Sunday, March 31, 2019

Michael Dean Benton: Listening for the Impossible

(In my mind, friendship is a radical engagement...  how do we form meaningful relationships in this world and what are the significance of those bonds? )

 I suffer from a spiritual stutter, or a da-da-da, in which my language is stifled by my own personal ghosts. “We have lost the friend . . . the friend of the perhaps . . . of respectfully experiencing that friendship." So many friends lost through time, through neglect and through conflict. So many dead, some institutionalized, and some just disappeared back into the void. “I will continue to begin again … and I’ll have to wander all alone in this long conversation that we were supposed to have together.” Spectral visitors stay my hand reminding me that the only answers are in questions that produce more questions. Unsure and uneasy, I stumble about asking questions of everything and everyone.

 Popular culture haunts my questions and mocks my unrest by co-opting it for entertainment: “I know why you hardly sleep. Why you live alone and why night after night you sit at your computer. … I know because I was once looking for the same thing. … It’s the question that drives us." My spectral guides condemn those that have escaped into this cultural amnesia of recycled consumer pleasures. Yet, I wonder if we can truly blame these defectors for choosing the tender steak over the complex gruel? When were they offered an opportunity to believe otherwise: “Your soul is like an appendix! I don’t even use it!” The ubiquitous screens encourage me to escape into their warm embrace and forget the outside world:
The television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore television is reality, and reality is less than television.
Rejecting the siren's lure, I turn everything off and find a quiet place far away from the competing voices. I am listening for the emergence of a being, another who escapes my comprehension, this listening requires a transition to a new dimension of understanding. I am listening to you: although I do not understand what you are saying, I am attentive to your silence amongst history’s mentions, I am attempting to understand and hear your intention. Which does not mean: I comprehend you, or that I know you … No, I am listening to you as someone that I do not truly know … with you but not as you … I reside in a realm of absolute silence in order to hear what you have to say or what is left unsaid or what reverberates from the unknown. I quest for new words, for new meanings, for new modes of understandings that will bridge this river of silence … for an alliance of possibilities that will not reduce the Other to an item of property or a subject to be mastered. This unspeakable silence is a rift that shatters the boundaries of my life in order to produce a conflagration of meanings that sears the forest of my consciousness clearing the way for new growths. Perhaps, as the borders of my psyche that restrain my various selves breaks-up there will be the productive explosion of new life spreading across my interior landscape. Chaos enters my realm and produces … impossibilities.

 “Perhaps the impossible is the only chance of something new, of some new philosophy of the new … Perhaps friendship, if there is such a thing, must honor ... what appears impossible here." Where are the friends that ask questions of the dominant and seek the impossible? I dream of relationships yet to come, writing as a politics of creative imagination that refuses to be silenced. I await a new politics, new friendships and new possibilities... in the meantime I'm not afraid to say I really don't know the answers, but I am still asking questions. For that I am thankful!

 Patchwork Cast:
 Jacques Derrida’s eulogy for Gilles Deleuze: “I’ll Have to Wander Alone.”
 The character Trinity speaking to Neo in the movie The Matrix
Michael Kelso on That 70s Show
Brian O'Blivion in David Cronenberg's film Videodrome
Luce Irigaray The Way of Love and To Be Two
Jacques Derrida's Politics of Friendship

 Ghosts: Jacques Derrida Guy Debord Gilles Deleuze Michel Foucault Karl Marx Friedrich Nietzsche

Intellectual Intoxicants still resonating years later (recipe calls for the cook to stir and simmer for years until tightly bottled conceptions explode all over the place) Like all writings one must periodically turn over the topsoil exposing the rotten concepts, words and beliefs to the sun, leaving the exposed underground to manifest a new potent hummus ... when developed into a potent mix spread liberally across the society. Recipes must be changed frequently to resist contamination from the monological discourse that seeks to control creativity and dialogic engagement.

 Sprinkled throughout: Questions without answers; fears, hopes and desires

Friday, March 29, 2019

James Bamford: Journalist/Producer/History of National Security Agency/Surveillance


Ackerman, Spencer and James Bamford. "NSA Confirms Dragnet Phone Records Collection, But Admits It Was Key in Stopping Just 1 Terror Plot." Democracy Now (August 1, 2013) ["Testifying before the Senate on Wednesday, National Security Agency Deputy Director John Inglis conceded that the bulk collection of phone records of millions of Americans under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has been key in stopping only one terror plot — not the dozens officials had previously said. Ahead of Wednesday’s Senate hearing, the Obama administration released three heavily censored documents related to its surveillance efforts, but the White House has refused to declassify the legal arguments underlying the dragnet or the original rulings by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, on which the released order to collect phone records was based. Meanwhile, the head of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, was repeatedly interrupted by critics of government surveillance in a speech Wednesday before the Black Hat conference, a gathering of hackers and cybersecurity professionals in Las Vegas. We’re joined by two guests: Spencer Ackerman, national security editor at The Guardian, and James Bamford, an investigative reporter who has covered the National Security Agency for three decades after helping expose its existence in the 1980s."]

Bamford, James. "Connecting the Dots on Prism, Phone Surveillance, and the NSA's Massive Spy Center." Wired (June 12, 2013)

---. "Intel Expert James Bamford Blasts Russiagate Hype." Who.What.Why. (March 26, 2018)

---. "The Multibillion-Dollar U.S. Spy Agency You Haven’t Heard of." Foreign Policy (March 20, 2017)

---. "The Next Not-So-Cold War: As Climate Change Heats Arctic, Nations Scramble for Control and Resources." Democracy Now (September 1, 2015) ["As the Arctic region warms, the geopolitical significance of the region is growing as new areas become reachable, spurring maritime traffic and oil drilling. Resources below the Arctic ice cap are worth over $17 trillion, the rough equivalent of the entire U.S. economy. According to investigative journalist James Bamford, the region has become the “crossroads of technical espionage” as the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark battle for control of those resources. Bamford joins us to talk about his recent piece, “Frozen Assets: The Newest Front in Global Espionage is One of the Least Habitable Locales on Earth—the Arctic.”"]

---. "The NSA and Me." The Intercept (October 2, 2014)

---. "The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)." Wired (March 15, 2012)

---. "The NSA's Warrantless Wiretapping Program." Boiling Frogs (July 21, 2009)

---. "NSA Snooping Was Only the Beginning. Meet the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar." Wired (June 12, 2013)

---. "On NSA Secrets, Keith Alexander’s Influence & Massive Growth of Surveillance, Cyberwar." Democracy Now (June 14, 2013) ["As the U.S. vows to take “all necessary steps” to pursue whistleblower Edward Snowden, James Bamford joins us to discuss the National Security Agency’s secret expansion of government surveillance and cyber warfare. In his latest reporting for Wired magazine, Bamford profiles NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and connects the dots on PRISM, phone surveillance and the NSA’s massive spy center in Bluffdale, Utah. Says Bamford of Alexander: “Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign or the depth of his secrecy.” The author of “The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America,” Bamford has covered the National Security Agency for the last three decades, after helping expose its existence in the 1980s."]

---. The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9-11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Doubleday, 2008.

---. "Shady Companies with Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S.A. for the NSA." Wired (April 3, 2012)

---. "Statement - James Bamford, NSA Lawsuit Client." ACLU (ND)

---. "They Know Much More Than You Think." The New York Review of Books (August 15, 2013)

---. "Washington Ministry of Preemption." Foreign Policy (May 31, 2017) ["To stop security breaches before they happen, U.S. intelligence agencies are surveilling everything."]

