NetwarDiary.com

Yemen, Guantanamo Bay, drones and the war on journalists

When we think about a secret drone strikes, we often imagine remote and mountainous North West Pakistan, where Taliban fighters flee from neighboring Afghanistan in order to rest, recruit and regroup. Although the majority of America’s robotic death rains down there, other parts of the world are on the receiving end of this superpower’s displeasure.

Congress to vote on NSA restrictions. White House reinvents the English Language

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.

Obama's pending homeland security appointments show his hypocrisy (again)

Stars are shifting in the constellation of command in post-constitutional America. Janet Napolitano is preparing to step down as head of the Department of Homeland Security in order to serve as chancellor of the University of California Schools system. In the interim, Obama has nominated Alejandro Mayorkas for the number two post at the department, which will leave him in day to day command until Napolitano is replaced. Alejandro Mayorkas is currently under investigation for intervening to secure a visa for a Chinese investor.

Panama releases convicted American war criminal sought by Italy to return to the US without hearing

On Thursday, July 18, a convicted American war criminal, Robert Seldon Lady, was detained in Panama near the Costa Rican border. The next day, Lady was headed back to the United States, according to news reports. Lady, age 59, was convicted by an Italian court in 2005 for kidnapping and his role in the 2003 “extraordinary rendition” of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr to Egypt. Nasr was tortured every day for seven months. Neither the CIA nor the State Department has offered any statements about the case at this time.

Intelligence leaders and courts unite in renewed offensive against press freedoms

Current and former intelligence community leaders made their case for imprisoning journalists to the public through compliant corporate media outlets today while a federal judge gutted a historic court ruling protecting journalists and their sources. The court ruling could lead to the indefinite jailing of Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist James Risen.

Texas passes landmark abortion restrictions, Texas DPS officers taser and sexually assault protestors immediately afterwords

The Texas Senate passed a landmark bill restricting abortion access last Thursday in a second special session called by the Governor. At the same time, the Capital of Texas building was filled with protestors, despite draconian access restrictions and the presence of armed and sometimes violent pro-life partisans.

Starving for justice in America's gulag from Cuba to California

This morning in the Oval Office they had a weekly event called “Terror Tuesday.” Terror Tuesday is when the meeting where President Obama, leader of the free world, looks over his disposition matrix and decides who will be killed by drone and who will be taken from their homes by Special Forces to torture and indefinite detention without trial.

Eric Holder loosens restrictions on government approved press as the Voice of America comes home

It has been 30 days since Eric Holder called a secret meeting with a compliant press to get their input on when, and under what circumstances, they would like to be wiretapped by secret court order. A few days ago he released his new policy governing when the press could be wiretapped in order to prosecute reporters and their sources. The government-approved mainstream press uniformly thanked the Attorney General for only ignoring the Constitution a tiny little bit when it comes to them.

Backdoor Bill Gates builds bypasses for NSA's benefit

The Guardian yesterday released another revelation from the trove of top secret documents leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Not to be outdone by Google and other tech titans’ participation in the illegal NSA wiretapping program codenamed PRISM, Microsoft was revealed to have actually built software to be more compliant with NSA and FBI eavesdropping.

Driving while Brown on America's Imperial Infobahn

Last week while hunting for whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the United States government managed to get five European nations to assist in reminding the nations of the global South of their lesser status as peoples. The U.S. inspired violations by France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Austria of international law while checking the President of Bolivia's aircraft for a wanted man like it was the trunk of a car pulled over on a highway in rural South Carolina.