whistleblowing

You may have noticed that nearly every essay or article emerging from the underfunded ghettos of leftist thinking in this country in the wake of a terrorist atrocity immediately offers a firm and frequently hysterical disclaimer that the author does not approve of the terrorist atrocity he will now discuss. This is necessary because the intelligentsia has conflated any form of self-criticism with condoning terror. It may be perfectly apt to reflect on “how good we are,” as George W. Bush once mumbled.

What about the CIA officers who directly violated the law, who carried out interrogations that resulted in death? What about the torturers of Hassan Ghul?
— John Kiriakou, Democracy Now!, February 10, 2014

In late 2010, political activist John Perry Barlow tweeted: “The first serious info-war is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.” In the last four years, new insurgencies have arisen from cyberspace to participate in the battle against government corruption and secrecy.

Disclosures from the vast trove of NSA documents obtained by Edward Snowden were first published in The Guardian exactly 560 days ago, and it’s worth asking ourselves whether we have gained anything from the revelations since then. The answer to that question increasingly seems clear: no.

The view is from room 300, level 3 of the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. The sunlight has long vanished, leaving the twinkling lights of the old castle quarter, Hradčany, to do their magic outside the windows. The students funnel in. The chalk is waiting to be used. The topic is something that is already wearing thin, not because it lacks weight, but because it has begun to disappear into the ether. What effect did Mr. Edward Snowden have, notably in states with a previous history of massive surveillance?

It [the Garcia report] must be made public. That is the only way FIFA can deal with the complete loss of credibility.
— Reinhard Rauball, President of the German Football League, November 16, 2014

A couple of days ago Laura Poitras, the filmmaker who directed the movie Citizenfour, gave an interview to the Dutch news outlet NRC Handelsblad. For those in the audience who don’t speak Dutch there’s a rough English translation available at Cryptome.

It’s part of the public record that the NSA has engaged in an industry-wide campaign to weaken cryptographic protocols and insert back doors into hi-tech products sold by U.S. companies.

Readers with a morbid sense of curiosity can visit a web site called NukeMap that allows visitors to witness the devastation caused by nuclear weapons of varying yields on a city of their choosing.1 Herman Kahn, who was an armchair theorist from RAND during the Cold War, insisted that nuclear war was winnable.2 But a few hours with NukeMap will disprove Kahn’s folly and the baleful smiley face that h

The nuclear talks which were infused with unnecessary optimism are no longer seen by many to yield much fruit as Washington once again reveals its true colors and pernicious intentions by imposing further sanctions on Iranian companies and individuals.
As a rule, Washington has never proved to be a trustworthy and reliable dialogue partner and any idea to the contrary stems from a naïve perception of the realities on the ground.