“The game is rigged, the network is bugged, the government talks double-speak, the courts are complicit and there’s nothing you can do about it.”—David Kravets, reporting for Wired Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore. As constitutional law professor Garrett Epps points out, “Big Brother is watching…. Big Brother may be watching you right now, and you may never know. Since 9/11, our national life has changed forever. Surveillance is the new...

The Republican House Budget Committee just released its plan for how to balance the budget. One little catch is that the proposal talks only of the possibility of this happening in 10 years. The Democrats, they complain, don’t even try to balance the budget. Well, at least they’re more honest about it. It used to be that we looked at five-year plans in the socialist systems, but here we are facing a conservative proposal to “maybe” balance the budget in 10 years. This achievement will occur,...

Despite the high stakes involved in the confrontation between nuclear-armed Russia and the United States over Ukraine, the US intelligence community has not updated its assessment on a critical turning point of the crisis – the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 – since five days after the crash last July 17, according to the office of the Director of National Intelligence. On Thursday, when I inquired about arranging a possible briefing on where that US intelligence assessment...

As Iran continues to take an active role in helping Iraq fight ISIS, many US neocons are upset that the US military is not over there on the ground doing the fighting. They want Americans to believe that only another US invasion of Iraq – and of Syria as well – can defeat ISIS. But what is wrong with the countries of the region getting together and deciding to cooperate on a common problem? While the entry of Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias into ISIS-occupied areas may not be ideal – there is...

President George W. Bush’s national security advisor, Condi Rice, warned Americans that Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction could result in a mushroom cloud going up over an American city. No such threat existed. But today a very real threat exists over all American cities, and the national security advisor does not notice. The threat issues from Washington and arises from the demonization of Russia and its leadership. Wolf Blitzer (CNN, March 13) used the cover of a...

The American Empire has been long in the making. A green light was given in 1990 to finalize that goal. Dramatic events occurred that year that allowed the promoters of the American Empire to cheer. It also ushered in the current 25-year war to solidify the power necessary to manage a world empire. Most people in the world now recognize this fact and assume that the empire is here to stay for a long time. That remains to be seen. Empires come and go. Some pop up quickly and disappear in the...

For a century and a half, the idea of secession has been systematically demonized among the American public. The government’s schools spin fairy tales about the “indivisible Union” and the wise statesmen who fought to preserve it. Decentralization is portrayed as unsophisticated and backward, while nationalism and centralization are made to seem progressive and inevitable. When a smaller political unit wishes to withdraw from a larger one, its motives must be disreputable and base, while the...

Ever since the advent of the Cold War, US officials have told us that it was necessary for the United States to adopt the totalitarian structure known as the national-security state in order to combat communist totalitarianism. We are now witnessing a similar spectacle with respect to President Obama’s exercise of dictatorial powers to deal with the socialist regime of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. Obama’s justification for his embrace of dictatorial powers would undoubtedly be the...

Policy intellectuals — eggheads presuming to instruct the mere mortals who actually run for office — are a blight on the republic. Like some invasive species, they infest present-day Washington, where their presence strangles common sense and has brought to the verge of extinction the simple ability to perceive reality. A benign appearance — well-dressed types testifying before Congress, pontificating in print and on TV, or even filling key positions in the executive branch — belies a malign...

The US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, visited Baku on 16 February as part of her trip to the Caucasus, which also saw her paying stops in Georgia and Armenia. While Azerbaijan has had positive relations with the US since independence, they’ve lately been complicated by Washington’s "pro-democracy" rhetoric and subversive actions in the country. Nuland’s visit, despite her warm words of friendship, must be look at with maximum suspicion, since...

“The year is 2025. The population is 325 million, and the FBI has the DNA profiles of all of them. Unlike fingerprints, these profiles reveal vital medical information. The universal database arrived surreptitiously. First, the Department of Defense's repository of DNA samples from all military personnel, established to identify remains of soldiers missing from action, was given to the FBI. Then local police across the country shadowed individuals, collecting shed DNA for the databank. On the...