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It was a Malaysian jet, carrying Malaysian passengers, flown by Malaysian pilots, yet after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014, Malaysia has been systematically blocked from participating in the investigation, leaving an overwhelmingly pro-NATO bloc in charge of the evidence, investigation and outcome as well as the manner in which the investigation will be carried out. Despite the integral role Malaysia has played during several pivotal moments in the aftermath of the disaster, it appears that the closer to the truth the investigation should be getting, the further Malaysia itself is being pushed from both the evidence and any influence it has on the likely conclusions of the investigation. With the downed aircraft in question being Malaysian, Malaysia as a partner in the investigation would seem a given. Its exclusion from the investigation appears to be an indication that the investigation’s objectivity has been compromised and that the conclusions it draws will likely be politically motivated.

With the Dutch leading the investigation, the logic being that the flight originated from the Netherlands and the majority of the passengers were Dutch, it has formed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT). At the onset of its creation it seemed obvious that Malaysia would too be included, considering it lost the second largest number of citizens to the disaster and the plane itself was registered in Malaysia. Instead, JIT would end up comprised of Belgium, Ukraine, and Australia, specifically excluding Malaysia. Malaysia was both surprised and has protested its exclusion from JIT, and has repeatedly expressed a desire to be included directly in the investigation.

The Malaysian Insider cited Malaysian scholar Dr. Chandra Muzaffar who believes the decision to exclude his country from the investigation is politically motivated, aiming at excluding members that may urge caution and objectivity instead of draw conclusions first and bend the investigation’s results around those conclusions. In particular, Dr. Muzaffar believes that the investigations is intentionally being skewed to target Russia. Ukraine’s involvement in the investigation is particularly troublesome. Had MH17 crashed in Ukraine under different circumstances, Ukraine’s role would be welcome. However, it was apparently shot down specifically in a conflict in which Kiev itself is a participant. With both sides of the conflict possessing anti-aircraft weapons and with Kiev itself confirmed to possess weapons capable of reaching the altitude MH17 was flying at when it was allegedly hit, Kiev becomes a possible suspect in the investigation. Kiev’s inclusion in JIT represents a monumental conflict of interest.

Messages found stored on Clinton’s private email server show that Berger – a convicted thief of classified documents – had been advising Clinton while she served as secretary of state and had access to emails containing classified information. For example, in an email dated Sept. 22, 2009, Berger advised Clinton advised how she could leverage information to make Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more cooperative in discussions with the Obama administration over a settlement freeze.

Law firm ties Berger, Lynch, Mills Berger worked as a partner in the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson from 1973 to 1977, before taking a position as the deputy director of policy planning at the State Department in the Carter administration. When Carter lost his re-election bid, Berger returned to Hogan & Hartson, where he worked until he took leave in 1988 to act as foreign policy adviser in Gov. Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign. When Dukakis was defeated, Berger returned to Hogan & Hartson until he became foreign policy adviser for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. On March 28, WND reported Lynch was a litigation partner for eight years at Hogan & Hartson, from March 2002 through April 2010. Mills also worked at Hogan & Hartson, for two years, starting in 1990, before she joined then President-elect Bill Clinton’s transition team, on her way to securing a position as White House deputy counsel in the Clinton administration. According to documents Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign made public in 2008, Hogan & Hartson’s New York-based partner Howard Topaz was the tax lawyer who filed income tax returns for Bill and Hillary Clinton beginning in 2004. In addition, Hogan & Hartson in Virginia filed a patent trademark request on May 19, 2004, for Denver-based MX Logic Inc., the computer software firm that developed the email encryption system used to manage Clinton’s private email server beginning in July 2013. A tech expert has observed that employees of MX Logic could have had access to all the emails that went through her account.

(Reuters) - Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he replaced ten cabinet ministers, half of his total roster, after three ministers resigned over a high-level graft inquiry on Wednesday. The replaced ministers included EU Minister Egemen Bagis, who was allegedly named in the corruption probe but had not resigned yet, and key positions such as the Economy and justice ministers.

