Droning on about American Drones

A commentary on Medea Benjamin’s new book, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control: Killing individuals (and whoever is near them) via drones (“unmanned aerial vehicles”) has become the primary substitute in U.S. public policy for capture/imprisonment/torture. As Medea Benjamin documents, the United States has avoided detaining people, only to murder them with a drone days […]

NSA ability to warrantlessly wiretap

The former NSA official held his thumb and forefinger close together. “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,” he says. —Wired Magazine, April 2012 Last week, in Wired Magazine, noted author James Bamford reported on an expansive $2 billion “data center” being built by the NSA in Utah that will house an […]

National Defense Authorization Act officially signed into law by Obama

President Obama quietly waited weeks to sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legislation on New Year’s Eve after publicly threatening to veto the bill that, among other things, authorizes the indefinite detention of American citizens. Obama’s signing statement tries to reassure observers that he wouldn’t use the “law” to detain citizens. The blatant unconstitutional […]

Obama to sign off on National Defense Authorization Act

President Obama will soon into law a bill that puts the United States not immeasurably far behind North Korea in contempt of constitutional protections for its citizens, or constitutional restraints upon criminal behavior sanctioned by the state. A couple of months ago came a mile marker in America’s steady slide downhill towards the status of […]

December 14 national day of action against using the military against Americans

A radical change in law to allow the use of the military inside the United States, against U.S. citizens and residents, and to allow their indefinite military detention based merely on suspicion of being engaged in hostilities against the U.S is being rushed through congress. This is a major shift for a country that has […]

All terrorist laws passed have been used against American citizens

The ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill. That provoked concerns that American citizens could be targeted as […]

WikiLeaks provided a wakeup call

What the cables reveal are the inner workings of empire. Diplomats are essentially human extensions of the state. WikiLeaks was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We need to see the ruling elite for what it is and what better way than when their servants think they’re talking alone together? Diplomats, bear in mind […]