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We have a problem when it comes to stopping mass surveillance.  The entity that’s conducting the most extreme and far-reaching surveillance against most of the world’s communications—the National Security Agency—is bound by United States law.  That’s good news for Americans. U.S. law and the Constitution protect American citizens and legal residents from warrantless surveillance. That means we have a very strong legal case to challenge mass surveillance conducted domestically or that sweeps in Americans’ communications.  Similarly, the United States Congress is elected by American voters. That means Congressional representatives are beholden to the American people for their jobs, so public pressure from constituents can help influence future laws that might check some of the NSA’s most egregious practices. But what about everyone else? What about the 96% of the world’s population who are citizens of other countries, living outside U.S. borders. They don't get a vote in Congress. And current American legal protections generally only protect citizens, legal residents, or those physically located within the United States. So what can EFF do to protect the billions of people outside the United States who are victims of the NSA’s spying?

For years, we’ve been working on a strategy to end mass surveillance of digital communications of innocent people worldwide. Today we’re laying out the plan, so you can understand how all the pieces fit together—that is, how U.S. advocacy and policy efforts connect to the international fight and vice versa. Decide for yourself where you can get involved to make the biggest difference. This plan isn’t for the next two weeks or three months. It’s a multi-year battle that may need to be revised many times as we better understand the tools and authorities of entities engaged in mass surveillance and as more disclosures by whistleblowers help shine light on surveillance abuses.

Presidents meeting at the Non-Aligned Summit in 2012 | Photo: Presidency of India Published 8 February 2015 0 + We Recommend The group of 120 nations issued a statement denouncing the sanctions as an intervention into Venezuelan affairs. The Non-Aligned Movement issued a statement Saturday rejecting the latest set of sanctions imposed by the United States against Venezuelan officials. The 120-nation body described the sanctions as “intended to undermine Venezuela's sovereignty, its political independence and its right to self-determination.” The U.S. government announced a new set of sanctions last week which target former and current Venezuelan officials. The U.S. has justified various rounds of sanctions by claiming corruption and that human rights abuses occurred in the oil-rich county during a wave of opposition violence last year that left 43 dead. However, the Venezuelan government has pointed out the sanctions are politically motivated and that they form part of U.S. plans to oust the country’s elected government, given that the overwhelming majority of the 43 fatalities were caused by right-wing extremists. The Non-Aligned Movement considers the unilateral sanctions a “violation of international law, including the United Nations Charter and the basic principles of international law of relations between states.” Furthermore, the group of nations considered the measure “coercive” and manifested its solidarity with the Venezuelan people and their government.

The UNASUR group of South American nations also rejected the sanctions and will launch a probe to evaluate Venezuela's evidence of U.S. meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

Sen. Ron Wyden says the CIA is trying to blunt the impact of an upcoming Senate report examining the harsh treatment of al-Qaida detainees by insisting on censoring the pseudonyms used for agency officers mentioned in the document. "The intelligence leadership doing everything they can to bury the facts," said Wyden, D-Ore., a Senate Intelligence Committee member who has been a frequent critic of the spy agency.

President Barack Obama and other senior officials have said the CIA's use of waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation and other harsh techniques on some detainees constituted torture. Many current and former CIA officers dispute that. The Senate report asserts that the harsh treatment didn't work and that CIA officials misled Congress and other government agencies about it. Also to be released is a CIA response, and a separate one by Senate Republicans, which challenge the report's conclusions. CIA officials say they fear the publication of officer pseudonyms — often just a first name such as "Roger"— would lead to the unmasking of undercover officers. Readers could track the same person in different jobs and places, making it easier to discover their identity. Without the pseudonyms, Wyden says, the report would be much harder to understand because readers wouldn't be able to distinguish different CIA officers. Readers wouldn't know, for example, whether same CIA official had been accused of lying multiple times.

Wyden pointed out that the 9/11 Commission Report and a 2004 report into abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison used pseudonyms for CIA officers. "I think it is appropriate to redact specific identifying information so the identities of undercover officers are not publicly exposed," Wyden told The Associated Press. Wyden said the Senate report documents "falsehoods, misdeeds and mistakes" by the CIA. Asked about Wyden's remarks, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said, "Pseudonyms are redacted to keep individual intelligence officers from being identified and potentially harmed. Making public those pseudonyms associated with individual officers, as well as dates, locations and other identifying information related to those officers, dramatically increases the likelihood that they will be exposed and potentially subject to threats or violence."

