The Supreme Court on Monday considered what limitations could be placed on class-action lawsuits, an increasingly active battleground for consumer advocates and corporate interests.

The issue is whether plaintiff lawyers offer low-ball estimates of the damages they seek or take advantage of procedural loopholes to keep their cases in state courts, where Justice Antonin Scalia said "generous juries" and "very favorable judges" can be common.


Cases that seek less than $5 million and deal with state law and regulatory issues generally remain in state courts. If a lawsuit seeks $5 million or more, a 2005 law requires that the case be transferred to federal courts, where conditions are more favorable for the corporate defendants.

Corporations and their trade associations are asking the court to interpret the Class Action Fairness Act to keep plaintiff lawyers from either underestimating the damages or breaking the litigation into less-than-$5-million pieces. Even with such stipulations, businesses say, lawyers can use the suits to demand higher settlements in lieu of years of legal wrangling.

Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the United States, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her. McLeish's story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps more - whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus - overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama - that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, said in a written statement about the released files: "This production [of information], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement. These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The FBI documents are not only a chilling example of how widespread this surveillance and obstruction has become, they are an explicit warning by the security services to all who consider dissent. Anyone who defies corporate power, even if he or she is nonviolent and acting within constitutional rights, is a suspect. These documents are part of the plan to make us fearful, compliant and disempowered. They mark, I suspect, a government attempt to end peaceful mass protests by responding with repression to the grievances of Americans. When the corporate-financed group FreedomWorks bused in goons to disrupt Democratic candidates' town hall meetings about the federal health care legislation in August 2009, Eric Zuesse of the Business Insider notes, "there was no FBI surveillance of those corporate-organized disruptions of legitimate democratic processes. There also were no subsequent FreedomWorks applications for Freedom of Information Act releases of FBI files regarding such surveillance being used against them - because there was no such FBI campaign against them."

The combination of intimidation tactics by right-wing fringe groups, which speak in the language of violence and hate, with the state's massive intrusion into the personal affairs of the citizen is corporate fascism. And we are much farther down that road than many of us care to admit.

A United States congressman has introduced a bill that would repeal the 22nd Amendment, which currently limits the president to serving only two terms as commander-in-chief.

Should the bill become a law, it could allow President Barack Obama to run for reelection yet again in 2016.

The bill, H.J. Res. 15, offers "an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President."

New York Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano reintroduced the measure on January 4, after it did not make it to a floor vote in January 2011, the Daily Caller reports. Serrano has attempted to repeal the amendment for decades and proposed similar bills in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007.

Rep. Serrano's initiatives are not dependent on any particular party, since he has tried to get the measure passed under the presidencies of both Democrats and Republicans. But if the bill makes it to the floor for a vote this year, President Obama, a Democrat, might have a chance at a third term in the White House, which would make him the first president to possibly seek a third term since Franklin Roosevelt.

During his first trip to Israel, US Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) called for a reduction in foreign aid for Jerusalem, admitting that he was expressing a minority opinion but making a statement with high shock value nevertheless.


Receiving $3 billion for its military each year, Israel is one of America's top foreign aid recipients and the largest cumulative recipient since World War II.

The country receives about one-fifth of the US foreign aid budget. To date, the US has given Israel $115 billion in bilateral assistance, most of which went to the country's military.

While Sen. Paul believes Congress is unlikely to cut foreign aid from Israel, he told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies that the US is only hurting itself by doing so. By "borrowing from one country to give to another," the Kentucky senator expects the US will only face dire economic consequences down the line and burden itself with greater debt.

"It will be harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process," Paul told the think-tank. "I think there will be significant repercussions of running massive deficits . . . you destroy your currency by spending money you don't have."

Even though Paul called for cutting aid to Israel, one of America's strongest allies, he did acknowledge that Washington should first cut aid to countries with tense relationships to the US, such as Pakistan and Egypt.

The senator added that providing so much foreign aid was helping create an arms race in the Middle East that could ultimately harm Israel instead of helping it.

