German Chancellor Angela Merkel said allegations of a German working as a double agent for the US intelligence are "serious" and if proven correct contradict the spirit of bilateral cooperation. Merkel on Monday joined in a chorus of German politicians voicing their concern over the arrest of a German intelligence employee for allegedly spying for the US. [...]

Case risks further straining ties with Washington in wake of last year's revelations of NSA's monitoring of Angela Merkel's phone. The German government has demanded an explanation from Washington over the US intelligence services' apparent contact with a German man arrested last week on suspicion of being a double agent, the interior minister said in a newspaper interview. [...]

The arrest of a German intelligence employee for allegedly spying for the US has caused an uproar among German politicians. The country’s foreign minister has demanded an immediate clarification of the situation from Washington. "If the reports are true, then we're not talking about trifles," Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on a visit to Mongolia, DPA reports. [...]

"America ranks 36th among 120 countries when it comes to satisfaction with freedom." Leading up to the Fourth of July, Gallup reports that Americans are less satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives than they were 7 years ago. In 2006, 91 percent of Americans were satisfied with their freedom. That number dropped 12 percentage points to 79 percent in 2013. [...]

A man employed by Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND) has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US. The espionage swoop is the latest of a series of embarrassing intelligence scandals straining ties between the two countries. A 31-year-old German man was been arrested Wednesday on suspicion of being a foreign spy, according to a statement released by the German Federal Prosecutors O [...]

As the cost of Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet continues to grow, so do the headaches: the United States military announced on Thursday that its entire fleet of aircraft has been grounded until engine inspections are completed. The decision comes as the Pentagon struggles to find the source of yet another problem with the $398.6 billion program. [...]

The NSA has been revealed to mark and consider potential "extremists" all users of the internet anonymizer service Tor. Among those are hundreds of thousands of privacy concerned people like journalists, lawyers and rights activists. [...]

Former NSA agents-turned-whistleblowers are testifying before a German parliamentary committee as the Bundestag investigates America's wiretapping methods with one of them branding the NSA approach "totalitarian." It is hoped that evidence from the two US citizens, William Binney and Thomas Drake, will shed light on the methods of surveillance used by the American National Security Agency (NSA) [...]

Americans avoiding US taxes and stashing cash abroad are in trouble from July 1, when a new law forces institutions hiding money to report on their clients. The law will make business with Americans harder, but the US hopes it will raise billions. The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, comes into force on July 1 and requires foreign banks to hand over data on clients to the US Intern [...]

When an anti-austerity march starting from the steps of the BBC fails to make the news, something is rotten in the UK. Speaking with RT, Russell Brand believes that's to be expected, as people would surely rise up if they saw just how exploited they are. [...]

"Apocalypse, Man" is an intimate portrait of a man convinced of the imminent collapse of the world, but with answers to how the human spirit can survive the impending apocalypse. Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Given his tragic death, Michael was an extremely rare person - far beyond what most [...]

Citing concerns over the NSA's wiretapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top officials' phones, the German Interior Ministry announced Thursday that it will not renew its contract with Verizon to provide service for government ministries. As part of an effort to revamp its secure communications networks, the country will instead rely on Germany's Deutsche Telekom, Reuters reported. [...]

The Supreme Court of the United States said Wednesday that police officers must have a warrant before searching the cell phone contents of an individual under arrest. In a unanimous ruling announced early Wednesday, the high court settled two cases surrounding instances in which law enforcement officials scoured the mobile phones of suspects in custody and then used information contained therein t [...]

Inheriting both the weapons and the mindset of the US military, police are becoming militarized and "hyper aggressive" in their approach to maintaining security on the streets of America. New study calls on police not to treat people as "wartime enemies." [...]

The United States has made top-secret deals with more than 30 third-party countries so that the National Security Agency can tap into fiber optic cables carrying internet data in those parts of the world, new leaks reveal. Documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and published on Wednesday by journalists at The Intercept and Denmark’s Dagbladet Information show publically for t [...]

Cooperation between Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, and America's NSA is deeper than previously believed. German agents appear to have crossed into constitutionally questionable territory. Three months before Edward Snowden shocked the world with his revelations, members of NSA's "Special Source Operations department" [...]

An analysis of secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden demonstrates that the NSA is more active in Germany than anywhere else in Europe -- and that data collected here may have helped kill suspected terrorists. Just before Christmas 2005, an unexpected event disrupted the work of American spies in the south-central German city of Wiesbaden. [...]

In a bid to beef up its missile defense systems, the United States Department of Defense intends to request $4.5 billion in additional spending over the next five years, according to a report by Reuters. The move – disclosed by Riki Ellison of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance and two unnamed congressional sources – comes partly in response to failed tests that have shown the interceptors [...]

Despite a decade of testing and tens of billions of dollars'€™ worth of research, a major missile defense program in the United States has proven to be anything but successful, a new investigation suggests. Nevertheless, the Missile Defense Agency, or MDA, plans on conducting next week its ninth exercise of that costly system since 2004, and the outcome of the drill is expected to influence whet [...]

Total US debt soars to nearly $60 trn, foreshadows new recession! The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis released the current data for the total debt in the United States Economy on June 5, 2014 — All Sectors; Credit Market Instruments; Liability, Level (TCMDO). While people, companies, and governments blamed bad weather for a dismal showing in economic activity, it appears they had little troubl [...]

Florida is sinking and it’s not because of climate change. A new report, Florida – A State of Embarassment, by the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans (FLARA), categorizes the reasons why seniors and young families should not move there. [...]

US federal authorities have been increasingly involved with local police departments and criminal trials in an attempt to keep details of vast domestic surveillance policies under wraps, according to a new report from the Associated Press. [...]