Dialogic Cinephilia - March 29, 2019

Balzarini, John and Les Bernal. "Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar." Citations Needed #63 (January 23, 2019) ["As more and more states turn to casinos and lotteries to ‘fill the gap” in 'falling' state budgets, the predatory and regressive nature of gambling as an alternative to increasing taxes on the rich avoids nearly any media scrutiny among centrists and liberals. Even the Left has mostly ignored the issue––ceding criticism of our most regressive tax to the Christian Right, who largely oppose gambling for all the wrong reasons. In this episode, we explore how lotteries and casinos have come to represent the last throes of the false neoliberal promise of "jobs” and “growth.” Throughout much of the United States, specifically the Rust Belt and Midwest, casinos and prisons are increasingly the only growth industries, entrenching the shift from an industrial economy to one that exclusively preys on the poor and desperate in a never-ending race to the bottom. Beyond the glitz and easy “tax revenue” lies a massive transfer of wealth from the poor, black and elderly to the super wealthy - achieved, slowly over decades, with zero sustained criticism from the media."]

Beinart, Peter. "Trump Shut Programs to Counter Violent Extremism." The Atlantic (October 29, 2018)

Crump, Benjamin and Tamara Lanier. "The World Is Watching: Woman Suing Harvard for Photos of Enslaved Ancestors Says History Is At Stake." Democracy Now (March 29, 2019) ["Who has the right to own photos of slaves? We speak with Tamara Lanier, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Papa Renty, the enslaved man whose image was captured in a 19th century photograph currently owned by Harvard University. She is suing the school, accusing it of unfairly profiting from the images. We also speak with her attorney, Benjamin Crump."]

Gardner, Matthew. "Amazon in Its Prime: Doubles Profits, Pays $0 in Federal Income Taxes." Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (February 13, 2019)




Jordan, Peter E.R. "Repressing the Male Gaze? Sidney J. Furie’s The Leather Boys and the Growing Pains of Post-War British Masculinity." Film Criticism 43.1 (March 2019) ["A re-appraisal of The Leather Boys (Sidney J. Furie, 1963) drawing on the theoretical work of Antony Easthope, Laura Mulvey and others. The article contextualizes the film’s narrative in the historical reality of 1960s Britain and discusses its impact prior to and on the eventual decriminalization of homosexuality. The film is, in many ways, an accurate articulation of a crisis of masculinity driven by a range of social changes, with the result that white heterosexual male identity was challenged and examined as never before. Furie’s pragmatic, apparently unsophisticated, no-frills direction belies the intelligence, sensitivity and integrity with which the director dissects a complex issue and infuses the narrative with a compelling and disarmingly simple humanity."]

Meier, Barry. "OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Pay $270 Million Legal Settlement That Will Fund Addiction Center." Democracy Now (March 27, 2019) ["The state of Oklahoma has reached a $270 million agreement with Purdue Pharma—the makers of OxyContin—settling a lawsuit that claimed the company contributed to the deaths of thousands of Oklahoma residents by downplaying the risk of opioid addiction and overstating the drug’s benefits. The state says more Oklahomans have died from opioids over the last decade than have been killed in vehicle accidents. More than $100 million from the settlement will fund a new addiction treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa. “It’s really just the first move in what is a very complicated legal chess game,” says Barry Meier, author of “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic.” Meier was the first journalist to shine a national spotlight on the abuse of OxyContin. He asks, “Is this money going to be used wisely in terms of treating addiction?”" For 3 more reports on this click on this link.]

Neville, Morgan. "Won't You Be My Neighbor." Film Wax Radio #536 (January 30, 2019)

Tebbe, Jason. "Twenty-First Century Victorians." Jacobin (October 31, 2016) ["The nineteenth-century bourgeoisie used morality to assert class dominance — something elites still do today."]








Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Dialogic Cinephilia - March 27, 2019

Bake, Dean, et al. "The Joy of Tax (Comparing the U.S. and Scandinavian Tax Systems)." The Best of the Left #1253 (March 1, 2019) ["... a look at the social benefits of high taxation as the US gears up for our first genuine debate on raising taxes in a long time with an eye toward the life-improving programs that money could fund."]

Bell, Duncan. "Liberalism, Empire and Utopianism." Interventions (October 27, 2018) ["How should we think of the relationship between liberalism and empire? Can the turn to history help us “decolonize” liberalism today? And what is the role of utopia in Anglophone visions of empire? These are questions we discussed with Dr Duncan Bell, Reader in Political Thought and International Relations at Cambridge, who is a leading authority on modern British and American ideologies of empire."]





Clermont-Tonnerre, Laure de. "Filmmaker Letter: The Mustang." Landmark Theatres (2019)

Gatto, John Taylor. The Underground History of Education. (2016).

Security/Intelligence Agencies/Surveillance Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)





West, Dennis and Joan W. West. "Nonviolent Resistance in Palestine: An Interview with Julia Bacha." Cineaste (2019)












WAITING-The Van Duren Story (Official Trailer) from Grow Yourself Up Films on Vimeo.

Security/Intelligence Agencies/Surveillance (Ongoing Archive)



Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control from Rising Up With Sonali on Vimeo.


Ackerman, Spencer and James Ball. "GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide." The Guardian (February 27, 2014)

Abdurrahman, Sarah. "My Detainment Story or: How I learned to Stop Feeling Safe in My Own Country and Hate Border Agents." On the Media (September 20, 2013)

Amer, Karim, Emma Briant and Brittany Kaiser. "The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump." Democracy Now (January 10, 2020) ["We continue our conversation with the directors of “The Great Hack,” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser and propaganda researcher Emma Briant, about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL Group’s history as a defense contractor. “We’re in a state of global information warfare now,” Briant says. “How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across the Middle East … how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us? How do we know that it’s not being manipulated by Russia, by Iran, by anybody who’s an enemy, by Saudi Arabia, for example, who SCL were also working with? We have no way of knowing, unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they’re doing.”"]

Ash, Timothy Garton. "The Stasi On Our Minds." The New York Review of Books (May 31, 2007)

Assange, Julian and Michael Ratner. "Julian Assange on Being Placed on NSA "Manhunting" List & Secret Targeting of WikiLeaks Supporters." Democracy Now (February 18, 2014)

Attalah, Lina, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and Chris Toensing. "Massacre in Cairo: Egypt on Brink After Worst Violence Since 2011 Revolution." Democracy Now (August 15, 2013)

Auken, Laurie Van. The still- classified 28 pages of the JICI dealing with terrorist financing, the 9/11 families’ stalled lawsuit to bankrupt the terrorists and the direct interventions by the White House to protect the Saudi regime against the justice-seeking families, and the many uninvestigated questions and facts covered up by the 9/11 commission. Boiling Frogs (August 19, 2011)

Baker, Stewart and Daniel Ellsberg. "Debate: Was Snowden Justified?" Democracy Now (February 14, 2014)

Bamford, James. "The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)." Wired (March 15, 2012)

---. "The NSA's Warrantless Wiretapping Program." Boiling Frogs (July 21, 2009)

---. "They Know Much More Than You Think." The New York Review of Books (August 15, 2013)

Barragán, Nanette. "'Unconscious and Unacceptable': : Rep. Barragán Decries Detention of Migrant Children in Prison Cells." Democracy Now (July 11, 2019) ["Yazmin Juárez, the Guatemalan mother whose child died after being held in an ICE detention center from a lung infection, testified before members of a congressional panel Wednesday. She shared the story of her daughter, 19-month-old Mariee, who died last year shortly after being released from the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Juárez filed a $60 million lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services. The House subcommittee convened to examine the treatment of refugees in U.S. detention, just over a week after lawmakers flocked to the U.S.-Mexico border to observe the horrible treatment of refugee children and families in immigration jails amid reports of continued unsafe and unsanitary conditions for asylum seekers. Meanwhile, NBC reports that migrant children jailed in Yuma, Arizona, have been subjected to mistreatment and sexual violence. We speak with Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán from California, who recently visited detention centers in Texas. She’s the second vice-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security."]

