The former Guantánamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg has been stripped of his UK passport after visiting Syria.

Begg, 45, from Birmingham, says he was stopped by police at Heathrow airport on his return from a trip to South Africa and told that his passport was being confiscated as it was "not in the public interest" for him to travel.

A Home Office order given to him at that time stated that he had been assessed as being involved in terrorist activity because of a visit to Syria last year, while the police are reported to have said that royal prerogative powers were being used to confiscate the passport.

Begg denied any involvement in terrorist activity, however, and said he was being harassed because of his work with Cageprisoners, a London-based Muslim NGO that campaigns for the rights of individuals detained during counterterrorism operations. He told the Mail on Sunday: "I have consistently been asking for the intelligence and security services to be held to account for complicity in torture and rendition. It is more logical that is the reason I've had my passport confiscated."

National Security Agency defenders, including President Obama, continue to cite the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001 when defending the program that scoops up domestic call records in bulk. But asked specifically, on Friday, if he could identify a time when that program stopped a similar attack, President Obama couldn't. That's because the program hasn't prevented a second 9/11.

At the end of the year news conference, Reuters's Mark Felsenthal asked:

As you review how to rein in the National Security Agency, a federal judge says that, for example, the government has failed to cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk metadata actually stopped an imminent attack. Are you able to identify any specific examples when it did so? Are you convinced that the collection of that data is useful to national security to continue as it is?

But President Obama never answered the question about a specific examples. Instead he spoke more broadly and tied the program, again, back to 9/11.

Edward Snowden has said he feels satisfied and a winner despite the espionage charges confronting him. Denying claims he is a traitor, Snowden said he is working to improve the NSA, something that US spy chiefs do not realize.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Snowden said that he had "already won" because society has begun to address the issue of government surveillance.

"For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished," said the whistleblower. "Remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself."

He went on to defend his actions, saying that accusations from NSA brass that he violated an oath of loyalty were baseless. If anyone is guilty of such crimes, Snowden said, it is the national security establishment.

"The oath of allegiance is not an oath of secrecy," Snowden said. "That is an oath to the constitution. That is the oath that I kept that [NSA Director] Keith Alexander and [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper did not."

Vladimir Putin is calling on the conservatives of the world to unite -- behind him.

The Kremlin leader's full-throated defense of Russia's "traditional values" and his derision of the West's "genderless and infertile" liberalism in his annual state-of-the-nation address last week was just the latest example of Putin attempting to place himself at the vanguard of a new "Conservative International."

The speech came on the heels of the appointment of Dmitry Kiselyov -- the television anchor who has said the hearts of gays and lesbians who die should be buried or burned -- as head of the new Kremlin-run media conglomerate Rossia Segodnya.

And just days before Putin's address, the Center for Strategic Communications, an influential Kremlin-connected think tank, held a press conference in Moscow to announce its latest report. The title: "Putin: World Conservatism's New Leader."

According to excerpts from the report cited in the media, most people yearn for stability and security, favor traditional family values over feminism and gay rights, and prefer nation-based states rather than multicultural melting pots. Putin, the report says, stands for these values while "ideological populism of the left" in the West "is dividing society."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Jesus a role model for the Palestinians, in a Christmas message from the West Bank Monday.

Referring to Christ as "a Palestinian messenger," Abbas said that "as we Palestinians strive for our freedom two millennia later, we do our best to follow his example. We work with hope, seeking justice, in order to achieve a lasting peace."

He criticized Israeli restrictions on the entry of Palestinians living abroad into the West Bank, as well as Israel's controversial West Bank security barrier, which cuts off Bethlehem, which he charged "steals land."

"We celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem under occupation," he said in the Christmas statement from Ramallah.

Abbas, scheduled to attend Christmas in Bethlehem on the southern West Bank Tuesday, Christian Arabs were not a minority in Palestine, but "an integral part of the Palestinian people."

While MSNBC host Rachel Maddow conceded on Monday that it was a sound strategy for conservative billionaire activist Charles Koch to purchase influence over the hiring process at Florida State University (FSU), she still ripped state officials for letting it happen.

"Forget naming rights to the stadium, or whatever," Maddow said, explaining that Koch "purchased hiring rights for the faculty at Florida State's economics department. And yes, Florida State has the word 'state' in it because it is a public university, and yes, it is objectively insane that the state of Florida allowed that to happen."

As the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2011, a foundation funded by Koch gave $1.5 million to the school's economics department in 2008, in exchange for Koch having the power to select members of an "advisory committee" that screens prospective new hires. A year later, Koch reportedly rejected 60 percent of job candidates suggested by FSU faculty.

"You can see why Mr. Koch would want to do that sort of thing, if he could find a state crazy enough to let him do it," Maddow said. "I mean, $1.5 million is nothing to him. He loses that into a hankerchief when he sneezes. But for that pittance, he gets to make sure his conservative billionaire economic ideas get taught and published and propagated under the brand name of something that is supposed to look like a university-level education."

