Politics:
The remarkable thing about this story is what happens when something that (I am guessing) most people were assuming anyway is actually confirmed, and the expectable fact that arguments of national security, in an almost self-evident way, override any question of legality.
The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.
The Guardian: NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others, June 7, 2013
The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, "What type of coverage do we have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals intelligence] infrastructure."An NSA factsheet about the program, acquired by the Guardian, says: "The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country."
The Guardian: Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data, June 11, 2013
The Guardian: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations, June 10, 2013
The Guardian: NSA scandal: Twitter and Microsoft join rivals in call to disclose government data requests, June 12, 2013
openDemocracy: An unholy alliance, June 12, 2013
Since the beginning of the month, a protest against plans to build a shopping centre on the grounds of a public park in Istanbul has turned into a wide-spread anti-government protests across the country, involving "a wide range of people of all ages from across the political and social spectrum". Turkish police cleared Taksim square, the centre of the original rally, yesterday night.
Greece's public television and radio stations (the only available kind on parts of the country) are no longer broadcasting.
Austria started withdrawing troops from the Golan Heights today, following a decision last Thursday to no longer participate in the UN mission due to the destabilized situation.
Pop Culture:
The A.V. Club interviews recent Critics' Choice Awards winner Tatiana Maslany about her various roles... in one show. And interviews herself. And is interviewed alongside show-foster-brother Jordan Gavaris. And is amazingly articulate about the show and all of her characters. (Also if you aren't watching Orphan Black, you should totally watch Orphan Black).
Rolling Stone interviews Joe Dempsie about Game of Thrones and the weird turn Gendry's life took when he met Melisandre.
Fran Kranz, about his recent role in Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing (also featuring other Whedon alumni Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond and Sean Maher), and his other recent roles in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and Cabin in the Woods.
The Fall writer Allan Cubitt explains the process of writing the show and making sure that "there was nothing gratuitous or exploitative in the drama" in The Guardian (and an interview with Gillian Anderson about her character Stella Gibson.)
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