Bayoumi, Moustafa and Glenn Greenwald. "Islamophobia and Surveillance in the Trump Era." We Are Many (September 26, 2017)

Benjamin, Medea and Trevor Timm. "Drone Summit: Killing and Spying by Remote Control." Law and Disorder (July 9, 2012)

Berry, Wendell. "A Citizen’s Response to the National Security Strategy." Orion (March/April 2003)

Biagetti, Samuel. "Making the Modern State: Spain, Portugal, and the Inquisition." Historiansplaining (February 5, 2018) ["European monarchs’ early quest to consolidate royal power and establish their subjects’ direct loyalty to the crown. In particular, we trace the early triumphs and slow declines of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, driven by the pioneering ambitions of Isabella of Castile, Philip II of Spain, John II of Portugal, and the formidable Marques de Pombal. We also examine the workings of the Spanish Inquisition, which served as a crucial cornerstone of the modern bureaucratic state, with its systems of mass surveillance, ideological propaganda, and obsession with extracting confessions from the accused. Suggested further reading: Henry Kamen, "Golden Age Spain" and "The Spanish Inquisition.""]

Binney, Bill. "Growing State Surveillance." Democracy Now (April 20, 2012)

---. "NSA Whistleblower – Government Collects Everything You Do." The Real News (April 17, 2019) ["Abby Martin interviews former Technical Director of the National Security Agency, Bill Binney, who blew the whistle on warrantless spying years before Edward Snowden released the evidence. They discuss the US empire's mass surveillance program and dangers of the Intelligence Industrial Complex."]

Binney, William and Glenn Greenwald. "'On a Slippery Slope to a Totalitarian State': NSA Whistleblower Rejects Gov’t Defense of Spying." Democracy Now (June 10, 2013)

Blum, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995.

Boccanfuso, Dominique. "Top 25 Censored News Stories 2017 - 2018: #14 FBI Paid Geek Squad Employees as 'Confidential Human Source' Informants." Project Censored (October 2, 2018)

Boykoff, Jules and Kristian Williams. "Police Power and the Suppression of Dissent." Writers Talking (February 24, 2009)

Brennan, Niall, Glenn Greenwald, Burt Neuborne, and Geoff Stone. "The Constitution and National Security: The First Amendment Under Attack." The Center on Law and Security (December 1, 2010)

Bromwich, David. "Diary: The Snowden Case." The London Review of Books 35.13 (July 4, 2013)

Browne, Simone.  Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press, 2015.

Burchett, George. "Wormwood and a Shocking Secret of War: How Errol Morris Vindicated My Father, Wilfred Burchett." Counterpunch (January 12, 2018)

"Chelsea Manning Talks with Nadya Tolokonnikova (Pussy Riot)." Talkhouse (April 26, 2018) ["The program includes a talk by Manning on resisting “the data-driven society and the police state”; a conversation between her and Tolokonnikova on their experiences in resistance, incarceration and prison reform; and a talk by Tolokonnikova on bringing “punk feminism” to Russia and the problems with Putin. The two also share their views on how neighborhood communities have better answers than think tanks, the ways empathy can help make real change, and — powerfully — how political action can be more than voting."]

Clair, Jeffrey St. and Alexander Cockburn. "Operation Paperclip: NAZI Science Heads West." Counterpunch (December 8, 2017)

COINTELPRO 101 (USA: Andres Alegria, et al, 2010: 56 mins) ["A secret illegal project from the 1950s, 60s and 70s called COINTELPRO, represents the state’s strategy to prevent resistance movements and communities from achieving their ends of racial justice, social equality and human rights. The program was mandated by the United States’ FBI, formally inscribing a conspiracy to destroy social movements, as well as mount institutionalised attacks against allies of such movements and other key organisations. Some of the goals were to disrupt, divide, and destroy movements, as well as instilling paranoia, manipulation by surveillance, imprisonment, and even outright murder of key figures of movements and other people. Many of the government’s crimes are still unknown. Through interviews with activists who experienced these abuses first-hand, COINTELPRO 101 opens the door to understanding this history, with the intended audience being the generations that did not experience the social justice movements of the 60s and 70s; where illegal surveillance, disruption, and outright murder committed by the government was rampant and rapacious. This film stands to provide an educational introduction to a period of intense repression, to draw many relevant and important lessons for the present and the future of social justice."]

Cole, Matthew and Jeremy Scahill. "Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter 'Deep State' Enemies." The Intercept (December 4, 2017)

Cole, Matthew, et al. "The Lyin', The Rich, and the Warmongers." The Intercepted (March 14, 2018) ["This week on Intercepted: Exxon Mobil is out at the State Department. A radical Christian ideologue is in. And a veteran CIA officer who tortured detainees and set up the CIA black sites after 9/11 is slated to take the helm at Langley. And all of this happened in one fell swoop on Tuesday morning. The Intercept’s Matthew Cole and Jeremy analyze the major re-shuffle in Trumpland and what it means for the future of the planet. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who led the investigation of Erik Prince and Blackwater for years in Congress, analyzes the ongoing scandal over his alleged role in the Trump era and explains why she had her house swept for surveillance when she was investigating Prince. Musical artists Ana Tijoux and Lila Downs talk about the politics of colonialism, neoliberalism, and revolution and their new collaboration on the song, “Tinta Roja.” And, fresh off her stellar debut on 60 Minutes, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stars in “Kindergarten Cop.”"]

Coll, Steve. "Directorate S: Steve Coll on the CIA & America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan & Pakistan." Democracy Now (February 8, 2018) ["The U.S. is intensifying its air war in Afghanistan as U.S. Central Command has announced it is shifting military resources from Iraq and Syria back to Afghanistan, where the United States has been fighting for over 16 years in the longest war in U.S. history. U.S. Air Force Major General James Hecker recently said Afghanistan has “become CENTCOM’s main effort.” The news comes after a particularly bloody period in Afghanistan. Despite the spiraling violence, President Trump recently ruled out negotiations with the Taliban during a meeting of members of the United Nations Security Council. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll about his new book, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan."]

