The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – …

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Hundreds of teen-agers are raped or sexually assaulted during their stays in the country’s juvenile detention facilities, and many of them are victimized repeatedly, according to a U.S. Department of Justice survey.

The teens are most often assaulted by staff members working at the facilities, and fully 20 percent of those victimized by the men and women charged with protecting and counseling them said they had been violated on more than 10 occasions.

“Today’s report illustrates the …

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Two employees at a Whole Foods Market store in Albuquerque say they were suspended last month after complaining about being told they couldn’t speak Spanish to each other while on the job.

Bryan Baldizan told The Associated Press he and a female employee were suspended for a day after they wrote a letter following a meeting with a manager who told them Spanish was not allowed during work hours.

“I couldn’t believe it,” …

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Yesterday, we learned that the NSA received all calling records from Verizon customers for a three-month period starting in April. That’s everything except the voice content: who called who, where they were, how long the call lasted — for millions of people, both Americans and foreigners. This “metadata” allows the government to track the movements of everyone during that period, and a build a detailed picture of who talks to whom. It’s exactly the …

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A Nile dam project has Ethiopia and Egypt butting heads and has already led to a major gaffe by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi that could threaten relations between the two nations.

The dispute stems from a plan to divert the Blue Nile by 550 yards off its natural course in order for Ethiopia to build a dam.

The Blue Nile is one of two tributaries of the Nile, which Egypt and Sudan both sit upstream from.

Ethiopia has …

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After the troubling revelations of the May 8 Senate hearing on Benghazi, much remains unclear about the attack that killed four Americans last September. Were the killers aiming to prove the incompetence of American power? Or was the assault directed more specifically against CIA operations? How did the White House, the State Department, and the CIA all agree to say so early and wrongly that the attack could have been the spontaneous action of a …

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WASHINGTON — Reports that the National Security Agency is collecting the phone logs of millions of U.S. Verizon customers may have hit with a boom Wednesday night, prompting concerns of government overreach and infringements on civil liberties — but don’t expect Congress to do anything about it.

On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers expressed immediate alarm to news that a FISA court had granted a request for an “ongoing, daily basis” collection of call data, as reported …

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New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa (R), who Gov. Chris Christie (R) just announced will temporarily fill the U.S. Senate vacancy left by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), supports a gun buyback program that took thousands of guns off of New Jersey’s streets and he says that reinstating the death penalty in his state is not a “good idea.”

Chiesa indicated his opposition to the death penalty in an interview with New Jersey’s public media …

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TOKYO — Workers at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant are investigating why highly radioactive water leaked from a new storage tank, amid concerns that the problem could further hamper cleanup efforts.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant suffered multiple meltdowns after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 knocked out power. It is currently using a fragile makeshift cooling system that creates large amounts of highly radioactive water.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that the …

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American liberals rejoiced at Samantha Power’s appointment to the National Security Council. After so many dreary Clintonites were stacked into top State Department positions—Dennis Ross, Richard Holbrooke, Hillary herself—here was new blood: a dynamic idealist, an inspiring public intellectual, a bestselling author of a book against genocide, a professor at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights. And she hasn’t even turned 40. The blogosphere buzzed. Surely Samantha Power was the paladin, the conscience, the senior …

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