The Obama administration has touted the White House website’s ‘We the People’ section as a powerful platform for the American public to petition their government. According to a new report, however, those solicitations are all too rarely acknowledged. “When I ran for this office, I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens,” United States President Barack Obama... 

The National Security Agency is reportedly building a ‘quantum computer’ capable of breaking encryption used to protect the most vital records around the world. The US spy agency is seeking an advanced-speed, “cryptologically useful quantum computer” that can bypass encryption that currently shields global banking, business, medical and government records. The quantum computer is part of a... 

The startling thing about Judge William Pauley III’s opinion is that it reads like an NSA press release or a Tom Clancy script. It begins: “The September 11th terrorist attacks revealed, in the starkest terms, just how dangerous and interconnected the world is. While Americans depended on technology for the conveniences of modernity, al-Qaeda plotted in a seventh-century milieu to use that technology... 

U.S. District Judge William Paley ruled today that the NSA’s rampant violations of the Fourth Amendment are legal. He cited al-Qaeda and 9/11 when he dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the NSA’s surveillance program. Paley said the NSA program “represents the government’s counter-punch” to al-Qaeda. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, Paley... 

Russia has filed its first complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO), accusing the European Union of violating global free trade measures, an official statement reads. The procedure has been sent to the EU representative at the WTO on Monday, the economy ministry said on Tuesday, marking its first complaint since Russia joined the global trade body in August 2012. The complaint has to do... 

A curious report written by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoF) circulating in the Kremlin today is describing what can only be termed as a Kafkaesque [having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality] Plot instigated by United States President Barack Obama this past November to “destroy” an American reality television programme called the Duck Dynasty. According to this report,... 

After years of being held at the US Naval Base in Cuba without trial, Ibrahim Idris, one of two Sudanese detainees released on Thursday, said US prison officials had “systematically tortured” him in the course of his 11-year imprisonment at Gitmo. Idris, who has been described by US officials as mentally ill, delivered his comments in a news conference in Khartoum, just hours after returning... 

Members of Uruguayan Legislative Palace approve a law legalizing marijuana on December 10, 2013. Legislators in the tiny Latin American nation of Uruguay have approved a measure to legalize and regulate marijuana, emerging as the first country in the world to permit both the sale and production of the addictive drug. The country’s parliament passed the bill by a vote of 16 to 13 on Tuesday evening... 

The Israeli parliament, Knesset, has approved a law allowing illegal African migrant workers living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to be held without any charges. Under the new legislation approved on Monday, illegal immigrants face up to 12 months in detention. The law also gives Tel Aviv the right to send “illegal immigrants” to complexes called “open facilities” — until they... 

The number of Americans incarcerated in federal prisons throughout the country has increased by nearly 30 percent over the past ten years, according to a new report by an investigative arm of Congress. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Monday attributed the 27 percent surge in prison population to mandatory sentencing minimums. The practice, in which a judge’s discretion... 

US energy giant Chevron has resumed its search for shale gas in north-eastern Romania after hundreds of riot police reportedly brutally removed a bunch of villagers who had been camping out at the site protesting the company’s plan. Back in October, Chevron suspended its plans to drill an exploration well for shale gas in the village of Pungesti – which is believed to be sitting on vast reserves... 

In another blow to the Constitution, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case by Amazon and Overstock.com challenging a law that requires online retailers to collect sales tax in states where they have no physical presence. The Supreme Court refusal to hear the case will allow state governments to tax online retailers and turn online retailers into de facto tax collection agencies. The... 

Finnish authorities took an eleven-month-old baby from Russian woman Irina Kulikova. A court of Finland ruled that there was a danger for the little girl to be “kidnapped” to Russia, Finnish human rights activist Johan Beckman said. Eleven months ago, Irina Kulikova, a Russian citizen, gave birth to a daughter in Finland. After childbirth, the woman had to remain at hospital for a while.... 

An Israeli woman has been sentenced to paying $140 per day for refusing to circumcise her one year old son until the boy undergoes the procedure as required by Jewish law. “The baby was born with a medical problem, so we couldn’t circumcise him on the eighth day as is customary,” Haaretz has quoted the boy’s mother Elinor as saying. The boy is now over one year old. “As time went on, I started... 

A Louisiana, Missouri father was prevented from saving his 3-year-old son from a house fire when cops tased him three times for attempting to enter the burning building. The fire started in a ground floor play room while the parents were asleep in the living room. The toddler was asleep upstairs in his bedroom. After waking up to the smell of fumes, the parents managed to get outside before calling...