For as long as Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented human rights violations by Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has also referred complaints to the Israeli military’s internal investigative unit. But this week, the nearly three-decade old human rights organization announced it will end its cooperation with Israel’s military law enforcement system. “As of today,” executive director Hagai El-Ad wrote in an emailed statement on 25 May, “we will no longer refer complaints to this system, and we will call on the Palestinian public not to do so either.” “We will no longer aid a system that whitewashes investigations and serves as a fig leaf for the occupation.” B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military’s investigations was not confined to filing complaints with the office of the Military Advocate General. The organization also assisted investigators to speak to Palestinians and Palestinian victims and obtain documents and medical records.

The decision to cease such work was announced alongside the publication of “The Occupation’s Fig Leaf: Israel’s Military Law Enforcement System as a Whitewash Mechanism.” The report examines the paucity of the army’s investigative efforts, that by design only probe the conduct of low-ranking soldiers. Orders are never placed under investigation, B’Tselem explains, only alleged breaches of orders. “B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement systems has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” the report states. The decision has been percolating for some time. B’Tselem first broke with its usual practice in 2014, when it refused to provide information to the military unit investigating “irregular” incidents during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that summer. Since the second intifada, B’Tselem has demanded investigations into 739 cases in which Palestinians were killed, injured, used as human shields or subjected to other abuses.

Only 25 led to charges against soldiers. Of the rest, in nearly 75 percent of cases, investigations were either never opened or closed without further action. The outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000 marked a change in how Israel viewed the legality of soldiers killing Palestinians. Whereas before Israel would investigate every case in which a soldier killed a Palestinian, until 2011 Israel “permitted the use of force – even lethal force – against those identified as being involved in the fighting or in terror activity in certain circumstances,” as former Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit wrote in 2010.

Israel’s government watchdog, the state comptroller, said on Tuesday that he had opened an investigation into decisions made by military and political leaders during last summer’s 50-day war with the Hamas militant group in Gaza.The announcement was Israel’s latest effort to head off an International Criminal Court inquiry into its conduct during the war, and came days after prosecutors at the court opened a preliminary examination of possible war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, the first formal step that could lead to charges against Israelis.

A United Nations Human Rights Council commission of inquiry into Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip is underway. The state comptroller’s announcement also came as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which opposes Israeli occupation of the territories captured in 1967, published a report criticizing what it said were failures of the Israeli military’s system for warning Gaza’s citizens of impending strikes during the fighting last summer. It also faulted the military for a lack of safe evacuation routes and for strikes against rescue teams.

The International Criminal Court generally takes on only cases concerning countries that are unwilling or unable to investigate their own actions. In a statement, the Israeli state comptroller, Joseph Haim Shapira, highlighted this point as what was apparently a motivating factor in beginning his inquiry.

Current and former FBI officials have launched a media counter-offensive to engage head to head with the Clinton media machine and to throw off the shackles the Loretta Lynch Justice Department has used to stymie their multiple investigations into the Clinton pay-to-play network. Over the past weekend, former FBI Assistant Director and current CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Tom Fuentes told viewers that “the FBI has an intensive investigation ongoing into the Clinton Foundation.” He said he had received this information from “senior officials” at the FBI, “several of them, in and out of the Bureau.” (See video clip from CNN below.) That information was further supported by an in-depth article last evening in the Wall Street Journal by Devlin Barrett. According to Barrett, the “probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.” Barrett’s article suggests that the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, has attempted to circumvent the investigation. The new revelations lead to the appearance of wrongdoing on the part of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch for secretly meeting with Bill Clinton on her plane on the tarmac of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on the evening of June 28 of this year. Not only was Bill Clinton’s wife under an FBI investigation at the time over her use of a private email server in the basement of her New York home over which Top Secret material was transmitted while she was Secretary of State but his own charitable foundation was also under investigation, a fact that was unknown at the time to the public and the media.

