RSN: 3 California Deputies Arrested for Beating Death of Inmate, A Dangerous Redefinition of 'Terrorism', Canadian Supreme Court Rules Against Chevron in Ecuador Case

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Robert Parry | A Dangerous Redefinition of 'Terrorism'

Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "The classic definition of terrorism is the intentional killing of civilians to make a political point, as in planting bombs near the finish line of a marathon or crashing commercial jetliners into buildings filled with office workers. Yet, the mainstream U.S. media has broadened the definition to include killing U.S. soldiers or allied troops even those operating in foreign lands."
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3 California Deputies Arrested for Beating Death of Inmate
Associated Press
Excerpt: "Three Northern California jail guards have been arrested after an inmate under their watch was found dead of multiple blunt trauma, authorities said."
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Bernie Sanders Now Only Seven Points Behind Clinton in Iowa
Dan Roberts, Guardian UK
Roberts writes: "This unabashed 'democratic socialist' from Brooklyn via Vermont, which he represents as an independent US senator, talks about class, corruption and the pathological greed of the rich. Yet the middle-aged, midwestern audience greeting him here in one of the most conservative states in the country cannot get enough of it. 'Welcome to the political revolution,' Sanders says to another loud cheer."
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FBI Has Spied on Burning Man Festival Since 2010
Darren Boyle, Daily Mail
"In response to a request under the 2012 Freedom of Information Act, the security service said its Special Events Management unit has kept files on festival-goers, known as 'burners' - to 'aid in the prevention of terrorist activities and intelligence collection.'"
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Peter Greste | Thanks for the Letters of Support
Peter Greste, Reader Supported News
Greste writes: "In prison, one of the most disturbing things is a sense of isolation - the fear that you are on your own, with nobody to fight your corner, nobody to shout by your side or get mad on your behalf. And, if you are genuinely innocent, caught in a painfully slow judicial system and with no obvious end in sight, the isolation can start to play games with your mind.'
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The Refugee Crisis That Isn't
Kenneth Roth, Reader Supported News
Roth writes: "European leaders may differ about how to respond to the asylum-seekers and migrants surging their way, but they seem to agree they face a crisis of enormous proportions."
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Canadian Supreme Court Rules Against Chevron in Ecuador Case
teleSUR
Excerpt: "The Canadian Supreme Court, in a unanimous 7-0 ruling, determined Friday that victims of the contamination caused by the Chevron oil company in Ecuador can seek compensation from Chevron in Canada."
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RSN: Nine Things You Might Want to Know About the Massive Pacific Trade Deal, The Manhattan Project's Radioactive Legacy...., DOJ Report: At Least 4,813 Died After Arrest by US Police Between 2003-2009

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Andy Borowitz | Hillary Expected to Adopt All of Sanders's Positions by Noon

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "Within minutes of Sanders's entry into the Democratic race, Clinton released position papers on trade, income inequality, national defense, and the environment that meticulously aped the Vermont senator's views on those matters."
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DOJ Report: At Least 4,813 Died After Arrest by US Police Between 2003-2009
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Demonstrators in Baltimore candidly admit that although the uprising happening in their city was triggered by the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody, it is more so a response to the epidemic of police-involved deaths in their city and throughout the United States."
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No, Freddie Gray Didn't Kill Himself
Michael Daly, The Daily Beast
Daly writes: "Before the second prisoner was even in the police van, Freddie Gray asked the police for medical assistance. So you have to wonder why on earth a man who had just asked for help would then try to hurt himself - as the second prisoner supposedly concluded after he was picked up at the next stop a few minutes later."
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Feds Are Trying to Scare You Away From Using Encryption
Joshua Kopstein, Al Jazeera America
Kopstein writes: "For months, the FBI, the National Security Agency and an alphabet soup of other spooky agencies have been lashing out at tech companies that have responded to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations by starting to protect customers with stronger encryption. But it's increasingly obvious that the government's crypto panic is powered by fear, not facts."
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Malala Yousafzai Update: 10 Men Who Attacked Teen Sentenced to Life by Pakistani Anti-Terrorism Court
Sneha Shankar, International Business Times
Shankar writes: "An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has sentenced 10 men to life in prison for plotting the attack on teenage activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012. The militants behind the attack on the Nobel Peace Prize winner and two other schoolgirls were identified and arrested last September."
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Nine Things You Might Want to Know About the Massive Pacific Trade Deal
E. Tammy Kim, Al Jazeera America
Kim writes: "All this trade talk can seem an impenetrable thicket of arcane economics and alphabet soup. Here we provide answers to some basic questions."
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The Manhattan Project's Radioactive Legacy Still Haunts St. Louis
Ryan Schuessler, Al Jazeera America
Schuessler writes: "They all grew up in a neighborhood bordered by a suburban St. Louis creek that was contaminated with nuclear weapons waste for decades before any cleanup operations started. There may still be radioactive waste in the creek."
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'Enough is enough'!

