In a new decision in support of the NSA’s phone metadata surveillance program, U.S. district court Judge William Pauley cites an intelligence failure involving the agency in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. But the judge’s cited source, the 9/11 Commission Report, doesn’t actually include the account he gives in the ruling. What’s more, experts […]

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Citing concerns about linking to classified material, Johns Hopkins University asked a professor this morning to remove a blog post discussing  last week’s revelations about the NSA’s efforts to break encryption. The post had linked to government documents published by ProPublica, the Guardian, and the New York Times. Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins, which is short drive from the […]

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(Trayvon Martin | Source: news reports) Black people are upset. The killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, and Zimmerman’s subsequent acquittal, are the most recent matches on a tinderbox of legitimate black anger and alienation in America today. Black men and boys are feared, followed and frisked based solely on their appearance. Black unemployment […]

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Courts are not well-suited to deal with scientific questions. There is a judge: an appointed or elected lawyer who interprets the law. And there is a jury: randomly selected citizens who interpret the facts. On July 24, a six-person jury in a federal courtroom in Austin arrived at a decision that will find its way […]

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Imagine you hear gunshots down the street and you call the police, but they take an hour to show up. Imagine the victim is your son, and you don’t call the ambulance because you know it isn’t coming, so you drive to the hospital yourself. These are real stories from Detroit, a city so broke […]

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