The FBI and major media outlets yesterday trumpeted the agency's latest counterterrorism triumph: the arrest of three Brooklyn men, ages 19 to 30, on charges of conspiring to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS (photo of joint FBI/NYPD press conference, above). As my colleague Murtaza Hussain ably documents, "it appears that none of the three men was in any condition to travel or support the Islamic State, without help from the FBI informant." One of the frightening terrorist villains told the FBI informant that, beyond having no money, he had encountered a significant problem in following through on the FBI's plot: his mom had taken away his passport. Noting the bizarre and unhinged ranting of one of the suspects, Hussain noted on Twitter that this case "sounds like another victory for the FBI over the mentally ill."

In this regard, this latest arrest appears to be quite similar to the overwhelming majority of terrorism arrests the FBI has proudly touted over the last decade. As my colleague Andrew Fishman and I wrote last month — after the FBI manipulated a 20-year-old loner who lived with his parents into allegedly agreeing to join an FBI-created plot to attack the Capitol — these cases follow a very clear pattern:

Every day signs are looming larger than life as we know it in the wealthiest nation on earth that it's about to crash and burn, forever changing not for the better. The latest wake-up call arrived in a Guardian article earlier this week. The story features a secret prison not unlike the CIA torture detention centers all over the world whereby the Chicago police hold rounded up US citizens for hours or days at a time for interrogation. The same internationally illegal roundups of suspected "potential terrorists" (which by latest Gestapo America standards can easily be you or me) that the CIA and military black ops deploy globally, are being covertly conducted not only in Obama's hometown where his thug buddy Rahm rules, but likely every US city and soon coming to a neighborhood near you.

The complete loss of constitutional civil liberties where we can be taken in without warrant, locked up and shackled for indefinite periods of time, where to all our friends and family we simply disappear, those totalitarian Orwellian tactics are here today in secret CIA-like "black site" locations throughout the nation. Lawyers are summarily turned away. Those imprisoned are not booked nor entered in any record-keeping system, only to typically be beaten and shackled. It was determined that one man at the Chicago site already died while in custody. If this inhumane brutality hidden from public view is operating in one major US metropolis, it means that these secret police detention centers are no doubt also up and running in secret locations throughout America. This worst case scenario of police state USA is just one more nightmare come true. And this comes after it's been determined that Americans are at least 100 times more likely to die at the hands of murdering police than in all other industrialized nations.

For numerous decades the United States has engaged in both high intensive and low intensive counterinsurgency and counterterrorism wars around the globe. But now in the twenty-first century all those same black ops wars have come home to roost right here in the land of the not-so-free. To police state USA all American citizens are the potential enemy. It's also fair to say that the police in countless jails and prisons have unlawfully beaten and killed thousands of US citizens while in police custody over the years. Sadly, this form of murder in covert black sites where inmates are literally tortured to death takes police state brutality and slaughter to a whole new unprecedented level. And of course those of color and poor are most often the victims. Two years ago it was reported that a black man is killed by police every 28 hours. And with the deaths spiking last year, it's more apt to be closer to every 24 hours now.

On a far less shocking and dramatic note, the latest FCC 3 to 2 vote on Thursday to "maintain net neutrality" has been treated in the press as a triumph for the people. Yet before we internet users celebrate, several keys factors still need to be pondered. We already know the overriding history in North America where giant transnational corporations enjoy more individual rights than us individuals in this age of globalism. The people may have averted a disastrous lost battle but the war of corporate greed winning out over the rights of people goes on. The FCC's ruling declared that the internet falls under the rules and regulations of the telecommunications industry and we know what's been happening there. Six corporate entities virtually control all the world's major media outlets.

Inna Duritskaya, the mother of Anna Duritskaya, the witness of Nemtsov's murder who was next to him on the Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy bridge, told CNN about her conversation with her daughter right after the tragic event.

Inna Duritskaya said that, according to her daughter, Boris Nemtsov insisted on walking on foot to his apartment in the center of Moscow.

"She waited for Boris in the restaurant. They had supper and went outside. Anna proposed taking a cap, but Boris refused. He wanted to walk across the bridge. She held his hand while they walked. They she heard shots. Boris crumpled and fell to the ground. When Anna realized what was happening, she was so shocked that she did not see what happened. Moreover, he was shot in the back," Inna told CNN.

Anna Duritskaya said earlier that she was in shock after the murder, and that she called her mother in Ukraine during the first minutes after the murder.

All those times when the general population asks if panglossian, clueless economists are smoking crack... apparently there was a reason for that.