Conroy, Bill. "More Fast and Furious / Did Cele Call it?" The Expert Witness Radio Show (December 14, 2011)

Crespo, Glenn and Larry Hildes. "Inside the Army Spy Ring & Attempted Entrapment of Peace Activists, Iraq Vets, Anarchists." Democracy Now (February 25, 2014)

"Critical Art Ensemble: When Thought Becomes Crime." Dialogic (October 5, 2005)

Crowmwell, David and David Edwards. "Snowden, Surveillance And The Secret State." Media Lens (June 28, 2013)

Crow, Scott and Mike German. "FBI to Expand Domestic Surveillance Powers As Details Emerge of Its Spy Campaign Targeting Activists." Democracy Now (June 14, 2011)

Curry, Marshall, Andrew Stepanian, and Will Potter. "“If a Tree Falls”: New Documentary on Daniel McGowan, Earth Liberation Front and Green Scare." Democracy Now (June 21, 2011)

Dershowitz, Alan, Glenn Greenwald, Michael Hayden and Alexis Ohanian. "Glenn Greenwald Debates Former NSA Director Michael Hayden." The Intercept (May 2, 2014)

Deveraux, Ryan and Nicole Ramos. "Journalists, Lawyers & Activists Targeted in Sweeping U.S. Intelligence Gathering Effort on Border." Democracy Now (March 11, 2019) ["Newly revealed documents show the U.S. government created a secret database of activists and journalists who were documenting the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart a caravan of migrants hoping to win asylum in the U.S. An investigation from San Diego’s NBC 7 revealed the list was shared among Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the FBI. It included the names of 10 journalists—seven of whom are U.S. citizens—along with nearly four dozen others listed as “organizers” or “instigators.” House Democrats are now calling for the full disclosure of the government’s secret list. We speak with one of the activists targeted by the government, Nicole Ramos, director of Al Otro Lado’s Border Rights Project. The project works with asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico. We also speak with Ryan Devereaux, staff reporter at The Intercept. In early February, he wrote an article titled “Journalists, Lawyers, and Activists Working on the Border Face Coordinated Harassment from U.S. and Mexican Authorities.”"]

Digital Disconnect (USA: Jeremy Earp and Robert McChesney, 2018: 63 mins) ["Tracing the Internet’s history as a publicly-funded government project in the 1960s, to its full-scale commercialisation today, Digital Disconnect shows how the Internet’s so-called “democratising potential” has been radically compromised by the logic of capitalism, and the unaccountable power of a handful of telecom and tech monopolies. Based on the acclaimed book by media scholar Robert McChesney, the film examines the ongoing attack on the concept of net neutrality by telecom monopolies such as Comcast and Verizon, explores how internet giants like Facebook and Google have amassed huge profits by surreptitiously collecting our personal data and selling it to advertisers, and shows how these monopolies have routinely colluded with the national security state to advance covert mass surveillance programs. We also see how the rise of social media as a leading information source is working to isolate people into ideological information bubbles and elevate propaganda at the expense of real journalism. But while most debates about the Internet focus on issues like the personal impact of Internet-addiction or the rampant data-mining practices of companies like Facebook, Digital Disconnectdigs deeper to show how capitalism itself turns the Internet against democracy. The result is an indispensable resource for helping viewers make sense of a technological revolution that has radically transformed virtually aspect of human communication."]

Doctorow, Cory. "The Coming Civil War Over General Purpose Computation." Craphound (August 5, 2012)

---. "Kafka, meet Orwell: peek behind the scenes of the modern surveillance state." Boing Boing (May 27, 2013)

Drake, Thomas. "Snowden saw what I saw: surveillance criminally subverting the constitution." The Guardian (June 12, 2013)

Drone Survival Guide [Website: "Our ancestors could spot natural predators from far by their silhouettes. Are we equally aware of the predators in the present-day? Drones are remote-controlled planes that can be used for anything from surveillance and deadly force, to rescue operations and scientific research. Most drones are used today by military powers for remote-controlled surveillance and attack, and their numbers are growing. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicted in 2012 that within 20 years there could be as many as 30.000 drones flying over U.S. Soil alone. As robotic birds will become commonplace in the near future, we should be prepared to identify them. This survival guide is an attempt to familiarise ourselves and future generations, with a changing technological environment. This document contains the silhouettes of the most common drone species used today and in the near future. Each indicating nationality and whether they are used for surveillance only or for deadly force. All drones are drawn in scale for size indication. From the smallest consumer drones measuring less than 1 meter, up to the Global Hawk measuring 39,9 meter in length."]

Dubal, Veena. "Presumed Guilty: American Muslims and Arabs (9-11 Encore Edition)." Making Contact (September 6, 2011)

Ellsberg, Daniel. "NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision is Part of 'Systematic Assault on Constitution'." Democracy Now (February 5, 2013)

Ellick, Adam B. and Adam Westbrook. "Operation Infektion." Times Video (November 12, 2018) ["Russia’s meddling in the United States’ elections is not a hoax. It’s the culmination of Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart. “Operation InfeKtion” reveals the ways in which one of the Soviets’ central tactics — the promulgation of lies about America — continues today, from Pizzagate to George Soros conspiracies. Meet the KGB spies who conceived this virus and the American truth squads who tried — and are still trying — to fight it. Countries from Pakistan to Brazil are now debating reality, and in Vladimir Putin’s greatest triumph, Americans are using Russia’s playbook against one another without the faintest clue."]

Feffer, John. "Governments Kill." Institute for Policy Studies (August 23, 2011)

Gallagher, Katherine, John Kiriakou and Sejal Zota. "Gina Haspel, Rule of Law and Torture; The National Immigration Project And Protecting Haitian Refugees." Law and Disorder Radio (March 26, 2018) ["Gina Haspel, Rule of Law And Torture: Nazi generals and Nazi leaders were prosecuted at the end of World War II for war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide. These crimes were incorporated into international law. The chief prosecutor was Robert Jackson, a Supreme Court judge. The Nazis defended themselves by arguing that they were just following orders. This defense was deemed unavailing. In many cases, they were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms or hung. He said that the war crimes tribunal at Nirenberg was not merely victors’ justice. But that the principles it followed would be universal and applied in the future, to all countries including the USA. And indeed, the United States signed on to the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture and incorporate both the crimes and the concept of universal jurisdiction into its law. Gina Haspel has been nominated by President Donald Trump to head the CIA. She is a war criminal. She violated both international and national law by running a black site secret detention center in Thailand where men were tortured. Although there were several court orders that the evidence be preserved, Gina Haspel had the videotapes of torture destroyed. John Brennan, Obama’s ex head of the CIA, who was involved in the torture program, recently came to her defense, stating that she was just following orders: The Nazi defense. Trump supports torture. He believes that torture works. This is both immoral and untrue. He says he is for waterboarding and worse. He now has a subordinate with whom he is in agreement. Obama refused to prosecute the lawbreakers. Instead he threw CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou in prison for two years for disclosing American torture. He said we must look forward, not backward. This greenlighted what is going on now with Haspel. Michael Ratner warned us about this eventuality. The European Center for Human and Constitutional Rights may seek Haspel’s arrest if she goes to Germany. Such is the irony of history that the German fascist government that perpetrated the greatest crimes against humanity has been superseded by an American government which condones and is perpetuating them as well.
The National Immigration Project And Protecting Haitian Refugees: The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn on March 15 to block President Trump’s cancellation of temporary protected status which had been granted to more than 50,000 Haitian refugees because of the terrible conditions in that country since the hurricane in 2010. The National Immigration Project declared President Trump’s actions to be unlawful, racially motivated, and evidence of a complete lack of knowledge of immigration law. The TPS program exempts from deportation people from countries in turmoil due to war, natural disasters, and other extraordinary conditions. The suit alleges that the federal government was arbitrary and capricious in his decision to end the program and was motivated by Donald Trump’s “racial and national origin animus towards patients.” The suit cites Trump’s demeaning remarks towards Haitians and Haiti. He has said that Haitians have AIDS and Haiti is a “s&*t hole” country. The Trump administration‘s position is that protecting Haitians is no longer necessary because conditions in Haiti have improved."]

