Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the CrimeOn one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks.

Congress votes to shield top officials’ financial disclosuresCongress this week approved a bill to free thousands of federal government employees from having to disclose their financial dealings online, rushing the bill through the Senate late Thursday and through the House on Friday. But the push to undo the online reporting requirement is proving to be controversial.

Red Cross chief blasts US for force-feeding Gitmo inmates – RT USAThe head of the Red Cross has urged the Obama administration to mend the situation in Guantanamo that has compelled prisoners to starve themselves, and criticized force-feeding as a solution to the hunger strike.

FBI sued over secretive mass surveillance program – RT USAA privacy watchdog group is suing the FBI over the agency’s failure to fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests for documents involving a secretive and expansive database that could be used to track down anyone, anywhere and at any time.

‘US-trained death squads’ organized torture sites across Iraq – RT USAAfter one year in Iraq the US government secretly enlisted retired Special Forces operatives to train Shia militia in the art of torture and other war crimes that fueled the Iraqi civil war, according to a new report.

Monsanto Protection Act put GM companies above the federal courtsMonsanto and the US farm biotech industry wield legendary power. A revolving door allows corporate chiefs to switch to top posts in the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies; US embassies around the world push GM technology onto dissenting countries; government subsidies back corporate research; federal regulators do largely as the industry wants; the companies pay millions of dollars a year to lobby politicians; conservative thinktanks combat any political opposition; the courts enforce corporate patents on seeds; and the consumer is denied labels or information.

‘Illegal we do immediately; unconstitutional takes a little longer’: Kissinger in new mass WikiLeaks document release – RT NewsWikiLeaks has published the ‘Kissinger Cables’: its largest public release of documents in nearly a year, totaling some 1.7 million classified files, including information on the US’s secret diplomatic history. A variety of files have been collected and collated, including from congressional correspondence, intelligence reports, and cables.

Environmentalist jailed over blog post – RT USAAn environmentalist from the United States has been sent back to prison – and his friends and family say it’s because he spoke up about the government’s attempts to silence activists just like him.

Report: Ohio courts illegally jailing the poorCOLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Several courts in are illegally jailing people because they are too poor to pay their debts and often deny defendants a hearing to determine if they’re financially capable of paying what they owe, according to an investigation released Thursday by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Everything You Need to Know (So Far) About the Largest Leak of Offshore Financial Secrets in HistoryThe Twitterati (and presumably a bevy of bankers) went astir today after a small DC watchdog began systematically leaking millions of financial secrets about offshore companies. Here’s why you should care. What is this “Offshore Leaks” thing everyone’s freaking out about?

Reclaiming the American Republic from the corruption of election funding | KurzweilAIThere is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens That’s the argument at the core of a new just-posted TED talk by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig (video below).

Google Fights U.S. National Security Probe Data DemandGoogle Inc (GOOG)., operator of the world’s largest search engine, is challenging a demand by the U.S. government for private user information in a national security probe, according to a court filing. It “appears” to be the first time a major communications company is pushing back after getting a so-called National Security Letter, said the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy group.

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly ‘wanted to instil fear’ in black and Latino menThe commissioner of the New York City police department views the controversial practice of stop, question and frisk as a means to instil fear in young African American and Latino men, a New York state senator testified in a federal court on Monday.

Fusion center director: We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans – RT USALaw enforcement intelligence-processing fusion centers have long come under attack for spying on Americans. The Arkansas director wanted to clarify the truth: centers only spies on some Americans – those who appear to be a threat to the government.

Prosecutor who was falsely arrested can’t sue Bank of AmericaBanks are people too! A federal judge in San Francisco threw out a lawsuit by Sharon Henry, a prosecutor in the Bay Area who was falsely arrested thanks to an incompetent bank manager, on the grounds that it infringed on a bank’s free speech.

Computer law used against Swartz could become even harsher – RT USAThe most controversial computer law in the United States could finally be updated – and it’s the exact opposite of what activists like Aaron Swartz have been fighting for.

Wikileaks Was Just a Preview: We’re Headed for an Even Bigger Showdown Over Secrets | Matt Taibbi | Rolling StoneI went yesterday to a screening of We Steal Secrets, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s brilliant new documentary about Wikileaks. The movie is beautiful and profound, an incredible story that’s about many things all at once, including the incredible Shakespearean narrative that is the life of Julian Assange, a free-information radical who has become an uncompromising guarder of secrets.

‘Monsanto Protection Act’ slips silently through US Congress – RT USAThe US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week – including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.

The FBI’s anticipatory prosecution of Muslims to criminalize speechOne of the major governmental abuses denounced by the 1976 final report of the Church Committee was the FBI’s domestic counter intelligence programs (COINTELPRO).

Corporate Welfare – Employees Paying Taxes Directly To CorporationsTaxes have been a part of government for as long as there have been things to tax, and the general idea behind them is pretty well understood. The government takes a portion of everyone’s income and spends it in such a way as to improve things for everyone in one way or another.