Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
New American Ally in Somalia: ‘The Butcher’
September 9th, 2011Via: Wired: If you thought it was bad that Washington is paying a shady French mercenary to do its dirty work in Somalia, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait to you see our latest ally: an admirer of Osama bin Laden with a gory past. Richard Rouget, a notorious gun-for-hire who uses American funds […]
TSA Agent Threatens Woman with Defamation, Demands $500k for Calling Intrusive Search ‘Rape’
September 9th, 2011Via: TechDirt: Amy Alkon is an advice columnist and blogger who is just one of many people who has had a horrifying and traumatizing experience going through airport security lately. After being pulled aside for an “enhanced” search, she found the process to be so invasive and so in violation of her own rights that […]
Justice Department Loses Round in Warrantless Phone Tracking
September 9th, 2011What’s the NSA doing with all of the surveillance data that it’s collecting on Americans? There won’t be any ACLU victory dances over that one anytime soon. Via: Cnet: The American Civil Liberties Union is touting its victory in a case against the Department of Justice over alleged mobile phone tracking. According to the group, […]
Mall of America: Identifying “The Terrorists”
September 8th, 2011Via: NPR: The report tells how the Bloomington police officers took Van Asten to a police substation in the basement in the Mall of America after mall security questioned him. They frisked him. They seized his camera. They detained him in that room for one more hour. The police called the Joint Terrorism Task Force. […]
Terrahawk’s M.U.S.T. Is a Mobile Guard Tower in a Shady-Looking Van
September 8th, 2011Via: TechCrunch: National Security isn’t always about the flashy solutions. Not everything can be rail guns and one-winged drones. Sometimes you just need a sort of seedy-looking van that slowly, slowly turns into a climate-controlled guard tower. Research Credit: noncompliant
And Now… A 50-Year Bond?
September 8th, 2011Check Kiting: Check kiting is the illegal act of taking advantage of the float to make use of non-existent funds in a checking or other bank account; it is a form of check fraud. It is commonly defined as intentionally writing a check for a value greater than the account balance from an account in […]
Ikea Used East German Political Prisoners as Slave Labor to Manufacture Furniture
September 7th, 2011Via: Telegraph: Swedish retail giant Ikea used political prisoners in East Germany as “slave labour” to make furniture, secret police files unearthed by a German broadcaster appear to show. Ikea developed strong links with the communist state in the 1970s, opening a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which, according to Stasi records discovered by […]
The DOJ’s Escalating Criminalization of Speech
September 7th, 2011Via: Salon: Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening. The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair […]
FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars
September 7th, 2011Via: AlterNet: Chances are, if you’ve ever sent a package overnight, bought a PC or a can of soda, you’ve paid your hard-earned money to a major Pentagon contractor. While large defense corporations that make fighter jets and armored vehicles garner the most attention, tens of thousands of “civilian” companies, from multi-national corporations hawking toothpaste […]
U.S. Man Caught Smuggling Grenade Parts to Mexico Cartel
September 7th, 2011Fast and Furious We-Like-Things-That-Go-Boom Edition? Via: Reuters: Mexican police arrested a U.S. man accused of trafficking grenade and gun parts to one of the country’s deadliest drug cartels in a sign the gangs could now be making their own weapons, authorities said on Tuesday. Federal police captured Jean Baptiste Kingery last week at a house […]
