In recent years, a new form of activism has cropped up on the Internet. With their numerous 'leaks' and 'ops', groups like WikiLeaks and its 'hacktivism' off-shoot known as 'Anonymous', have achieved major mainstream media exposure. With V for Vendetta's character 'V' as inspiration, youths the world over are rallying behind the idea that "something is terribly wrong with this country" and are letting everyone know via anonymous protests, online hacktivism against groups and organizations they see as part of the problem, or the support of the revolutions taking place in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere.

The rise of Internet hacktivism comes with a price however. From 'home-grown terrorists', we now have the potential for 'home-grown terrorist hackers' and major Western governments and media corporations have wasted no time in touting this new angle in the 'war on terror'. The Economist, for example, described cyberwarfare as now "the fifth domain of warfare," and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, William J. Lynn, stated in 2010 that "as a doctrinal matter, the Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare . . . [which] has become just as critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space."

The real potential problem with the rise of 'hacktivism' however is the potential for such groups to be infiltrated by government operatives and their righteous agendas diverted to serve the agendas of the US government and military. While nominally directed against hostile foreign powers, cyberwarfare is very much COINTELPRO's baby brother. Just as the so-called 'terrorist' threat has crept closer and closer to home, with the propagandistic association between social dissidence and the threat of 'homegrown terrorism' being increasingly stressed, cyberwarfare has increasingly targeted those citizens who take a critical stance against the crimes of current corporate, economic, military and political powers. After all, the only way to stifle dissent against crimes and corruption that are so systemic and obvious is through information warfare: propaganda. Cyberwarfare and 'hacktivism' are therefore likely to play a central role in 21st century COINTELPRO.

It is not surprising therefore that cyberwarfare has spawned an entire industry of private and military-based firms and organizations specializing in this new form of 'counter intelligence.'

A former employee of a company that helps websites deliver content to users pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing trade secrets to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

Elliot Doxer, 43, admitted at a plea hearing in federal court in Boston to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said in a statement.

The prosecutor's office said Dozer believed the agent was an Israeli spy.

Doxer's attorney, Thomas J. Butters, said his client "has accepted the responsibility for what he did and he looks forward to his sentencing so that he could put this matter behind him."

I was going to write about the NATO bombing of Sirte, where in order "protect civilians" from the now non-existent regime of Moamar Gadafy, the humanitarian lords of the West are now killing civilians at the behest of the new, non-elected regime of the murky and murderous "Transitional National Council."

But as I sat down to the keyboard, I saw that Craig Murray was already on the case. Murray, you'll recall, was the courageous UK ambassador to Uzbekistan who dared expose the horrific tortures being practiced by the "friendly" regime there, which was acting as one of the many foreign proxies for the Anglo-American "war on terror." For his pains, he was dismissed, demonized, marginalized. (And accused at one point of being "psychologically disturbed;" why else would anyone oppose the benevolent policies of our humanitarian honchos?)

Here is his quick take on the attack on Sirte:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel no longer has enough coalition votes in the Bundestag to secure backing for Europe's revamped rescue machinery, threatening a consitutional crisis in Germany and a fresh eruption of the euro debt saga.

Mrs Merkel has cancelled a high-profile trip to Russia on September 7, the crucial day when the package goes to the Bundestag and the country's constitutional court rules on the legality of the EU's bail-out machinery.

If the court rules that the €440bn rescue fund (EFSF) breaches Treaty law or undermines German fiscal sovereignty, it risks setting off an instant brushfire across monetary union.

The seething discontent in Germany over Europe's debt crisis has spread to all the key institutions of the state. "Hysteria is sweeping Germany " said Klaus Regling, the EFSF's director.

Fresh revelations about 1940s medical tests come to light, including deliberately exposing people to sexually transmitted diseases

Shocking new details of US medical experiments done in Guatemala in the 1940s, including a decision to re-infect a dying woman in a syphilis study, have been disclosed by a presidential panel.

The Guatemala experiments are already considered one of the darker episodes of medical research in US history, but panel members say the new information indicates that researchers were unusually unethical, even when placed into the historical context of a different era.

"The researchers put their own medical advancement first and human decency a far second," said Anita Allen, a member of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.

In recent weeks GOP congressmen have resorted to all sorts of underhanded schemes to avoid interacting with their angry constituents back home over August recess. Now two Republican freshmen, Reps. Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Tim Griffin (R-AR), are taking this trend one step further, using disturbing intimidation tactics and "watch lists" to discourage constituents from asking them questions:

Video seen by Catrina Stewart reveals the brutal interrogation of young Palestinians

The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. "Lift up your head! Lift it up!" shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. "I wish you'd let me go," the boy whimpers, "just so I can get some sleep."

During the nearly six-hour video, 14-year-old Palestinian Islam Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear.

This rarely seen footage seen by The Independent offers a glimpse into an Israeli interrogation, almost a rite of passage that hundreds of Palestinian children accused of throwing stones undergo every year.

Israel has robustly defended its record, arguing that the treatment of minors has vastly improved with the creation of a military juvenile court two years ago. But the children who have faced the rough justice of the occupation tell a very different story.

"The problems start long before the child is brought to court, it starts with their arrest," says Naomi Lalo, an activist with No Legal Frontiers, an Israeli group that monitors the military courts. It is during their interrogation where their "fate is doomed", she says.

The American people should be allowed to know the legal reasoning offered to justify warrantless surveillance during the Bush Administration

What was Bush Administration lawyer John Yoo thinking when he wrote various legal memos declaring that the president has the power to spy on American citizens without getting a warrant or telling anyone about it?

The Obama Administration isn't telling:

The Obama administration has refused to declassify a secret memo from the George W. Bush presidency that justified the warrantless spying conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Matthew Aid, a writer who's covered the NSA and surveillance policy, requested a copy of a 2001 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion by John Yoo that discussed the legal grounds for electronic spying without permission from a special federal court. The Department of Justice mostly denied Aid's Freedom of Information Act request, saying the redacted information in the OLC opinion was "classified, covered by non-disclosure provisions contained in other federal statutes, and is protected by the deliberative process privilege."

Atlanta, Georga: The first-ever audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve has revealed 16 trillion dollars in secret bank bailouts and has raised more questions about the quasi-private agency's opaque operations.

"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else," U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said in a statement.

The majority of loans were issues by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY).

"From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars... in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system," the audit report states.

Truth is the pillar of civilization. The word 'truth' occurs 224 times in the King James Version of the Holy Bible; witnesses testifying in American courts and before the United States Congress must swear to tell the truth; and, laws and civil codes require truth in advertising and in business practices, to list just a few examples.

The purpose of science is to discover the true nature of Earth and Universe and to convey that knowledge truthfully to people everywhere. Science gives birth to technology that makes our lives easier and better. Science improves our health and enables us to see our world in ways never before envisioned. It uplifts spirits and engenders optimism. And, science provides a truth-standard, securely anchored in the properties of matter, a means to expose and debunk the charlatans and science-barbarians who would lie, cheat, steal, and tyrannize under the guise of science.