We've written several times before about domestic spying being performed by the government agencies, most of which is performed under the protective guise of "national security" as part of the "War on Terror." The end result tends to be diminished rights rather than something more positive, like "terrorists caught."

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has been looking into the CIA's involvement in domestic surveillance, something the CIA is definitely not supposed to be doing.

Beginning in 2011, a series of investigative articles by the Associated Press ("AP") revealed that the New York Police Department ("NYPD") conducted extensive surveillance of Muslims and persons of Arab descent in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere. The NYPD's activities included photographing members of the Muslim community as they entered mosques, infiltrating Muslim student groups, and monitoring Muslim stores and businesses. According to the AP, the "police subjected entire neighborhoods to surveillance and scrutiny, often because of the ethnicity of the residents, not because of any accusations of crimes." The AP also reported, "many of these operations were built with help from the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit after 9/11."

This looks like the CIA is at the very least heavily involved with domestic surveillance, if not actually doing the surveillance itself. The "investigations" themselves are questionable enough even without the possibility of a departmental "misstep" by the CIA, generally consisting of paid informants infiltrating the Muslim community and amassing as much information as possible when not attempting to bait community members into saying something inflammatory.

Eight retired army officers were charged on Friday with the murder of a popular songwriter and theater director, Víctor Jara, who was tortured and killed days after the 1973 military coup in a stadium that had been turned into a detention center.

Judge Miguel Vásquez charged two of the former officers, Pedro Barrientos and Hugo Sánchez, with committing the murder and six others as accomplices. Mr. Sánchez, a lieutenant colonel, was second in command at the stadium. Mr. Barrientos, a lieutenant from a Tejas Verdes army unit, currently lives in Deltona, a city southwest of Daytona Beach, Fla., and was interrogated by the F.B.I. earlier this year at the request of a Chilean court. Attempts to reach Mr. Barrientos for comment were unsuccessful; his two listed telephone numbers had been disconnected.

Judge Vásquez issued an international arrest warrant against Mr. Barrientos through Interpol Santiago and ordered the arrest of the other seven, who were in Chile. Those charged as accomplices are Roberto Souper, Raúl Jofré, Edwin Dimter, Nelson Hasse, Luis Bethke and Jorge Smith.

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall - so mystifying at the time - was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves - was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document - reproduced here in an easily searchable format - shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI - and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire - by whom? Where? - now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).

A French constitutional panel has thrown out a plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 per cent rate, saying it was excessive.

The constitutional council ruled today that the highly contentious tax, which President François Hollande promised to impose while campaigning, was unfair. It was intended to hit those with incomes over 1 million euro (£820,000).

The LIBOR scandal is big, and getting bigger, as more and more entities line up to sue the bloomers off the big banks involved in the manipulation. What at first seemed almost non-newsworthy has blossomed into the crime of the century as small banks, pension funds, cities, and towns line up to try to recoup some of the money they lost during the ongoing swindle.

Small banks like the Community Bank & Trust of Sheboygan of Wisconsin are filing suit against banking behemoths Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) , JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) , Citigroup (NYSE: C ) , and a host of others under the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The bank claims that the collusion of these big banks suppressed interest rates and, thus, the bank's income. Investment group Charles Schwab and the City of Baltimore have sued all 16 banks involved in the scandal under the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the California Public Employees Retirement System is currently trying to determine damages. Many more lawsuits are in the making, and doubtless scads more will follow.

A history of corrupt financial deals

Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ) recently expressed concern that the LIBOR mess is further eroding public trust in the financial system. He is certainly not wrong, and he probably felt bold enough to make such a statement only because his bank is not suspected of involvement. Goldman Sachs is no stranger to scandal, however, and has participated in some hijinks of this nature, too. It's interesting how new allegations of wrongdoing seem to make everyone forget about prior offenses, particularly if the most recent one is of a monumental scale. The fact is, though, that these and other big banks have a history of manipulating interest rates to feather their own nests -- to the detriment of other institutions, investors, and local governments.

US regulators want to make event data recorders (EDRs), similar to "black boxes" used on planes, mandatory on all cars produced from September 2014. The move has sparked a tense debate between safety advocates and those worried about loss of privacy.

The National Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA), which is in charge of setting motoring regulation, has submitted a proposal for public comment in the Federal Register. Currently, standard EDRs automatically collect data on a car's speed, the use of brakes, the number and seating of passengers, seat belt deployment and dozens of other parameters to help reconstruct how a car was behaving in the seconds before a crash. The data is continuously recorded and overwritten onto an electronic carrier inside the car, but when certain triggers are set off - say, an airbag is deployed - the data is saved and can be downloaded.

