News and Commentary

By Ryan Grim : The Intercept Rep. Rashida Tlaib is collecting signatures on a letter calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to end the extradition drive against WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.

By Todd Miller : Institute for Public Accuracy Miller writes at The Border Chronicle and just wrote the piece “Autonomous Surveillance Towers Are Creeping Up the California Coast.”

By Erica Techo -- UGA Today Study shows that as newsrooms shrink, so does the trust of some former sources The whistleblowers who once trusted journalism are losing faith in the institution.

Published by Chip Gibbons: Defending Rights & Dissent In the late 1990s and early 2000s, international financial summits, like the IMF and the World Bank, attracted masses of protesters. In many cases, protesters engaged in civil disobedience. They were also met with brutal repression by police that included physical violence and illegal arrests. The media helped peddle police narratives that painted them as violent rioters engaged in senseless destruction for destruction’s sake. The reality is that protesters were victims of police riots.

Published by Cody Bloomfield: Defending Rights & Dissent In an absurd ruling, the Eighth Circuit denied that boycotts are political expression. Now, the Supreme Court has denied writ of certiorari, letting the Eighth Circuit’s ruling in Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip stand. This is a missed opportunity for the Supreme Court to take a stand for the proud tradition of political boycott in the United States.

By Sharon Kyle: LA Progressive Carey Shenkman and Ralph Engelman took what many might consider and a dry topic and made it accessible to all.

By Jesselyn Radack - Kathleen McClellan: Salon.com What happened to whistleblowers like our client Daniel Hale never happens to high-level government officials We can now add Vice President Mike Pence to the list of former presidents and vice presidents who have had classified information found in their homes. While there are marked differences between Donald Trump intentionally keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to cooperate with authorities, and Pence and Joe Biden's apparent discovery of classified documents that inadvertently ended up in their homes — and were returned voluntarily and promptly — the commonality between these cases and others involving high-level officials is the lack of serious punishment.

By Ben Cohen: Salon.com Ben & Jerry's co-founder: Joe Biden stood up for press freedom as a candidate — but backtracked in the White House

Trevor Timm -- The Guardian With President Joe Biden now embroiled in his own classified documents controversy, partisan commentators will surely have a field day playing the tired old game of “no, you endangered national security.” Instead, I’d like to focus on the real issues: the overly broad and often-abused Espionage Act and the massive, draconian secrecy system that does far more harm than good in the United States.

Richard Spence -- The Dissenter -- January 5, 2023 Ministers and security officials in Australia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have coordinated with the United States to develop new espionage laws.