The United States government submitted its “periodic report” to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. There are multiple glaring aspects of the government’s report on how it believes it is complying fully with the Convention Against Torture (CAT), however, one part of the report where the government claims to have done what it was supposed to do to investigate torture stands out. In particular, the government highlights a Justice Department division as a challenge to impunity for torture, which appears to have prosecuted zero public cases of torture against US officials. To those unfamiliar, countries which are signatories to the CAT are expected to submit reports every four years to the committee. The committee reviews the report and then issues its own “concluding observations” with concerns and recommendations to the “State party.”

One of the committee’s “observations” in its 2006 report involved “reliable reports of acts of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment committed by certain members of the State party’s military or civilians personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq.” It was also “concerned that the investigation and prosecution of many of these cases, including some resulting in the death of detainees,” had “led to lenient sentences, including of an administrative nature or less than one year’s imprisonment.” The committee requested that the US government explain the following in its report: (a) Steps taken to ensure that all forms of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by its military or civilian personnel, in any territory under its de facto and de jure jurisdiction, as well as in any other place under its effective control, is promptly, impartially and thoroughly investigated, and that all those responsible, including senior military and civilian officials authorizing, acquiescing or consenting in any way to such acts committed by their subordinates are prosecuted and appropriately punished, in accordance with the seriousness of the crime (para. 26). Are all suspects in prima facie cases of torture and ill-treatment as a rule suspended or reassigned during the process of investigation?

The government answered [PDF], “US law provides jurisdiction in a number of ways that could be relied on for criminal prosecution of torture and ill-treatment of detainees” and some examples. One could read this as, theoretically, if the US government wanted to prosecute US officials involved in torture, this is what is available in US law to do just that.

A senior U.S. diplomat touched down in Caracas on Wednesday where he met with Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, ahead of the Organization of American State’s (OAS) 7th Summit of the Americas this Friday in Panama.  State Department Counsellor, Thomas A. Shannon, flew to Venezuela on Tuesday on behalf of Secretary of State, John Kerry, at the invitation of Caracas. Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Delcy Rodriguez, was also present.

Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, stated that he hoped the meeting would lead to a new era of relations with the U.S. “I told him, with all due respect, I hope that what I am going to say here in this meeting, with the best Bolivarian commitment, is going to be received where it needs to be received and that the doors are opened to a new stage in our relationship, based on respect, respect for the dignity and sovereignty of Venezuela,” stated Maduro on Thursday.

The reaction has witnessed Washington tone down its rhetoric in relation to Venezuela and on Tuesday this week, Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, stated that “The United States does not believe that Venezuela poses some threat to our national security,” in what seemed to be a contradiction of the language used in March’s Executive Order. Nevertheless, the issue is expected to be a significant point of contention throughout the upcoming summit, which will be attended by both President Nicolas Maduro and Barack Obama.

One by one, four former Blackwater security contractors wearing blue jumpsuits and leg irons stood before a federal judge on Monday and spoke publicly for the first time since a deadly 2007 shooting in Iraq.The men had been among several private American security guards who fired into Baghdad’s crowded Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007, and last October they were convicted of killing 14 unarmed Iraqis in what prosecutors called a wartime atrocity. Yet on Monday, as they awaited sentences that they knew would send them to prison for most if not all of their lives, they defiantly asserted their innocence.

The judge, Royce C. Lamberth, strongly disagreed, sentencing Mr. Slatten to life in prison and handing 30-year sentences to the three others. A fifth former guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway of California, had pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and testified against his former colleagues. He has not been sentenced but testified that he hoped to avoid any prison time.The ruling ended a long investigation into the Nisour Square shooting, a signature, gruesome moment in the Iraq war that highlighted America’s reliance on private contractors to maintain security in combat zones.

No such company was more powerful than Blackwater, which won more than $1 billion in government contracts. Its employees, most of them military veterans, protected American diplomats overseas and became enmeshed in the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine counterterrorism operations. Its founder, Erik Prince, was a major donor to the Republican Party.

