Ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on torture authorized by the administration of President George W. Bush, is accused of leaking classified information to journalists on the identities of a “covert CIA officer” and details on the other role of “another CIA employee in classified activities.” He was indicted in April on charges [...]

A law that legalized warrantless wiretapping conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) will be argued at the United States Supreme Court in October. The lawsuit will be heard by the Supreme Court in October. The law—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FAA)—is already on its way to being reauthorized by Congress, since the House [...]

The judiciary proved last week, once again, how impotent and subservient to unchecked executive power it is when a federal court judge invoked the state secrets privilege and dismissed most of a suit against Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, who infiltrated and spied on mosques in Orange County in California. The ruling essentially gave [...]

A “Daily Show” clip with correspondent Jason Jones aired last night on “super spy” Thomas Drake, who worked for the National Security Agency as an analyst until he was ultimately charged as “a spy” under the Espionage Act for blowing the whistle on the NSA. The segment nicely plays up the fact he did not commit espionage and, instead, was a “cost-benefit analysis expert,” who had examined two intelligence gathering programs and decided one was cheaper and would lead to less fraud, waste, abuse and illegalities.

(update below) The Senate Intelligence Committee passed an intelligence authorization bill yesterday. The legislation, according to committee chairwoman Senator Dianne Feinstein, would fund measures to “counter terrorist threats, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, enhance counterintelligence, conduct covert actions and collect and analyze intelligence around the globe.” All of which is expected from [...]

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who the United States government alleges released classified information to journalists that included the identities of a “covert CIA officer” and details on the role of “another CIA employee in classified activities,” was in court for a motion hearing on July 20 in Alexandria, Virginia. The defense and prosecution were given opportunity to [...]

Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald gave a talk at the Socialism 2012 conference in Chicago where he described how central it was to activism and movements like the Occupy movement to challenge the surveillance state in America. Any attempts to meaningfully challenge state or corporate power, he declared, run up against the surveillance state because it [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records on how the United States government is reading Americans’ emails or other electronic communications without a warrant. They are interested in when it happens, how often, who the government is monitoring, how long monitoring typically lasts, and what [...]

                      In a recent segment from Current TV‘s show “Viewpoint,” host Eliot Spitzer interviewed three National Security Agency whistleblowers: William Binney, a former technical director; Kirk Wiebe, former senior analyst; and Thomas Drake, a former senior official. Each man talked about what he saw the NSA [...]

The surveillance state in the United States has only grown in America since the September 11th attacks. It has increasingly been used to spy and intrude on the lives of journalists and activists. And, during a Democracy Now! special, a full hour was spent delving into the National Security Agency’s evolution into an entity that [...]