Scandal

6 ways US gov’t is breaking own censorship record
The Obama administration claimed an unmatched commitment to government transparency this week, even as it denied or delayed more requests for public information than ever, and claimed exemption from freedom of information laws. After announcing that its Office of Administration would no longer be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on the National Freedom of Information Day, the Wh [...]
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Mass spying on UK citizens “essential,” say MPs in landmark report
A Parliamentary report examining the mass collection of private communications by UK security agencies has defended the practice as “essential.” The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report, published on Thursday, said only a “tiny” proportion of data collected was ever seen by human eyes. [...]
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50,000 casualties in Ukraine: German intel says “official figures not credible”
The German intelligence service estimates the real losses in the Ukrainian civil war at 50,000 dead (civilians and servicemen), which is nearly 10 times higher than reported by the Kiev authorities, German media report. The information comes from a source in German intelligence, who spoke to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAZ) newspaper. [...]
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Blitzkrieg turned mayhem: Hacktivists claim they reveal Ukrainian troops’ annihilation
Ukraine's subversive hacker group CyberBerkut has published documents allegedly exposing dreadful situation with the Kiev's troops attacking separatist forces in the East: war crimes, tremendous loss of lives and wholesale desertion of entrapped troops. The anti-government activists claim they have hacked personal computer of Ukraine’s Judge Advocate General and copied a number of classified [...]
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British couple stranded in NYC with £130,000 medical bill, son born prematurely
A British couple have been left stranded in New York City for the next three months with a £130,000 ($200,000) medical bill after their son was born 11 weeks earlier than expected. Katie Amos, 30, and her fiancée Lee Johnston, 29, were not prepared for their son Dax to be born at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan during a Christmas trip to the city. The couple had planned the trip as a last ho [...]
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2014 as we saw it: Top 10 NEWS videos of the year
From planes to protests to presidents – and even the odd pitched battle. Plenty of videos gave us pause for thought in 2014, bringing a new dimension to news stories from around the world. Immediate aftermath of MH17 crash, Amateur video surfaced showing the horrific aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine, which killed all 298 people on board in July. [...]
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“CIA fingerprints” all over Kiev massacre – Oliver Stone
The armed coup in Kiev is painfully similar to CIA operations to oust unwanted foreign leaders in Iran, Chile and Venezuela, said US filmmaker Oliver Stone after interviewing Ukraine's ousted president for a documentary. Stone spent four hours in Moscow talking to Viktor Yanukovich, who was deposed from power during the February 2014 coup, the filmmaker wrote on his Facebook page. [...]
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10 most shocking facts we found in CIA torture report
The so-called "torture report" released by the Senate this week contains only a fraction of the findings on how the CIA aimed to gather intelligence from detainees through interrogation. Still, it contains more than a few shocking revelations. According to the Senate committee’s findings released on Tuesday, the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, used against foreign prisoners [...]
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Not-so-magnificent 7: Nations Named & Shamed in CIA torture report
Fifty-four countries were named in the Senate report into US terror activities around the world. Here are seven governments whose leaders will be having sleepless nights trying to come up with excuses to explain their actions. [...]
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Ron Paul: “US provoking war with Russia, could result in total destruction”
Former congressman Ron Paul has lashed out at the resolution the House passed against Russia, branding it "one of the worst pieces of legislation ever." It could even pave the way for a potential war with Russia, as it was with Iraq, he warns. Resolution 758 strongly condemns the actions of Russia under Vladimir Putin, for what it describes as a policy of “aggression against neighboring count [...]
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Kiev’s military ‘requests’ for US aid leaked by Ukrainian hacker group
Ukraine's anti-government CyberBerkut hacker group published documents allegedly showing Kiev's detailed demands for money from the US military, and Washington agreeing to giving them support. According to hacktivists, who made the documents public on Tuesday, the Ukrainian military have recently been asking for and being promised financial support from the United States, worth hundreds of thou [...]
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CIA wants to delete thousands of emails as Obama administration stalls release of torture report
The CIA wants to erase tens of thousands of internal emails sent by most covert and counterterror officers after they leave the agency, leading US senators and transparency advocates to fear the plan would mean the loss of vital government records. The spy agency’s proposal, first submitted to the National Archives in January but only now revealed to the public, would mean only the emails of [...]
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NSA Firefoxed: Mozilla team-up with Tor to improve internet privacy
The internet browser Mozilla is teaming up with Tor to give internet users greater security online. The new Polaris project is designed to combat internet censorship and make NSA like intrusion's a thing of the past. Edward Snowden’s revelations concerning the extent of the National Security Agency’s spying on the general public, hit computer and internet enthusiasts hard. A poll conducted [...]
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‘Win ugly or lose pretty’: “Dr. Evil” lobbyist teaches US oil and gas execs to play dirty
A top US political consultant, dubbed "Dr. Evil", has been caught on tape at an industry conference, advising oil and gas execs to regard public policy as "endless war" and to play on people's fear and greed to lobby their interests. Richard Berman's speech, which he gave in June in Colorado Springs, was leaked to The New York Times by one of the participant's at the conference who said: "It ju [...]
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Putin lashes out at US, West for destabilizing world
Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States and the West for destabilizing the world order of checks and balances for its own gains. He also accused the West of inflaming the situation in Ukraine and said Russia is not interested in building an empire. The Russian President delivered a fierce broadside aimed at the United States in a speech for the Valdai Club in Sochi, which is an informal [...]
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Well-‘red’: MI5 spied on prominent academics ‘for decades’, secret docs show
British intelligence services, including MI5, secretly spied on a number of prominent academics with socialist leanings "for decades," including Oxbridge dons Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm, secret files disclosed on Friday show. The historians were among a number academics at the UK’s top universities who were placed under rigorous surveillance by the security services after officers b [...]
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Kiev secretly received data from MH17 crash investigators – Ukrainian hacktivists
Ukrainian CyberBerkut hacktivists claim that they have penetrated the internal network of Ukraine's Defense Ministry and found proof that Kiev is getting secret data from MH17 crash investigators, including information which implies its involvement. A document, posted on the website cyber-berkut.net, and allegedly downloaded from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry network, dates back to August 7 and [...]
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Democrats abandon unpopular Obama on eve of midterm elections
With his second and final term in office nearly half-way done, United States President Barack Obama, who enjoyed record popularity after first being elected in 2008, is struggling to keep up with the ratings of wildly unpopular predecessor George W. Bush. Fallout isn’t unexpected during so-called “lame duck” sessions in which reelection is ruled out and campaigning for office is no longer [...]
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‘Fascists, get out!’ Spanish students eject protesting Ukraine nationalists (VIDEO)
Students at the Complutense University of Madrid kicked out several radical Ukrainians who stormed into a lecture, trying to provoke a fight. Posters reading, 'Ukraine besieged by fascism will not happen,' appeared in campus halls after the incident. The university faculty of political sciences and sociology is currently hosting an exhibition titled, "Humanitarian crisis in southeastern Ukraine [...]
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