Warrantless-Wiretap Win Nets Victims a Paltry $40K

12-22-2010 • Wired

A federal judge on Tuesday awarded $20,400 each to two American lawyers illegally wiretapped by the George W. Bush administration, and granted their counsel $2.5 million for the costs litigating the case for more than four years.

Belarus Update: Things Heat Up. Ready for another European Civil War?

12-22-2010 • PitchforksAtTheGate.com

Opposition leaders arrested and severely beaten. Mass arrests. People held incommunicado. Coming Soon to a Country Near You. PS: how can 500 government police agents control 5000 protesters? You let them........

OpenBSD Chief Now Believes Gov't. Contractor Tried to Write Backdoors

12-22-2010 • PC World

The lead developer of the OpenBSD operating system now believes a government contracting firm that contributed code to his project "was probably contracted to write backdoors," which would grant secret access to encrypted communications.

Fusion Centers and Homeland Security: Watching Our Freedom Die

12-22-2010 • PrisonPlanet.com

According to numerous law enforcement advisories, training manuals, seminars and other literature, the federal government defines political activism, flying American flags, wearing Levi jeans, being nice,... all as signs of domestic terror.

Attorney General's Blunt Warning on Terror Attacks (Americans are now the greatest threat)

12-21-2010 • abcnews.go.com

"The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens -- raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized

So you don’t think the fight is real? Consider the elections of Belarus…

12-21-2010 • PitchforksAtTheGate.com

Think these guys are interested in protecting your right? Think they give a shit about beating the crap out of you because they were told to? Because they can? Think these guys are any different from the guys here? International observers and

Plan to Turn Post Office Trucks Into Stasi Data Collection Nodes

12-21-2010 • PrisonPlanet.com

Forget the StreetView data vacuum scandal. If an idea proposed for the money hole known as the U.S. Post Office is adopted, your friendly neighborhood postal person may be soon driving a high-tech data collection vehicle that would rival anything Goo

Monitoring America

12-20-2010 • Washington Post

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investig

Metro to start random bag searches

12-19-2010 • Washington Examiner

Metro plans to begin random searches of its riders' bags. Metro Police Chief coordinated with the TSA as part of a continuing effort to keep the system safe from explosives. Boston, New York and New Jersey will do similar searches

Court blocks Obama Admin attempt to spy on cell phones without warrant

12-19-2010 • Rawstory

The Obama Administration's effort to obtain your location from cell phone towers without a warrant was rebuffed by a federal court. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the Justice Department cannot obtain information about which cel

Washington subway police to begin random bag checks

12-17-2010 • www.reuters.com

Officers will start random bag inspections on the sprawling Washington subway system, the Washington Metro Transit Police said on Thursday, a week after a man was arrested for making bomb threats to the rail system.

Europe tells Britain to justify itself over fingerprinting children in schools

12-15-2010 • Daily Telegraph

The European Commission has demanded Britain justifies the widespread and routine fingerprinting of children in schools because of "significant concerns" that the policy breaks EU privacy laws.

The Espionage Act and the Death of American Freedoms

12-15-2010 • Lew Rockwell Podcast

A deeply worried Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America, fears that both TSA actions and the threatened use of the 1917 Espionage Act against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange - Lew Rockwell Podcast

A sad day for the US if the Espionage Act is used against WikiLeaks

12-15-2010 • www.guardian.co.uk

Numerous US officials are calling for a resurrection of the US Espionage Act as a tool for prosecuting WikiLeaks. The dusting-off of the old law is all but certain. But the outcome of the constitutional dust-up that is sure to follow will result in t

Former Contractor Says FBI Put Back Door in OpenBSD

12-15-2010 • PC World

A former government contractor says that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation installed a number of back doors into the encryption software used by the OpenBSD operating system. This means the FBI may have developed secret ways to snoop on encryp

Chances dimming for Patriot Act reform

12-14-2010 • Rawstory

The PATRIOT Act is up for renewal, but civil libertarians wanting major changes shouldn't get their hopes up, says a libertarian think tank. In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy last week, Attorney General Holder promised to implement policies designed

Is the Collapsing Empire and Its Police State Worth Fighting For?

12-13-2010 • whiskeyandgunpowder.com

In 43 BC, over 2,000 years ago, warring consuls Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian were duking it out with each other over control of Rome following Julius Caesar’s assassination the prior March.

WikiLeaks cables: Art looted by Nazis, Spanish gold and an embassy offer

12-09-2010 • www.oceantreasures.org

US officials offered to help Spain claim an undersea treasure haul of gold and silver coins discovered by a controversial American exploration company in return for Spanish assistance in the recovery of valuable art looted by Nazi Germany, according

Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans’ Credit Cards in Real Time

12-08-2010 • Ryan Singel via WIRED.com

Federal law enforcement agencies have been tracking Americans in real-time using credit cards, loyalty cards and travel reservations without getting a court order, a new document released under a government sunshine request shows.

Fingerprint scanner use raises privacy concerns in N.C.

12-08-2010 • McClatchy News

Next month, 13 law enforcement agencies in the region will begin using a new handheld device that lets an officer scan a person's fingerprints and seek a match in an electronic database - all without going anywhere. Police say taking fingerprints

Watch Jesse Ventura Police State Episode

12-06-2010 • Speak Truth 2 Power

Watch the full episode that was taken off TruTV's lineup.