Congress alarmed by possible CIA access to confidential whistleblower emailsReuters/Jason Reed The CIA obtained a legally protected, confidential email between whistleblower officials and Congress this spring, raising questions over whether the agency illegally has access to other communications regarding whistleblowers, McClatchy reported.
‘Concrete facts are not necessary’ – Obama administration makes blacklisting air passengers easier than everA never-before-published document released by The Intercept on Wednesday reveals the flexibility with which United States officials may place individuals on watchlists and deem them terrorists without obtaining concrete proof.
Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz Hails New BRICS Bank Challenging U.S.-Dominated World Bank & IMFA group of five countries has launched its own development bank to challenge the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Leaders from the so-called BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – unveiled the New Development Bank at a summit in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza.
‘the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.’ – Malcolm X July 24, 2014
Elderly veteran arrested for asking gov’t officials to speak louderA 76-year-old military veteran was arrested for disorderly conduct at a public county board meeting for asking officials to speak up when they refused to use the microphones. The hearing was over a controversial new plant in the area.
Google to face lawsuit over providing consumer data to advertisersReuters / Francois Lenoir A federal judge has denied Google Inc’s attempt to dismiss a privacy lawsuit brought against the technology giant for commingling user data across its different products and offering that data to advertisers without permission.
Bank of America threatens to take California man’s home, force into foreclosureBrian Dillard is a responsible homeowner. He has a mortgage with Bank of America for his home in the Inland Empire where he lives with his wife and young daughter, and he has never once missed a payment.
FBI entrapped suspects in almost all high-profile terrorism cases in USReuters / John Gress A new report by Human Rights Watch accuses the FBI of using sting operations to entrap informants, creating terrorists out of law-abiding individuals and targeting American Muslims in the agency’s counterterrorism investigations.
Carlos Slim calls for three-day working week to improve quality of lifeMexican billionaire tycoon, Carlos Slim, has called for the introduction of a three-day working week, offset by longer hours and a later retirement, as a way to improve people’s quality of life and create a more productive labour force.
Solar has won. Even if coal were free to burn, power stations couldn’t competeLast week, for the first time in memory, the wholesale price of electricity in Queensland fell into negative territory – in the middle of the day. For several days the price, normally around $40-$50 a megawatt hour, hovered in and around zero.
Phil Donahue’s vindication: Media icon unloads on Fox, Cheney and what happened at MSNBCLegendary TV host was fired for opposing Iraq war. Here’s how he feels seeing the return of those who got it wrong As has been well-documented, and will hopefully long be taught in journalism schools nationwide, the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not the American mainstream media’s finest hour.
Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on AmericansJohn Napier Tye served as section chief for Internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from January 2011 to April 2014. He is now a legal director of Avaaz, a global advocacy organization.
Study: Millennials can afford homes, but aren’t buying | Al Jazeera AmericaMost millennials living in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas can afford to buy homes, but are instead choosing to rent or live with their parents, according to two leading household research institutions.
Largest US sentence reduction in history approved for drug offenders | Al Jazeera AmericaThe federal agency that sets criminal sentencing policies for judges voted on Friday to allow tens of thousands of inmates serving time for drug crimes to apply for reduced sentences, the largest such sentencing reduction in modern U.S. history. The unanimous vote by the seven members of the U.S.
Lawsuit Filed Against Georgia Debt Collection ‘Factory’The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Frederick J. Hanna & Associates, a Georgia-based law firm that specializes in suits against consumers who have outstanding debts owed to banks, debt buyers, and credit card companies. The suit, filed earlier this week in the Atlanta Division of Georgia’s Northern District, says the firm “…operates less like a law firm than a factory.
BRICS announce $200B challenge to world financial order | Al Jazeera AmericaAfter years of railing against the Western-dominated global financial order, a powerful bloc of the world’s emerging economies has finally done something about it. On Tuesday, the BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – formally introduced their long-awaited $100 billion development bank, to be headquartered in Shanghai, and a currency reserve of the same size, institutions that aim to be both competitor and antithesis to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Conscientious objector: US Navy nurse refuses to force-feed Guantanamo detaineeAFP Photo / John Moore A Navy nurse is making waves for refusing to force-feed inmates participating in hunger strikes at the prison complex in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The unidentified nurse – described by one inmate as a 40-year-old Latino – is believed to be the first conscientious objector to Guantanamo’s controversial tube feeding policy.
Obama administration says the world’s servers are oursGlobal governments, the tech sector, and scholars are closely following a legal flap in which the US Justice Department claims that Microsoft must hand over e-mail stored in Dublin, Ireland. In essence, President Barack Obama’s administration claims that any company with operations in the United States must comply with valid warrants for data, even if the content is stored overseas.
Consumer Bureau: Debt-Collection Firm Is a Shoddy Lawsuit ‘Mill’The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued a major debt collection law firm on Monday, alleging it is a “mill” that produces shoddy, mass-produced credit-card collection lawsuits. The bureau’s claim, filed in federal court in Atlanta, states that Frederick J.