When the UK and the rest of Europe proposed and implemented a change to the way GDP is calculated last year (a change which single-handedly pushed Britain above France as the world's 5th largest economy) one which "estimated" the contribution of prostitution and illegal drugs to national economic output, little did we know that such "estimates" would be based on personal experience (also see "How Britain Calculates Its Hooker "GDP Boost": 60,879 Prostitutes x 25 Clients Per Week x £67.16 Per Visit").

Enter professor Douglas McWilliams, 63, head of the well-known Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) think tank and one of the most prominent modern economists, in fact in his own words "one of the world's leading economists...best known for his work in forecasting" as well as advisor (and cheerleader) to none other than UK Chancellor George Osborne.

How the Nemtsov murder investigation is progressing

Nemtsov was shot on Friday night in the very center of Moscow. The investigators immediately classified his murder as a contract killing, however, there are so many possible scenarios that none of them can be classified as the favorite one. The only thing of which the investigators are certain is that the killers were not professionals. In any event, they used an unreliable weapon and ammunition more than 20 years old, and they moreover left alive the main witness of the murder.

Former German politician Sebastian Edathy has confessed in court to using his official work laptop to download pornographic videos and images of children from the Internet. He was fined 5,000 euros.
Following Edathy's admission, the Verden District Court in the German state of Lower Saxony on Monday handed the former Social Democrats (SPD) deputy a fine of 5,000 euros ($5,600), bringing the trial to an end.

Search Engine giant Google, the major driver of traffic to the majority of media portals is moving to change the way it ranks websites, declaring that it intends to use known partisan debunking outlets to determine the "truthfulness" of content.

Currently, Google rankings are determined by the number of incoming links to a web page, meaning that if a story becomes popular it can be driven to the top of search results, and by viewed by millions of people.

However, this is a little too democratic for the liking of some, who only like to get their "facts" from pre-approved sources.

The proposed solution, according to a Google funded research team is to compute a "Knowledge-Based Trust score" for every web page, based on Google's own "Knowledge Vault", an automated database that determines "facts the web unanimously agrees on," according to the New Scientist.

"A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy," says the research team.

Palestine's first complaint against Israel's alleged war crimes will be filed at the International Criminal Court in April, according to a senior Palestinian official. The issue will reportedly be related to the 2014 war in Gaza.

"One of the first important steps will be filing a complaint against Israel at the ICC on April 1 over the [2014] Gaza war and settlement activity," Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) told AP on Monday.

The Palestinians will be able to take legal action at the court based in The Hague, Netherlands, after the nation moved to join the international authority formally in January. According to the court's procedures, "the statute will enter into force for the State of Palestine on April 1."

King Abdullah of Jordan has called the battle against the Islamic State "World War 3" in what is a "generational fight" to overcome these "outlaws of Islam." Speaking to CNN, he implored all religions to come together, adding "this is our war."

He made a point of referring to the fight against the Islamic State as a "third World War" and called upon all nations to come together to help counter the threat posed by the militant group since they conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria last year.

"So this is our war. And we have a moral responsibility to reach out to those Muslims, to protect them, and to stop them before they reach our border," King Abdullah said, speaking to CNN.

Perhaps believing by virtue of having admitted the murder of Russian opposition member Boris Nemtsov in Russia's capital of Moscow Friday evening in no way served the Russian government's best interests, the US State Department believes it can deflect guilt from being shifted towards its direction.

Indeed, the US State Department through its Voice of America media network - chaired by the US Secretary of State himself - would state in an online article titled, "Could Nemtsov Threaten Putin in Death as in Life?," that (emphasis added):

With the murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, gunned down on a Moscow street, the fiercest critic of President Vladimir Putin has been removed from the political stage. But it remains to be seen whether, in death as in life, Nemtsov will remain a threat to Putin's rule.

Already, city authorities have approved a mass march for up to 50,000 people in central Moscow on Sunday. The march, expected to be far larger than the scheduled protest rally it replaces, will provide a powerful platform for Kremlin critics who suspect a government hand in Nemtsov's death.

Even officials in Putin's government seem to sense the danger that the former first deputy prime minister's martyrdom might pose, hinting darkly that Friday night's drive-by shooting may have been an deliberate "provocation" ahead of the planned weekend rally.

While this logic has clearly not escaped the US State Department's media network, it stops short of clearly implicating the Russian opposition and its foreign backers (the US State Department itself) as the chief suspects in Nemtsov's murder - though the article clearly states only the opposition (and in turn, their foreign sponsors) stood to benefit from his death.