There is so much to like about Chris Hedges's and Joe Sacco's, Days of Destruction Days of Revolt (Nation Books, New York, 2012), I hardly know where to begin.
What's not to like when a book that speaks the unvarnished truth? Corporations flourish, ordinary people languish; the super rich get richer, ordinary people suffer; the American Dream is an illusion, with "winners" tap-dancing uneasily over the freshly dug graves of those for who have long since lost hope. Do you want change? Behold the national security state, the smartly clad and well-armed local police departments, the smug...
June 16, 2013
It’s been along time since I first saw in open court the power of the surveillance state. A client of mine was accused of rape. When the victim turned up dead, the state accused him of killing her. Prove it, we said. The state did, with the help of cell tower evidence.
It wasn’t really much of a rape case. The victim and the accused were long-time lovers. As passions ebbed, boundaries became blurred. What was one an occasion for a joyous union became contested terrain. Did she yes, or no? Would it have mattered to him?
The case was, as criminal defense lawyers say,...
June 13, 2013
Edward Snowden will soon be prosecuted by federal authorities for disclosing top secret Government surveillance programs. While he styles himself a whistleblower, he is really something far more radical: He represents a new, and in my view, welcome, version of civil disobedience. He’s the calm before the storm.
Mr. Snowden, 29, is a former intelligence analyst, employed at various times by the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and, most recently, at a for-profit security consultant for the Government called Booz Allen Hamilton. Until recently, he was an...
June 13, 2013
If you’ve not watched the video interview of Edward Snowden posted on the Guardian’s webpage, do so. He makes a persuasive case that the American people are being lulled into a false sense of security. We’re moving, inexorably, in the direction of what he calls “turnkey tyranny.”
Snowden disclosed to the Guardian and to the Washington Post the extent of United States intelligence gathering. We collect electronic information on virtually everyone, all the time. Analysts can summon at a keystroke surveillance material on anyone at anytime. “The NSA...
June 10, 2013
June 9, 2013
Oh, Edith. Did you really say these things? Do you believe them? If so, what justifies your sitting on the federal bench, deciding issues of great...
June 5, 2013
There aren’t enough prison cells in the federal Bureau of Prisons for all the police officers who have pushed a detainee, and then lied about...
June 2, 2013
This past Memorial Day I saw a graphic reminding us to recall all those who have lost their lives in armed conflicts on behalf of the United States....
June 1, 2013
Oh, how sensitive they all were. How considerate, how kind, how diplomatic. Governor Dannel Malloy, Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, state...
May 31, 2013
Clients often claim entrapment when a police officer catches them red-handed in some unlawful act, especially when one of the participants is an...
May 28, 2013
I saw an interview of Nicco Mele on PBS, and was intrigued enough to read his book, The End of Big: How Internet Makes David the New...