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Ex-CIA officer: Torture great way to get false confessions


RT.com
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:30 UTC
Image
Torture brings forth unreliable information and false confessions, apart from the fact that it is a serious violation of all manner of international agreements, former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT.

"You can't get reliable information from torture. But torture works beautifully if you want unreliable information" says McGovern.

His comments come amid the trial of John Kiriakou, a CIA veteran sentenced to two years in prison, after leaking sensitive information about Washington's torture program.

Kiriakou, the man who oversaw the capture of Al-Qaeda's third-in-command, blew the lid on America's torture program, revealing the name of an alleged torturer at Guantanamo Bay.

Kiriakou came out against Washington's torture program supporting the notion that torture is illegal, says McGovern adding that the accusations against Kiriakou are political and he is being punished out due to rank-hypocrisy.
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Propaganda

Thought Crime: UK MP David Ward could be kicked out after suggesting 'the Jews' had not learned the lessons of the Holocaust

Tamara Cohen and Matt Chorley
The Daily Mail
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 09:04 UTC
David Ward
© Unknown
Lib Dem MP David Ward
A Liberal Democrat MP faces expulsion from the party for saying 'the Jews' had not learned from the murder of six million in the Holocaust, in their treatment of the Palestinian people.

David Ward, MP for Bradford East, wrote on his own website that he was 'saddened' that they 'could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians...on a daily basis.'

He defended his comments in interviews saying they were a 'just a statement of fact' and said 'it appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.'

His remarks were made ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday, although Mr Ward who said he had attended events to remember its victims and had visited Auschwitz twice.


Comment: But as we have seen over and over again, facts and the truth not permissible when it comes to any discussion of the Zionist regime in Isreal. Mr Ward's words have been selectively edited; what he actually said was:
The Holocaust was one of the worst examples in history of man's inhumanity to man. When faced with examples of atrocious behaviour, we must learn from them. It appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.
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Crusader

British man claims he was tortured and forced to sign confessions by CIA


RT.com
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:28 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Mohammed Ameen
A British man who was handed over to the CIA under the suspicion of being an Islamist terrorist says he was severely tortured by collaborators of the intelligence agency and forced to sign a confession.

Mahdi Hashi, a 23-year-old from London with a Somali background, was stripped of his British citizenship last year for being a suspected terrorist. After disappearing from England and spending months in a prison in the African country of Djibouti, he has turned up in a New York City courtroom, charged with terrorism offenses, the Daily Mail reports.

The young man told his British lawyers that he was severely abused and tortured while imprisoned in Africa, where CIA interrogators questioned him between the months of August and November. Although secret police in Djibouti were responsible for much of the torture, he says they worked in collaboration with US interrogators from the CIA and FBI.

Hashi says that Djibouti interrogators stripped him down to his underwear and threatened him with rape and sexual abuse while he was blindfolded, threatened to beat and electrocute him, and forced him to watch the torture that other prisoners endured.
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Network

Homeland Security's Napolitano invokes 9/11 to push for Internet control


RT.com
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:21 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Baz Ratner
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
In an attempt to scare the public with a looming cyber attack on US infrastructure, US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is once again pushing Congress to pass legislation allowing the government to have greater control over the Internet.

Napolitano issued the warnings Thursday, claiming that inaction could result in a "cyber 9/11" attack that could knock out water, electricity and gas, causing destruction similar to that left behind by Hurricane Sandy.

Napolitano said that in order to prevent such an attack, Congress must pass legislation that gives the US government greater access to the Internet and cybersecurity information from the private sector. Such a bill, known as CISPA or Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was already introduced last year, but failed to pass in Congress due to concerns expressed by businesses and privacy advocates.

"We shouldn't wait until there is a 9/11 in the cyber world. There are things we can and should be doing right now that, if not prevent, would mitigate the extent of the damage," Napolitano said in a speech at the Wilson Center, a Washington, DC think tank.
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Document

Mississippi bill aims to 'neutralize' some federal laws and protect 'sovereignty'

Samantha Kimmey
Raw Story
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:19 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
Two legislators in Mississippi are tired of what they claim is the federal government's overreach on states' rights - and want to take legislative action to stop it.

