High Court: Whistleblowers’ Testimony Is Protected

High Court: Whistleblowers’ Testimony Is ProtectedThe First Amendment protects public employees from job retaliation when they are called to testify in court about official corruption, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The unanimous decision cheered whistleblower advocates, who said it could encourage more government workers to cooperate with prosecutors in public fraud cases without fear of losing their livelihoods.

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Government control emerges as central issue at ICANN meeting

Government control emerges as central issue at ICANN meetingWhat level of control governments should exert over the Internet emerged early in ICANN’s meeting this week as a primary sticking point, with the representative from France advocating for more state control and the U.K. arguing for less. More than 3,300 representatives from around the world have descended on London to discuss what will happen after the U.S.

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Russell Brand: ‘Fanatical, terrorist, propagandist’ Fox News is ‘more dangerous than ISIS’

Russell Brand: ‘Fanatical, terrorist, propagandist’ Fox News is ‘more dangerous than ISIS’ (VIDEO)Comedian Russell Brand condemned Fox News as a “fanatical terrorist propaganda organization” during a heated, 10-minute tirade recorded on video and uploaded to the web this week. The 39-year-old British stand-up comic-turned-actor is now making headlines for the video footage, which was uploaded to his personal YouTube channel on Tuesday this week under the title: Is Fox News More Dangerous than Isis?

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Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws

Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records lawsAs part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response. As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs.

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Condemned by UN, Is Detroit’s Water Shutoff About Privatization?

Condemned by UN, Is Detroit’s Water Shutoff About Privatization?AP is reporting: “U.N. experts say water shutoffs at Detroit homes due to overdue bills violate international human rights. “Right to water and sanitation expert Catarina de Albuquerque says Wednesday that disconnections due to non-payment are ‘only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying.’

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Backing Banks Over Borrowers, California Judges Often Big Stakeholders in Same Banks

Backing Banks Over Borrowers, California Judges Often Big Stakeholders in Same BanksTruthout readers like you made this story possible. Show your support for independent news and make a tax-deductible donation today! Sue your bank in California over a wrongful foreclosure, and the best you’re likely to get – if you have ironclad evidence that it broke the law – is a loan modification.

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Battlefield USA: American police ‘excessively militarized’ – ACLU study

Battlefield USA: American police ‘excessively militarized’ – ACLU studyAFP Photo / Timothy A. Clary Inheriting both the weapons and the mindset of the US military, police are becoming militarized and ‘hyper aggressive’ in their approach to maintaining security on the streets of America. New study calls on police not to treat people as ‘wartime enemies’.

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Putin’s aide proposes anti-dollar alliance to force US to end Ukraine’s civil war

Putin’s aide proposes anti-dollar alliance to force US to end Ukraine’s civil warSergey Glazyev, the economic aide of Vladimir Putin, published an article outlining a plan for “undermining the economic strength of the US” in order to force Washington to stop the civil war in Ukraine. Glazyev believes that the only way of making the US give up its plans on starting a new cold war is to crash the dollar system.

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Iraq crisis: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia

Iraq crisis: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi ArabiaSo after the grotesquerie of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, meet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama.

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The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% – ex CIA spy

The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% – ex CIA spyRobert David Steele, former Marine, CIA case officer, and US co-founder of the US Marine Corps intelligence activity, is a man on a mission. But it’s a mission that frightens the US intelligence establishment to its core.With 18 years experience working across the US intelligence community, followed by 20 more years in commercial intelligence and training, Steele’s exemplary career has spanned almost all areas of both the clandestine world.

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Cops hid use of phone tracking tech in court documents at feds’ request

Cops hid use of phone tracking tech in court documents at feds’ requestFurther Reading Keeping tabs on civilian phones? There’s more than one way to skin that cat.On Thursday evening, the ACLU published a 2009 e-mail exchange (PDF) between police departments in Sarasota, Florida, and North Port, Florida, indicating that local law enforcement had concealed the use of cell phone-tracking Stingray devices in court documents.

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BlackRock, Pimco sue over billions in mortgage securities losses

BlackRock, Pimco sue over billions in mortgage securities lossesThe lawsuits, filed in New York state court, claim the trustees breached their duties to investors by failing to force lenders and sponsors of the securities to repurchase defective loans, the suits claim. The investors are seeking damages for losses that exceed $250 billion and relate to over 2,200 residential mortgage-backed securities trusts issued between 2004 and 2008, according to a person familiar with the cases.

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‘The truth is worse than we imagine’: One-quarter of public company deals involve insider trading

‘The truth is worse than we imagine’: One-quarter of public company deals involve insider tradingAndrew Burton / Getty Images / AFP An award-winning new study claims that more than a quarter of all public company deals involve transactions that could be consider examples of insider trading. The recently published report from Menachem Brenner and Marti G.

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