„As we sail around the ocean, several countries send aircraft out to overfly our ship, it‘s very normal routine operations,“ Rear Adm. John Alexander was quoted by the Yonhap news agency as saying.

The Russian jets just „wanted to come and look“ at the USS Reagan performing maneuvers in the Sea of ​​Japan, he stated.

Medical staff from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have made no claims that their hospitals were struck by Russian air strikes, the organization‘s head of emergency care told Sputnik on Thursday.

MSF‘s rejection of claims made by the White House, and repeated in the US press, that Russian air strikes had hit hospitals follows confirmation from the Red Cross that none of its personnel on the ground have made any claims about a Russian air strike on its centers in Syria.

Over the last week, FBI Director James Comey has done serious damage to his credibility as the nation’s top crime-fighter. To repeat an old saw, he has figuratively shot himself in both feet, with two ill-considered speeches on the so-called post-Ferguson world where police hold back because of fears of smartphone-wielding citizens. His comments have drawn fierce criticism from civil libertarians, law enforcement analysts, and the White House itself – and rightly so.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Brennan Center for Justice, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and more than two dozen other groups want Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to declassify information about the government‘s use of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which authorizes surveillance of communications passing through the United States that include at least one non-U.S. „person“ (citizen or resident).

Unless something changes, Congress will once again be forced to vote on an expiring surveillance law — while being kept in the dark about what it actually does.

Since the Snowden revelations, Congress has been debating Section 702 of FISA, a surveillance law that is being used by the government to copy and search millions of Americans’ overseas communications. Section 702 is set to expire in 2017 — but the intelligence agencies have already made clear that they oppose certain efforts to reform the law. They have also resisted releasing critical information about how the law impacts Americans.

The new internal documents, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, reveal that the government was doing more than just monitoring the situation with regular cameras. The FBI was using advanced technology like infrared and night-vision cameras, and it is holding on to surveillance video it recorded from the sky.

Nathan Freed Wessler, an ACLU attorney, said the capabilities available to the FBI are one more example of old laws and new surveillance tools potentially coming into conflict.

„Untersuchungsausschuss“, Grüne, „Linke“, „Sonderermittler“ und Regierung versuchen unter allerlei Nebelkerzen die Verlängerung von Terrorgesetzen und Totalüberwachung vor deren Auslaufen Ende 2015 noch schnell durch den Bundestag zu bekommen. Dabei stellen sich alle Parteien, alle Parlamentarier, alle etablierten Organisationen, alle Gerichte, alle Juristen, alle Bürgerrechtler und die gesamte Informationsindustrie weiter um die Wette tot.

Der geplante Einsatz reiht sich ein in eine Serie von Interventionen, die von Mali über Südsudan, das Horn von Afrika und den Libanon bis in den Irak reichen und einen geographischen Ring um Europa abdecken. Strategen benennen diesen Ring als vorrangiges Gebiet des Berliner Strebens nach Kontrolle – bei Bedarf auch mit militärischen Mitteln.

A number of other countries, including Germany, also sent pilots and officers to observe the exercise, but did not take part.

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday refused to immediately halt the government‘s bulk collection of millions of Americans‘ phone records during a „transition“ period to a new federal scheme that bans the controversial anti-terrorism surveillance.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said it would not disturb Congress‘ decision to provide a 180-day period for an „orderly transition“ to a new, targeted surveillance system from the sweeping National Security Agency program that the court found illegal on May 7.

Transparency International, it should be noted, was reported in January 2015 to have accepted a US$3 million donation from Munich-based engineering multinational Siemens. The money was from a fund that Siemens established after settling a corruption case with the World Bank in 2009. Another past benefactor of the organization, Balfour Beatty construction — Britain‘s ‚Halliburton‘ admitted to massive bribery.

Not only are automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) in use all over the nation, but the companies behind them are less interested in securing their systems than selling their systems.

The sale marks the first major export of U.S.-built warships in years, according to Reuters. “This sale demonstrates the enduring U.S. commitment to building robust diplomatic and security partnerships essential to promoting peace and stability in the Gulf region,” one U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly told the news service. Congress has 30 days to block the sale, but that’s unlikely to happen.

The U.S. and Chinese navies held high-level talks on Thursday after a U.S. warship challenged China‘s territorial assertions in the South China Sea, and a U.S. official said they agreed to maintain dialogue and follow protocols to avoid clashes.

We recently wrote about some concerns about the new Data Protection Directive that is being set up in Europe. The law is driven by people with good intentions: looking to better protect the privacy of European citizens. Privacy protection is an important concept — but the current plans appear to be so focused on privacy protection that it gives very little regard for the unintended consequences of the way it‘s been set up. As we wrote in our last post, Daphne Keller at Stanford‘s Center for Internet and Society is writing a series of blog posts raising concerns about how the new rules clash with basic concepts of free speech. She‘s now written one about the immensely troubling setup of the „notice and takedown“ rules included in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

One of the worst ideas that the copyright maximalists have managed to foist on the world is that there should be anti-circumvention laws forbidding users from doing a range of entirely sensible things with their own possessions, simply „because copyright“. Required by the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and implemented by the DMCA (pdf) in the US, and Copyright Directive in the EU, anti-circumvention laws have reduced people in the US to begging for permission to unlock their mobile phones, or to check whether software in their car is lying about emissions. In the EU, they are not even allowed to beg.

The human rights organisation Reprieve – which assists British and other victims of police torture in the Emirates – has previously raised concerns with UKTI about its support for the event. Reprieve‘s research has found that some 75 per cent of prisoners in Dubai Central Jail reported having been tortured into ‚confessing‘. They include British citizens who say they were subjected to electric shocks. Despite this, a recommended ‘product requirement list’ given to UK companies ahead of this week’s event included the category ‚Public Order Equipment – Electronic‘.

The First Assembly of the WCC in 1948 denounced nuclear weapons as „a sin against God“, and WCC has repeatedly reaffirmed the Christian responsibility to safeguard God‘s creation and protect human life from such weapons of mass destruction. “The ecumenical goal of eliminating nuclear weapons is an expression of our commitment to a pilgrimage of justice and peace”, said Tveit.