Portside

This month, not only with words but also with actions, Edward Snowden is transcending the moral limits of authority and insisting that we can fully defend the Bill of Rights, emphatically including the Fourth Amendment. What a contrast with New York Times columnists David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and Bill Keller, who have responded to Snowden’s revelations by siding with the violators of civil liberties at the top of the U.S. government.

"The telecommunications providers have been forced to set up an electronic interface for the authorities so that IP addresses can be retrieved.. These trends also exist in Europe."

Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories

NSA, Syria, Iran, Occupy, surveillance and more ...

Reader Comments - Dirty Wars and Jeremy Scahill,; Alice Walker's open letter to Alicia Keys; Syrian proxy war; False economic recovery; NSA spying; It's the Corporations; We Steal Secrets; Baseball and drugs; Spain and the International Brigades - today; Berlin demonstrations against Obama visit; Announcement - Milton Rogovin DVD now available on sale

NSA phone surveillance will have 'chilling effect' on ACLU'.

I am genuinely puzzled as to why the Fourth Amendment is no longer taken seriously, much less literally, by any significant faction in American politics. My hypothesis is that whereas the gun manufacturers clearly make big bucks off their weird absolutist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, there is no set of corporations that would lose billions of dollars if the government snoops into your phone records or email traffic.