House Bill 490 seeks to nullify federal laws "outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal government in the United States Constitution" and that the state repudiates "this unauthorized and excessive abuse of power," reported the Clarion-Ledger.

The bill, if passed, would create a committee to look at federal laws and executive orders and decide which constitute overreach and should be "neutralized."
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Yoda

Swartz legacy: How we stopped SOPA copyright law

Joe Friendly
YouTube
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 04:08 UTC
Aaron H. Swartz (November 8, 1986 -- January 11, 2013) speaking at ThoughtWorks on August 16, 2012, tells how a tiny number of online activists managed to defeat SOPA, the Internet censoring bill, pushed by the entertainment industry, which had spent hundreds of millions of dollars per year trying to get it passed.

Aaron Swartz, 26, was found dead Jan 11, 2013 in his New York apartment, an apparent suicide. He had apparently hanged himself. Swartz's girlfriend discovered the body.

Aaron Swartz became an Internet folk hero, pushing to make many Web files free and open to the public. But in July 2011, he was indicted on federal charges of gaining illegal access to JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals, and downloading 4.8 million articles and documents, nearly the entire library.

Charges in the case, including wire fraud and computer fraud, were pending at the time of Mr. Swartz's death, carrying potential penalties of up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines. Lawrence Lessig of the Safra Center at Harvard who worked for a time on behalf of Swartz's legal defense denounced the federal bullying: Why was it so necessary Aaron Swartz be labeled a felon? Legally, a felony requires an evil heart!
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Eye 1

Swartz legacy: US Govt pretends to support civil liberties while destroying them


Russia Today, US Edition
Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:02 UTC
Speaking at The Hague today at a conference on internet Freedom co-hosted by Google, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it "an urgent task" to preserve civil liberties online. But just how much do the involved actors like Clinton and Google's Schmidt, practice what they preach? Aaron Swartz founder of Demand Progress weighs in.

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Eye 1

Swartz legacy: NSA 'spying on more than they can handle'


Russia Today, US Edition
Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:37 UTC
The House Judiciary Committee approved a reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act, which gives the government broad powers to spy on the communications of Americans as long as one of the parties is reasonably believed to be outside the U.S. Just yesterday, Senator's Ron Wyden and Mark Udall received a response from the NSA, whom they had asked for a number of how many persons inside the U.S. have been spied on by the NSA. Well NSA said they can't say because it would violate your privacy. Aaron Swartz, Executive Director of Demand Progress discusses.

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Smoking

'Obamacare' to hit smokers with huge penalties


RT
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:00 UTC
smoker
© AFP Photo / Justin Sullivan
Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama's Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.

The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called "Obamacare", could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.

A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker's penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.

Nearly one in every five U.S. adults smokes, with a higher number of low-income people addicted to the unhealthy habit. Even though smokers are more likely to develop heart disease, cancer and lung problems and would therefore require more health care, the penalties might devastate those who need help the most - including retirees, older Americans, and low-income individuals.
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Megaphone

Powerful: Belgian MP exposes truth behind West's 'War on Terror'


Activist Post
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:21 UTC
On January the 17th, 32-year-old Belgium MP Laurent Louis, considered one of the most controversial and demonized national political figures, delivered the most powerful truth ever told in a political arena.

First, he explained why he voted against the Belgian support to war in Mali, that it was based on lies and rooted in neo-colonialism. Then he expressed his disgust and wrath against the criminal foreign policies of the Western elite and its submission to foreign financial and interest groups, before scolding his colleagues who voted for interventionist war with "fuck you's". Finally, he says that the war on terror is a lie and that 9/11 was a false flag to justify aggressive military action in the Muslim world.

Click on the "Captions" icon to get the English subtitles. You won't be disappointed.
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