Liberties
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D’Escoto on the US in the age of Obama Part 3
“The inability of the United Nations to unequivocally reject the Iraq war has been a major factor in its demise”, says outgoing president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto. In the third and final segment of his talk with Real News Senior Editor Paul Jay, d’Escoto digs into what he believes is at the… Continue reading
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Big Brother FBI: Data-Mining Programs Resurrect “Total Information Awareness” By Tom Burghardt
Like a vampire rising from it’s grave each night to feed on the privacy rights of Americans, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is moving forward with programs that drain the life blood from our constitutional liberties. From the wholesale use of informants and provocateurs to stifle political dissent, to Wi-Fi hacking and viral computer spyware… Continue reading
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Judge rules police at Lieberman protest acted unlawfully
A Jewish peace activist was today found not guilty of using threatening and abusive words and behaviour and of assaulting a police officer. About 15 mainly Jewish protesters, between the ages of 25 and 70, had gathered outside a house in a residential street in South Hampstead where Lieberman was due to attend a garden… Continue reading
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61 arrested in protest at White House – What Happened to the First Amendment?
Video: 61 arrested in protest at White House – What Happened to the First Amendment? Continue reading
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Scottish PSC human rights activists face political trial on same day as Palestinian citizens of Israel protest racist state
Five SPSC members are facing trial on Friday for boycotting Israeli state-sponsored cultural ambassadors, the Jerusalem Quartet. The Israeli musicians, in the words of their admirers, believe that ‘a rifle in one hand and a violin in the other is the ultimate Zionist statement.’ Continue reading
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US Army Prisoners Isolated, Denied Right to Legal Counsel By Dahr Jamail
The military’s treatment of Army prisoners is “part of a broader pattern the military has of just throwing people in jail and not letting them talk to their attorneys, not let visitors come, and this is outrageous. In the civilian world even murderers get visits from their friends,” according to civil defense attorney James Branum. Continue reading
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Big Brother “Fusion Centers” Part of US Domestic Intelligence and Surveillance Apparatus By Tom Burghardtf
Speaking at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club September 15, Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis C. Blair, disclosed that the current annual budget for the 16 agency U.S. “Intelligence Community” (IC) clocks-in at $75 billion and employs some 200,000 operatives world-wide, including private contractors. In unveiling an unclassi?ed version of the National Intelligence Strategy (NIS), Blair… Continue reading
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Hands off my camera! By Nathalie Rothschild
Since the Counter-Terrorism Act 2000 came into force, many amateur and professional photographers have found themselves questioned, manhandled and detained by police who have received extended stop and search rights. Under section 44, uniformed police officers can stop individuals ‘for the purposes of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection… Continue reading
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ID Cards – a World View – by Nathan Allonby
Electronic ID cards have made alarming progress towards becoming universal, around the world. Already, over 2.2 billion people, or 33% of the world’s population, have been issued with ‘smart’ ID cards. Of those, over 900 million have biometric facial and fingerprint systems. On present plans, over 85% of the world’s population will have smart ID… Continue reading
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Obama Administration Seeks “Emergency Control” of the Internet By Tom Burghardt
As the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773) wends its way through Congress, civil liberties’ advocates are decrying provisions that would hand the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet. Continue reading
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The Responsibility to Protect, the International Criminal Court, and Foreign Policy in Focus: Subverting the UN Charter in the Name of Human Rights By Edward S. Herman & David Peterson
It was just a matter of time before members of the collapsing left enlisted in the imperial attack on the most fundamental principles of the UN Charter, and added their voices to the growing chorus of support for Western power-projection under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). But this… Continue reading
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The Myth of Policing By Consent By Kevin Blowe
The belief that the police are now our servants and their independence from the state guarantees their impartiality and accountability is an enduring one. It is summed up in the most often quoted maxim of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan Police, that ‘the police are the public and the public are the… Continue reading
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British Foreign Secretary: Clinton threatened to cut-off intell BY Glenn Greenwald
31 July, 2009 I‘ve written several times before about the amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed — a British resident released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in captivity — to compel public disclosure of information in the possession of the British Government proving he was tortured while in U.S. custody. At the center of Mohamed’s… Continue reading
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Video: Liberty – Protecting Civil Liberties Promoting Human Rights: Where do they go?
Over the last few years the Government has mislaid a staggering amount of our personal information. In this clever short film, Liberty asks whether they can be trusted with even more data. Narrated by Liberty supporter Simon Callow and made voluntarily for Liberty by professional film-maker Will MacNeil, with post-production by Unit, the film underlines… Continue reading
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US Torture Under Scrutiny In British Courts By Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, reports on three important court cases in the UK this week, focusing on “extraordinary rendition” and torture in the “War on Terror.” These cases have implications not only for the complicity of the British government in the Bush administration’s flight from the law, but also for the Obama… Continue reading
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Iraq: Release Hassan Ahmad and grant him asylum in the UK
Hassan is an active member of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees. He is currently detained in Doncaster IRC and awaiting deportation also Hassan has been a member of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq since 1993. The Worker Communist Party of Iraq is a banned organisation in Iraq and Kurdistan. Its members both at… Continue reading
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“Be Bold” By Dahr Jamail
US Army Specialist Victor Agosto, who publicly refused to deploy with his unit to Afghanistan, was to receive the harshest court-martial possible for his decision – one that would land him in jail for up to one year, followed by a dishonorable discharge. However, within hours of the publication of a Truthout report about his… Continue reading
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Season of Travesties: Freedom and Democracy in mid-2009 By Noam Chomsky
The Hezbollah-based March 8 coalition won handily, by approximately the same figure as Obama vs. McCain in November 2008, about 54% of the popular vote, according Ministry of Interior figures. Hence by the Friedman-Abrams argument, we should be lamenting Ahmadinejad’s defeat of President Obama, and the “moral authority” won by Hezbollah, as “the majority of… Continue reading
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No Light Unto Neighbours (or, “Let My Dena Go!”) BY Zrubavel Plunderovitch
This is a true story about two Jews who fail to ‘love their neighbours’. “Dr Dena Coleman, the head teacher of a Jewish orthodox school, and her husband, Gordon, claim they are kept prisoner in their holiday flat on the Sabbath because when they leave it they trigger the light in the communal hallway.” Continue reading
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Police State Measures in the UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims By Murray Wardrop
Officers are targeting children as young as 10 with the aim of placing their DNA profiles on the national database to improve their chances of solving crimes, it is claimed. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 