Portside

A little-known amendment to the reauthorized version of Fisa would enlarge the government’s surveillance powers to a drastic, draconian degree

The House leadership in both parties is poised to expand, not reform, warrantless spying on Americans. But the rank and file isn’t going along.

Left out of GOP debates about “the weaponization” of the federal government is the use of the FBI to spy on civil rights leaders for most of the 20th century. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the targets.

Even if it were true that cell phone users “voluntarily” disclose their location, it strains credulity to argue that, simply by virtue of putting a cell phone in their pocket, they voluntarily disclose “a wealth of detail about their familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.”

According to McClatchy Newspapers, the agency has also been spying on emails from whistle blower officials and Congress, "triggering fears the CIA has been intercepting the communications of officials who handle whistle blower cases."

This is publication day for Greenwald’s new book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Security State, about his last near-year swept away by the Snowden affair. It’s been under wraps until now for obvious reasons. This essay is a shortened and adapted version of Chapter 1 of Glenn Greenwald’s new book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Security State, and appears at TomDispatch.com with the kind permission of Metropolitan Books.

Black History Month with Barbara Ransby, author of the new biography, "Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. Legendary civil rights activist, singer and actor Paul Robeson - one of the most celebrated singers and actors of the 20th century - attacked, blacklisted and hounded for his political beliefs. Eslanda Robeson, was an author, an anthropologist and a globally connected activist who worked to end colonialism in Africa and racism in the U.S