Jeremy Scahill, author of Dirty Wars, interviewed by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman & Juan González

Support hard-hitting investigative reporting
on Democracy Now!

Continue to site Donate Now

Domestic Spying Topics

Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to Domestic Spying

Newest First | Oldest First
  • Supreme-court-web

    Supreme Court to Take Up PATRIOT Act with Review of Case on Humanitarian Assistance to Groups on Terror List

    In its first-ever review of the PATRIOT Act, the Supreme Court has announced it will decide the constitutionality of a controversial anti-terrorism law that makes it a crime to give any form of aid, including humanitarian assistance, to groups on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. The Supreme Court case centers on a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project....
    Oct 01, 2009 | Story

  • Obama Administration Seeks Renewal of Three Key Parts of PATRIOT Act

    The administration has asked lawmakers to extend powers allowing the government to collect a wide range of financial and personal records, as well as monitor suspects with roving wiretaps. The methods were authorized under the USA PATRIOT Act and are set to expire at year’s end. The call for renewing the PATRIOT Act provisions comes as Democratic lawmakers and civil liberties groups want to revisit its broader powers. Democratic Senator...
    Sep 22, 2009 | Story

  • Pentagon Hires Rendon Group to Profile and Rate Journalists Covering Afghanistan War

    The US Army in Afghanistan has admitted it pays a private company to produce background profiles on journalists covering the war. The Pentagon has been on the defensive ever since the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes revealed this week that journalists were being screened by the Washington-based public relations firm, the Rendon Group, under a $1.5 million contract with the military. Documents obtained by the paper reveal journalists were evaluated...
    Aug 28, 2009 | Story

  • Christopher Pyle, Whistleblower Who Sparked Church Hearings of 1970s, on Military Spying of Olympia Peace Activists

    The news of peace activists in Olympia, Washington exposing Army spying, infiltration and intelligence gathering on their groups may strengthen congressional demands for a full-scale investigation of US intelligence activities like those of the 1970s. We speak with law professor and former Army whistleblower Christopher Pyle, whose 1970 disclosure of the military’s widespread surveillance of civilian groups triggered scores of congressional...
    Jul 29, 2009 | Story

  • Democracy Now! Broadcast Exclusive: Declassified Docs Reveal Military Operative Spied on WA Peace Groups, Activist Friends Stunned

    Newly declassified documents reveal that an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance in Washington state was actually an informant for the US military. The man everyone knew as "John Jacob" was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. The military’s role in the spying raises questions about possibly illegal activity. The Posse Comitatus law bars the...
    Jul 28, 2009 | Story

  • "Free Speech vs. Surveillance in the Digital Age." By Amy Goodman

    Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.

    Listen to this Column

    Jun 24, 2009 | Columns & Articles

  • Deep Packet Inspection: Telecoms Aided Iran Government to Censor Internet, Technology Widely Used in US

    As thousands in Iran turn to the web to make their voices heard around the world, a new report finds telecoms in Europe have helped the Iranian government develop one of the world’s most sophisticated mechanisms to censor the internet. It’s called deep packet inspection, and it’s also being used here at home. We speak with Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press. [includes rush transcript]
    Jun 23, 2009 | Story

  • "American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone"


    Twenty years ago today, I.F. Stone died at the age of eighty-one. He was the premier investigative reporter of the twentieth century, a self-described radical journalist. I.F. Stone’s legacy of work spanned the New Deal, World War II, McCarthyism, the Cold War, Israel/Palestine, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and beyond. He scooped reporters right and left. As the FBI tracked him, he tracked down the story. He is best remembered...
    Jun 18, 2009 | Story

  • Justice Dept. Whistleblower Defends Decision to Leak Bush Domestic Surveillance Program & Calls for Prosecution of Gov't Officials and Telecoms

    We speak with Thomas Tamm, the man who blew the whistle on the Bush administration’s secret domestic surveillance program. Tamm worked as an attorney at the Justice Department when he leaked the story to the New York Times in 2004. In 2007, the FBI raided his home and seized three computers and personal files. He still faces possible arrest for disclosing classified secrets. [includes rush transcript]
    Apr 16, 2009 | Story

  • Obama Administration Claims "Sovereign Immunity" in Attempt to Dismiss Lawsuit Against NSA over Domestic Surveillance

    We speak to attorney and blogger Glenn Greenwald about how the Department of Justice has demanded the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation based on "state secrets" and "sovereign immunity." Greenwald says the "sovereign immunity" claim is "of breathtaking scope — never before advanced even by the Bush administration — that the PATRIOT Act bars any lawsuits of any kind...
    Apr 16, 2009 | Story