VIDEO: Protesting George Friedman, CEO Of Stratfor, in Austin & San Francisco

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On January 22, journalist and political prisoner Barrett Brown was convicted in a Texas court of controversial charges. In addition to a 63-month sentence, Brown is expected to pay $890,250 in restitution to the private spy agency, Strategic Forecasting (a.k.a. “Stratfor”). This monumental fine, which turns a theoretically free citizen into an indentured servant of a corporation, is meant to hold Brown responsible for a hack by the Anonymous group LulzSec — even though the government admitted it didn’t have any concrete evidence to show he’d taken any material part in the hack.

Jeremy Hammond, a member of LulzSec, pled guilty in May of 2013 and was sentenced to ten years in prison. The hack, carried out under the instruction of the FBI’s agent saboteur and snitch Sabu, revealed millions of emails that showed the complex interrelationship between the private intelligence firm, multinational corporations, and the surveillance state. The emails also revealed how Stratfor had infiltrated activist groups from Texas to India.

On February 2, 2015, George Friedman, Stratfor’s CEO, was scheduled to sign his book “Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe,” at Book People, an independent bookstore in Austin, Texas. It would be Hammond’s 1,065th day in prison; Brown had been incarcerated for 874.

George Friedman, you should have expected us.

Interpreting Media Coverage Of The Chapel Hill Shooting

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The fatal shooting of Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammed, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammed Abu-Salha, 19 in a Suburban neighborhood in North Carolina was reported more than 12 hours after the fact on national television. Chapel Hill Police released the identity of the self-confessed killer, Craig Hicks, 46, approximately seven hours after a 911 call by a distressed neighbor. He reportedly shot all three of them, point blank, in the head.

Why did it take so long for national media to pick the story up? Their silence stood in stark contrast to prompt coverage of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris last month. Only after a social media outburst protesting their lack of coverage did we see CNN, FOX and MSNBC headline the shooting of 3 Muslims in Chapel Hill.

This initial radio-silence reinforced the other-ness of Muslim Americans as well as other minorities in the US. It spoke louder than any anti-Muslim messages online could have.

Gardens Of Hope: Can Seed Libraries Be Saved From ALEC?

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Back in August, we learned of a crack-down in Pennslyvania due to certain activity at the Joseph T. Simpson Library in Mechanicsburg, activity so serious the state dispatched “a high-ranking official and lawyers to a meeting with the library.” Whatever had happened at this otherwise innocent-looking location to warrant such a response?

It seems the Simpson Library was in violation of the Pennsylvania Seed Act of 2004. A member of the Cumberland County Commission, where Mechanicsburg is located, quickly raised her voice and exclaimed, “Agri-terrorism.” Other Commissioners, however, more calmly wondered why the state had taken such interest in the local seed lending library, one among some 340 community libraries across the country at that time which had small seed-sharing programs.

Seeds brought to the library are carefully labeled, placed in small paper or plastic envelopes, then filed, typically using those wooden card catalogs of yesterday. Library patrons check out or “borrow” seeds and take them home to grow in the spring. If the seeds result in a good harvest, gardeners collect some seeds from the plants they’ve grown and replenish the library’s holdings the following fall.

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