The second-largest telecom country in the United States has been on the Central Intelligence Agency’s payroll to the tune of $10 million a year in exchange for voluntarily handing over troves of phone logs, the New York Times reported Thursday. Citing federal officials with knowledge of the program, The Times’ Charlie Savage [...]

Britain is using its Berlin embassy to spy on the nearby Bundestag, as well as the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Concern was raised following the latest Snowden revelations and prompted the German FM to invite the British ambassador "for a talk." The news comes just one week after the alleged closure of an American listening "nest" just 150 meters away from the British embassy [...]

Despite more than two-dozen video recordings showing otherwise, President Obama said that he never promised Americans they'€™d be able to keep their health care plans under the Affordable Care Act. Speaking to supporters in Washington on Monday, Obama claimed that in the past, he said, “You could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed.” [...]

It seems that President Obama is very much aware of the effects of his drone campaign, as he reportedly told aides he'€™s "€œreally good at killing people."€ The quote comes from a new book called “Double Down,” by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, which chronicles the inside story of the 2012 election. [...]

An anti-nuclear lawmaker broke a taboo, drawing heavy criticism in Japan, by handing the Emperor a letter of concern over the issue of the growing Fukushima radiation and the impact on children’s health. [...]

The White House is at a loss as it not only depended on espionage in formulating its policies, but also nobody can trust its word anymore, former US Senate foreign policy analyst James Petras told RT. The latest news on monitoring of phone calls in France, and probably German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own cellphone, brought anger from the French and German governments this week. [...]

The first videos of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have surfaced since he received asylum in Russia. The footage, provided by WikiLeaks, was taken during the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence awards ceremony. [...]

In sharp reaction to the latest NSA leak revealing Canada’s acute interest in the Brazilian mining industry, President Dilma Rousseff condemned the “cyberwar” launched by the US and its allies against Brazil and demanded they stop the espionage. Rousseff’s initial fiery comments came via her Twitter account, where she posted 9 messages in a row condemning Canada’s alleged spying [...]

Contrasting reactions in India and Brazil to revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the US government'€™s intrusive surveillance of communications in the two countries are a study in varying diplomatic style, substance and context. Recent confirmation from journalists working with Snowden that India was a prime victim caught in the crosshairs of the NSA’s megalithic data-swe [...]

American investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald say they have teamed up to prepare a report on the National Security Agency's role in what one of them described as the "US assassination program." “The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don't want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its center how the Nation [...]

The US National Security Agency has been exploiting US citizens' personal information drawn from its large collection of metadata to create complex graphs of social connections for foreign intelligence purposes, the latest Snowden leaks have revealed. Documents obtained by the New York Times from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden say that the practice has been going on since November 2010, [...]

Leading members of the United States intelligence community continued to defend the government's vast surveillance programs in Washington on Thursday and suggested that those agency's capabilities exceed what's been previously reported. During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon, lawmakers asked representatives from the National Security Agency, [...]

Venezuela has sent a letter to the UN chief asking him to take measures against the United States over the denial of visas for some members of its delegation who are scheduled to attend the UN General Assembly in New York. The letter sent by Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, requests that the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon take action in response to the apparent denial of visas, w [...]

European diplomats are holding Israel accountable over an incident where IDF servicemen attacked a EU humanitarian convoy in the West Bank on Friday. So far Tel Aviv has left the scandal in limbo, offering no official explanation for the incident. [...]