery in the Capitol. The Associated Press was given no advance notice of the government dragnet, which reportedly began in April of 2012 and continued through May of that year. Such a massive operation over a two-month period would generate records of many thousands of telephone calls, providing the government with legally privileged information about AP journalists’ sources and methods. More than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were seized.

They nearly shredded his tires, and then took attitude with the driver when they realized they encountered someone who was smarter than them.

The US Justice Department has clandestinely gained access to two months of telephone records of reporters and editors of The Associated Press in what the New York City-based news agency described as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." - The records obtained by the Justice Department comprised outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington, and Hartford, Connecticut, and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. In all, the US government obtained the records for more than 20 separate phone lines designated to AP and its correspondents in April and May of 2012. AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt, in a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, said the government sought and acquired information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He also asked the government to return the phone records and to destroy all copies.

Russia Today: US Justice Department [sic] acknowledges wide-ranging surveillance of Associated Press

Israel has given the green light for the construction of a further 300 homes in a West Bank settlement.The number of eviction incidents has risen sharply since a new Israeli government, with even stronger opposition to a 2-state solution, took office in March. And the Israeli defense force are ready to use almost anything to back their governments orders, including special anti-riot measure called 'Skunk'.

According to residents of Quincy, Massachusetts a low flying plane has been hovering over their town non-stop for the last several weeks, leaving many puzzled as to why it’s there. - No one in the Federal government is talking, and the FAA says they are aware of the “authorized” flight pattern but are not releasing additional details, other than to say, “we have to be very careful this time.” Suggesting that the government is conducting surveillance is often disregarded as conspiracy theory, but in this case, it may be right on target.

A California father of four died Wednesday shortly after a group of police allegedly beat him with batons as he lay defenseless on the sidewalk. Cops, before confiscating witness' cameras, also reportedly unleashed a canine unit on him. - David Sal Silva, 33, allegedly resisted when police approached him to ask if he was who neighbors called about to complain of an intoxicated man in the area. The officers called for backup and, witnesses told the Bakersfield Californian, Silva was soon being beaten in the face and upper body by as many as nine policemen and their batons. At least one of the cops reportedly held a German Shepherd on a leash nearby. Witnesses who had recorded the events on their cell phone cameras had the devices confiscated by officers, who claimed the footage was part of a police investigation that could yield evidence. The Sherriff’s Department has released the names of seven officers who were on the scene, but the identities of the California Highway Patrol police who were also there have not yet been made public.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been taken over by an outside organization. RootsAction has launched a campaign demanding a Congressional investigation. The organization is called Monsanto. - Monsanto is, of course, the world's largest biotech corporation. These are the people who brought us Roundup weed killer and the resulting superweeds and superbugs, along with growth hormones for cows, genetically engineered and patented seeds, PCBs, and Agent Orange -- which Monsanto now wants us to use as herbicide on genetically engineered corn and soybeans. This chemical company -- responsible for environmental disasters that have destroyed entire towns, and a driving force behind the international waves of suicides among farmers whose lives it has helped ruin -- has monopolized our food system largely by taking over regulatory agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This video brings together Reverend Edward Pinkney, Dr. Randy Short and Dr. Webster Tarpley to discuss the current situation with the NAACP, Detroit's Emergency Manager Laws, the bankruptcy of America and the solutions to change it.

Joseph Kishore: A financial dictator for Detroit

In a recent Christian Science Monitor article dealing with "teenagers, terrorism and social media" (focusing on the recent Cameron D'Ambrosio arrest for making "terrorist threats" via some improvised rap lyrics posted to Facebook), Sgt. Ed Mullins of the NYPD shows up to make some very disturbing statements about your rights and responsibilities as a (mere) citizen. It starts with the worst kind of "policy" and goes downhill fast.

Using a zero tolerance approach to track domestic terrorists online is the only reasonable way to analyze online threats these days, especially after the Boston Marathon bombing and news that the suspects had subsequently planned to target Times Square in Manhattan, Mullins says. The way law enforcement agencies approach online activity that appears sinister is this: “If you’re not a terrorist, if you’re not a threat, prove it,” he says.

Mullins goes even further than this, though, asserting that the burden of proof lies with the person charged, not the person bringing the charges. This flips our judicial system on its head.

There is no innocent explanation for a decision by the FBI, the CIA and the Homeland Security Department to conceal from the state and local police, in advance of a major public event, the presence of area residents widely suspected of having terrorist connections. - The Boston police commissioner and a top Massachusetts Homeland Security official told Congress Thursday that the local and state police were never informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Department of Homeland Security of multiple warnings about Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar are the only suspects to date in the twin bombings at the downtown Boston finish line of the race, which killed three people and wounded more than 160 others. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police on April 19. Dzhokhar is under arrest at a prison medical facility outside of Boston.