Gallagher, Ryan. "Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal." The Intercept (August 1, 2018)

Garvie, Clare. "Perpetual Line Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America." Law and Disorder (November 20, 2017) ["The presence of surveillance cameras across the United States has enabled targeted facial recognition surveillance at essentially any place and any time. Each day law enforcement puts in place more and more cameras, including CCTV cameras, police body cameras, and cameras on drones and other aircraft. The FBI’s Next Generation Biometric Identification Database and its facial recognition unit, FACE Services, can search for and identify nearly 64 million Americans, either from its own databases or through access to state DMV databases of driving license photos. It’s likely that government agencies will soon be able to pinpoint your location and even with whom you’ve been, just by typing your name into a computer. The release of Apple’s IPhone X has drawn scrutiny to this technology. Despite civil liberties and privacy concerns, there are few limits on facial recognition technology. In March 2017 Congress held a hearing to discuss the risks of facial recognition surveillance. There is concern that facial recognition can be used to get around existing legal protections against location tracking, opening the door to unprecedented government monitoring an logging of personal associations, including protected First Amendment-related activities. Knowledge of individual’s political, religious and associational activities could lead the way to bias, persecution and abuse. As with many technological advances, there are benefits, too. Facial recognition can assist in locating missing persons or for other public safety purposes."]

Gellman, Barton. Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State." Longform (October 14, 2020) ["Barton Gellman is a staff writer for The Atlantic and was previously a Pulitzer-winning reporter at The Washington Post. His latest book is Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State and his latest essay is 'The Election That Could Break America.'"]

"Getting Away With Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees." Human Rights Watch (July 12, 2011)

Greene, Robyn. "Even Your Avatar Can't Escape NSA Surveillance." ACLU (December 12, 2013)

Greenwald, Glenn. "Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens." The Guardian (February 5, 2013)

---. "Edward Snowden "Satisfied" by Global Outrage over U.S. Surveillance Operations." Democracy Now (July 8, 2013)

---. "FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real scandal needing investigation: That the stars of America's national security establishment are being devoured by out-of-control surveillance is a form of sweet justice." The Guardian (November 13, 2012)

---. "Glenn Greenwald Speaks Out on Edward Snowden and the NSA Revelations." We Are Many (June 2013)

---. "GOP and Feinstein join to fulfill Obama's demand for renewed warrantless eavesdropping." The Guardian (December 28, 2012)

---. "How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations." Intercept (February 24, 2014)

---. "A Massive Surveillance State": Glenn Greenwald Exposes Covert NSA Program Collecting Calls, Emails." Democracy Now (June 7, 2013)

---. "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily." The Guardian (June 6, 2013)

---. "On How NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Helped Expose a 'Massive Surveillance Apparatus'." Democracy Now (June 10, 2013)

---. "'Rogue' Actions of U.S. in Snowden Row Yield Latin American Offers of Asylum." Democracy Now (July 8, 2013)

---. "Where is Edward Snowden? Glenn Greenwald on Asylum Request, Espionage Charge; More Leaks to Come." Democracy Now (June 24, 2013)

Greenwald, Glenn, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras. "Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations." The Guardian (June 9, 2013)

Greenwald, Glenn and Jeremy Scahill. "Death By Metadata: Jeremy Scahill & Glenn Greenwald Reveal NSA Role in Assassinations Overseas." Democracy Now (February 10, 2014)

---. "Defying Threats to Journalism, Jeremy Scahill & Glenn Greenwald Launch New Venture, The Intercept." Democracy Now (February 10, 2014)

---. "Report: Obama Administration Considers Assassinating Another American Overseas." Democracy Now (February 10, 2014)

Guisado, Angelo. "Necessary to the Security of a Free State." Current Affairs (May 8, 2019) ["On the history of the second amendment, white militias, and border vigilantism…"]

Hedges, Chris. "The Death of Truth." TruthDig (May 5, 2013)

Horton, Scott. "Secret Federal FISA Court Advocate of National Security State." Law and Disorder Radio (July 15, 2013)

---. "A Setback For Obama’s War On Whistleblowers." Law and Disorder Radio (August 15, 2011)

---. "The Torture Doctors." Harpers (November 4, 2013) [An expert panel concludes that the Pentagon and the CIA ordered physicians to violate the Hippocratic Oath.]

The Intercept ("The Intercept, a publication of First Look Media, was created by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill. It has a two-fold mission: one short-term, the other long-term. Our short-term mission is to provide a platform to report on the documents previously provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Although we are still building our infrastructure and larger vision, we are launching now because we believe we have a vital obligation to this ongoing and evolving story, to these documents, and to the public. Our NSA coverage will be comprehensive, innovative and multi-faceted. We have a team of experienced editors and journalists devoted to the story. We will use all forms of digital media for our reporting. In addition, we will publish primary source documents on which our reporting is based. We will also invite outside experts with area knowledge to contribute to our reporting, and provide a platform for commentary and reader engagement. Our long-term mission is to produce fearless, adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues. The editorial independence of our journalists will be guaranteed. They will be encouraged to pursue their passions, cultivate a unique voice, and publish stories without regard to whom they might anger or alienate. We believe the prime value of journalism is its power to impose transparency, and thus accountability, on the most powerful governmental and corporate bodies, and our journalists will be provided the full resources and support required to do this. While our initial focus will be the critical work surrounding the NSA story, we are excited by the opportunity to grow with our readers into the broader and more comprehensive news outlet that the The Intercept will become.")

Isikoff, Michael. "Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans." Open Channel (February 5, 2013)

Jaffer, Jameel. "Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens 'Has No Geographic Limit'." Democracy Now (February 5, 2013)

Joseph, Harry, Anne Rolfes and Pamela Spees. "Critics of Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana Decry State & Company Surveillance of Protesters." Democracy Now (March 13, 2018) ["In Louisiana, newly disclosed documents reveal a state intelligence agency regularly spied on activists opposing construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, which would carry nearly a half-million barrels of oil per day across Louisiana’s wetlands. The documents show the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness regularly drafted intelligence memos on anti-pipeline activists, including a gathering of indigenous-led water protectors who’ve set up a protest encampment along the pipeline’s route. Other newly revealed documents show close coordination between Louisiana regulators and the company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners. This comes just one week after a U.S. district judge in Baton Rouge ordered a temporary injunction against construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline in order to “prevent further irreparable harm” to the region’s delicate ecosystems, while court challenges proceed. For more, we speak with Pastor Harry Joseph of the Mount Triumph Baptist Church. We also speak with Pamela Spees of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade."]

"Julian Assange in Conversation with John Pilger." Top Documentary Films (2010)

Kafer, Gary. "Surveillance capitalism and its racial discontents." Jump Cut #59 (Fall 2019)

Kiriakou, John and Jesselyn Raddack. "Ex-CIA Agent, Whistleblower John Kiriakou Sentenced to Prison While Torturers He Exposed Walk Free." Democracy Now (January 30, 2013)

---. "Whistleblower John Kiriakou: For Embracing Torture, John Brennan a "Terrible Choice to Lead the CIA"." Democracy Now (January 30, 2013)

Kishore, Joseph. "Questions mount about Boston bombers’ links to US intelligence agencies." World Socialist Web Site (April 26, 2013)

Kovalik, Daniel. "The CIA, Cocaine and Death Squads: The U.S. War for Drugs of Terror in Colombia." Counterpunch (February 16, 2012)

Landau, Susan. "Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies." Berkman Center for Internet and Society Podcast (March 8, 2011)

Lauer, Josh. "Credit Agencies and the Commodification of Personal Information." Against the Grain (October 2, 2017) ["If you think the collection and selling of personal data began in the last twenty years, think again. Consumer credit agencies like Equifax have been gathering information about people’s intimate details since they were created in the late 19th century. Scholar Josh Lauer discusses the history of credit agencies, their key role in capitalist consumer culture, and why we shouldn’t expect them to look out for consumers."]

