From the Trenches World Report

The Atlantic – by BRUCE SCHNEIER

One of the assurances I keep hearing about the U.S. government’s spying on American citizens is that it’s only used in cases of terrorism. Terrorism is, of course, an extraordinary crime, and its horrific nature is supposed to justify permitting all sorts of excesses to prevent it. But there’s a problem with this line of reasoning: mission creep. The definitions of “terrorism” and “weapon of mass destruction” are broadening, and these extraordinary powers are being used, and will continue to be used, for crimes other than terrorism.   Continue reading “Mission Creep: When Everything Is Terrorism”

Before It’s News

Proof That The Media Are Misdirecting You From Real Issues That Could Seriously Affect You – Learn How to Read the News Here.

Quite a lot of Journalism is “connecting the dots”, often mistakenly seen as ‘cut & paste’. But if the dots had not been connected before, and reveal the truth, then the definition of real Journalism, instead of what the government wants you to know, comes closer to that of ‘creativity’ which is connecting two or more dissimilar ideas in a new way to get the reader closer to the truth.   Continue reading “You Are Exposed to 31 Nuclear Power Plants That Have Never Been Upgraded to the Necessary Safety Standards. Fukushima Hadn’t Either.”

The Brad Blog – by BRAD FRIEDMAN

Despite reporting to the contrary from both Los Angeles’ NBC affiliate and the Los Angeles Police Department, Trayvon Martin protesters in Hollywood on Sunday night neither “stormed” nor caused “about $15,000 worth of damage” at a local hotel.

For the most part, protests in the wake of the “not guilty” verdict for George Zimmerman in Florida, have been peaceful here in L.A., though, at times, it seems as if NBC’s local affiliate, NBC4 hoped they might not be.   Continue reading “L.A. NBC Affiliate and LAPD Offer False Reports of ‘$15,000 of Damage’ at Hollywood Hotel by Trayvon Martin Protesters on Sunday Night”

Natural News – by Mike Adams

I’m reaching out to you all with words of assurance as I write this story. By now, I think we all are overwhelmingly convinced that we live in an insane world. I call it the “post-reason era.”

It’s a world full of irrational people, criminal corporations, deceptive government, the abandonment of law and even the “dogmatizing” of the sciences which once claimed to be based on reason. In popular culture, we’ve got the insanity of the Trayvon Martin drama in which the abandonment of law is now institutionalized in the justice system itself, where prosecutors are allowed to commit crimes as part of a “trial,” and state attorneys are encouraged to misapply the justice system so that it might be used as a political weapon.   Continue reading “The fall of reason: How to protect your sanity in an insane world (and achieve spiritual victory in the process)”

Digital Journal – by  Ralph Lopez

Contradicting a statement by ex-vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday that warrantless domestic surveillance might have prevented 9/11, 2007 court records indicate that the Bush-Cheney administration began such surveillance at least 7 months prior to 9/11.

The Bush administration bypassed the law requiring such actions to be authorized by FISA court warrants, the body set up in the Seventies to oversee Executive Branch spying powers after abuses by Richard Nixon. Former QWest CEO John Nacchios said that at a meeting with the NSA on February 27, 2001, he and other QWest officials declined to participate. AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth all agreed to shunt customer communications records to an NSA database. Continue reading “Bush-Cheney began illegal NSA spying before 9/11”

The American Dream – by Michael Snyder

Do you ever feel trapped in an invisible control grid that is slowly but surely closing in all around you?  Do you ever feel like virtually everything that you do is being watched, tracked, monitored and recorded?  If so, unfortunately it is not just your imagination.  Our society is rapidly being transformed into a Big Brother prison grid by a government that is seemingly obsessed with knowing everything that we do.  Continue reading “10 Ways That The Iron Grip Of The Big Brother Prison Grid Is Tightening On All Of Our Lives”

Century Link

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A Tucson, Ariz., police officer has been fired after authorities say he pulled a gun on a gas station attendant while off duty and apparently intoxicated.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department notified Tucson police that 23-year-old Kyle James McCartin was arrested early Tuesday on two counts of aggravated assault.   Continue reading “Off-duty AZ cop accused of pointing gun at clerk”

RT News

Attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation have sued the Obama administration and are demanding the White House stop the dragnet surveillance programs operated by the National Security Agency.

Both the White House and Congress have weighed in on the case of Edward Snowden and the revelations he’s made by leaking National Security Agency documents. Now the courts are having their turn to opine, and with opportunities aplenty.   Continue reading “Obama administration drowning in lawsuits filed over NSA surveillance”

RT News

The FBI has ordered a Florida medical examiner’s office not to release the autopsy report of a Chechen man who was killed during an FBI interview in May over his ties to one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers.

The autopsy report for Ibragim Todashev, 27, killed by an FBI agent during an interrogation which took place in his apartment on May 22 was ready for release on July 8. However, the FBI barred its publication, saying an internal probe into his death is ongoing.    Continue reading “FBI withholds autopsy of Tsarnaev associate ‘shot in head’ during questioning”

RT News

The Army and the FBI have detected radiation in a former nuclear weapons bunker in Texas and have launched an investigation to determine the extent of the contamination. About 30 people who work in the bunker are undergoing radiation tests.

Investigators have discovered radiation at a former nuclear weapons bunker at Fort Bliss, Texas. The above-ground concrete bunker sits in a desert area and is covered in dirt. A sign posted at its entrance warns of radiation danger inside the former weapons storage facility.   Continue reading “Army fights to contain radiation in Fort Bliss military base”

RT News

A United States military drone presumed to be a QF-4 crashed, exploded and sent up a large black cloud of smoke Wednesday morning at Tyndall Air Force Base.

Local news outlets from the Florida panhandle region reported Wednesday morning that an unmanned aerial vehicle crashed on the drone runway at Tyndall AFB during take-off at 8:20 a.m. EST that morning.   Continue reading “Air Force drone crashes and explodes in Florida, shutting down highway”

RT News

The American Civil Liberties Union has released documents confirming that police license plate readers capture vast amounts of data on innocent people, and in many instances this intelligence is kept forever.

According to documents obtained through a number of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by ACLU offices across the United States, law enforcement agencies are tracking the whereabouts of innocent persons en masse by utilizing a still up-and-coming technology.   Continue reading “‘You are being tracked’: ACLU reveals docs of mass license plate reader surveillance”