I've always loved the First Amendment, it's my favorite constitutional amendment of them all. (Close behind is the Third, which forbids the government from quartering soldiers in our homes.)

So it makes me feel great when top U.S. officials talk about how much America supports free speech. As Obama told the whole world at the UN last year, true democracy "depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds ... efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics."

And who's going to stop the bad guys? We are, because as Obama's also said, "standing up for our values at home is only part of our work. Around the world, we stand up for values that are universal." I sincerely love that, hearing it makes me a little verklempt about being American.

So ever since I heard about the UK's treatment of David Miranda, I've been waiting for the U.S. to bring the hammer down. Miranda is the husband of journalist Glenn Greenwald, and was carrying encrypted NSA documents from Laura Poitras in Berlin back to Greenwald in Brazil - when he was stopped and held at London's Heathrow airport for nine hours.

According to the British government, what Miranda did "falls within the definition of terrorism." And he was held at Heathrow under the UK Terrorism Act of 2000.

I guess some would say the British could have questioned him under some other law. But claiming that journalism = terrorism? It's hard to square that with the popular image of Great Britain - those people on Dowtown Abbey all seem so nice. No matter what your perspective is on Edward Snowden, everyone should be able to agree this was an ominous sign. It's what the worst countries on earth do.

But don't just take my word for it. According to Under Secretary of State Tara Sonenshine last April, many awful governments "misuse terrorism laws to prosecute and imprison journalists." And then Tara told us we all have to fight back:

The United States of America was built on freedom of expression. It was one of our first breaths of life as a nation - and remains an indispensible and enduring element of who we are.

And it is a fundamental freedom for all people, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights...

We urge all people - members of news organizations, civil society and think tank institutions; political leaders, scholars, and citizens of every faith and ethnicity - to call for accountability. To demand that governments enforce human rights that protect journalists and this fundamental freedom. To shine a light on long-standing and emerging repressive restrictions on, and threats to, freedom of expression whether they are through traditional media or online.

I heard this and I was raring to go. I thought the first person who could help with the Miranda situation would be Tara herself - she's left the State Department and is now totally free to speak her mind. So I got in touch and waited for her to get back to me. Was she just going to issue a statement ripping the Brits a new one? My guess was no - clearly this is something she feels so strongly about she's going to insist on leading the demonstration at the British Embassy herself.

The U.S. Army's Operating Concept 2016-2028 was issued in August 2010 with three goals. First, it aims to portray how future Army forces will conduct operations as part of a joint force to deter conflict, prevail in war, and succeed in a range of contingencies, at home and abroad. Second, the concept describes the employment of Army forces at the tactical and operational levels of war between 2016 and 2028. Third, in broad terms the concept describes how Army headquarters, from theater army to division, organize and use their forces. The concept goes on to describe the major categories of Army operations, identify the capabilities required of Army forces, and guide how force development should be prioritized. The goal of this concept is to establish a common frame of reference for thinking about how the US Army will conduct full spectrum operations in the coming two decades (US Army Training and Doctrine Command, The Army Operating Concept 2016 - 2028, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1, dated 19 August 2010, p. iii. Hereafter cited as TD Pam 525-3-1. The Army defines full spectrum operations as the combination of offensive, defensive, and either stability operations overseas or civil support operations on U.S. soil).

CNN's Drew Griffin reports on his findings that 100 lobbyists are related to members of Congress.

The capitalization upon the Psychology of Fear to implement the 'War on Terrorism' du jour was best demonstrated in Operation Gladio of yesteryear when self-inflicted terror by NATO's Stay Behind Armies was used to keep the fear of Communism alive among the skeptical public in Western Europe. Watch the BBC Ch 02 Time Watch 3-part series on Operation Gladio below. Despite being a much sanitized version of manufactured terror to push a global political agenda in Western Europe, namely the fear of communism taking over, the BBC documentary is still very revealing as an ex post facto narrative. There is much that can be learnt from it to comprehend the often confusing current affairs of today before this epoch too passes on into future history as fait accompli. History evidently repeats itself in spades. Part-3 of the Gladio documentary has the following statement quoted from the US Army's Top Secret Field Manual:

"Top Secret: There may be times when host country governments show passivity or indecision in the face of Communist subversion ... US Army Intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince host country governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger ... US Army Intelligence should seek to penetrate the insurgency by means of agents of special assignments, with the task of forming special action groups among the most radical elements of the insurgency."

Replacing "Communist subversion" with "Islamofascist terror" can be a revealing exercise. Daniele Ganser's 2005 book: NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe, further extends that revelation of the diabolical modus operandi of self-inflicted and manufactured terror. A careful study of the Operation Gladio video and Daniele Ganser's book can shed considerable motivational light upon the wanton terrorism madness of today. Especially upon the senseless terrorism spreading in the name of "insurgency" and blamed on the patsies wielding "Islamofascist terror" all along the "arc of crisis" and throughout the "Global zone of percolating violence". That map of "percolating violence" was most Machiavellianly drawn by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1996 book: The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Students and scholars of security and terrorism studies who populate NGOs and thinktanks throughout the world, let alone the journalists and commentators who occupy the public mind, evidently remain unaware of this diabolical modus operandi of self-inflicted terror and its deft perception management by the Mighty Wurlitzer. The political and intellectual leaders of the victim nations worldwide bearing the full brunt of lethal terrorism, insurgency, and revolutions, evidently also remain clueless.