Leigh, David, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke. "Guantánamo leaks lift lid on world's most controversial prison • Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts • Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held • 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release • Interactive guide to all 779 detainees." The Guardian (April 25, 2011)

Lessig, Lawrence and Jonathan Zittrain. "The Internet Kill Switch." Radio Berkman (March 16, 2011)

Levin, Sam. "Los Angeles Police Spied on Anti-Trump Protesters." The Guardian (July 19, 2019) ["Case is one of several across the US of police targeting anti-Trump and anti-fascist groups with monitoring and criminal trials."]

Lindorff, Dave. "FBI Ignored Deadly Threat to Occupiers." Counterpunch (December 28, 2012)

Lofgren, Ian. "The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight." Moyers & Co. (February 21, 2014) ["Everyone knows about the military-industrial complex, which, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned had the potential to “endanger our liberties or democratic process” but have you heard of the 'Deep State'?”]

Love, David. "FBI Tracks & Arrests ‘Black Identity Extremist’ and Hardly Anyone Is Talking About It." Atlanta Black Star (February 5, 2018)

Ludlow, Peter. "Jailed Journalist Barrett Brown Faces 105 Years For Reporting on Hacked Private Intelligence Firms." Democracy Now (July 11, 2013)

Manningham-Buller, Eliza. "Securing Freedom." Reith Lectures (2011)

Manokha, Ivan. "New Means of Workplace Surveillance: From the Gaze of the Supervisor to the Digitalization of Employees." Monthly Review (February 1, 2019)

Martin, Patrick. "The CIA Democrats." World Socialist Web Site (March 7-9, 2018)

Mayer, Carl. "Challenging The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012." Law and Disorder Radio (January 7, 2013)

Mayer, Jane. "The Secret Sharer: Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state?" The New Yorker (May 23, 2011)

McGirk, Tim. "In Exiting Iraq, U.S. Military Discards Trove of Found Documents on 2005 Haditha Massacre of Iraqis." Democracy Now (December 21, 2011)

Moynihan, Colin and Scott Shane. "For Anarchist, Details of Life as F.B.I. Target." The New York Times (May 29, 2011)

Nader, Ralph. "Where are the Lawyers?: Obama at Large." Counterpunch (May 31, 2012)

National Security Archive ["An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States. The Archive won the 1999 George Polk Award, one of U.S. journalism's most prestigious prizes, for--in the words of the citation--"piercing the self-serving veils of government secrecy, guiding journalists in the search for the truth and informing us all." The Archive obtains its materials through a variety of methods, including the Freedom of Information act, Mandatory Declassification Review, presidential paper collections, congressional records, and court testimony. Archive staff members systematically track U.S. government agencies and federal records repositories for documents that either have never been released before, or that help to shed light on the decision-making process of the U.S. government and provide the historical context underlying those decisions. The Archive regularly publishes portions of its collections on microfiche, the World Wide Web, CD-ROM, and in books. The Washington Journalism Review called these publications, collectively totaling more than 500,000 pages, "a state-of-the-art index to history." The Archive's World Wide Web site, www.nsarchive.org, has won numerous awards, including USA Today's "Hot Site" designation. As a part of its mission to broaden access to the historical record, the Archive is also a leading advocate and user of the Freedom of Information Act. Precedent-setting Archive lawsuits have brought into the public domain new materials on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Iran-Contra Affair, and other issues that have changed the way scholars interpret those events. The Archive spearheaded the groundbreaking legal effort to preserve millions of pages of White House e-mail records that were created during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. The Archive's mission of guaranteeing the public's right to know extends to other countries outside the United States. The organization is currently involved in efforts to sponsor freedom of information legislation in the nations of Central Europe, Central and South America and elsewhere, and is committed to finding ways to provide technical and other services that will allow archives and libraries overseas to introduce appropriate records management systems into their respective institutions. The Archive's $2.5 million yearly budget comes from publication revenues, contributions from individuals and grants from foundations such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute. As a matter of policy, the Archive seeks no U.S. government funding."]

Nevins, Joseph. "Drones and the Dream of Remote Control in the Borderlands." Counterpunch (May 3, 2012)

Open Society Justice Initiative. Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition. Open Society Foundations (February 2013)

"Osama Bin Laden File." The National Security Archive (National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 343: May 2, 2011)

Pelroth, Nicole. "On the Cyberweapons Race." The Lawfare Podcast (March 19, 2021) ["Jack Goldsmith spoke with New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth about her new bookThis is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. They discussed the dark world of markets for zero-day vulnerabilities that are so vital in offensive cyber operations, the history of the markets, how they work, who the players are and why the United States doesn't control as much as it used to. They also discussed broader issues of U.S. cybersecurity policy, including the recent SolarWinds hack."]

Potter, Will. "What is the "Green Scare." Green is the New Red (2011)

Preempting Dissent (Canada: Greg Elmer and Andy Opel, 2014: 42 mins) ["The legacy of the Bush administration and the so-called “War on Terror” includes a new logic that stretches well beyond the realm of overzealous security agencies, airport security and international relations, and into suppressing public protest; expanded surveillance aimed at entire populations, but especially activists; and mobilising fear for social control. Special police techniques have even been developed and applied in order to specifically suppress dissent and manage protests, especially in the wake of the rising anti-globalisation movements towards the turn of the millennium. Preempting Dissentprovides a quick overview of how some of this logic developed, as well as a glimpse of how political protest in the West has been shaped and controlled in the “post-9/11″ years, up to and including the so-called Occupy movement. By provoking a reflection of the implications of the logic of the “War on Terror” and how its applied to stifle political protest, Preempting Dissent aims to lay some of the groundwork to develop more effective resistance tactics."]

Priest, Dana and William M. Arkin. "Top Secret America." The Washington Post (Documentary archive: July 19 - December 20, 2010)

Radack, Jesselyn. "Attorney for Edward Snowden Interrogated at U.K. Airport, Placed on 'Inhibited Persons List'" Democracy Now (February 18, 2014)

Radack, Jesselyn and Michael Ratner. "Spying on Lawyers: Snowden Documents Show NSA Ally Targeted U.S. Law Firm." Democracy Now (February 18, 2014)

Ratner, Michael. "Exposed: U.S. May Have Designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks an 'Enemy of the State.'" Democracy Now (September 27, 2012)

---. "Ten Years after 9/11: War, Operation American Condor (Guantanamo) , Civil Liberties and Hope." Law and Disorder Radio (July 25, 2011)

"Reclaim the Streets." This is America #72 (May 9, 2019) ["In this episode, first we talk with people involved in the Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance about the connections between policing and counter-insurgency, as well as new surveillance technologies, in both occupied Palestinian territories and along the so-called US and Mexico border. We then open up into a broad discussion on current affairs."]

The Report Podcast ["A deep dive into the real life story behind The Report, a film by Scott Z. Burns, about the investigation into the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program and the lengths to which the nation’s top intelligence agency went to destroy evidence, subvert the law, and hide a brutal secret from the American public."]

Richardson, Michelle. "Senate Votes To Extends Warrantless Wiretaps For Five More Years: No Oversight, No Transparency." Law and Disorder (February 11, 2013)

Risen, James. "The Biggest Secret: James Risen on Life as a NY Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror." Democracy Now (January 5, 2018) ["We spend the hour with former New York Times reporter James Risen, who left the paper in August to join The Intercept as senior national security correspondent. This week, he published a 15,000-word story headlined “The Biggest Secret: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror.” The explosive piece describes his struggles to publish major national security stories in the post-9/11 period and how both the government and his own editors at The New York Times suppressed his reporting, including reports on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, for which he would later win the Pulitzer Prize. Risen describes meetings between key Times editors and top officials at the CIAand the White House. His refusal to name a source would take him to the Supreme Court, and he almost wound up in jail, until the Obama administration blinked."]

