Aug 6, 2012 | Abuses of Power
The Fundraising Machine That Runs Washington A deeply revealing investigation by the teams at This American Life and Planet Money pulled back the curtain on how political money actually flows through Congress — and the picture it painted was far uglier than most...
Jul 27, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
In a shocking display of heavy-handed enforcement, 65-year-old James Stewart — the well-known founder of Rawesome Foods and a prominent figure in the raw milk movement — was violently confronted near his residence by three armed individuals operating unmarked luxury...
Jul 15, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
Information technology has created an unprecedented collision between two forces that seem harmless in isolation but deeply troubling when combined: the digital world of children and the pervasive availability of sexual content. For roughly two decades, this...
Jul 13, 2012 | Abuses of Power
The FBI Anti-Piracy Warning Seal: A Brief History of Intimidation Theater The FBI’s anti-piracy warning seal has been a fixture of purchased media for years. Under a special pilot program, the bureau allowed major industry groups including the RIAA, MPAA, BSA,...
Jul 12, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
UK Law Criminalizes Failure to Surrender Encryption Keys Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the United Kingdom made it a criminal offense to fail to produce encryption keys when demanded by authorities. The law, specifically Section 53 of the act,...
Jul 10, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
Authoritarian regimes have clung to human civilization throughout the centuries, vanishing only to resurface and devastate generation after generation. Most observers assume these oppressive systems arise from bureaucratic chaos, fueled by unchecked greed and the...
Jun 28, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
Published: 28 June, 2012, 10:15 The High Court of New Zealand has ruled that the police raid on Kim Dotcom’s mansion was unlawful along with seizure of the hard drives that were later cloned and illegally taken from New Zealand to the US by the FBI. The warrants...
Jun 22, 2012 | Abuses of Power
From NBA Courts to African Gold Fields When a retired basketball legend and a Texas energy mogul tried their hand at purchasing gold in East Africa, they stumbled into one of the most dangerous mineral trafficking networks on the continent. Their costly misadventure...
May 24, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
Pentagon Propaganda Contractor Caught Targeting American Journalists In May 2012, the co-owner of Leonie Industries — a Pentagon propaganda contractor that had received at least $120 million in Defense Department contracts since 2009 — publicly admitted to...
May 10, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
Michigan State Police were found to be using a handheld forensic device capable of extracting the entire contents of a smartphone in under two minutes — including deleted data — during routine traffic stops, raising serious Fourth Amendment concerns about...
May 10, 2012 | Abuses of Power
In 2012, the United States Supreme Court handed down a five-to-four decision authorizing strip searches for any arrest, regardless of how minor the alleged offense. The ruling arrived on the heels of two other sweeping legal changes: the National Defense Authorization...
May 9, 2012 | Abuses of Power
ACLU Investigation Reveals Widespread Warrantless Phone Tracking ACLU affiliates across the United States submitted public records requests to local law enforcement agencies seeking information about cell phone tracking practices. The resulting data painted a...
May 9, 2012 | Abuses of Power, Anonymous
What Is Coltan and Why Does It Matter? Columbite-tantalite — commonly known as coltan — is a dark, tar-like mineral found in enormous concentrations within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Congo holds approximately 80 percent of global coltan reserves....
May 4, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
First American Arrested Using Predator Drone Surveillance The small town of Lakota, North Dakota, became an unexpected battleground over domestic drone use in 2012 when one of its residents became the first known American citizen to be arrested with the assistance of...
Apr 30, 2012 | Abuses of Power
Police Subpoenas Reveal the Full Scope of Facebook Data Collection In April 2012, documents uncovered during an investigation revealed exactly what law enforcement receives when it subpoenas a Facebook user’s data. The answer was far more comprehensive than most...
Apr 28, 2012 | Abuses of Power
The FBI’s ambitions to monitor social media in real time raise fundamental questions about the balance between national security and individual privacy. In early 2012, the bureau began soliciting the technology industry for help building an open-source...
Apr 27, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
What Was CISPA and Why Did It Matter? The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (H.R. 3523) emerged in late 2011 as a proposed amendment to the National Security Act of 1947. Introduced by Representatives Mike Rogers (D-MI) and C.A. “Dutch”...
Apr 26, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
Journalists Targeted After Investigating Pentagon Contractors In 2012, two USA Today employees became the targets of a coordinated online disinformation and harassment campaign shortly after making inquiries to intelligence contractors with ties to the U.S. military....
Apr 26, 2012 | Abuses of Power
Obama Administration Sought to Shield NSA Surveillance Law From Court Review In 2012, the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a legal challenge to one of the most expansive surveillance statutes in American history — the FISA Amendments Act of...
Apr 26, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
CISPA: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act Explained In April 2012, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), formally designated H.R. 3523, advanced through the U.S. Congress amid fierce debate over digital privacy and national...
Apr 26, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News, Video
Senate Bill 1813 and Its Hidden Implications for Gun Owners In 2012, the U.S. Senate passed Bill 1813, officially titled the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act.” While ostensibly a transportation bill, analysts who examined its 1,676 pages...
Apr 25, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A bill authored by a Southland lawmaker that could potentially allow the federal government to prevent any Americans who owe back taxes from traveling outside the U.S. is one step closer to becoming law. Senate Bill 1813 was introduced back in...
Apr 24, 2012 | Abuses of Power
The Private Prison Industry in the United States The American prison system has long functioned as a profit-driven enterprise. Private corporations operate over 200 correctional facilities across the country, and many of these companies are publicly traded on the New...
Apr 24, 2012 | Abuses of Power, Government Agenda
A Filmmaker Detained Dozens of Times at U.S. Borders Laura Poitras, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose work examined the consequences of the War on Terror, was subjected to systematic harassment by the Department of Homeland Security every time she returned to...
Apr 24, 2012 | Abuses of Power, News
In the spring of 2012, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rolled out a sweeping Invasive Species Order (ISO) that effectively reclassified heritage-breed pigs — the same animals small family farms had raised for generations — as illegal...
