Since at least 2011, U.S. prisons have had a special arrangement with Facebook. Prison officials would send links to profiles belonging to inmates that they wanted Facebook to take down. Facebook would then suspend the profiles, often no questions asked, even when it wasn’t clear if any law or…

The brain is truly a marvel. A seemingly endless library, whose shelves house our most precious memories as well as our lifetime’s knowledge. But is there a point where it reaches capacity? In other words, can the brain be “full”? The answer is a resounding no, because, well, brains are more…

Nigeria: Early Tally Shows Buhari in Lead, Opposition Rejects 86% Votes For New Constitution in Cuba US VP Pence Leads Lima Group, Pushes for More Severe Blockade Venezuela: EU Spurns Violent Intervention for Peaceful Solution Jamaica Debates Permitting Abortions In Case of Rape, Incest Campaign…

Dragnets Tracking Censorship and Surveillance Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified NSA…

President Obama has come under fire for a series of recent trade-deal negotiations as critics worry about the impact on jobs and civil liberties.Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP WikiLeaks on Wednesday released 17 different documents related to the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa), a controversial pact…

Shadow of Mordor creates a landscape filled with colourful enemies. But when the story is over, they’re exposed as automatonsPhotograph: Warner Bros “This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.” TS Eliot, The Hollow Men…

Google launched a new batch of regular and underwater Street View imagery today that lets you swim with humpback whales off the Cook Islands, dive with parrot fish off the coast of Bali , or walk on a beach in American Samoa. In total, the company added more than 40 new Street View locations with…

Style Style The 21 People Making N.Y.C. More Stylish Than Ever New York has never looked cooler—and these designers, models, and stylists are why. By Samuel Hine 2 hours ago View More Don't Miss! New Arrivals New Arrivals The 24 Best New Menswear Items to Buy This Week The freshest menswear,…

It felt like I had crossed the line. I may not be an elite athlete, but I'm still an athlete. And I had just taken my first shot of EPO. My goal was not to win a medal or make a team but to test the effectiveness of the athletes' biological passport - the latest tool in the global fight against…

When a devastating earthquake leveled Haiti in 2010, millions of people donated to the American Red Cross. The charity raised almost half a billion dollars. It was one of its most successful fundraising efforts ever. The American Red Cross vowed to help Haitians rebuild, but after five years the Red…

US job creation has tapered off since 2014. ‘We can’t keep going at 200,000 a month,’ said one analyst.Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images The US economy added 280,000 jobs in May – but the unemployment rate rose to 5.5%. Economists expected US employment to have grown by 225,000 jobs last month,…

CHICAGO (Reuters) - It’s Tax Day, and a small number of wealthy Americans have something to celebrate: They are done paying Social Security taxes for the year. The payroll tax that funds Social Security is levied only on a certain amount of income. This year it’s capped at $117,000. That means most…

As the author knows from direct chat-log conversations with him over the past year, Snowden acted in full knowledge of the constitutionally questionable efforts of the Obama administration, in particular, to use the Espionage Act in a way it was never intended by Congress. (Video still via NBC News)…

British writer Caitlin Moran may have put it best: Amy Schumer “tore the fucking roof off” Tuesday with a hilarious NSFW acceptance speech at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards . Accepting the award for Trailblazer of the Year at the London event, Schumer was at once bawdy, empowering and…

Chinese hackers are suspected of carrying out a "massive breach" of the personal data of nearly four million US government workers, officials said. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirmed that both current and past employees had been affected. The breach could potentially affect every…

F ifty years ago science-fiction author Frank Herbert seized the imagination of readers with his portrayal of a planet on which it never rained. In the novel Dune , the scarcest resource is water, so much so that the mere act of shedding a tear or spitting on the floor takes on weighty cultural…

Each week during the school year, groups of about a dozen middle and high school boys from some of the poorest neighborhoods on Chicago’s south and west sides sit in a circle and talk about their emotions. These students, almost all of whom are African-American or Hispanic, participate in a school…

