Portside

Frederick Douglass’ Winning Oratorical Debut (1841), Setting the Standard for Jury Nullification (1670), “Free Joan Little!” Done That. (1975), A Dire Warning, Heeded Not (1975), VERY Late, But Never TOO Late (1920)

A newly released classified document shows that the National Security Agency knew Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy—and that the government executed her anyway.

Net Neutrality; Phone spying; Digital divides; Local news is dying; Screens that kidnap; Tech platforms and terrorism

Despite the volume of revelations, much of the public remains largely unaware of the true extent of the NSA's vast, highly aggressive and legally questionable surveillance activities. Given the vast amount of revelations about NSA abuses, it is somewhat surprising that just slightly more than a majority of Americans seem concerned about government surveillance. Which leads to the question of why?

NSA collects faces; SCOTUS refuses Risen; Data brokering; EU refuses Google; Dissent's media roundtable

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.