New Snowden leak claims the NSA hacked into Al Jazeera?s communication system There are more reports of the NSA?s international spying efforts after German newspaper Der Spiegel claimed that the US intelligence agency hacked into the internal communication system at Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, a feat that helped it intercept dialogue with ?interesting targets.? … Read more
Syria air strikes: reaction to Barack Obama’s decision to go to Congress From dismay in Israel to caution in France, reaction to the US president’s decision to seek approval from Congress was mixed President Obama speaks on Syria, watch or listen live U.S. President Barack Obama (R) meets with his national security staff to discuss the situation in … Read more
Facebook says 74 governments, including USA, demanded data on 38K users In the first half of 2013, agents of 74 different governments including our own demanded the personal data related to about 38,000 Facebook users. About half of these demands came from authorities in the United States. Facebook “is the latest technology company to release … Read more
Reporting the NSA spying revelations: Q&A with Guardian editors theguardian.com ? 8/26/13 5:56 AM ? Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger and Guardian US editor Janine Gibson answer questions about the NSA revelations at 10amET/3pmBST Revelations from documents Edward Snowden shared with the Guardian have fuelled debate about government Open Sourcers Pitch Secure Email in Dark … Read more
What Did Edward Snowden Get Wrong? Everything Unfortunately, during the Snowden affair, many news outlets have spent more time examining ways the government could abuse the information it has access to while giving scant mention to the lengths to which the intelligence community goes to protect privacy, writes Andrew Liepman. MAIN FOCUS: Obama’s bid … Read more
Criminalizing Journalism: Manning, Media and You Illustration: Reuters/William Hennessy Pierre Bourdieu?s charts and journalism Journalists should take nothing for granted but, instead, look at the silences in the world and ask: why? American model of media and journalism or why the “revolution” might not be televised Living in USA within the last month … Read more
The 100 Best Sci-Fi Stories by Women Writers (Read 20 for Free Online) Since 2009, the organization VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts has sought to bring balance to the representation of female authors in the literary world. As revealed by the 2010controversy begun by author Jodi Picoult over the gushing treatment Jonathan Franzen?sFreedom received … Read more
George Stocking Jr., ‘Anthropology’s Anthropologist,’ Dies at 84 New York Times George W. Stocking Jr., a historian of science who chronicled the norms, customs and tribal beliefs of modern anthropologists, documenting a history of racial bias and ethnocentrism as well as great insights, died on July 13 in Chicago. He was 84 Anthropologists as Spies This piece … Read more
Timeline: The Zimmerman trial Al Jazeera looks back at 15 key events of the Trayvon Martin saga. With new “news media” guidelines, White House ever-closer to instituting an Official Press Emptywheel nails what’s so concerning about the new “news media” guidelines released late Friday by US Attorney General Eric Holder: How the US forces internet … Read more
New York Times launches new interactive ads for mobile The New York Times is out with some interesting new ad formats specifically tailored for their iPad app. Developed by the Times? Idea Lab, the new formats emphasize interactivity and a push to connect the app to other features on the iPad, including: Acts of Journalism … Read more
Journalist Michael Hastings, dead at 33. Here are his top 10 tips for aspiring journalists. Michael Hastings. Courtesy of Blue Rider Press/Penguin, via Rolling Stone. Michael Hastings, a contributor to Rolling Stone and to Buzzfeed, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles. His last published item at Buzzfeed was on the NSA spying … Read more
Google Launches Balloons to Bring the Internet to Remote Regions Google is launching huge balloons to bring the Internet to remote and difficult terrain ? think mountain ranges, archipelagos and jungles ? beginning with New Zealand. How Google plans to use balloons do deliver broadband to the great unwired Wired has a neat story out … Read more
Turkey PM patience ‘has limit’ as protest violence flares Turkey‘s defiant Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told supporters his patience “has a limit” as police fired tear gas and jets of water at demonstrators in unrelenting protests against his government’s decade-long rule Turkey PM says patience ‘has limit’ as protest violence flares Turkey’s defiant Prime Minister Recep … Read more
Five ways to protect journalists and their anonymous sources Washington Post (blog) In a speech Thursday at National Defense University, President Obama discussed the Justice Department’s prosecution of leakers, emphasizing the need to ?strike the right balance between our security and our open society.? Many observers believe that Scott Lewis: Learning from social platforms … Read more
Obama’s counterterrorism policy, by the numbers According to the New York Times, President Barack Obama will use his big counterterrorism speech on Thursday to sharply curtail the administration’s targeted killings. Going forward, the strict criteria used for approving strikes on American citizens abroad will govern drone strikes on all suspected militants. ***************** Republicans to make … Read more