Recently, our nation's financial chieftains have been feeling a little unloved. Venture capitalists are comparing the persecution of the rich to the plight of Jews at Kristallnacht, Wall Street titans are saying that they're sick of being beaten up, and this week, a billionaire investor, Wilbur Ross, proclaimed that "the 1 percent is being picked on for political reasons."

Ross's statement seemed particularly odd, because two years ago, I met Ross at an event that might single-handedly explain why the rest of the country still hates financial tycoons - the annual black-tie induction ceremony of a secret Wall Street fraternity called Kappa Beta Phi.

"Good evening, Exalted High Council, former Grand Swipes, Grand Swipes-in-waiting, fellow Wall Street Kappas, Kappas from the Spring Street and Montgomery Street chapters, and worthless neophytes!"

The avalanche of liquidity from the Fed's quantitative easing in 2013, allowed the world before's tenets to wake up: indebtedness, bubbles, globalization, financialization... But all it took was a slight slowing down in the astronomical amounts injected by the US central bank every month for the rampant crisis, buried under these piles of liquidity, to reassert itself. As anticipated, the method of "resolving" the crisis by accentuating the excesses that caused it is ineffective, causing a crisis squared instead. All the same one can find an actual benefit: time is gained which everyone uses to their best advantage.

Throughout 2014, we will once again witness the global systemic crisis' "normal" deployment, a phase of major transition between two global organization systems, a historic crisis that goes well beyond an economic-financial crisis, which we begin to see clearly. That's why alongside the serious dangers to the stock exchanges, banks, real estate and, more generally, the economy, the agenda also includes the expansion of people's anger and the rejection of current political systems, the worsening of geopolitical tensions and blocs withdrawing back in on themselves.

The timing belt of this renewal of the crisis is primarily driven by tapering (the reduction of the Fed's QE programme) which, as we know, has immediately led to the tremors in emerging currencies. Beyond the negative impact that that has on the global economy, our team anticipates that these shocks will cause a boomerang effect on the US and finally unleash the chain of events of the Dollar's massive devaluation, destabilizing everything that remains of the old system of which it's the cornerstone.

As my colleague Ryan Devereaux reports, a lower UK court this morning, as long expected, upheld the legality of the nine-hour detention of my partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow Airport last August, even as it acknowledged that the detention was "an indirect interference with press freedom". For good measure, the court also refused permission to appeal (though permission can still be granted by the appellate court). David was detained and interrogated under the Terrorism Act of 2000.

The UK Government expressly argued that the release of the Snowden documents (which the free world calls "award-winning journalism") is actually tantamount to "terrorism", the same theory now being used by the Egyptian military regime to prosecute Al Jazeera journalists as terrorists. Congratulations to the UK government on the illustrious company it is once again keeping. British officials have also repeatedly threatened criminal prosecution of everyone involved in this reporting, including Guardian journalists and editors.

Last week, I highlighted the fact that the latest Press Freedom Index showcased a 13 point plunge in America's press freedom to an embarrassing #46 position in the global ranking. If the authoritarians in the Obama Administration have their way, this country is set to fall much further in next year's index.

Incredibly, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to roll out something called the Critical Information Needsstudy, which will embed government "researchers" into media organizations around the nation to make sure they are doing their job properly.

No this isn't "conspiracy theory." It is so real, and represents such a threat to the First Amendment, that a current FCC commissioner, Ajit Pai, recently wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, warning Americans of this scheme.

Growing instability in East and Central Africa will be the focus of Washington's intervention

Over the last two months developments in Central and East Africa has dominated the news coverage of the continent. The split within the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA), a close ally of Washington, and the deployment of French and African troops in the Central African Republic, has brought the escalation of Pentagon troops in these states.

Recently the Department of Defense announced the formation of an East African Response Force. This new unit is part of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) which has been strengthened and enhanced under the administration of President Barack Obama.

A recent drone attack in southern Somalia is representative of the growing aggression of Washington in Africa. The government of Djibouti, a former French colony where the U.S. has a military base with over 4,000 soldiers at Camp Lemonnier, released a statement saying that such strikes are "vital" in the so-called war on terrorism.

The drone strike was launched from the Pentagon military installations in Djibouti. Prior to the creation of the East African Response Force Washington operated in the region under the framework of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA).

Riots in Kiev have reignited with protesters attacking riot policemen and breaking the uneasy truce that had been agreed between the government and opposition. Rioters are reportedly using firearms, and some witnesses say there are snipers shooting at security forces. RT's Aleksey Yaroshevsky reports from Kiev after RT crew was fired through a window.