The “proxy war” model the US has been employing throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and even in parts of Asia appears to have failed yet again, this time in the Persian Gulf state of Yemen. Overcoming the US-Saudi backed regime in Yemen, and a coalition of sectarian extremists including Al Qaeda and its rebrand, the “Islamic State,” pro-Iranian Yemeni Houthi militias have turned the tide against American “soft power” and has necessitated a more direct military intervention. While US military forces themselves are not involved allegedly, Saudi warplanes and a possible ground force are. Though Saudi Arabia claims “10 countries” have joined its coalition to intervene in Yemen, like the US invasion and occupation of Iraq hid behind a “coalition,” it is overwhelmingly a Saudi operation with “coalition partners” added in a vain attempt to generate diplomatic legitimacy. The New York Times, even in the title of its report, “Saudi Arabia Begins Air Assault in Yemen,” seems not to notice these “10” other countries. It reports:

Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had launched a military campaign in Yemen, the beginning of what a Saudi official said was an offensive to restore a Yemeni government that had collapsed after rebel forces took control of large swaths of the country.  The air campaign began as the internal conflict in Yemen showed signs of degenerating into a proxy war between regional powers. The Saudi announcement came during a rare news conference in Washington by Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.

Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its unfortunate stand-in. Iran’s interest in Yemen serves as a direct result of the US-engineered “Arab Spring” and attempts to overturn the political order of North Africa and the Middle East to create a unified sectarian front against Iran for the purpose of a direct conflict with Tehran. The war raging in Syria is one part of this greater geopolitical conspiracy, aimed at overturning one of Iran’s most important regional allies, cutting the bridge between it and another important ally, Hezbollah in Lebanon. And while Iran’s interest in Yemen is currently portrayed as yet another example of Iranian aggression, indicative of its inability to live in peace with its neighbors, US policymakers themselves have long ago already noted that Iran’s influence throughout the region, including backing armed groups, serves a solely defensive purpose, acknowledging the West and its regional allies’ attempts to encircle, subvert, and overturn Iran’s current political order.

The state agency that regulates the legal profession in Virginia has canceled a planned seminar in Jerusalem following objections over Israel’s discrimination against Americans of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim ancestry. “Certain members of the Virginia State Bar and other individuals have expressed objections to the VSB’s plan to take the Midyear Legal Seminar trip in November to Jerusalem,” Kevin E. Martingayle, the agency’s president, wrote in an email to members today. “It was stated that there are some unacceptable discriminatory policies and practices pertaining to border security that affect travelers to the nation.” “Upon review of US State Department advisories and other research, and after consultation with our leaders, it has been determined that there is enough legitimate concern to warrant cancellation of the Israel trip and exploration of alternative locations,” Martingayle said.

“Undoubtedly, this news will disappoint some VSB members,” Martingayle added, “But we are a state agency that strives for maximum inclusion and equality, and that explains this action.” Dozens of lawyers who are members of the VSB had signed an open letter detailing Israel’s discriminatory practices, citing reports from the US government and Amnesty International. The Electronic Intifada has also reported extensively on Israel’s discriminatory denial of entry and other forms of abuse and harassment of Palestinian Americans and other travelers.

A​ military judge has rejected a request for war court intervention in the healthcare of an alleged 9/11 plotter who, according to his lawyer, still suffers from wounds inflicted at a CIA “black site” where agents subjected him to rectal rehydration.Army Col. James L. Pohl wrote in a two-page order released by the Pentagon Friday that the court “does not have the authority to address issues concerning medical care.” It was dated March 10.In February, the attorney for Saudi captive Mustafa al Hawsawi asked the judge to intervene in the case, referring to a recently released portion of the Senate Intelligence Committee's “Torture Report,” and saying that the 46-year-old man had been rectally abused while in CIA custody — and that he continues to bleed now, at least eight years later. “Some would call that sodomy,” said attorney Walter Ruiz, adding that “those acts caused longstanding chronic medical conditions that have yet to be resolved.”

Hawsawi is accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers with travel and money. He is awaiting a death-penalty trial with the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and three others, all of whom were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” before they got to Guantánamo in September 2006.Hawsawi has sat on a pillow over years of pretrial hearings. The February hearing was the first time that Ruiz was permitted to explain it under a loosening of censorship at the court that lets lawyers talk about the released, redacted 524-page portion of the 6,200-page Senate report.Guantánamo’s prison spokesmen say war-on-terror captives get the same level of medical care as U.S. service members.Ruiz specifically cited a reference to an investigation of allegations that CIA agents conducted medically unnecessary rectal exams with excessive force on two detainees, one of them Hawsawi, who afterward suffered an anal fissure, rectal prolapse and hemorrhoids.　