The reports leaking out of the FBI over the weekend came on the heels of FBI Director James Comey sending a letter to members of Congress on Friday acknowledging that the investigation into the Hillary Clinton email server was not closed as he had previously testified to Congress, but had been reopened as a result of “pertinent” emails turning up. According to multiple media sources, those emails were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide, Huma Abedin. Weiner was forced to resign from Congress in 2011 over a sexting scandal with more sexting scandals to follow. Early this month, on October 3, the FBI raided Weiner’s apartment in New York with a search warrant in hand and seized multiple electronic devices. At least one of those devices had been used by both Weiner and Abedin to send email messages. The search warrant had been obtained following a detailed report that had appeared in the Daily Mail newspaper in the U.K. in September, showing sordid, sexual emails that Weiner had allegedly sent to a 15-year old girl in North Carolina. According to the content of the published emails, Weiner was aware that the girl was underage. While examining the hard drive of a laptop seized from Weiner, the FBI found metadata showing that thousands of the emails were exchanged between the private server located in Hillary Clinton’s basement in Chappaqua, New York. Since the FBI had only a search warrant to examine emails and documents related to the Weiner matter, it was not able to read the other emails but simply tallied up the metadata linked to the private server in Chappaqua to show how many potentially new emails might be in the trove on the laptop. (It is also possible that the FBI agents could have used a program to compare subject headings against those emails previously turned over by Abedin to make their case that Abedin had perjured herself when she testified to them that she had turned over all of her work-related emails from her time as Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations when Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State.)

The FBI officials briefed FBI Director James Comey last Thursday on the new trove of emails and he went public with his letter to Congress the next day – leading the Clinton camp to immediately launch a media assault on his motives. As if all of this wasn’t enough for the public to digest over the weekend, yesterday morning James Kallstrom, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Division and 25-year veteran of the FBI, went on the John Catsimatidis radio program to call the Clintons a “crime family.” (You can hear the full program here.) Kallstrom’s comments were further amplified when the New York Daily News reported on his criticisms that the FBI had been hamstrung from conducting a real investigation. The Daily News quoted Kallstrom from the radio program as follows: “ ‘This investigation was never a real investigation, they never had grand jury empaneled…This investigation was without the ability to serve subpoenas, serve search warrants, and obtain evidence … It was just ludicrous.’ ” On Wednesday of last week, just two days before FBI Director Comey issued his public letter to Congress, WikiLeaks released a devastating memo from Douglas Band, at the time a key figure at the Clinton Foundation and President of his own corporate consulting firm, Teneo. The memo was rife with suggestions of pay-to-play and personal enrichment schemes at the Clinton Foundation. The same day, Washington Post reporters Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger reported the story, including the following details:

The Obama administration fought a legal battle against Google to secretly obtain the email records of a security researcher and journalist associated with WikiLeaks. Newly unsealed court documents obtained by The Intercept reveal the Justice Department won an order forcing Google to turn over more than one year’s worth of data from the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum (pictured above), a developer for the Tor online anonymity project who has worked with WikiLeaks as a volunteer. The order also gagged Google, preventing it from notifying Appelbaum that his records had been provided to the government. The surveillance of Appelbaum’s Gmail account was tied to the Justice Department’s long-running criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, which began in 2010 following the transparency group’s publication of a large cache of U.S. government diplomatic cables. According to the unsealed documents, the Justice Department first sought details from Google about a Gmail account operated by Appelbaum in January 2011, triggering a three-month dispute between the government and the tech giant. Government investigators demanded metadata records from the account showing email addresses of those with whom Appelbaum had corresponded between the period of November 2009 and early 2011; they also wanted to obtain information showing the unique IP addresses of the computers he had used to log in to the account.

The Justice Department argued in the case that Appelbaum had “no reasonable expectation of privacy” over his email records under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Rather than seeking a search warrant that would require it to show probable cause that he had committed a crime, the government instead sought and received an order to obtain the data under a lesser standard, requiring only “reasonable grounds” to believe that the records were “relevant and material” to an ongoing criminal investigation. Google repeatedly attempted to challenge the demand, and wanted to immediately notify Appelbaum that his records were being sought so he could have an opportunity to launch his own legal defense. Attorneys for the tech giant argued in a series of court filings that the government’s case raised “serious First Amendment concerns.” They noted that Appelbaum’s records “may implicate journalistic and academic freedom” because they could “reveal confidential sources or information about WikiLeaks’ purported journalistic or academic activities.” However, the Justice Department asserted that “journalists have no special privilege to resist compelled disclosure of their records, absent evidence that the government is acting in bad faith,” and refused to concede Appelbaum was in fact a journalist. It claimed it had acted in “good faith throughout this criminal investigation, and there is no evidence that either the investigation or the order is intended to harass the … subscriber or anyone else.” Google’s attempts to fight the surveillance gag order angered the government, with the Justice Department stating that the company’s “resistance to providing the records” had “frustrated the government’s ability to efficiently conduct a lawful criminal investigation.”