Hundreds of supporters of one of China's most liberal newspapers demonstrated outside its headquarters on Monday, backing a strike by journalists against interference by the provincial propaganda chief.

The rare anti-censorship protest happened in Guangzhou, capital of wealthy Guangdong, China's most liberal province and birthplace of the reforms, begun three decades ago, that propelled China to become the world's second-largest economy.

The outcry began late last week when reporters at the influential Southern Weekly newspaper accused censors of replacing an original New Year's letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece lauding the party's achievements.

Police allowed the demonstration, suggesting the Guangdong government, led by newly appointed Hu Chunhua, a rising political star, may want to tread carefully in tackling public discontent over censorship.

The protesters, many of them youths, held signs with slogans such as "Freedom of expression is not a crime," and "Chinese people want freedom". Others made speeches defending the paper an laid chrysanthemums, a flower used in Chinese funerals, to symbolically mourn the death of press freedom.

French actor Gerard Depardieu has met President Vladimir Putin and has been handed his new Russian passport.

The actor had announced he was seeking Russian citizenship after the French government criticised his decision to move abroad to avoid higher taxes.

Mr Depardieu met Mr Putin in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Mr Depardieu was then given his new passport, although the president's spokesman said Mr Putin did not hand it over personally.

Mr Depardieu and Mr Putin shook hands and hugged each other at the meeting in Sochi.

The actor was later invited to set up home in the central Russian region of Mordovia, known for its Stalin-era prison camps.

Local governor Vladimir Volkov said Mr Depardieu could choose an apartment or a place to build a house, Interfax news agency reported.

After arriving in Mordovia's main city of Saransk, the actor showed of his new passport, saying: "I am very happy, it's very beautiful here. Beautiful and soulful people live here."

Earlier this week, Mr Putin signed the decree granting Russian citizenship to Mr Depardieu.

As the global population heads towards a projected 9.1 billion by 2050, the availability and cost of food are likely to pose major challenges for countries around the world.

World food prices and the cost of grain increased by 7 percent and 12 percent respectively over the year to the end of 2012. This has happened without any major food crisis or panic policies on the part of major food grain producers.

The Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that Britain could face further riots as a result of the economic crisis.

Yves Daccord also said he believes there is the prospect of further violence throughout Europe, drawing parallels with the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

• John Brennan is behind programme that has carried out over 300 remote strikes against terrorist targets, killing some 2,500 people
• Drawn fire from Democrats for connection to 'torture' techniques such as waterboarding under Bush administration
• Also criticised for wrongly stating bin Laden was armed and had used his wife as a human shield in a briefing following the historic SEAL Team Six raid
• Nominated after David Petraeus quit following revelations of his clandestine affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell

Deal will bring Windows 8 to 75% of the Department of Defense employees.

I'm sure you've been hearing that sales of Windows 8 have been slow and/or disappointing since its release in late October. Some blame it on the hardware, while others are saying that sales was actually meeting, admittedly lowered, expectations. After scoring gigantic win on Friday, though, I'm pretty sure Microsoft will have put any of those fears to rest.

The Defense Department has awarded a three-year, $617 million joint enterprise license agreement for Microsoft products, it was announced Friday.

The net new contract was awarded to Insight Public Sector, a division of Insight Enterprises, one of the largest global Microsoft Large Account Resellers, Microsoft wrote on its blog, and the deal will cover nearly 75% of all Department of Defense personnel. Microsoft called it "the most comprehensive licensing agreement" it has ever established with the DoD.

As part of the deal, the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) will be given access to the most recent versions of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 Enterprise and Windows 8.

The new SharePoint 2013 Enterprise, Microsoft says, "will unlock new levels of cross-agency information sharing through improved enterprise search and social communications features while powering advanced business intelligence and reporting capabilities," while the Department of Defense will use Windows 8 "to empower productivity from any location, and any supported device, while taking advantage of enhanced security."