Showing all posts tagged war on terror
Force-feeding detainees at Guantanamo Bay is terrorism
Devastating short film that demonstrates the brutal reality for countless prisoners under the Obama administration: As Ramadan begins, more than 100 hunger-strikers in Guantánamo Bay continue their protest. More than 40 of them are being force-fed. A leaked document sets out the military instructions, or standard operating procedure, for force-feeding detainees. In this four-minute film…
Repeat after me, you have no privacy online ever
If we have discovered only one thing recently with the revelations of Edward Snowden, it’s that the US has established an all-seeing and all-hearing surveillance apparatus that knows no bounds. This investigation in the Washington Post adds to this picture: The U.S. government had a problem: Spying in the digital age required access to the…
How the vast, privatised intelligence world is permanent
Interesting article in the New York Times that outlines some of the background to NSA contractor Edward Snowden. It casually explains how in a post 9/11 worldc countless private employees have control over a vast network of individual communications. Transparency? As if: Intelligence officials refer to Edward J. Snowden’s job as a… National Security Agency… contractor as…
Background and context to revealing Edward Snowden NSA stories
It’s been quite a month since the details emerged of massive spying by the NSA. Here are two interesting interviews and a speech by key players. First, Guardian editors Alan Rusbridger and Janine Gibson discuss how the paper managed the ways in which a mainstream media news organisation publishes sensitive information. They’re speaking to Charlie…
Why Edward Snowden rightly fears Obama’s war on whistle-blowers
The last 24 hours have seen the incredible and inspiring journey of Edward Snowden from Hong Kong on his way to Ecuador. Wikileaks have been essential in the process. It’s encouraging, in the face of belligerence and illegality by Washington in its “war on terror”, that alternative forces and balances of power are able to…
Why it’s dangerous to privatise America’s intelligence services
The post 9/11 world has seen an explosion in private companies making a killing in both assisting and exaggerating the “threat” of terrorism. I examine this deeply in my upcoming book, Profits of Doom. Here’s a great piece by a beacon on this issue, journalist Tim Shorrock, writing in the New York Times: And if…
Why Prism is important; we’re watching the watchers
My following article appears in today’s Guardian Australia: Politicians and journalists ignore public opinion at their peril. Less than two weeks after the explosive revelations by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden on the creation of a privatised,… American surveillance apparatus, a TIME poll finds a majority of… Americans support the leak, and… Snowden receives a…