"RNC Protests 1." Mic Check Radio (August 28, 2012)

Rosen, Jay. "The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World's First Stateless News Organization." Press Think (July 26, 2010)

Rosenfeld, Seth. "Spies in the Hill." Excerpt from Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012: 11-27.

Rusbridger, Alan. "Spilling the NSA’s Secrets: Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger on the Inside Story of Snowden Leaks." Democracy Now (September 23, 2013)

Ryan, Yasmine. "Anti-terrorism and uprisings: North African leaders have worked with the West against Islamists and migrants - becoming more repressive as a result." Al Jazeera (February 25, 2011)

Scahill, Jeremy. "The World Is a Battlefield: Jeremy Scahill on "Dirty Wars" and Obama’s Expanding Drone Attacks." Democracy Now (April 24, 2013)

Schecter, Danny. "Nailing Osama: The Media's Delight." Al Jazeera (May 6, 2011)

Scheer, Bob and Mark Steiner. "Is Orwell’s Big Brother Here? Bezos & Amazon Team up With Defense, CIA & ICE." Naked Capitalism (October 27, 2018)

Schwarz, Jon. "The Best Movie Ever Made About the Truth Behind The Iraq War is 'Official Secrets.'" The Intercept (August 31, 2019)

Scott, Peter Dale. "The Processes and Logic of The Deep State (The American Deep State by Peter Dale Scott)." Unwelcome Guests #719 (August 8, 2015) ["Unusually, just a single speaker this week: one two hour interview with the doyen of deep political research, Canadian Professor Peter Dale Scott. He provides not only a lot of details of the evolution of the post WW2 deep state in the USA, but also sketches out its guiding principles, some of the deeper patterns which allow one to understand the superficially confusing and contradictory actions of the US deep state."]

Shorrock, Tim. "Digital Blackwater: How the NSA Gives Private Contractors Control of the Surveillance State." Democracy Now (June 11, 2013)

Smith, Yves. "Don't Buy Anyone An Echo." Naked Capitalism (December 6, 2017)

Snowden, Edward. "Permanent Record: Why NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Risked His Life to Expose Surveillance State." Democracy Now (September 26, 2019) ["Six years ago, Edward Snowden leaked a trove of secret documents about how the United States had built a massive surveillance apparatus to spy on Americans and people across the globe. Snowden was then charged in the U.S. for violating the Espionage Act and other laws. As he attempted to flee to Latin America, Snowden became stranded in Russia after the U.S. revoked his passport. He has lived in Moscow ever since. Snowden just published his memoir, “Permanent Record,” in which he writes about what led him to risk his life to expose the U.S. government’s system of mass surveillance. From Moscow, he speaks to Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Juan González about his life before and after becoming an NSA whistleblower." Part 1: "'Financial Censorship Is Still Censorship': Edward Snowden Slams Justice Dept. Lawsuit Against Him."  Part 2: "Edward Snowden Condemns Trump’s Mistreatment of Whistleblower Who Exposed Ukraine Scandal." ]

--. "Private Contractors Play Key Role in U.S. Intelligence’s 'Creeping Authoritarianism.'" Democracy Now (September 30, 2019) ["As a whistleblower complaint against President Trump rocks Washington, Democrats begin an impeachment inquiry and Trump threatens “big consequences” for the person who came forward, we continue our conversation with one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers: Edward Snowden, now in exile in Russia. Six years ago, he shocked the world when he leaked a trove of secret documents about how the United States had built a massive surveillance apparatus to collect every single phone call, text message and email, and pry into the private lives of every person on Earth. He has just published a memoir titled “Permanent Record.” In Part 2 of our interview, he talks about how the government initially attempted to say that he was just an outside contractor and not a key figure, but he describes the central role contractors play in the intelligence community." Part 2: "Snowden Reveals How He Secretly Exposed NSA Criminal Wrongdoing Without Getting Arrested." Part 3: "Whistleblower Edward Snowden on Trump, Obama & How He Ended Up in Russia to Avoid U.S. Extradition."]

---. ""You’re Being Watched": Edward Snowden Emerges as Source Behind Explosive Revelations of NSA Spying." Democracy Now (June 10, 2013)

The Spy Factory NOVA (February 4, 2009)

Stanley, Jay. "A Looming Implication of Face Recognition: Private Photo Blacklists." ACLU (April 16, 2018)

"Supreme Court Denies Review of NSA Warrantless Surveillance Case." Center for Constitutional Rights (March 4, 2014) ["Recent Snowden Revelations Showed Government Likely Spying on Attorney Communications"]

Taub. Ben. "Guantanamo's Darkest Secret." The New Yorker  (April 15, 2019) ["The U.S. military prison’s leadership considered Mohamedou Salahi to be its highest-value detainee. But his guard suspected otherwise."]

Taylor, Laurie. "The other side of the street: Laurie Taylor interviews Stan Cohen." New Humanist 119.4 (July 2004)

Thompson, Paul. "Terror Timeline." Boiling Frogs (3 Pt interview: September 1, September 6, and September 16, 2011)

Timm, Trevor. "Congress Disgracefully Approves the FISA Warrantless Spying Bill for Five More Years, Rejects All Privacy Amendments." Electronic Frontier Foundation (December 28, 2012)

Verheyden-Hilliard, Mara. "FBI Considers The Occupy Movement A Terrorist Threat: The State of Civil Rights and Public Policy." Law and Disorder Radio (January 7, 2013)


Vaidhyanathan, Siva. "A Threat to Global Democracy: How Facebook & Surveillance Capitalism Empower Authoritarianism." Democracy Now (August 1, 2018) [I was meditating today on a river bank thinking about the impact of technology (especially SM) on my psyche. I was wondering what it is doing to us as humans and what are the questions we should be asking about that influence/time/impact. Then, later, while I was cleaning my house I listened to this interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan and my thoughts were pushed further and more questions arose. I was first concerned about my own psyche even as I thought about it on a larger social level. Then, because I am preparing for classes, I began to think of a pedagogical exercise. Introduce my classes to Vaidhyanathan's ideas in this interview and initiate a conversation about the impact of social media on how we operate in and understand our world. I'm thinking that I would ask my students to attempt to have a social media fast for an entire week (I would, of course, participate). To keep a record of our successes and failures, to think about how being disconnected in this way affects us, to keep a record of questions and conclusions. With all of that in mind, I would like to hear any responses to this interview and/or this conception of a pedagogical exercise. Also, would others be interested in doing this exercise at the same time - individually or collectively? I know this can come off as hypocritical as I am on SM. I have to honestly admit that when I was engaged in my higher education as the Internet (and later SM when I was a professor) appeared, and later dominated, I was excited (and bought into the rhetoric about its revolutionary possibilities) by the radical possibilities of being able to communicate with people from all corners of the earth (how many of you remember long distance charges on landlines) and to freely access information (including that which is purposely being censored or disappeared). Even as this fantasy dissipated in the wake of corporate colonization of the Internet, I still clung to a belief that if we just used it intelligently, modeled higher thinking, used it to connect to our loved ones, that it could be changed for a better purpose. More and more I am becoming cynical about that possibility..... I think we have to ask some hard questions. I will accept all positions with no judgement and in open discussion (as long as when you make conclusive/factual claims you back them up). Peace.]

