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Uprising’s guest expert Cristina Mislan, Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies, Missouri School of Journalism, analyzes today’s news headlines.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Justice Department has been carrying out a secret program to listen in on phone conversations using aircraft equipped with data collection devices that mimic cell phone towers. According to the Journal, the program amounts to “a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans.” The program is carried out from at least 5 major airports and covers the majority of the US population. At the local level, Associated Press broke a similar story of the Los Angeles Police Department relying on electronic data collection as part of a program called LASER to focus on ex-convicts in crime-ridden neighborhoods. The AP, paraphrasing proponents of privacy rights says, the spying program, “isn’t transparent, has no clear oversight and unjustly focuses on keeping ex-convicts under suspicion even though they’ve served their time.” Click here for an Al Jazeera article about the story, and here for an AP article about the story.

And, following up on his relatively bold climate deal with China, President Obama this morning announced at the G 20 meeting, that the US will pledge between two and a half to three billion dollars to the Green Climate Fund. The fund is a crucial negotiating point at international climate talks, and is aimed at enabling poor countries to transition to cleaner energy sources. The release of the funds still depends on Congressional authorization which may be a tough path forward. Still, in simply announcing the pledge Obama has prompted other wealthy nations to offer similar pledges. The pledges could kick-start climate talks expected to take place later this month in Lima, Peru, and a major climate conference in Paris in 2015. Click here for a Guardian news article about the story.

And finally, government workers are on strike! More than 800 federal contractors and some members of Congress supporting them, marched yesterday on the US Capitol in Washington DC demanding better pay and benefits and access to a union. Among them were Pentagon and Smithsonian Museum workers. It was apparently the first time such a strike took place at the Capitol. And, today, US Postal workers are demonstrating in more than 100 US cities including DC, against proposed cuts and degradation of postal services. The USPS has long been a target of Republicans, even though it is financially self-sufficient. Click here for an Al Jazeera article about the story, and here for a Reuters article about the story.