Portside

Bertolt Brecht on whistle-blowers, those who oppose their own governments immoral activities; Reader Comments on NSA Spying; Civil Liberties Suit; Edward Snowden; Angela Davis; Undercounting the Poor; Syria; The Rosenberg Case ; Paleo Diet; Announcements - Meeropol, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; Manifesto and Petition in Support of the Monument to the International Brigades in Madrid - Help by signing.

The Government is collecting phone records for millions and millions of Americans under the PATRIOT Act. It's an outrage: The Guardian has obtained long sought-after evidence of the extent of ongoing spying on Americans under the PATRIOT Act -- and it's as bad as we'd worried. The NSA is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

Verizon Communications has responded to an explosive report that outlines the telecommunications giant's role in an ongoing domestic spying program. The response, in a memo to employees, seems aimed at containing a public relations disaster. The wording, however, has to adhere to restrictions, imposed on Verizon by the secret court, not to disclose that the company was ordered to hand over phone logs to the FBI and the National Security Agency.

The capture of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev presents an opportunity to show that fighting terrorism doesn't require abandoning the Constitution.

The effort to restrict abortion has been a backlash, not just to the decision to end a pregnancy but the decision to treat women like full and equal participants in our society...At work while pregnant? Driving? Working with chemicals or heavy loads? In many states, if something were to happen to your pregnancy that could be traced to your behavior, you could find yourself dragged into jail under fetal protection or personhood laws.

On March 18, a historic case against the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program will commenced in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Floyd v. City of New York is part of a citywide movement to end this shameful, massive violation of rights and to help bring about the day when all New Yorkers will be treated by their government as equally entitled to walk the streets of their city without harassment.

Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency, announced that the government is forming 13 teams to conduct an international "cyber offensive" to pre-empt or answer "Internet attacks" on this country.