The recording, which is usually the last 30 seconds before any accident, is then passed onto the NHTSA for analysis, currently with the owner's consent.

"By understanding how drivers respond in a crash and whether key safety systems operate properly, NHTSA and automakers can make our vehicles and our roadways even safer," claimed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "This proposal will give us the critical insight and information we need to save more lives."

Supporters state that the measure merely legislates a device that has already been endorsed by car makers and drivers alike. First commercialized around two decades ago, NHTSA believes EDRs will be installed on more than 95 per cent of all vehicles manufactured next year.

Few of the opponents of the new measure disagree with EDRs as they are currently, but most say that the new law will pave way for a multitude of uses beyond the original remit.

The Senate agreed on Friday to approve an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, legislation that allows the NSA and other US intelligence agencies to wiretap conversations involving foreign citizens without obtaining a warrant.

­Despite growing opposition to one of the most notorious and secretive US spying programs, the Senate voted 73-23 early Friday to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

First signed into law in 1978, FISA prescribes how the US government collects intelligence from foreign parties that may be detrimental to national security. Of particular significance, however, is the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, or FAA, which includes a provision that puts any US citizen engaged in correspondence with a person overseas at direct risk of being spied on.

Under the FAA, the government can eavesdrop on emails and phone calls made or received by Americans, as long as they reasonably suspect those conversations to include at least one person residing outside of the United States.

In May 2012, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) sent a letter to the National Security Agency asking for an estimate on just how many Americans have been targeted since the FAA went on the books. In response, Inspector General I. Charles McCullough replied that honoring their request would be "beyond the capacity" of the office, and that "dedicating sufficient additional resources would likely impede the NSA's mission."

Americans are living in an Orwellian state argue Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick, as they sit down with RT to discuss US foreign policy and the Obama administration's disregard for the rule of law.

­Both argue that Obama is a wolf in sheep's clothing and that people have forgiven him a lot because of the "nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him."

"He has taken all the Bush changes he basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them," Stone told RT. "It is an Orwellian state. It might not be oppressive on the surface, but there is no place to hide. Some part of you is going to end up in the database somewhere."

According to Kuznick, American citizens live in a fish tank where their government intercepts more than 1.7 billion messages a day. "That is email, telephone calls, other forms of communication."

RT's Abby Martin in the program Breaking the Set discusses the Showtime film series and book titled The Untold History of the United States co-authored by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has come under pressure after it was revealed that while he was mayor of Nantes secret illegal files were kept on homeless people - including details of their sexuality, drug and drink habits and other private details.

The files were published in Le Point magazine and Nantes UMP councillor Julien Bainvel asked if files were now being kept on more and more people now that Ayrault was prime minister.

It also brought immediate alarm from people protesting about the planned airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, near Nantes, who feared files were also being kept on them as the project was backed by Ayrault.

The files date from 2006 and contain 129 names of homeless people with their appearance, sexuality, consumption of drink or drugs - down to the tiniest details of their way of life, whether they were in a couple, if they got benefits, previous convictions...

NHTSA and the insurance Mafia want to see fines for not buckling-up jacked up to as much as $100 in order to "encourage" higher compliance with mandatory seatbelt laws.

Apparently, the $25 hit imposed at gunpoint that's the current national average fine just isn't sufficient. Neither are the DMV demerit points some states and (of course) the District of Columbia) assign if you're found unbuckled and which the insurance Mafia uses as the basis for "adjustments" to your can't-say-no-thanks, enforced-at-gunpoint insurance policy

Higher fines would improve "compliance" by 6 to 7 percent, according to (yet another) taxpayer-financed study of the obvious.

Threaten people with violence and - surprise - they'll do what you say.

But the question more people ought to be asking is whether it's right to threaten anyone with violence for such things as not wearing a seatbelt. And if that's ok, then shouldn't the system at least be consistent and hit people who don't exercise - or who are grossly overweight - with fines as a well? Call it it the Tubby Tax. After all, the same reasoning applies.

Or at least, it ought to.

NHTSA and other buckle-up-at-gunpoint advocates argue that wearing a seat belt is "safer." True enough. Just as it is also true that it's safer to exercise regularly - and to not be grossly overweight. Why, then, aren't couch potatoes and fat slobs threatened with violence by costumed goons? Is their "safety" of less importance than the unbuckled driver's?