Walker, Shaun. "Russia to monitor 'all communications' at Winter Olympics in Sochi." The Guardian (October 6, 2013)

Winter, Jana. "'Quiet Skies'? Boston Globe Exposé Reveals TSA Is Secretly Surveilling Thousands of U.S. Travelers." Democracy Now (July 31, 2018) ["A Boston Globe investigation has revealed the existence of a domestic surveillance program run by the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, which has been shadowing U.S. citizens on planes and in airports since 2012. Under the program, called “Quiet Skies,” federal air marshals collect information about U.S. travelers, including common behavior like using the bathroom repeatedly, sleeping on flights or sweating heavily. In the wake of the Globe investigation, TSAofficials have bowed to pressure from Congress and plan to meet with the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees. We speak with Jana Winter, the Boston Globe Spotlight Fellow who broke the story. Her investigation is headlined, “Welcome to the Quiet Skies.”"]

Wright, Ann and Ed Kinane. "Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks." Democracy Now (November 4, 2011)

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Joy (USA: David O. Russell, 2015)





Joy (USA: David O. Russell, 2015: 124 mins)

Bordwell, David. "Pick Your Protagonists." Observations on Film Art (January 9, 2016)

Brody, Richard. "David O' Russell's Self-Reflexive Joy." The New Yorker (December 24, 2015)

Buckley, Cara. "There's Joy in Working Together Again." The New York Times (December 15, 2015)

Calautti, Katie. "Why Is the True Story of David O. Russell’s Joy Such a Mystery?" Vanity Fair (December 17, 2015)

Eggert, Brian. "Joy." Deep Focus Review (December 28, 2015)

Grierson, Tim. "Joy: A Manic Cinderella Gets the Job Done." The New Republic (December 24, 2015)

Ito, Robert. "David O. Russell on Joy, Jennifer Lawrence and Embracing the Ordinary." The New York Times (October 30, 2015)

Johnson, Mackenzie. "What Makes David O. Russell so David O. Russell." Film Stage (October 17, 2016)



David O. Russell from MrJ Productions on Vimeo.











Pursuit of Happiness (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) from Frank Perez on Vimeo.



Dialogic Cinephilia - March 26, 2019

Andermann, Jens. "Argentine cinema after the New: Territories, languages, medialities." Senses of Cinema #89 (December 2018)

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. "Sanitizing Our Settler-Colonial Past With ‘Nation of Immigrants’ Narratives." Citations Needed #62 (January 16, 2019) ["“The United States is a nation of immigrants.” It’s a phrase we hear constantly – often said with the best of intentions and, in today’s increasingly cruel environment, meant as a strong rebuke of Donald Trump and his white nationalist administration. The metaphor of the “melting pot” serves a similar purpose: the United States is strong and noble because we are a place that takes people in from across the globe, an inclusive, welcoming, compassionate in-gathering of humanity - e pluribus unum - "out of many, one." It’s a romantic idea – and often evoked as a counter to xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric. But how historically accurate are these phrases and the national narratives they entrench? And what if, instead of combating white nationalism, they subtly promote it? On this episode, we dissect the notion that the United States is simply a rainbow collection of disparate groups coming together and breakdown how, in many ways, this absolves us of our past and present as a violent, white-settler colony."]

Greenwald, Glenn and David Cay Johnston. "As Mueller Finds No Collusion, Did Press Overhype Russiagate?" Democracy Now (March 25, 2019) ["As congressional Democrats call on the Justice Department to release the full Mueller report, we speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who have closely followed the probes into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election: Glenn Greenwald, a founding editor of The Intercept and a leading critic of the media coverage of alleged Russian collusion, and David Cay Johnston, formerly of The New York Times, now founder and editor of DCReport.org, who has written critically about Donald Trump for decades. His most recent book is “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.”"]

Nisa, Eva. "'They Are Us': : New Zealand Mourns After Mosque Attacks Killed 50 Including Refugees & Immigrants." Democracy Now (March 19, 2019) ["Burials are beginning in New Zealand as the country mourns the loss of 50 Muslim worshipers gunned down in two mosques in Christchurch by a white supremacist Friday. It was the deadliest attack in New Zealand’s history. The worshipers killed in the Christchurch massacre came from around the world. Most of them were immigrants, or refugees who had come to New Zealand seeking safety. Six Pakistanis, four Jordanians, four Egyptians and at least three Bangladeshis are among the dead. The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said that six of the victims were of Palestinian origin. We speak with Eva Nisa, a lecturer in religious studies at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her recent article for Middle East Eye is titled “New Zealand has been a home to Muslims for centuries, and will remain so.”"]

Robin, Corey. "The Peril of Laundering Hot Takes Through History." On the Media (March 1, 2019) ["This week, the House of Representatives voted to block President Trump’s national emergency declaration for building a border wall. The latest step toward constitutional crisis? An impotent gesture in the face of gathering authoritarianism? Or was it, as some have concluded, just evidence that Trump the strongman has been a weakling all along? Trump? Weak? It feels like just yesterday that the dominant analytical line was that Trump’s ascent marked the rise of authoritarianism — a line bolstered by academic research and historical antecedents. In a recent post for New York Magazine, political theorist Corey Robin argues that our collective misreading of the present arises from a misuse of the past. In the piece, he warns journalists, scholars and news consumers to beware of the “historovox”: a tendency to launder journalistic hot takes through history. Here, Robin speaks with Bob about what goes missing when pundits only look backward, and offers advice for how we might better understand the present through the past."]

Shamsi, Hina, Flint Taylor and Eli Valley. "The American Machine: Police Torture to Drone Assassinations." The Intercepted (March 13, 2019) ["In 1969 Black Panther Leader leader Fred Hampton was gunned down by Chicago Police in his bedroom. This week on Intercepted: Famed civil rights lawyer Flint Taylor discusses his 13 year struggle for justice for Hampton, his work in exposing the torture program in Chicago that was unleashed on black men, and his career fighting against violent corrupt cops, the city of Chicago, and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Taylor’s new memoir is called “The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago.” As Donald Trump ramps up drone strikes, he has officially wiped out the already minimal accountability guidelines implemented by Barack Obama. Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union talks about the expansion of drone strikes under Trump, how Obama paved the way for his successor, and what we might expect from Attorney General William Barr. Meghan McCain is not Jewish, but she is accusing a Jewish comic artist of creating “one of the most anti-Semitic things” she has ever seen: a cartoon about her hypocrisy in attacking Ilhan Omar and appropriating Jewish suffering. Artist Eli Valley talks about why he drew it and why he believes McCain’s attacks on his cartoon prove the very point he was making."]

Umansky, Eric. "Breaking News Consumer's Handbook: Mueller Edition." On the Media (March 1, 2019) ["Amid Michael Cohen's explosive testimony before Congress this week, Special Counsel Robert Mueller pursued his two-pronged investigation quietly in the background: into whether President Trump, his family, or his aides colluded with Russia to help him win in 2016, and whether they’ve interfered with any investigations into election-related activity. Overwhelming and extremely difficult to parse, filled with misfires, false alarms and intoxicating intrigue, the media have turned the saga of Mueller’s secret investigation into the best-worst crime drama never written. To date, the press have reported on nearly 150 characters in the Mueller probe, including politicians, investigators, businessmen, petty criminals, offspring and erstwhile Trump aides. All potential clues with potential roles in the Special Counsel’s forthcoming final report. And so, to help you make sense of the rumors and revelations to come, we bring you the latest of our Breaking News Consumer's Handbooks: Mueller Edition."]