Ex-CIA Officer: Prison Was Torture Whistleblowing PunishmentFormer CIA officer John Kiriakou is the only CIA employee connected to its interrogation program to go to prison. But he was prosecuted for providing information to reporters, not for anything connected to waterboarding or other actions that today’s Senate Intelligence Committee report calls “torture.”
New ACLU report takes a snapshot of police militarization in the United StatesThe American Civil Liberties Union has released the results of its year-long study of police militarization. The study looked at 800 deployments of SWAT teams among 20 local, state and federal police agencies in 2011-2012. Among the notable findings: 62 percent of the SWAT raids surveyed were to conduct searches for drugs.
‘Stripped naked, kept in solitary’: Manning tortured like terrorist, Welsh relatives sayUS authorities tortured Chelsea Manning with barbaric CIA techniques, which posed a threat to her psychological health, the Welsh aunt of the jailed whistleblower revealed to local media. Before her trial for providing WikiLeaks with the largest cache of classified information in US history, Chelsea Manning was humiliated in a similar way that terrorist suspects were, her Welsh relatives told WalesOnline on Sunday.
Plummeting Oil Prices Could Destroy The Banks That Are Holding Trillions In Commodity DerivativesCould rapidly falling oil prices trigger a nightmare scenario for the commodity derivatives market? The big Wall Street banks did not expect plunging home prices to cause a mortgage-backed securities implosion back in 2008, and their models did not anticipate a decline in the price of oil by more than 40 dollars in less than […]
our attitude toward things is conditioned by opinions and emotions which we unconsciously absorb as children — Albert Einstein
http://www.onbeing.org/program/albert-einstein-the-negro-question-1946
Woman f-bombs police and gets rewarded $100K compensationReuters/John Taggart “F*** police” is political speech, a US court ruled. A woman who was arrested for swearing and raising a middle finger at law enforcers has been acquitted and awarded $100,000 in settlement.
Visa, MasterCard sued for blocking donations to WikiLeaksLawyers representing the credit card processor used by WikiLeaks are suing Visa and MasterCard in the United States over the 2010 banking blockade that kept the anti-secrecy group from receiving funds.
The Complicity of Psychologists in CIA TortureEarlier this week the Senate Intelligence Committee released the long-awaited executive summary of its 6,000-page classified report on the CIA’s brutal post-9/11 detention and interrogation program. The report provides gruesome details of the abuse that took place in several “black site” prisons – waterboarding, confinement in a coffin-sized box, threatened harm to family members, forced nudity, freezing temperatures, “rectal feeding” without medical need, stress positions, diapering, days of sleep deprivation, and more.
Overseas, Torture Report Prompts Calls for ProsecutionThe release of the Senate report on the graphic torture of terrorism suspects by the Bush-era Central Intelligence Agency led to calls at the United Nations and elsewhere on Tuesday for criminal prosecutions and caused an international explosion on social media, including online jihadist exhortations for retaliation.
New evidence Bush misled Americans into Iraq war – senatorThe chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has released new information claiming the Bush administration misled the American people in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said on Thursday that a 2003 CIA cable warns the administration of former President George W.
Udall urges CIA chief to resign for stifling torture probeSen. Mark Udall (D-Colorado) blasted both the CIA and the White House on Wednesday over what the lawmaker considers to be complicity with regards to propagating long-standing lies about the United States’ use of torture against foreign detainees.
Hush money: CIA paid Poland to host its secret prisons and detaineesThe CIA paid at least a million dollars to Poland for it to host secret prisons, where it incarcerated alleged 9/11 terror suspects, according to the recent US torture report. Warsaw had initially tried to halt the transfer of suspects, but after a generous offer, it suddenly became more “flexible.
Facing justice: UN, HRW, Amnesty call for prosecuting US officials for tortureAFP Photo/Paul J. Richards The UN and prominent human rights groups have demanded justice for CIA torture victims, urging to prosecute the responsible US officials listed in the Senate’s report. The Justice Department says it will not pursue charges, even after seeing the report.
Bank of America ordered to pay Tampa family $1 million for harassing callsTAMPA – For four years, Joyce and Nelson Coniglio were haunted by these words: This is Bank of America calling. The calls started in 2009 when B of A took over the mortgage the Coniglios used to buy a second home in their Tampa Heights neighborhood. They quickly fell behind.
With Bank of America Order, S.E.C. Breaks the MoldThe recidivism rate among companies caught violating securities laws can be a bit disheartening. Despite settlements that include corporate proclamations of a commitment to compliance, the same names seem to appear again and again in settlements for new violations.
Bank of America foreclosure dismissal moves forward $70M jury trial against bankBank of America (NYSE:BAC) dropped their foreclosure case against author TJ Fisher at a recent bench trial after bank attorneys missed a court deadline and Motion-in-limine hearing and were barred from presenting documents or witnesses. Judge Catherine M.
Beyond Money in Politics: Corruption Now “Business as Usual”JANINE WEDEL, jwedel at gmu.edu Wedel, an anthropologist and professor at George Mason University’s School of Policy, Government and International Affairs, is the author of the just-released Unaccountable: How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt our Finances, Freedom and Security. She recently wrote in USA Today: “What do the words ‘dark money’ mean to you?
Solar and Wind Energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional FuelsFor the solar and wind industries in the United States, it has been a long-held dream: to produce energy at a cost equal to conventional sources like coal and natural gas. That day appears to be dawning.
Couple settles lawsuit with bank over mortgageA Montana couple has settled their lawsuit alleging Bank of America acted negligently and fraudulently when they tried to refinance their mortgage.