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Category: Journalism

Department Of Justice Flying Secret Airplane Fleet Over American Cities
A Cessna airplane like the one being used by the U.S. Marshal Service to trick the cell phones of thousands, or perhaps millions, of Americans to give over their private data. (Flickr / Joao Carlos Medau)
May 27, 2015
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Department Of Justice Flying Secret Airplane Fleet Over American Cities

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

When a friend happened to spot a surveillance flight over his neighborhood, it led Sam Richards, an independent journalist, to uncover a fleet of secret airplanes registered to fake corporations apparently created by the Department of Justice.

While their purpose remains unknown, Richards has uncovered 100 of the aircraft and traced regular flights over major American cities.

Richards, who writes under the nom de plume Sam Renegade, first published his findings on his Twitter account, @MinneapoliSam, before gathering them into a report on Medium. In his report, published on Monday, he outlines how each of the planes is registered to a fake corporation with a three-letter acronym for a name, such as “OBR Leasing,” which doesn’t seem to otherwise exist as a viable business from Internet or public records searches. Richards reveals that dozens of these aircraft, from front corporations like “FVX Research” and “KQM Aviation,” are registered at the same Bristow, Virginia, post office boxes used for planes which are openly registered to the DOJ.

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Saudi Arabia’s Imprisoned Princesses Call For Revolution
Princesses daughters of King Abdullah of Sauda Arabia, taken on March 23, 2014. Sahar is the oldest of the four, she's the one with head cover. Red hat is Princess Jawaher. (Twitter / FreeThe4)
May 20, 2015
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Saudi Arabia’s Imprisoned Princesses Call For Revolution

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Though they are the daughters of royalty, even princesses cannot escape the plight of women in Saudi Arabia. Despite the United States frequently citing abuses of women’s rights to justify its military incursions, Saudi Arabia remains a key U.S. ally in the region, and one of the world’s most notorious women’s rights abusers. Once hailed for their bravery in speaking out through social media, the whereabouts of these princesses seem to be unknown.

Hala, Jawaher, Maha and Sahar, born to the late Saudi King Abdullah and his ex-wife, Alanoud Al-Fayez, spent over a decade in varying degrees of captivity, according to their mother. According to Al-Fayez, the princesses were imprisoned for their modern upbringing and outspoken views on the rights of women.

Sahar and Jawaher, both held in the same royal compound, made headlines last year for speaking out via social media, even after the House of Saud punished them by restricting their access to food and water. The pair gave several video interviews to the media, and each maintained a Twitter account. Sahar even pledged support for condemned political prisoner Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr in an openly revolutionary media statement last April. Their mother also maintained two Twitter accounts, one for herself and another, @FreeThe4, to raise awareness of her daughters’ imprisonment.

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From NYC, Ferguson To Baltimore, American Police Are Trained In Apartheid Israel
An Israeli police barricade. (Flickr / baklavabaklava)
May 15, 2015
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From NYC, Ferguson To Baltimore, American Police Are Trained In Apartheid Israel

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The Black Lives Matter movement became a fixture in American cities after the 2014 death of Michael Brown, and grows with each new police killing. As activists realize that the same systems of oppression killing them in the United States are active worldwide, the movement spreads beyond American borders and forges links as far away as Palestine.

Activists from Ferguson, Missouri, traveled to Palestine in January to cement a growing sense of solidarity and connection with the shared struggles of Palestinians against the Israeli occupation. That connection is more than just a philosophical one: Although it’s been largely ignored by the mainstream media, research by independent journalists reveals that American police leadership routinely travel to Israel on mysterious training missions.

Journalist Rania Khalek is a contributor to the Electronic Intifada, an independent news and education organization focused on Palestine, and a key expert on the subject. For years she primarily covered police brutality in the U.S., but, “I started covering Palestine/Israel related stories because I kept finding connections,” she told MintPress by phone on Wednesday.

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How Seymour Hersh Became One Of Today’s Greatest, Most Controversial Journalists
Seymour Hersh accepts the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in 2004. (Institute for Policy Studies)
May 12, 2015
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How Seymour Hersh Became One Of Today’s Greatest, Most Controversial Journalists

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

At 78 years old, Seymour Hersh remains one of the most important, controversial, and even cutting-edge voices in journalism. His newest report, which criticizes the official narrative of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, is just one revelation in a long history of undermining government propaganda through investigative reporting.

In the bin Laden report, published this month in the London Review of Books, Hersh accuses the United States of collaborating with Pakistan to orchestrate bin Laden’s capture and then covering up the real story with a tale of all-American heroism. Hersh’s account makes it clear that bin Laden was a pawn the Pakistani government traded to the U.S. in return for military aid, and the terrorist leader’s capture an almost theatrical event carefully managed by both governments for maximum positive publicity.

The White House previously maintained that the mission was carried out using only U.S. intelligence and troops, as mythologized in the Oscar-winning film “Zero Dark Thirty.” The Obama administration strongly denies the claims of collaboration, but already the mainstream media is confirming part of Hersh’s story.

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Why The Media Ignores Jeremy Hammond While Praising Edward Snowden
Jeremy Hammond, hacktivist and political prisoner, was behind the famous Stratfor email hacks.
May 11, 2015
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Why The Media Ignores Jeremy Hammond While Praising Edward Snowden

Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, and Occupy Wall Street

The mainstream media has devoted hundreds of articles to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Citizenfour,” but it’s not devoted the same level of attention to many other whistleblowers and political prisoners, like Jeremy Hammond, no matter how sensational the facts they revealed.

In November 2013, a federal court sentenced Hammond to 10 years in prison for his part in the hack of Strategic Forecasting, an Austin, Texas-based corporate intelligence agency, also known as Stratfor. Working on behalf of Lulzsec, an infamous subgroup of Anonymous, Hammond leaked 5 million private emails taken from Stratfor to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, a release that came to be known as the Global Intelligence Files, or GI Files.

The emails revealed that Stratfor gathers intelligence on behalf of private corporations while also sharing sensitive information with local and federal law enforcement. For example, the company spied on The Yes Men for Dow Chemical, after the activists publicly humiliated Dow on behalf of survivors of the 1984 Bhopal, India, disaster that killed thousands. At the same time, Stratfor collaborated with the Texas State Troopers to infiltrate Occupy Austin during the first months after the group’s formation in October 2011.

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Texas Bans Fracking Bans
Activists protest the Texas Legislature's decision to overturn a local ban on fracking in Denton, Texas on September 14, 2015. (Facebook / Frack Free Denton)
May 7, 2015
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Texas Bans Fracking Bans

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The Texas Senate on Monday approved the so-called “Denton Fracking Bill,” a proposed new law that prevents cities from exerting any local control over the energy industry.

The law is a response to a successful referendum in Denton, Texas, which banned the fracking industry from operating inside the progressive college town, located about 40 miles northwest of Dallas. Denton’s fracking ban was inspired by concerns for air and water quality, but also the fear that the industry may have caused a recent, dramatic, increase in earthquakes — a link confirmed both by local Texas scientists and a federal study by the U.S. Geological Survey that suggested fracking can activate dormant fault lines.

House Bill 40 awaits Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature. A public supporter of the oil and gas industry, Abbott will almost certainly make the bill a law.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Troy Fraser, called the bill a “carefully crafted compromise” between the interests of energy and cities, but environmental advocates scoffed at the notion.

“The oil and gas industry got the better of everyone,” said Andrew Dobbs, program director for Texas Campaign for the Environment, in a telephone interview with MintPress News.

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