The Justice Department wanted to keep the surveillance secret largely because of an earlier public backlash over its WikiLeaks investigation. In January 2011, Appelbaum and other WikiLeaks volunteers’ – including Icelandic parlimentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir – were notified by Twitter that the Justice Department had obtained data about their accounts. This disclosure generated widepread news coverage and controversy; the government says in the unsealed court records that it “failed to anticipate the degree of  damage that would be caused” by the Twitter disclosure and did not want to “exacerbate this problem” when it went after Appelbaum’s Gmail data. The court documents show the Justice Department said the disclosure of its Twitter data grab “seriously jeopardized the [WikiLeaks] investigation” because it resulted in efforts to “conceal evidence” and put public pressure on other companies to resist similar surveillance orders. It also claimed that officials named in the subpeona ordering Twitter to turn over information were “harassed” after a copy was published by Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald at Salon in 2011. (The only specific evidence of the alleged harassment cited by the government is an email that was sent to an employee of the U.S. Attorney’s office that purportedly said: “You guys are fucking nazis trying to controll [sic] the whole fucking world. Well guess what. WE DO NOT FORGIVE. WE DO NOT FORGET. EXPECT US.”)

Yesterday the United States gave the U.N. Human Rights Committee its one year follow-up report on progress made to implement four priority recommendations made by the committee a year ago. The independent human rights experts had reviewed the United States' compliance with a major human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). They found the U.S. coming up short in many areas, including accountability for torture, privacy and surveillance, Guantánamo, and gun violence. Yesterday’s disappointing 15-page submission does provide some information on Justice Department investigations regarding police misconduct, including the recent Ferguson report. But, there was nothing on accountability measures taken in the aftermath of the release of the Senate report on the CIA torture program. The need for Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor remains as glaring as ever.

The submission notes that the Senate report’s 500-page executive summary was “declassified with minimal redactions to protect national security,” but it failed to commit to release the entire report (which the ACLU is currently fighting for in a FOIA lawsuit). And while the submission states that the U.S. “supports transparency and has taken steps to ensure that it never resorts to the use of those [harsh interrogation] techniques again,” there is no mention of any concrete actions taken to criminally investigate CIA torture, especially in light of the new information made public in the report about the brutality of the CIA’s methods, and its lies to Congress, the media, and the public about its torture program. Under the ICCPR and the Convention Against Torture, the U.S. has an obligation to effectively, independently, and impartially investigate all cases of unlawful killing or torture, as well as arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance. The U.S. also has an international legal obligation to appropriately prosecute perpetrators – including high-level policymakers.

The U.S. submission mentions the investigation by Justice Department prosecutor John Durham, which he closed in 2012 without any charges being filed. But, the submission fails to provide detailed information on the precise scope of Durham’s mandate. We remain concerned that the investigation may have focused on instances in which interrogators overstepped limits set by senior officials, rather than on the culpability of senior officials themselves. It also remains unclear whether investigators interviewed any prisoners who were subjected to the CIA torture program. During the November 2014 review of the United States before the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva, the committee raised concerns, based on letters and accounts from torture victims or their attorneys, indicating that Durham had never interviewed any detainees. The U.S. delegation responded that it had interviewed 96 persons as part of the investigation, but it did not indicate whether any of the prisoners who were subjected to abuse and torture were amongst those interviewed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred. Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential. "Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD."

A spokesman with the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, declined to comment. But two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to "recreate" an investigative trail is not only legal but a technique that is used almost daily.

Death toll of 22 could rise, with 24 staff and nine patients still unaccounted for five days after US strike on Médecins sans Frontières trauma centre in Kunduz

Thirty-three people are still missing five days after a US air strike on an Afghan hospital, Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) warned on Thursday, sparking fears the death toll could rise significantly. Saturday’s bombing in the disputed town of Kunduz killed 12 staff and 10 patients, prompting the medical aid agency to close the trauma centre.

President Barack Obama has apologised to MSF but three investigations – by the US military, by Nato and by Afghan officials – are underway and the general would not be drawn on their progress.