It’s common sense for Android users to check the permission list before installing an app. If the app asks for access to SMS, your contacts list or location, you know it may disclose your privacy. What if a game app only asked for the wifi_status permission? You might install it with ease – and…

Michael Steinbach, assistant director in the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, speaks during a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wedensday on Capitol Hill. (AFP photo/Brendan Smialowski) The debate over encryption erupted on Capitol Hill again Wednesday, with an FBI official…

Ana Kasparian is best known as a host and producer of the largest online news show "The Young Turks," (TYT) a show covering politics, pop culture and lifestyle. She is also the main host of the rapidly growing panel show "The Point" on the TYT Network. When Ana's not hosting and producing news…

In centuries past, Vienna shined bright as the world’s most creative city. It gave us Mozart and Freud, and scores of other geniuses. The Vienna of today doesn’t enjoy such global prominence, nor does it possess the hip cache of Berlin or the polyglot culture of London. But it has something else…

Flickr user Grzegorz When mysterious aircraft began flying tight circles over Baltimore in the wake of recent protests there, it soon became clear that they were part of an FBI surveillance fleet . Here, told in his own words and tweets, is the story of how one amateur sleuth helped reveal what the…

Everyone has a FOIA horror story, though the one told by Vice News investigative reporter Jason Leopold in today’s FOIA hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee deserves its very own headline. When asked about why some agencies just refuse to cough up material, Leopold…

The penalty is the biggest ever imposed by the Geneva authorities.Photograph: Harold Cunningham/Getty HSBC has been ordered to pay a record 40m Swiss francs (£28m) and been given a final warning by the Geneva authorities for “organisational deficiencies” which allowed money laundering to take place…

It may be time to upgrade your garage door opener. Security researcher Samy Kamkar has developed a new technique that enables him to open almost any garage door that uses a fixed code–and he implemented it on a $12 child’s toy. The attack Kamkar devised, known as OpenSesame, reduces the amount of…

Getting a shot of the train tracks in the Gotthard Base Tunnel (Reuters) As one of the biggest-ever construction sites in Switzerland, and due to open in a year, the Gotthard base tunnel has captured the world’s imagination. Hundreds of foreign reporters have come to see how the Swiss have dug the…

The National Security Agency's Utah Data Center in Bluffdale in 2013. Credit Rick Bowmer/Associated Press WASHINGTON — Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency ‘s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to…

We’re excited to announce that Canarywatch has added its 50th canary: First Look Media , the parent company for The Intercept —the news site created by journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill. "Warrant canary" is a colloquial term for a regularly published statement that an…

On an overcast Chicago afternoon in August 2013, hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar sauntered out onto Lollapalooza’s Bud Light stage. As thousands of twenty-somethings roared with approval, he grabbed a gold-plated mic and cut straight into the intro of “Backseat Freestyle:” Martin had a dream / Martin…

Man, do we HOPE we’re timely in passing this content onto to you. Greg Savage , the founder of Firebrand (an Aquent brand down under) posted this no-holds-barred post about the importance of showing up on time. We thought it was too good not to share. Greg, we should mention, has founded four…

David Cameron and Home secretary Theresa May are pushing ahead with the Investigatory Powers Act, despite doubts that it will be effective in combating terrorism.Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images She swallowed the dog to catch the cat/She swallowed the cat to catch the bird/She swallowed the bird to…

While the cost of college education in the US has reached record highs, Germany has abandoned tuition fees altogether for German and international students alike. An increasing number of Americans are taking advantage and saving tens of thousands of dollars to get their degrees. In a kitchen in…

The High Court is hearing a legal challenge to the government's emergency surveillance law, brought by two MPs. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was fast-tracked through Parliament in three days last July. It allows Britain's intelligence agencies to gather people's phone and internet…

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Yesterday, ten United Nations experts and special rapporteurs voiced their concern over the adverse impacts upon human rights posed by secret “free trade” and investment agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade…