Pentagon directive authorizes military forces against civilians — Was considered for use in Bundy standoff

A 2010 Pen­ta­gon direc­tive on mil­i­tary sup­port to civil­ian author­i­ties details what crit­ics say is a trou­bling pol­i­cy that envi­sions the Oba­ma administration’s poten­tial use of mil­i­tary force against Amer­i­cans. The direc­tive con­tains non­con­tro­ver­sial pro­vi­sions on sup­port to civil­ian fire and emer­gency ser­vices, spe­cial events and the domes­tic use of the Army Corps of Engineers. […]

Mom Arrested, Shackled, Jailed Because Her Honor Roll Son Had 3 Unexcused Absences at School

Screven Coun­ty, Geor­gia – Moth­er and sub­sti­tute teacher Julie Giles was arrest­ed this week because her son had too many unex­cused absences from pub­lic school. Writ­ing on her Face­book page before turn­ing her­self in, Giles said “If any­one feels the need to go pub­lic with this feel free to do so….the facts are Sam originally […]

Why NSA surveillance is worse than you’ve ever imagined

Last sum­mer, after months of encrypt­ed emails, I spent three days in Moscow hang­ing out with Edward Snow­den for a Wired cov­er sto­ry. Over pep­per­oni piz­za, he told me that what final­ly drove him to leave his coun­try and become a whistle­blow­er was his con­vic­tion that the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency was con­duct­ing ille­gal sur­veil­lance on […]

Biometrics: Scanning eyes, ears, heart and even scent

It’s hard to think of bio­met­ric iden­ti­ty tech­nol­o­gy with­out pic­tur­ing Tom Cruise on the run in the movie Minor­i­ty Report. Hunt­ed by killer robots with iris scan­ning equip­ment and hailed by ani­mat­ed bill­boards that use sim­i­lar tech to per­son­alise their adverts, Cruise is reduced to a full eye trans­plant to evade cap­ture and death. It made […]

Stanley Family Gets Custody Back of 4 Youngest Children – 3 Older Children Still in State Custody

A review hear­ing in Gar­land Coun­ty Juve­nile Court in Arkansas yes­ter­day result­ed in the case being closed for the four younger Stan­ley chil­dren. The par­ents now have full cus­tody back of these four chil­dren. The three old­er Stan­ley chil­dren, how­ev­er, remain in State cus­tody. They are allowed to live at home with 20 hours a […]

In Landslide Vote, House Overwhelmingly Passes USA Freedom Act without Amendments

Is this the year Con­gress pass­es a bill to lim­it NSA spy­ing? The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives cer­tain­ly hopes so. But just how strong that reform will be remains to be seen. Min­utes ago, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the USA Free­dom Act over­whelm­ing­ly with 338 yes votes and 88 no votes. EFF is neu­tral on the […]

Pregnant Homeschool Mom Assaulted by Sheriff as CPS Kidnaps Her Kids in Kentucky

Friends of the Nau­gler fam­i­ly in Ken­tucky reached out to us and asked us to tell their sto­ry. Their 10 home­schooled chil­dren were alleged­ly tak­en away by Breck­in­ridge Coun­ty Sher­iff deputies and CPS this week, alleged­ly act­ing on an anony­mous tip. The offi­cers report­ed­ly had no war­rant to enter their prop­er­ty. Nicole Nau­gler is currently […]

Motels Sharing “Daily Guest List with Police” and Aiding Warrant Checks on Every Guest

The motel and hotel indus­try is not only spy­ing you, it is part­ner­ing with police. This isn’t just rou­tine coop­er­a­tion when police request infor­ma­tion for crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions. Instead, it is appar­ent­ly every­day data shar­ing on every guest. It is a trou­bling pri­­vate-pub­­lic over­lap where motel and hotel clerks are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly shar­ing “do not rent” lists and […]