German prosecutors have opened an investigation into the alleged monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone by the U.S. National Security Agency, officials said Wednesday, in a move that could again complicate diplomatic relations between the two allies. It was not immediately clear what the new investigation might mean in terms of possible prosecutions of Americans. Documents provided by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden indicated in October that the U.S. was monitoring Merkel’s cellphone conversations, as well as those of 35 other foreign leaders. Merkel expressed outrage and accused Washington of a grave breach of trust. In the ensuing diplomatic fallout, President Barack Obama acknowledged Germany’s anger and promised that new guidelines would cut back on such monitoring, except in the case of a national security interest. “The leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that if I want to learn what they think about an issue, I will pick up the phone and call them rather than turning to surveillance,” Obama said at the time.

Following the news of the German probe, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said the U.S. believes direct dialogue between the two countries rather than an investigation is the best way to address Germany’s concerns. “We believe we have an open line and good communication” with Merkel and her team, Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama flew to Brussels for a meeting of the Group of Seven nations. After mulling for months whether to open a formal probe, Chief Federal Prosecutor Harald Range determined “that sufficient factual evidence exists that unknown members of U.S. intelligence services spied on the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel,” his office said. In a similarly thorny diplomatic case, Germany got as far as issuing warrants for 13 unidentified CIA agents suspected of kidnapping a German terrorism suspect and taking him to a detention center in Afghanistan. The case was shelved in 2007 after the U.S. Justice Department said extraditing the agents would harm “American national interests.”

In his Wednesday announcement, Range’s office said he was not opening a formal investigation of wider allegations of blanket surveillance of telecommunications data in Germany by U.S. and British intelligence, saying that there was not yet sufficient factual evidence of concrete crimes. His office said that will remain under consideration. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, declined to comment on Range’s decision or on whether the government fears it will weigh on relations with the U.S. The government didn’t exert any influence on the prosecutor, Seibert told reporters. “I am not going to evaluate here the decision he has made,” he said. Separately, the German Parliament earlier this year set up a committee to investigate the scope of spying by the NSA and other intelligence services in Germany.

An internal CIA investigation confirmed allegations that agency personnel improperly intruded into a protected database used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff to compile a scathing report on the agency’s detention and interrogation program, prompting bipartisan outrage and at least two calls for spy chief John Brennan to resign.“This is very, very serious, and I will tell you, as a member of the committee, someone who has great respect for the CIA, I am extremely disappointed in the actions of the agents of the CIA who carried out this breach of the committee’s computers,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee’s vice chairman.

The rare display of bipartisan fury followed a three-hour private briefing by Inspector General David Buckley. His investigation revealed that five CIA employees, two lawyers and three information technology specialists improperly accessed or “caused access” to a database that only committee staff were permitted to use.Buckley’s inquiry also determined that a CIA crimes report to the Justice Department alleging that the panel staff removed classified documents from a top-secret facility without authorization was based on “inaccurate information,” according to a summary of the findings prepared for the Senate and House intelligence committees and released by the CIA.In other conclusions, Buckley found that CIA security officers conducted keyword searches of the emails of staffers of the committee’s Democratic majority _ and reviewed some of them _ and that the three CIA information technology specialists showed “a lack of candor” in interviews with Buckley’s office.

The inspector general’s summary did not say who may have ordered the intrusion or when senior CIA officials learned of it.Following the briefing, some senators struggled to maintain their composure over what they saw as a violation of the constitutional separation of powers between an executive branch agency and its congressional overseers.“We’re the only people watching these organizations, and if we can’t rely on the information that we’re given as being accurate, then it makes a mockery of the entire oversight function,” said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats.The findings confirmed charges by the committee chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that the CIA intruded into the database that by agreement was to be used by her staffers compiling the report on the harsh interrogation methods used by the agency on suspected terrorists held in secret overseas prisons under the George W. Bush administration.The findings also contradicted Brennan’s denials of Feinstein’s allegations, prompting two panel members, Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to demand that the spy chief resign.

Laura K. Donohue is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and director of Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law. The National Security Agency’s recently revealed surveillance programs undermine the purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was established to prevent this kind of overreach. They violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. And they underscore the dangers of growing executive power.

