The American Civil Liberties Union is publicizing its acquisition of a large volume of data relating to civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, which it has made available on its Web site. The files, obtained by Freedom of Information Act request, detail hundreds of cases in which families of the dead filed for compensation after their loved [...]
The Justice Department has quietly recanted nearly every major claim the Bush administration had made about “high-value” detainee Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner who at one time was said to have planned the 9/11 attacks and was the No. 2 and 3 person in al-Qaeda. Additionally, Justice has backed away from claims intelligence officials working [...]
Over the past several years, WikiLeaks — which aptly calls itself “the intelligence agency of the people” — has obtained and then published a wide array of secret, incriminating documents (similar to this CIA Report) that expose the activities of numerous governments and corporations. Among many others, they posted the Standard Operating Manual for Guantanamo, documents showing how corrupt [...]
Filed in Journalism, News Blurbs
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Also tagged Afghanistan War, AgitProp, Apathy, CIA, Corruption, David Petraeus, Democracy, Documents, Glenn Greenwald, Information, Intelligence, Julian Assange, Manipulation, Pentagon, Perception Management, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Reform, Secrecy, Wikileaks, Women
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Icelandic members of parliament have plans to transform their crisis-ridden North-Atlantic nation into a sanctuary for publishers, production companies and information technology firms from around the world. “It would free the press from fear,” says Thor Saari, one of the members of parliament spearheading the proposal, which is known as the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative [...]
Filed in Journalism, News Blurbs, Technology
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Also tagged Althingi, Anonymity, Courts, Daniel Schmitt, Freedom of Expression, Gag Orders, Iceland, Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, IMMI, Journalism, Julian Assange, Legislation, Libel Laws, UK, Whistleblowers, Wikileaks
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A federal judge in New York City on Wednesday denied for the second time the American Civil Liberties Union’s request for access to CIA documents about interrogation techniques, the Associated Press reported. The ACLU has waged a three-year battle for the release of nearly 600 different documents from the CIA that describe the use of enhanced interrogation [...]
Recently released FBI documents prove the existence of highly sensitive National Security and criminal investigations of “Turkish Activities” in Chicago prior to September 11, 2001. These documents add further support to many of the allegations that former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has claimed, in public and in Congress, since 2002. The documents were released under [...]
Filed in News Blurbs, Notable
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Also tagged Arms Trafficking, ATAA, Campaign Finance, Chicago, CID, Congress, Corruption, Daniel Ellsberg, Dennis Hastert, Drug Trafficking, Espionage, FBI, FEC, Intelligence, Investigations, Mehmet Celebi, National Security, Organized Crime, Sibel Edmonds, Surveillance, TACA, Turkey, Turkish American Cultural Association
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The Obama administration has asserted a legal position on the use of drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists and militants, and officials plan to share the details “at an appropriate moment,” according to Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser. National Journal asked Koh, the senior official responsible for international legal issues, to share his [...]
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas. In particular, the lawsuit asks for information on when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, the number and rate [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged ACLU, Afghanistan, Agency Release Panel, Appeals, Assassinations, CIA, Civilian Casualties, DOD, DOJ, International Law, Iraq, Law, Lawsuit, Pakistan, Predator Drones, State Department, Yemen
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After a long public records fight, MSNBC finally got the goods on Todd Palin’s role in the Alaska state government when his wife was governor. About 3,000 pages of e-mails just released show that Todd was more than a sounding board. He regularly got deeply involved in state official business, participating in matters such as a [...]
The practice that Sher Khan describes here, first used in classical antiquity and later by American soldiers battling the Filipino insurgency around the turn of the last century, is called the “water cure.” One of the JAG School textbook cases of prosecution for torture involves this procedure. The case became notorious in the United States [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Afghanistan War, Anand Gopal, Detainees, DOD, DOJ, Geneva Conventions, International Law, International Red Cross, JSOC, Law, Noor Agha Sher Khan, Robert Gates, Secret Prisons, Torture, Waterboarding
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
It’s a question that rarely gets asked: from where does the Obama administration locate the legal authority to launch missiles from the CIA’s unmanned drones into Pakistani (and, this week, Afghan) territory? The ACLU wants to know. The civil liberties group today filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA and the Departments [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged ACLU, Afghanistan, CIA, DOD, DOJ, Iraq, Law, Pakistan, Predator Drones, State Department, Transparency, Yemen
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
A federal appeals court in New York ruled on Wednesday that US government agencies may refuse to confirm or deny the existence of records when faced with a Freedom of Information Act request that might disclose sensitive intelligence activities, sources, or methods. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Accountability, Attorney Client Privilege, Courts, Detainees, Espionage, Guantanamo, Intelligence, Law, Nondisclosure, NSA, Privacy, Secrecy, Surveillance, Transparency, TSP
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Excessive government secrecy is an enemy of human rights and the rule of law. President Obama deserves praise for rejecting the underlying policies that caused the United States so much harm during the Bush years. But in withholding photos of detainee abuse, preventing legal challenges to torture and warrantless surveillance, and thwarting impartial hearings into [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Barack Obama, CIA, DEA, Detainees, DOJ, Eric Holder, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Law, National Security, Public Trust, Secrecy, Secret Prisons, State Secrets Privilege, Torture, Transparency
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“These are new tools. There hasn’t been a lot of discussion about how law enforcement can use them and what’s appropriate, what’s ethical,” said attorney Marcia Hofmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit this week against the Defense Department, the Justice Department, the CIA and other federal agencies [...]
Destruction of the CIA tapes revealing the torture of detainees came immediately after news accounts reported the existence of secret prisons overseas, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says CIA cables dated November 8 and 9, 2005, show field agents asking permission from CIA headquarters in Washington to destroy [...]
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies? That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a [...]
Filed in News Blurbs, Technology
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Also tagged Christopher Soghoian, Comcast, Cox Communications, DOJ, ISPs, Phone Records, Privacy, Spying, Surveillance, Telecoms, Verizon, Wiretapping, Yahoo
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Friday, November 27, 2009
Records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit reveal new information about the CIA’s destruction of videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of prisoners at CIA black sites, including the precise date the tapes were destroyed and evidence that the White House was involved in early discussions about [...]
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Obama administration may be on the verge of a major concession in a long-running legal battle over records about so-called telecom immunity. An email obtained by POLITICO shows that the Obama Administration is preparing for the possible release of some details of the Bush Administration’s lobbying for legislation giving telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Congress, Corporatism, DOJ, EFF, Elena Kagan, Immunity, Intelligence, Irv Nathan, Secrecy, Surveillance, Telecoms, White House, Wiretapping
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Thursday, October 1, 2009
“The judge deferred wholesale to the CIA’s determinations that information that is very similar to what the CIA has already released should remain secret,” he said. “We think the history of this case makes clear that the CIA has continually used national security as a pretext for keeping secret embarrassing information and information about illegal [...]
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A federal court on Thursday ruled the FBI must release most of its interview with Vice President Dick Cheney about the 2003 leak of a CIA operative’s identity. Cheney agreed to the 2004 interview with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the aftermath of CIA agent Valerie Plame‘s public outing. That investigation has long since concluded, but [...]
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