Free Snowden, Please
- House Intelligence Committee asks Obama to just say no. Updated Sep 16, 2016 ago
- Oliver Stone calls the presidential election "strange, superficial," when neither Snowden nor climate change are being discussed.
- Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International make the case for a presidential pardon for Snowden.
House Intelligence Committee Asks Obama to Just Say No
House Intelligence Committee sends a bipartisan letter to President Obama urging him not to pardon Snowden, reminding him that he said in a news conference in 2013, “I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot.”
Sep 15, 2016The two candidates have not talked about surveillance state or Mr. Snowden. Or, for that matter, about the wars America’s involved in. Or, for that matter, about environmental change. This is a strange, superficial election.
↩︎ Rockcellar
The Obama Appeal
Kenneth Roth (head of Human Rights Watch) and Salil Shetty (head of Amnesty International) make an appeal to President Obama in the New York Times to pardon Snowden on merit, and for the public good. It's all part of a much larger campaign.
In his biography on Twitter, Mr. Snowden says: “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.” That should not be something that gets you locked up for a lifetime or compels you to live in exile. The president has an opportunity to correct that injustice. It’s time to pardon Mr. Snowden and bring him home, not to face the music but to work for the security and privacy of us all.
The First Time the Government Disclosed a FISA Court Opinion in Response to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit
When assessing Snowden's impact, it's fun to dig back into old newspapers (old = 2013) and refresh our freak-out about the scale of surveillance that Snowden helped uncover. From the Washington Post: "The redacted 85-page opinion, which was declassified by U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday, states that, based on NSA estimates, the spy agency may have been collecting as many as 56,000 “wholly domestic” communications each year."
Sep 15, 2016Unfortunately, many candidates in the political mainstream today, even pundits and commentators who aren’t running for office, believe we have to be able to do anything, no matter what, as long as there is some benefit to be had in doing so. But that is the logic of a police state.
↩︎ The Guardian
The Editors' Longreads Picks
- An excellent essay on poverty and writing by Starr Davis. Updated May 31, 2022
- Novelist Héctor Tobar tries to understand the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the experiences of a single high school.
- Steven Johnson with a long assessment of the current state of A.I. and language. (The illusion has gotten very good.)
Welcome to The Morning News Tournament of Books, 2017 edition.
- Our championship match is decided in the Tournament of Books, with news of a Rooster surprise debuting this summer. Updated Mar 31, 2017
- In Thursday's action, Reyhan Harmanci sets up a colossal final.
- The Zombie round opens with Buzzfeed's Isaac Fitzgerald reading The Nix and The Underground Railroad.
Все ваши Белый дом принадлежит нам.
- "Will Putin expose the failings of American democracy or will he inadvertently expose the strength of American democracy?" Updated Mar 3, 2017
- Wilbur Ross just wanted to make some money in ethically gray areas (that should've prevented him from taking office).
- Jeff Sessions's spokeswoman can't help but continue to lie.
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends.
- Trump's assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. Updated Mar 1, 2017
- Don't just blame the oil companies for destroying the oceans—blame sushi restaurants.
- Nothing escapes the deepest trenches of the ocean floor. Not light, not nutrients, not pollutants.