25 Sep 2015

How A Dancing Baby Video Helped Save The Online Right To Fair Use

Published in partnership with MintPress News. SAN FRANCISCO — Free speech activists are hailing a recent court decision about a dancing baby video which they say protects Internet fair use, a critical free speech right, from corporate repression. The 29-second video, published in 2007 by Stephanie Lenz, shows her 13-month-old

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24 Sep 2015

‘Snowden Treaty’ Under Review By Multiple Countries

A draft of the “Snowden Treaty,” which would expand international legal obligations to protect privacy and whistleblowers, is under review by multiple countries. The “International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers” — is spearheaded by activist David Miranda and Avaaz campaign director Dalia Hasad.

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24 Sep 2015

No Disclosure Of Foreign Participants In Corruption Probe Of BNY Mellon

Last August, the SEC reached an agreement with BNY Mellon wherein the bank paid $14.8 million to settle charges that the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by hiring unqualified interns in exchange for continued access to an unnamed “Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Fund.” Not only was the sovereign wealth fund involved in the corruption not named, neither where the two officials who asked for jobs for their relatives.

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24 Sep 2015

US Targets Bolivia With Secret Drug Indictments Against Evo Morales’ Government

A Drug Enforcement Agency informant-turned whistleblower revealed the agency’s plot to undermine the Bolivian government through secret indictments for cocaine trafficking.

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24 Sep 2015

‘Snowden Treaty’: Global Campaign to Promote Privacy, Protect Whistleblowers

Journalists and activists will present an international treaty they want countries to sign to promote privacy and protect whistleblowers.

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24 Sep 2015

Grijalva Rails Against Contracts Permitted In His Own Prison Reform Bill

Progressive Arizona congressman Raúl Grijalva expressed dismay that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signed an $11 million contract with GEO Care because its parent company, GEO Group, profits off detaining women and children in horrific conditions. Yet, remarkably, Grijalva is the sponsor of a bill, which contains specific exemptions allowing companies

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23 Sep 2015

Abu Ghraib Torture Survivors Appeal Dismissal of Lawsuit Against CACI Interrogators

Iraqis tortured and abused at the Abu Ghraib prison appealed the dismissal of their claims against contractors from CACI International, Inc. Over the past seven years, the civil tort case has wound its way through federal courts, as it has been amended, appealed, dismissed and then re-instated. Most recently, on June

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23 Sep 2015

Former CIA Agent John Kiriakou Takes Us Inside The Saudi Terror Factory

Originally published at Mint Press News. CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou returns to join Mnar Muhawesh on “Behind the Headline,” going into greater depth on Saudi Arabia’s role in manufacturing terrorism by re-writing the entire religious history of Islam and engineering hadeeth to serve its own political & oil interests. The effects

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23 Sep 2015

Exxon Can’t Explain Shift From Climate Science To Climate Denial Funding

In an unusually intense interview featured on the National Public Radio (NPR) program On the Media, ExxonMobil spokesman and former journalist Richard Keil repeatedly failed to offer a reasonable explanation in response to charges that the energy giant shifted funding in the 1980s away from climate scientists and towards climate

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23 Sep 2015

The Heavy Price Families And Communities Pay For Incarceration

A new report details how families pay a high price for the incarceration of a relative—a price “felt most deeply by women, low-income families and communities of color.”  It examines the various ways families and former prisoners “pay” for their incarceration, even after they are released. The report, “Who Pays? The True Cost Of

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