Portside

If it looks as if the folks at 538 are making it up as they go along, that’s because they are. 538 badly needs a news editor. More than 1.

Comcast is bad; Comcast is worse; Today Comcast, tomorrow the world; Immigration coverage; US press freedom on the skids; PBS for sale

Newly Published Photographs Share Rich Lives of Former Slaves After Emancipation; Web Series Tells "What Black Folks Don't Do"; Customs Destroys Rare Bamboo Flutes; NYT & NPR Maintain Latino Stereotypes; Native American Studies Association Supports BDS; Chart Illustrates You Vote What You Drink

Edward Snowden's Christmas message - together we can end mass surveillance, otherwise "'a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.' Listen to message broadcast on England's Channel 4; and Washington Post story, based on 14 hours of interviews conducted in Moscow. "All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed," Snowden said.

An interview with Sarah Harrison of Wikileaks: Julian Assange's associate and Edward Snowden's guardian angel. She spent the last four months with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and arrived in Germany over the weekend. "When whistleblowers come forward we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them."

Hail & Farewell Andre Schiffrin; Silicon Valley Warping San Francisco; Oakland Building Big Brother; Ebooks Challenge Academic Presses; NSA Drops 50,000 `Sleeper Cells' in Computer Networks Worldwide; New Site to Seek Funding from the Masses for Investigating Reporting

Toddlers and Tablets; Rebooting Internet Governance; 60 Minutes Disabuses the Disabled; Glenn Greenwald breaking bad; New Ventures in Journalism; Infographic - New TV Media Giants

NSA vs. internet security; Obama unleashed NSA in 2011; Barrett Brown behind bars; UN defends press; Future of AM radio

The race for renewable sources of energy is far from over, and the winners may ultimately be those that mimic nature rather than subverting it. Because one thing is certain: we cannot change physics.

It would take great powers of imagination to blame any part of our recent military debacles on leaks and whistleblowers. If someone had leaked the full National Intelligence Estimate on Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, would more people have decided—like then-Senator Bob Graham, who voted against the invasion after reading the unredacted report—to oppose the war before it began?