Another program, PRISM, disclosed by the Guardian and The Washington Post, allows the NSA and the FBI to obtain online data including e-mails, photographs, documents and connection logs. The information that can be assembledabout any one person — much less organizations, social networks and entire communities — is staggering: What we do, think and believe.The government defends the programs’ legality, saying they comply with FISA and its amendments. It may be right, but only because FISA has ceased to provide a meaningful constraint.Under the traditional FISA, if the government wants to conduct electronic surveillance, it must make a classified application to a special court, identitying or describing the target. It must demonstrate probable cause that the target is a foreign power or an agent thereof, and that the facilities to be monitored will be used by the target.In 2008, Congress added section 702 to the statute, allowing the government to use electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons it reasonably believes are abroad, without a court order for each target. A U.S. citizen may not intentionally be targeted.To the extent that the FISC sanctioned PRISM, it may be consistent with the law. But it is disingenuous to suggest that millions of Americans’ e-mails, photographs and documents are “incidental” to an investigation targeting foreigners overseas.

Another program, PRISM, disclosed by the Guardian and The Washington Post, allows the NSA and the FBI to obtain online data including e-mails, photographs, documents and connection logs. The information that can be assembledabout any one person — much less organizations, social networks and entire communities — is staggering: What we do, think and believe.The government defends the programs’ legality, saying they comply with FISA and its amendments. It may be right, but only because FISA has ceased to provide a meaningful constraint.

After a document obtained by Al Jazeera revealed the Palestinian Authority (PA) has stalled the launch of a formal investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, Palestinian legal and human rights experts remain dubious that the PA ever truly intended to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a confidential letter obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, the ICC's top prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said she "did not receive a positive confirmation" from PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki that the request submitted for an international investigation had the Palestinian government's approval. Palestinian officials have, on numerous occasions, threatened to head to the ICC to hold Israel accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. But their efforts so far, have proved fruitless. In July, a French lawyer filed a complaint with the court on behalf of the Palestinian minister of justice, accusing Israel of carrying out war crimes in the Gaza Strip. This came after a 2009 call for an ICC investigation into Israel's three-week military offensive in Gaza that was later dropped when the prosecutor said Palestine was not a court member. In August, Malki met with ICC officials to discuss the implications of ratifying the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the criminal court. "Everything that has happened...is clear evidence of war crimes committed by Israel, amounting to crimes against humanity," he told reporters in The Hague, referring to the recent 51-day Israeli military offensive on Gaza, which left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead. Six Israeli civilians were killed, along with 66 Israeli soldiers.

Two years ago, Palestine became recognised as a non-member observer state at the UN General Assembly. This made it eligible to join the ICC; however, to date, Palestinian officials have not signed the Rome Statute, even though almost 80 percent of Palestinians support going to the court. Senior Fatah official Mohammad Shtayyeh didn't say when the Palestinians would apply to the ICC, but said it would probably happen in another few months. "The indictment against Israel at the ICC and all the accompanying documents are ready," Shtayyeh told Al Jazeera. One of the remaining hurdles, Shtayyeh said, is getting one remaining Palestinian faction - Islamic Jihad - to sign an accession document before the Palestinians can present it. Hamas signed onto the proposal at the behest of the PA in August. "We're not in a situation of setting a deadline or making an ultimatum," he said. "We're following developments in the region and the world, and therefore, we'll wait for answers from the international community. But I believe that by November-December, the picture should be clearer."

In response to Al Jazeera's claims, the Palestinian Justice Minister Salim al-Saqqa said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was serious about going to the ICC and was "awaiting national dialogue" to pursue it. "This issue is our number-one priority," he said. "It is still on the table awaiting a few legal and technical procedures. We have not missed our opportunity to head to the court." So far, the Palestinians have struggled to use the court to pursue their claims, with some attributing this to the PA's use of an ICC investigation as a political bargaining chip. "The PA can go to the ICC in one day," said Shawan Jabarin, the director of Ramallah-based human rights group al-Haq. "Abbas, who has been turned this into a political issue, is balking." Many factors are working against setting off a war crimes investigation at the ICC, not least the international community's apparent opposition to the move. "It is the PA's trump card because the Israelis and the Americans have said it is a red line," said Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

A member of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has been detained for possibly spying for the US. The 31-year-old is suspected of giving a US spy agency information about a parliamentary inquiry of NSA activities. (Image: PictureAlliance/DPA))German news outlets on Friday are reporting that a so-called “double agent” has been detained after confessing to investigators that he was paid by U.S. agents to spy on the German parliamentary panel now investigating the extent of U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance inside the country. According to Deutsche Welle: During questioning, the suspect reportedly told investigators that he had gathered information on an investigative committee from Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. The panel is conducting an inquiry into NSA surveillance on German officials and citizens. A spokesperson for the Federal Prosecutor’s office declined to provide further details about the case, according to news agency AFP. German-US relations have been on the rocks since revelations of mass surveillance not only on German citizens, but also on Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians made headlines last year.