Ruiz said that guards sometimes find blood in Hawsawi’s clothes. The lawyer asked the judge to order prison legal and medical staff to speak with him, as Hawsawi’s healthcare proxy, and to let him see Hawsawi’s secret medical records. Prosecutors urged the Army judge to stay out of the issue. “No doctor should be treating with a lawyer looking over his shoulder,” said federal attorney Ed Ryan.The Sept. 11 hearings are in recess until April 20.

When Edward Snowden disclosed details of America’s huge surveillance program two years ago, many in Europe thought that the response would be increased transparency and stronger oversight of security services. European countries, however, are moving in the opposite direction. Instead of more public scrutiny, we are getting more snooping. Pushed to respond to the atrocious attacks in Paris and Copenhagen and by the threats posed by the Islamic State to Europe’s internal security, several countries are amending their counterterrorism legislation to grant more intrusive powers to security services, especially in terms of mass electronic surveillance.

Governments now argue that to guarantee our security we have to sacrifice some rights. This is a specious argument. By shifting from targeted to mass surveillance, governments risk undermining democracy while pretending to protect it.They are also betraying a long political and judicial tradition affording broad protection to privacy in Europe, where democratic legal systems have evolved to protect individuals from arbitrary interference by the state in their private and family life. The European Court of Human Rights has long upheld the principle that surveillance interferes with the right to privacy. Although the court accepts that the use of confidential information is essential in combating terrorist threats, it has held that the collection, use and storage of such information should be authorized only under exceptional and precise conditions, and must be accompanied by adequate legal safeguards and independent supervision. The court has consistently applied this principle for decades when it was called to judge the conduct of several European countries, which were combating domestic terrorist groups.

More recently, as new technologies have offered more avenues to increase surveillance and data collection, the court has reiterated its position in a number of leading cases against several countries, including France, Romania, Russia and Britain, condemned for having infringed the right to private and family life that in the interpretation of the court covers also “the physical and psychological integrity of a person.”

Eight months after Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies began an aerial campaign against the Houthi rebels, the civilian death toll continues to mount. More than 5,600 people, including 2,615 civilians and 500 children, have been killed since March. The vast majority of civilian deaths are attributable to coalition airstrikes.  Human rights groups have warned about war crimes and the continued humanitarian calamity in Yemen. “Yemen in five months is like Syria after five years,” Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in August. “The humanitarian situation is nothing short of catastrophic. Every family in Yemen has been affected by this conflict.” Complicit in the growing humanitarian disaster is the United States and its unchecked arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies. The Barack Obama administration agreed to transfer more than $64 billion in weapons and services to members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) during its first five years. On Oct. 20, the U.S. government approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell warships to Saudi Arabia, ignoring calls from human rights activists to refrain from selling certain military equipment in light of the civilian toll it is inflicting. In continuing to provide weapons, intelligence and logistical support to Riyadh, including precision rockets and internationally banned cluster munitions, the U.S. is contributing to Yemen’s suffering.

Take the Sept. 28 coalition airstrike that hit a wedding party, killing dozens and wounding many more. Among the dead were women and children. The White House expressed concern about the incident, but its words ring hollow, given that the U.S supplied the planes used in the attack. In a report on Oct. 6, London-based advocacy group Amnesty International investigated 13 coalition airstrikes from May to July that killed an estimated 100 people, including 59 children. The group found that some of the strikes hit civilian objects such as “homes, public buildings, schools, markets, shops, factories, bridges, roads and other civilian infrastructure,” as well as civilians fleeing in vehicles and those delivering humanitarian assistance. Amnesty said the strikes violate international law and found “damning evidence of war crimes,” which warrant an international investigation and the suspension of certain arms transfers. A United Nations panel has accused all sides of human rights abuses, but singled out coalition forces for committing “grave violations.” But international condemnation has done little to ease the devastation wrought by the strikes.

