Superintendent prevents Al Jazeera reporter from interviewing students at football game about 9/11

The Superintendent of a Texas high school denied an Al Jazeera journalist access to students at a high school football game. The reporter wanted to ask students about how 9/11 affected their lives. First Amendment advocates said that the school had the right to control the press at a school function so long as it [...]

Global decline in press freedom with ‘war on terror’

Since 9/11 the free press has been under attack in the U.S., providing inspiration and cover for governments around the world  to limit press freedom in the name of the “war on terror,” writes Joel Simon in a commentary for CNN. Among the most repressive countries are Pakistan, Ethiopia, Columbia, Mexico, Yemen, Syria and Sri [...]

Domestic spying pervasive since 9/11

President Barack Obama has done nothing to fulfill his promise to curtail warrantless spying and in fact wants Congress to renew powers given to the federal government to conduct the surveillance. Writing a commentary for Wired, Ryan Singel quotes Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute on the effectiveness of the spying, “We have become so [...]

National Archives sitting on 9/11 Commission records

Although the 9/11 Commission ordered that their investigative records of al Qaeda’s attack on the United States should be opened to the public in 2009, the National Archives has not yet released the vast majority of the information. John Berger, an author who maintains a website with 9/11-related documents, said to withhold the information is [...]

New book: Secret security bureaucracy burgeons after 9/11

Since 9/11, “Top Secret America” has grown to gargantuan proportions according to a new book by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, writes Steven Aftergood in a review of the book for Secrecy News. Office buildings devoted to secret intelligence have grown to the equivalence of almost three Pentagons with more than 250,000 contractors working [...]

ACLU calls for limits to government secrecy practices

In a report released on July 28, the American Civil Liberties Union says that since 9/11, the government has created secret agencies, committees, court and laws to keep their activities from public scrutiny. Michael German, ACLU national security policy counsel and former FBI agent warns of the damage too much secrecy can do, “By undermining [...]

Justice Department lawyers fail to get names of experts in National Security Agency leak case

A federal judge denied a request by government prosecutors in a case against an accused leaker at the National Security Agency. The prosecutors were attempting to obtain the identities of two expert witnesses who could be called by the defense. -db The Washington Post November 29, 2010 By Ellen Nakashima Prosecutors failed Monday to persuade [...]

Pelosi calls for transparency in Ground Zero mosque dispute

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she favored disclosure for the groups funding opposition to the mosque planned for Ground Zero as well as who is funding the construction of the Islamic center. -db Washington Post Commentary August 18, 2010 By Greg Sargent Nancy Pelosi kicked off a bit of controversy on the right this morning [...]

Federal appeals court orders disclosure of names of telecom lobbyists

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government must reveal name of lobbyists who working for retroactive liability protection for telecom companies who participated in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens after 9/11. -db Metropolitan News-Enterprise February 10, 2010 By Sherri M. Okamoto The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that the [...]

ACLU sounds warning on role of fusion centers in domestic spying

The American Civil Liberties Union warns that the 70 fusion centers set up to collect and share information after 9/11 are operating with little oversight, even book-marking law-abiding citizens for using “threatening words” one of which is “protest.” -db American Civil Liberties Union Opinion January 29, 2010 By Amanda Simon For years now, the ACLU [...]

Wikileaks releasing 500,000 9/11 pager intercepts

Today WikiLeaks started releasing over half a million 9/11 text pager intercepts in hopes of gaining “a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war.” Wikileaks 9/11 tragedy pager intercepts. From 3AM on Wednesday November 25, 2009, until 3AM the following day (US east coast time), WikiLeaks is releasing over half [...]

Chances fading of reining in government secrecy granted under Patriot Act

Civil libertarians may be losing the battle to curb  government excess as the Obama administration is loathe to relinquish the power to operate in secrecy without the checks provided by judicial oversight. -DB Center for Internet and Society Stanford Law School Commentary October 7, 2009 By Larry Downes “Patriotism,” as Samuel Johnson famously said, “is [...]

Federal judge rules CIA cannot be forced to release documents related to destruction of 9/11 interrogation videotapes

The Associated Press September 30, 2009 By Larry Neumeister Agreeing with CIA Diretor Leon Panetta, a federal judge said that national security concerns override other issues in upholding the CIA’s right to keep secret their methods of getting information from uncooperative detainees. The American Civil liberties Union is seeking the documents related to interrogations of [...]