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Bernie Sanders | I Will Be a Candidate for President

Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
"After a year of travel, discussion and dialogue, I have decided to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. But let's be clear. This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders. It about a grassroots movement of Americans standing up and saying: 'Enough is enough.'"
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Freddie Gray: Protests Across US as Baltimore Forced to Free 100 Suspects
Nicky Woolf, Oliver Laughland and Steven W. Thrasher, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "Protests over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray spread across the US overnight as the city at the centre of the storm used national guard troops to help maintain a curfew and authorities were forced into an apparent backdown after holding suspected rioters for days without charge."
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Pope Francis Calls for Equal Pay for Women
Associated Press
Excerpt: "Pope Francis added his voice Wednesday to calls for equal pay for women, saying it is 'pure scandal' that many of them earn less than men for doing the same jobs."
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Supreme Court Asks if Execution Drugs Are Like Being 'Burned Alive at the Stake'
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington writes: "The prospect of death row inmates being 'burned alive at the stake from inside' in the absence of effective anesthesia was invoked at the US supreme court on Wednesday as the justices wrestled with the nationwide crisis caused by the European-led boycott of lethal injection drugs."
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Lawmakers Seek to End Spies' Mass Collection of Phone Data
Reuters
Excerpt: "U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday to end spy agencies' bulk collection of Americans' telephone data, setting up a potential showdown over the program, which expires on June 1."
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US Doesn't Know How Many Afghans Are Fighting the Taliban
Jonathan Broder, Newsweek
Broder writes: "After nearly a decade of training, equipping and paying for Afghanistan's security forces, the United States has no idea how many Afghan soldiers and police are currently serving or how effective they are at fighting the Taliban."
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Frack-Happy Texas Forced to Face the Reality of Fracking-Related Earthquakes
Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch
Pantsios writes: "Texas is not known for using caution when it comes to oil and gas development. Fracking has swept the state like a hurricane, despite attempts by some environmental and community activists."
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Under a cloak of darkness

Yesterday, legislation was introduced in Congress that purports to rein in the NSA’s mass surveillance programs. It’s called the USA FREEDOM Act (as was a similar bill last year), and we don’t think that it goes far enough.

USA FREEDOM might do something very modest to constrain the NSA's behavior under the particular authorities that that agency has exploited to collect information about all of Americans’ phone calls.

But it also does some definitively terrible things, like giving companies immunity for facilitating government spying — and extending the very authority the NSA has manipulated to engage in mass surveillance.

Moreover, it doesn’t address the fundamental problem: That the NSA is a rogue agency that operates under a cloak of darkness without meaningful oversight or checks on its power, and will lie and violate the law with impunity.

Even if the NSA’s ability to spy on us is constrained slightly, for now, we can expect it to do all in its power to warp the law — and torture the English language — to find justifications for ever more-expansive surveillance.

And because oversight is so limited, because Congressional leadership and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are so captured by the surveillance agencies and contractors, we won’t even find out about the NSA’s new schemes until another whistleblower surfaces in 10 or 20 years.

To learn more about why we are opposing this bill, you can read our press release about USA FREEDOM here.

Here's where you come in: Time is running out — a committee vote on USA FREEDOM is expected TOMORROW.

If you agree with our take on the USA FREEDOM Act, can you make a call to your member of Congress and ask them to oppose USA FREEDOM because it doesn't go far enough — and to support key amendments to make it better?

Yes, I'll make a call to my member of Congress.

No, I don't have time to make a call — but I'll click here and chip in $10 to help Demand Progress in this fight.

Thanks for standing strong.

—David, Daniel, Mark, Sara and the rest of the Demand Progress team

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