Micah Lee: What are some operational security practices you think everyone should adopt? Just useful stuff for average people. Edward Snowden: [Opsec] is important even if you’re not worried about the NSA. Because when you think about who the victims of surveillance are, on a day-to-day basis, you’re thinking about people who are in abusive spousal relationships, you’re thinking about people who are concerned about stalkers, you’re thinking about children who are concerned about their parents overhearing things. It’s to reclaim a level of privacy. The first step that anyone could take is to encrypt their phone calls and their text messages. You can do that through the smartphone app Signal, by Open Whisper Systems. It’s free, and you can just download it immediately. And anybody you’re talking to now, their communications, if it’s intercepted, can’t be read by adversaries. [Signal is available for iOS and Android, and, unlike a lot of security tools, is very easy to use.] You should encrypt your hard disk, so that if your computer is stolen the information isn’t obtainable to an adversary — pictures, where you live, where you work, where your kids are, where you go to school. [I’ve written a guide to encrypting your disk on Windows, Mac, and Linux.] Use a password manager. One of the main things that gets people’s private information exposed, not necessarily to the most powerful adversaries, but to the most common ones, are data dumps. Your credentials may be revealed because some service you stopped using in 2007 gets hacked, and your password that you were using for that one site also works for your Gmail account. A password manager allows you to create unique passwords for every site that are unbreakable, but you don’t have the burden of memorizing them. [The password manager KeePassX is free, open source, cross-platform, and never stores anything in the cloud.]

The other thing there is two-factor authentication. The value of this is if someone does steal your password, or it’s left or exposed somewhere … [two-factor authentication] allows the provider to send you a secondary means of authentication — a text message or something like that. [If you enable two-factor authentication, an attacker needs both your password as the first factor and a physical device, like your phone, as your second factor, to login to your account. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, GitHub, Battle.net, and tons of other services all support two-factor authentication.]

We should armor ourselves using systems we can rely on every day. This doesn’t need to be an extraordinary lifestyle change. It doesn’t have to be something that is disruptive. It should be invisible, it should be atmospheric, it should be something that happens painlessly, effortlessly. This is why I like apps like Signal, because they’re low friction. It doesn’t require you to re-order your life. It doesn’t require you to change your method of communications. You can use it right now to talk to your friends.

A lawsuit has been filed in a US court seeking to stop non-profit groups from sending billions of dollars worth of tax-exempt donations to support illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli army.

A group of American citizens filed the suit on December 21 against the US Department of Treasury, claiming about 150 non-profits have sent an estimated $280bn to Israel over the past two decades. The lawsuit claims, according to Al Jazeera, that the donations were “pass-throughs” and “funnels” to support the Israeli army and the illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The lawsuit claims that certain non-profit groups (including the Falic Family Foundation, FIDF (Friends of the Israeli Defence Force), American Friends of Ariel, Gush Etzion Foundation, American Friends of Har Homa, and Hebron Fund) directly contributed, tax-exempt, to violations of US law and international law, subverted US foreign policy, and contributed to countless crimes and human rights abuses targeting Palestinians. The Treasury Department, which has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, declined to comment, stating in an email to Al Jazeera: “We don’t comment on pending litigation.”

Criticism of US government leniency on Wall Street legal transgressions is now being covered widely - even by trade publications such as the National Mortgage Professional Magazine. On January 18, the trade publication ran an article about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) condemning the most recent US government settlement with a "too-big-to-fail" financial firm, in this case Goldman Sachs, for illegal abuse of the mortgage market: Sen. Warren used her Facebook page to denounce the agreement, noting that the settlement sum was “barely a fraction of the billions investors lost” while arguing that Goldman Sachs was not properly penalized for its actions. “That’s not justice – it’s a white flag of surrender,” she wrote. “It’s time to end this farce. These companies think they’re above the law – and too many government officials go along with them. A first step would be to pass the bipartisan Truth in Settlements Act to shine more light on these backroom deals. A second step would be to get government officials who have the backbone to fight back.” Warren’s comments were echoed by the nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG).

The publication, which is geared toward professionals in the mortgage industry, also tellingly noted, "In announcing the [$5.1 billion] settlement, Goldman Sachs made no admission of guilt or error, and no executive from the New York-based financial giant will face criminal or civil charges."  As we have noted in this space many times, the seemingly large financial penalties levied on Wall Street firms for illegal activity are not so large, in the context of those firms' budgets: The fines are generally less than the revenue that the firms generated by engaging in the often fraudulent practices in the first place. As The Huffington Post noted in a report on the recent settlement,  About $2.4 billion of the settlement is in the form of a government penalty. The bank has said that it securitized about $125 billion of home loans between 2005 and 2008, of which about $23 billion eventually soured. The penalty represents about 10 percent of investors’ losses. Goldman can deduct the rest of the settlement, about $2.7 billion, from its future tax bills, according to a person familiar with the accord. The bank said the settlement will reduce its fourth-quarter profit by about $1.5 billion. It reports earnings next week.

Goldman Sachs is being let off the hook for 90 percent of the investor losses for which it was primarily responsible. Furthermore, as is consistent with past settlements with Wall Street firms by the Department of Justice and other executive agencies, much of the fine is tax-deductible. As BuzzFlash has noted before, this rewards Wall Street financial companies by allowing them to factor in settlements with the government for illegal behavior as nothing more than the cost of doing business. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who left office last year to resume a six-figure-salary partnership at the DC corporate law firm of Covington & Burling (which defends many of the firms that Holder was responsible for prosecuting as attorney general), infamously stated to a US Senate committee in March of 2013: I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute - if we do bring a criminal charge - it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.  Apparently, under current Attorney General Loretta Lynch, that legal exemption for too-big-to-fail financial firms and their executives has not changed.

Businesses should stop operating in, financing, servicing, or trading with Israeli settlements in order to comply with their human rights responsibilities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Those activities contribute to and benefit from an inherently unlawful and abusive system that violates the rights of Palestinians. The 162-page report, “Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights,” documents how settlement businesses facilitate the growth and operations of settlements. These businesses depend on and contribute to the Israeli authorities’ unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and other resources. They also benefit from these violations, as well as Israel’s discriminatory policies that provide privileges to settlements at the expense of Palestinians, such as access to land and water, government subsidies, and permits for developing land.

A group of Palestinians and Palestinian Americans are seeking $34.5 billion dollars in damages from wealthy individuals and companies they accuse of financing and profiting from Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and other abuses of their rights. The plaintiffs include Palestinians who have lost family members in Israeli attacks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Their lawsuit is the latest effort to expose and curb the role of organizations that operate as tax-exempt US charities in fueling violence and settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian land. It names as defendants US tycoons Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, Irving Moskowitz and Oracle founder Lawrence Ellison.

Adelson is renowned for using his huge casino fortune to advance his pro-Israel political agenda and is a major financial backer of both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Republican Party. Saban has donated millions of dollars to US Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Moskowitz is one of the main financiers of settler efforts to force Palestinians out of their homes in occupied East Jerusalem. The lawsuit also names Israeli diamond magnate and settlement builder Lev Leviev and Christians United for Israel founder, the US Evangelical pastor John Hagee. Twelve US-based charities and a number of Israeli and US corporations are also named as defendants. The charities include Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, The Hebron Fund and Christian Friends of Israeli Communities.

The plaintiffs, represented by the law firm Martin McMahon and Associates, allege that the defendants are directly responsible for violence and for the expansion of settlements. The lawsuit, filed in a Washington, DC, federal court on Monday, alleges a wide range of crimes under US and international law, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, conspiracy, money laundering, racketeering, perjury and pillage. It alleges that charitable donations are sent to the Israeli army, a violation of US laws against funding a foreign military. Last December, some of the same plaintiffs using the same law firm sued the US Treasury for allowing billions of dollars of tax-exempt donations to flow to Israeli settlements. This lawsuit targets those who are supplying the money. Several are powerful billionaires who the lawsuit contends have defrauded the US tax authorities by funnelling huge sums of money meant for illegal purposes through tax-exempt organizations. According to the lawsuit, approximately $1 billion is sent through these organizations each year, with $104 million going to the Israeli army in 2014.

An Israeli court sentenced, Sunday, democratically-elected leftist Palestinian legislator, and a senior political leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khalida Jarrar to 15 months imprisonment.

The army kidnapped the legislator on April 2nd of this year, and on April 5th, she was sentenced for six months imprisonment, under arbitrary Administrative Detention orders, without charges. On April 15, the Israeli military prosecutor’s office filed an indictment of twelve charges against Khalida Jarrar, including what it called “membership in an illegal organization,” in addition to “holding and participating in protests” in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners. The PFLP denounced the ruling and said it shows the unjust, chaotic and arbitrary nature of Israeli courts and the legal system in dealing with Palestinian political prisoners. The PFLP reiterated its firm stance in not recognizing Israeli military courts, as they are part of the illegal occupation of Palestine. It also demanded referring the file of all detained legislators to the United Nations, in addition to calling for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to discuss the issues of Palestinian political prisoners, including detained women facing constant violations.