Koch and his brother, David, reportedly donated more than $30 million between 2007 and 2011 to groups cutting deals with more than 200 universities around the country, including the Catholic University of America. That agreement led to a group of Catholic officials calling for the university to forfeit the donation in the name of academic independence.

"If you don't like what the facts say, then write your own facts," Maddow said. "If you don't like what independent scholarship looks like, then buy some."

The Kochs' influence, it turned out, was also felt in a May 2013 study that ranked Wisconsin - led by Koch ally Gov. Scott Walker (R) - 15th in the country in "economic outlook," when other reports had it ranked closer to last.

Koch Companies confirmed to Maddow's show that a charitable trust controlled by the two billionaire siblings donated $150,000 toward the group behind the report, while denying it was specifically earmarked for its publication. The author subsequently denied the Kochs influenced his findings, saying, "This is not rocket surgery."

"Indeed, this is not rocket surgery," Maddow concurred. "But that is a very eloquent way of saying something important about the quality of the scholarship that you get when you buy your own scholarship."

Watch Maddow's commentary here.

A new report has revealed the names of 15 Democratic senators who are threatening to push the United States into a war with Iran by introducing a new sanctions bill.

The Huffington Post on Monday named the anti-Iran senators, who introduced the bill last week. Nineteen Republican senators also cosponsored the legislation.

Under a nuclear agreement reached in Geneva last month, the United States should not impose fresh economic sanctions against Iran over the next six months.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is leading the charge to pass legislation in January that would impose additional sanctions on Iran.

Other Democratic senators are Sen. Mark Begich (Alaska), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Ben Cardin (Md.), Sen. Bob Casey (Pa.), Sen. Chris Coons (Del.), Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sen. Kay Hagan (N.C.), Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.), Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.).

There is not very much democracy left in America, a country which endlessly brags about how democratic it is. Every now and again we are pleasantly surprised when the people and their interests are served instead of the 1% and their factotums in government. Those moments are few and far between but when they take place it is always because an individual decides to take on the system directly. In 2013 Edward Snowden was the person who risked his freedom to tell every human being with access to modern communications that they were under United States government surveillance.

Snowden was a cog in the very big machine of government defense contractors. Most Americans were not aware that the state intelligence apparatus has been privatized just like education, incarceration and nearly every other sector of society. There are more than 4 million people like Snowden. They have various levels of security clearances and they all have access to some parts of what ought to be private information regarding our lives.

The power of the National Security Agency (NSA) has grown by leaps and bounds ever since the terror attacks which took place on September 11, 2001. The Bush administration wasted no time in dismantling civil liberties and expanding government power through the Patriot Act. Every step he took was supported by both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress and voices of dissent were too few and far between. Barack Obama made certain to not only keep those powers but to expand them beyond anything that Bush and Dick Cheney had imagined.

My Nation column, "China Goes Dark," is kind of about Apple's labor exploitation and kind of about "Hard-hitting New York Times coverage has been journalism at its best - although the Chinese authorities apparently don't agree." I suppose it'll be behind a paywall for a few more days but it's here, if you remember to click when it's not.

In the meantime, there's this: "Worse still is the continued employment of The Nation columnist Eric Alterman..."

Also, I have an ide for a new slogan for the ASA and the rest of the BDS mob: "BDS: More Palestinian than the Palestinians..."

Alter-reviews:
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis put together a sixteen piece band to play songs you did not know were jazz--incluing "Jingle Bells" "Little Drummer Boy" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." The songs were arranged by various members of the Orchestra and introduced with his unique aplomb and charm by Mr. Marsalis. The highlights all involved the appearance of 23-year-old 2010 Thelonious Monk Competition winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose charms I do not believe were captured on her cd, and so I've resisted her but her versatility and pitch-perfect delivery --as the pr material says, her "ability to refract the styles of such iconic performers of that era as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Valaida Snow with 21st century freshness, expressivity, and soulfulness"--really shook up the place and made it a most memorable, if somewhat brief performance. The schedule is here.

Outgoing New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly will join the dominant foreign policy think-tank Council on Foreign Relations following his exit from the NYPD later this month.

Kelly, the longest-serving commissioner in New York Police Department history, will become a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the organization said Monday in a statement. He will focus on "counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and other national security issues" while working at the organization's headquarters in Manhattan.

"Ray Kelly spearheaded the modernization of the New York Police Department," CFR President Richard Haass said in the statement. "The result is that crime is down and the NYPD's counter terrorism capabilities are second to none. We are excited and proud to have his experience, expertise, and judgment at the Council."

The CFR is considered the most influential foreign policy think-tank in the United States. Many top American politicians, officials from presidential administrations, bankers, lawyers, media personalities and others are counted as members. Some top board members include the group's co-chairman Robert Rubin, former US Secretary of Treasury and co-chair of Goldman Sachs; former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell; and the longest-serving CENTCOM commander, Gen. John Abizaid.

In addition to the CFR post, Kelly signed a contract earlier this month to give lucrative speeches with Greater Talent Network.