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Here’s today’s blog for the latest news and updates on civil liberties and digital freedom issues. If you have any news tips and would like to contact me, email kevin.gosztola@firedoglake.com.
The Pentagon’s $42 million plan to conduct surveillance on social media: Techland reports—
The program’s plan is fourfold:
1. Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and (b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social mediasites and communities.
3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns.
4. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations.
A response to Peter King’s third “Muslim radicalization” hearing, which put the focus on Somali Americans. Abdinasir Egal concludes the hearing encourages law enforcement to target/marginalize Somali youth. Egal notes how Somalis have complained of being profiled at airports and how US ICE subjects Somalis to long interrogation sessions when returning to America from abroad
Israeli protesters put together a list of demands. Protests have been taking place in Tel Aviv at the government offices.
Massimo Calabresi reacts to the panel discussion at the Aspen Security Forum that addressed whether the US crossed the line of torture and if it was worth it. Calabresi confronted Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, who were on the panel, after the session.
Grand jury has been convened to investigate the death of teenager Eric Perez in West Palm Beach juvenile detention center. Investigators also pledge to prevent the release of video showing Perez’s final hours in lockup.
Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society finds Middle East bloggers lack grasp of how to protect themselves online. One third of bloggers reported being personally threatened in past year, and many of the bloggers thought they knew more about security than they actually did.
From Ronald Kessler’s The Secrets of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover maintained a special Official and Confidential File in office. Secret files helped to ensure he stayed FBI director for as long as he wanted.
In 2010, China installed over ten million surveillance cameras. Cafes, hotels and businesses are being threatened with fines and closure if they do not install surveillance technology, according to reporting from The Guardian.
Final chapter of case against New Orleans police officers accused of shooting unarmed civilians on Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina goes to jury. Assistant US Attorney Theodore Carter says in closing argument they thought “two good families” were “criminals” and they want to teach the people on the bridge a lesson.
Law enforcement to now perform mobile iris scans and fingerprinting. Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS) to be rolled out in autumn will, of course, violate Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. But, that has clearly been eviscerated and lost.
Former Guantanamo detainee David Hicks in a Sydney court. Prosecutors are trying to seize profits from his autobiography (plus his tens of thousands of copies of his book have gone missing—likely pulped).
Hundreds of Egyptian security police and troops shred tents and arrest protesters. Egyptians get “thwacked” by truncheons, tanks are deployed and hundreds are sent fleeing as Ramadan begins.
A Code of Ethics for Citizen Journalists—the code comes from a group of journalists from the Middle East and North Africa & Iran.
And today’s video comes from Funny or Die — Jason Alexander presents the Netflix Relief Fund:
7 Comments
Re David Hicks, the very latest is the New South Wales Supreme Court went ahead and froze Hicks’ assets from his book.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The real crime is the torture and incarceration of hundreds of innocent detainees at Guantanamo. Another crime is to make someone “confess” under duress of torture and indefinite detention, and make them agree to insane conditions, and then go after them when they write a book to tell the truth about what happened.
Hicks’s story used to be big news in America. Now no one will pay notice, not since his holiness Obama, and his Congressional stooges and media lackeys, announced there was to be no examination about the torture crimes of the past; or since the GOP and military forced Obama to stop even thinking about closing Guantanamo, and made everyone who had been there or is still there into non-people, not worthy of attention.
Yes, I’ve been looking for more details on the “pulping” of his book, which appears to have taken place.
This is a big story.
Oh, and very comprehensive and well done article on waterboarding or the US use of water torture. I may link to it again for today’s Notes post.
Starvation in Somalia; Joanne Mariner; 8/3/11
Thanks. Will add it to today’s post.
“The Pentagons 42 million dollar plan…”
Kevin,
I know the Patriot Act provides them some cover in these types of spying, but I would think it is still illegal to do this to American citizens.
Wanna bet that most of that money will go out to private contracters?
It will definitely go out to private contractors. Law enforcement agencies are using mobile phone location tracking more and more each day. I’m going to post something on an effort the ACLU has begun in the next hour or two.
This is the next expansion of the ever-expanding American surveillance state.
Rumsfeld can be sued for torture.
“A federal judge has ruled that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by a former U.S. military contractor who says he was tortured during a nine-month imprisonment in Iraq.
“The lawsuit lays out a dramatic tale of the disappearance of the then-civilian contractor, an Army veteran in his 50s whose identity is being withheld from court filings for fear of retaliation. Attorneys for the man, who speaks five languages and worked as a translator for Marines collecting intelligence in Iraq, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.”