Aug
08
2013
Following up on exclusive reporting from earlier this week about how the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency uses NSA surveillance data and tips from a secretive unit called the Special Operations Divisions (SOD) to initiate investigations, Reuters on Thursday reveals that the Internal Revenue Service was aware of and may have also used these “unconstitutional” tactics.
What’s troubling in both cases, according to legal experts, is the manner in which the agencies hide the true source of …
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Aug
08
2013
SEATTLE — On a narrow central Idaho highway coursing through thickets of ponderosa pines and along a winding river, members of the Nez Perce tribe made their stand.
Hundreds gathered along U.S. Highway 12 on Monday and Tuesday and formed a human blockade in an attempt to stop a controversial megaload of equipment bound for the oil tar sands of Alberta, Canada — a load reportedly weighing about 644,000 pounds and stretching over 200 feet. They …
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Aug
08
2013
Germany’s BND intelligence service sends “massive amounts” of intercepts to the NSA daily, according to a report based on Edward Snowden’s leaks. It suggests a tight relationship has been developed between the two agencies – which the BND claims is legal.
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Snowden and obtained by Der Spiegel revealed that the 500 million pieces of phone and email communications metadata collected by the NSA in Germany last December were “apparently” provided …
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Aug
08
2013
James Risen wants his subpoena scrapped.
Risen is the New York Times reporter at the heart of a juicy court case that sits astride important First Amendment and journalism issues. His 2006 book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” contains a chapter describing how the CIA blundered in trying to get a former Russian scientist to screw with Iran by giving the country bogus nuclear weapons plans. In 2010, …
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Aug
07
2013
If the controversial practice of fracking wasn’t infuriating enough for activists concerned about pollution and climate change, a new report has found that some companies have been fracking off the coast of California.
Fracking, which involves pumping a high pressure cocktail of toxic chemicals into the ground to release oil and gas reserves, is generally a land-based practice.
But, it has just been discovered that 12 fracking projects have taken …
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Aug
07
2013
We’ll dissect President Obama’s new plan to dissolve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with our guest, Professor William Black. And, what can you as an individual do to protect your privacy from your own government – we’ll learn about the effectiveness of encryption and more. Plus, More Than Honey – a new documentary delves into the lives of bees, how humans have manipulated them to our benefit and how we are so dependent on them …
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Aug
07
2013
In the journal Nature on Wednesday, a team of scientists from the University of Washington described the HeLa genome, which they recently sequenced. The project is a tour-de-force of DNA analysis, befitting the best-studied human cells in the world.
But the research is exceptional for another reason. Henrietta Lacks, who was poor, black and uneducated, never consented to her cells’ being studied. For 62 years, her family has been left out of the decision-making about …
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Aug
07
2013
Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has signaled a willingness to negotiate with the West. Rouhani, who was inaugurated earlier this week, has a reputation in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and was elected with the strong support of Iran’s reformist movement.
In nominating his cabinet, however, he named no overt reformists, sticking instead to what the regional press …
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Aug
07
2013
“Think positive and you’ll be a healthier person.” That’s that standard mantra of the positive thinking movement so pervasive in alternative health circles, embodied by Deepak Chopra’s famous line: “Happy thoughts make happy molecules.”
But a new study finds it’s not that simple.
Researchers at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology just published a paper in the Proceedings of the National …
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Uprising’s Wednesday guest expert Rahul Mahajan, a sociologist and political analyst, and author of Full Spectrum Dominance: US Power in Iraq and Beyond, analyzes today’s news headlines: 