William Blum: Boston Marathon, this thing called terrorism, and the United States

Two months ago, the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA), a Bush-era law that allows the NSA to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Now, the full scope of the US government's warrantless surveillance schemes is becoming known. Leaked documents from the IRS, the FBI, and the Department of Justice have now shown that none of those agencies believe that warrants are required for monitoring the online communication—think emails, not just public Twitter posts—of American citizens. At the same time, the Obama administration is reportedly planning on backing an FBI plan that would force internet providers, email hosts, social media platforms, and others to install backdoors to their system to allow the FBI easier access.

Russia Today: ‘Like 1984, only worse’: UK may resurrect ‘snooper’s charter’ -

The grandson of the late African-American human rights activist Malcolm X has been killed in Mexico, a report says. - The Amsterdamnews.com reported that Muslim civil activist Malcolm Shabazz was killed early Thursday due to injuries, but the exact circumstances of his death are still unconfirmed. Reports say that he suffered the fatal wounds after he was thrown off a building or shot as he was being robbed in the city of Tijuana. Terrie M. Williams, a close friend of the Shabazz family, stated in a message posted on Twitter, “I’m confirming, per US Embassy, on behalf of family, the tragic death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X. Statement from family to come.”

AWIP: FBI arrests Malcolm X grandson en route to Iran [02/04/13]

A radome at RAF Menwith Hill,
a site with satellite downlink
capabilities believed to be used
by ECHELON. (Wikipedia)

Washington needs to clean up its own act before trying to assert the moral high ground over the Chinese for their alleged hack attacks on the US.

The United States is accusing China of trying to hack into US defense computers for espionage purposes. This claim comes across as hypocritical and posturing: For several decades, the United States has happily wiretapped every other nation's conversations whenever possible. Under Washington’s ‘Echelon’ global wiretapping network, this includes most industrialized nations – such an obscene a violation of international trust when discovered, most didn't want to believe the Echelon program actually existed and was operational. This network of wiretapping stations isn't just used by the United States for military purposes – it has long been asserted that it is also used to give United States industries the upper hand in purely industrial applications, in competition with its international counterparts. In Europe, it is not enough for the United States to listen in to all conversations using the Echelon program. The US also demands information on all SWIFT bank transactions in Europe, ostensibly in the name of combating terrorism, but such information again gives US industries an upper hand in industrial espionage. To criticize China for doing what the US has been doing to the rest of the world for decades comes across as hypocritical posturing of the worst sort, regardless of whether or not the allegations are true. But it gets worse: This alleged Chinese hacking was implied to have military connotations, and the US claimed it was a violation of "international trust." To date, only two national powers are known to have used hacking in military applications: The United States and Israel, in their joint attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities that used malicious software of sophistication never before seen by the security community. (As a bonus, before it was discovered that the US was behind the attack, NATO used this hacking attack as a scare to ask for increased funding.) No, what this really is about is a threat to Pax Americana – the idea that world peace is guaranteed by the United States, but only on the terms of that same United States. (We can easily observe how those terms are changed daily, and then enforced, by killer drones.)

New York Times: China Blasts Hacking Claim by Pentagon
New York Times: U.S. Accuses China’s Military Directly for Cyberattacks
John Chan: Pentagon accuses China of cyber attacks

The Obama administration is close to announcing its support for a law that would force Google, Facebook and other Internet communications companies to build back doors for government wiretaps, according to an article in the New York Times Wednesday. Such a measure would allow intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, to monitor a vast array of communications, including Facebook messages, chats, and email using services such as Gmail. The move comes as the National Security Agency’s sprawling new data center in Utah prepares to come online in September of this year. The facility is rumored to store data on the scale of trillions of terabytes, meaning that it can easily house the contents of every personal computer in the world.

New York Times: The Early Word: Spiraling Up
c|net: DOJ: We don't need warrants for e-mail, Facebook chats

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke is a Reverse Robin Hood, robbing from the lower 95% and giving to the financier class. The Real Reverse Robin Hood: Ben Bernanke and his Merry Band of Thieves. It's worth understanding the mechanisms of this wealth transfer: in essence, the Fed extends low-cost credit (i.e. "free money") to the financier class which then uses this free money to buy rentier assets, that is, assets that generate economic rents for the owners, who add no value and create no wealth. This is of course the neofeudal model: the financial aristocracy in the manor house own the rentier assets and the debt-serfs toil away to pay the rents and taxes. The financier class (i.e. those that benefit from the financialization of the economy) are as unproductive as feudal lords; they skim the profits generated by the debt-serfs while adding no productive value to the economy.

President Barack Obama has done nothing to carry out his promise to close Guantanamo. - The hunger strike involving more than 100 detainees at the Guantanamo prison camp entered its fourth month this past Monday. The detainees have been held without charges for more than 11 years. [They] are being held indefinitely, without being charged or tried. It has become increasingly clear that many detainees are prepared to starve themselves to death. As one of them, British citizen Shaker Aamer, told his attorney, Clive Stafford Smith, “It is possible that I may die in here. I hope not, but if I do die, please tell my children that I loved them above all else, but that I had to stand up for the principle that they cannot just keep holding people without a trial, especially when they have been cleared for release.”

Russia Today: OpGTMO: Anonymous vows global hack attack to shut down Guantanamo