“Israel is deliberately targeting elected and senior political leaders of various factions in Palestine,” the PFLP said, “Jarrar is an important political figure, a symbol for steadfastness and determination; she always held her head high and challenged the Israeli abuse and violations.” The PFLP also stated that Israel is trying to increase its pressure, and is escalating its violations, against Palestinian women, holding important roles in leading the national struggle against the occupation.

For almost a decade and a half, the people behind the Bush administration's shameful treatment of terrorism suspects have avoided punishment for their crimes, but that may be about to change. The courts have had their say and have ruled that former Bush administration officials can, in fact, be sued for how they conducted the "war on terror." The Second Circuit Court of Appeals made that pretty much official on Friday when it refused to hear a challenge to its earlier ruling in the case of Turkmen v. Ashcroft. That case involves hundreds of Arab, Muslim or South Asian men who were detained and then abused by our government in the weeks following 9/11.

Some of them were beaten by security guards and kept in solitary confinement, which the United Nations considers a form of torture. After they were released, these men sued the people they say authorized their detentions - people like former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former FBI director Robert Mueller. A district court initially blocked their claims, but in June, the Second Circuit Court allowed them, saying that Ashcroft, Mueller and company could be sued. The government then made one more last ditch push to protect the Bush administration, but that effort failed last Friday when the Second Circuit rejected it. Everyone else who authorized and participated in the illegal roundup of hundreds of innocent men after 9/11, from high-up government officials on down, is now fair game for a lawsuit.

Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantanamo Bay, was released on Friday after being detained without charge for almost 14 years.On September 25th, U.S. and U.K. authorities confirmed that Aamer was to be returned to the U.K. within days. The release comes after Aamer endured well over a decade of torture, detention without charge or trial, and solitary confinement. Aamer’s high profile case has highlighted everything that is wrong with the war on terror — detention without charge or trial, government complicity in torture and lack of accountability for war crimes, gross obstruction of justice, and the humiliating and dehumanising treatment of detainees.A keen community worker and U.K. resident, Aamer is married to a British woman and four British children living in London. He was volunteering for a charity in Afghanistan in 2001 when he was abducted and sold for a bounty to U.S. forces. He was tortured, eventually cracking and agreeing to his captors’ accusations against him. Satisfied with the confession of an abused and broken man, U.S. forces took him to Guantánamo Bay on Valentine’s Day 2002.In a September Daily Mail piece entitled “Torture and the man who could expose Britain’s dirtiest secrets,” journalist Peter Oborne said, “My view is that Mr Aamer may have paid the price for knowing too much. The CIA had very good reason to be terrified of what he might reveal when he emerged from jail.”

In New York City, the police now maintain an unknown number of military-grade vans outfitted with X-ray radiation, enabling cops to look through the walls of buildings or the sides of trucks. The technology was used in Afghanistan before being loosed on U.S. streets. Each X-ray van costs an estimated $729,000 to $825,000.The NYPD will not reveal when, where, or how often they are used.

Here are some specific questions that New York City refuses to answer:How is the NYPD ensuring that innocent New Yorkers are not subject to harmful X-ray radiation? How long is the NYPD keeping the images that it takes and who can look at them? Is the NYPD obtaining judicial authorization prior to taking images, and if so, what type of authorization? Is the technology funded by taxpayer money, and has the use of the vans justified the price tag? Those specifics are taken from a New York Civil Liberties Union court filing. The legal organization is seeking to assist a lawsuit filed by Pro Publica journalist Michael Grabell, who has been fighting New York City for answers about X-ray vans for 3 years.“ProPublica filed the request as part of its investigation into the proliferation of security equipment, including airport body scanners, that expose people to ionizing radiation, which can mutate DNA and increase the risk of cancer,” he explained. (For fear of a terrorist “dirty bomb,” America’s security apparatus is exposing its population to radiation as a matter of course.)

A state court has already ruled that the NYPD has to turn over policies, procedures, and training manuals that shape uses of X-rays; reports on past deployments; information on the costs of the X-ray devices and the number of vans purchased; and information on the health and safety effects of the technology. But New York City is fighting on appeal to suppress that information and more, as if it is some kind of spy agency rather than a municipal police department operating on domestic soil, ostensibly at the pleasure of city residents.Its insistence on extreme secrecy is part of an alarming trend. The people of New York City are effectively being denied the ability to decide how they want to be policed.