Der Spiegel (Google Translate) notes that initial information indicates the individual—who worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s equivalent of the NSA—had “been specifically looking for information related to the NSA investigation committee of the Bundestag and given them to his American contact man.” As journalist Glenn Greenwald immediately observed: That’d be the ultimate irony: US Govt spied on German parliamentary investigation into US Govt spying on Germans http://t.co/P9WkGT83oQ — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 4, 2014 And David Meyer, writing for Gigaom, adds: The 31-year-old was originally arrested on suspicion of having contact with Russian intelligence, but then apparently confessed to having reported back at least once to the Americans on the Bundestag committee’s activities. He reportedly did this for money. The reports raise the possibility that he may be lying, but also note that the committee has long suspected it was being spied on. If this is all true, it may turn out to be an even bigger diplomatic scandal than the NSA’s bugging of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone, a formal probe into which was announced a month ago.

On Thursday, the Bundestag’s investigative committee looking into NSA surveillance heard testimony from two U.S. whistleblowers who worked, Thomas Drake and William Binney, for the spy agency but objected to what they consider its troubling tactics. As Deutsche Welle reports, Binney—who once headed the agencies technology division—accused the NSA of having a “totalitarian mentality” and wanting “total information control” over U.S. citizens and the entirety of the global digital environment. He went on to compare the NSA’s approach to that used by dictators against oppressed populations. According to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA): Drake said the BND had become a “vermiform appendix of the NSA,” referring to accusations it had been passing data on German citizens on to the American service – an act forbidden under Germany’s constitution. “The silence of the BND is terrible,” Drake told the committee, and said people had a right to know what was going on. “You shouldn’t wait for a German Edward Snowden to lift the veil.”

After years of veiled accusations condemning the “empire” of organizations controlled and funded by Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, U.S. lawmakers have finally decided to open an official investigation into allegations that Soros has subverted European governments that resist neoliberal policies. Earlier this month, Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, and other lawmakers announced an investigation into the U.S. Embassy’s activities in Macedonia, demanding answers from Ambassador Jess Baily regarding Soros’ possible influence in the Balkan nation. On Feb. 2, Independent.mk, a Macedonian English-language news agency, reported that Smith told a Macedonian television correspondent:

“[I]t seems that the U.S. government funded organizations that have taken sides, specifically, the side of the socialists, which is absolutely unacceptable. I think this is illegal and we will examine this case to the fullest extent.” Concern over Soros’ impact on Macedonian politics emerged early last month after Nikola Gruevski, the former Macedonian prime minister, told Republika newspaper, “If it were not for George Soros behind it with all the millions he pours into Macedonia, the entire network of NGOs, media, politicians, inside and out … the economy would be stronger, we would have had more new jobs.”

The Irish High Court has ordered a review of the decision by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) not to investigate Facebook’s links To PRISM and the US National Security Agency (NSA), after it was contested by a group of law students from Austria. The group calling itself ‘Europe-v-Facebook’ had previously demanded a full investigation into the relationship between Internet companies and the US intelligence agency as it accuses Facebook of breaking the law in supplying NSA with personal information about its European users.

The Irish High Court has ordered a review of the decision by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) not to investigate Facebook’s links To PRISM and the US National Security Agency (NSA), after it was contested by a group of law students from Austria. The group calling itself ‘Europe-v-Facebook’ had previously demanded a full investigation into the relationship between Internet companies and the US intelligence agency as it accuses Facebook of breaking the law in supplying NSA with personal information about its European users.

The Irish High Court has ordered a review of the decision by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) not to investigate Facebook’s links To PRISM and the US National Security Agency (NSA), after it was contested by a group of law students from Austria. The group calling itself ‘Europe-v-Facebook’ had previously demanded a full investigation into the relationship between Internet companies and the US intelligence agency as it accuses Facebook of breaking the law in supplying NSA with personal information about its European users.