22 June 2019 — WSWS
Minutes of Ministry of Defence (MoD) meetings have confirmed the role of Britain’s Guardian newspaper as a mouthpiece for the intelligence agencies.
Category: National Security State
Why is the US government using social media to monitor the public? By Kevin Reed
24 June 2019 — WSWS
A series of recent reports—based on documents obtained from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings and other leaked information—have revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is violating the First Amendment right to free speech and assembly by gathering social media data for surveillance purposes and targeting organizations and individuals for harassment, intimidation, deportation and arrest.
Statewatch News Online, 17 June 2019 (14/19)
17 June 2019 — Statewatch
e-mail: office@statewatch.org
Also available as a pdf file: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2019/jun/email-17-6-19.pdf
ANALYSIS
Analysis: The Commission and Italy tie themselves up in knots over Libya by Yasha Maccanico.
James Bridle | Videos: The New Dark Age
14 June 2019 — Verso Books
[Bridle’s book, ‘The New Dark Age‘, is a scary and absolutely essential book to read if you want to know where capitalism is taking us, unless we stop them. WB]
Despite the apparent accessibility of digital information, we’re living in a new Dark Age. In these videos, James Bridle explores colonial cabling, the distributing lack of neutrality in artificial intelligence, and conspiracy theories and the internet. Watch all the videos.
Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems by Caitlin JohnstonePropaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems by Caitlin Johnstone
13 June 2019 — Caitlin Johnson
A new article by Forbes reports that the CEO of Crowdstrike, the extremely shady cybersecurity corporation which was foundational in the construction of the official CIA/CNN Russian hacking narrative, is now a billionaire.
MI5 “unlawfully” handled bulk surveillance data, Liberty litigation reveals
11 June 2019 — Liberty
The British security service MI5 has been unlawfully retaining innocent people’s data for years.
It also failed to give senior judges accurate information about repeated breaches of its duty to delete bulk surveillance data, and has been criticised for mishandling sensitive legally privileged material.
Israeli Private Intelligence Company Black Cube Out of Control
11 June 2019 — TRNN
Shir Hever discusses the dangers of privatizing security and intelligence, as a private company called Black Cube that claims to use Israeli Mossad procedures hires out its services to the highest bidder and goes after international as well as Israeli activists, business people, and politicians
The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No Longer Fiction By John W. Whitehead
10 June 2019 — The Rutherford Institute
“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”—George Orwell, 1984
Tread cautiously: the fiction of George Orwell has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state.
Internet Free Speech All but Dead By Philip Giraldi
11 June 2019 — Global Research
Unelected, unnamed censors are operating across the Internet to suppress “unapproved” content.
The Internet was originally promoted as a completely free and uncensored mechanism for people everywhere to exchange views and communicate, but it has been observed by many users that that is not really true anymore. Both governments and the service providers have developed a taste for controlling the product, with President Barack Obama once considering a “kill switch“ that would turn off the Internet completely in the event of a “national emergency.”
Australian police chief links media raids to US-led “Five Eyes” spy network By Mike Head
8 June 2019 — WSWS
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) called a news conference on Thursday to justify its raids targeting journalists at two media organisations this week.
Police spent seven hours ransacking a News Corp political reporter’s home in Canberra on Tuesday, and eight hours poring over and seizing files at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Sydney headquarters on Wednesday.
The Trust Project: Big Media and Silicon Valley’s Weaponized Algorithms Silence Dissent by Whitney Webb
8 June 2019 — Mint Press
Given the Trust Project’s rich-get-richer impact on the online news landscape, it is not surprising to find that it is funded by a confluence of tech oligarchs and powerful forces with a clear stake in controlling the flow of news.
Warring Against Sources: The Australian National Security State, Journalism and the Public Interest By Dr. Binoy Kampmark
5 June 2019 — Global Research
“What’s gone on this morning sends clear and dangerous signals to journalists and newsrooms across Australia. This will chill public interest reporting.” — News Corp Australia spokesperson, The West Australian, June 4, 2019
These are dark times for journalists and publishers. It did not seem coincidental that Annika Smethurst, a News Corp journalist and political affairs editor, would be a target of an Australian Federal Police warrant. Chelsea Manning, courtesy of a ruling by Judge Anthony Trenga, remains in federal custody in the United States. Julian Assange is facing decline in the maximum security abode that is Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom.
