This week’s deployment of Black-hawk helicopters in Chicago is only the latest in a series of “urban warfare training” exercises that have become a familiar feature of American life. As elsewhere, this exercise was sprung unannounced on a startled civilian population. Conducted in secrecy, apparently with the collusion of local police agencies and elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, the oste ...

Edward Snowden has exposed more than a massive spying operation.  The whistleblower has – perhaps unintentionally – drawn attention to just how obsequious Europe’s political leaders are towards the US. ...

Are the economic policies needed to maintain the euro still compatible with democracy? Greece’s state broadcaster was established after the fall of the military dictatorship. Last month the Greek government (which is implementing EU injunctions) decided to shut it down without authorisation from parliament (see Where Syriza stands). ...

For the first time in 20 years, massive countrywide demonstrations have rocked Brazil. A year ahead of elections, President Dilma Rousseff knows she needs to listen carefully: the young, the poor and the new middle classes all want a country that works and that is cleaned of corruption. ...

Bulgaria's peaceful protests might provide a new model for discontented Europeans seeking to engage their governments. "Now you really angered Mommy!" – says a placard held by two little well dressed girls on the streets of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, where tens of thousands have been protesting every day since June 14. Young families with children are the face of the protests, which were sparked by the de ...

EVERY day for nearly three weeks, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Sofia, Varna, Burgas and other Bulgarian cities. In Sofia, the capital, the demonstrators meet at 6.30pm in Independence Square and then make their way past the parliament, the Eagles’ Bridge and the National Palace of Culture. They call for more transparency, less corruption, an effective fight against organised ...

In his book, 'Propaganda', published in 1928, Edward Bernays wrote: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." The American nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays invented the term ...

Paul Mason Economics editor, for bbc.co.uk The language and the time zone changes but, from Turkey and Bulgaria to Brazil, the symbolism of protest is increasingly the same. The Guy Fawkes masks, the erection of tent camps, the gas masks and helmets improvised in response to the use of tear gas as a means of collective punishment. The handwritten signs - scrawled in defiance of the state's power and the uni ...

Verizon court order: telephone call metadata and what it can show The US insists call data is not private information, but critics say it allows government to build detailed picture of individuals' lives The US government has long argued that 'metadata' isn't private or personal: it's the equivalent of looking at the envelope of a letter. When does mass data collection get personal? When it comes to the con ...

The Netherlands, once a showcase for tolerance, is quickly degrading into a country where human rights are just a vague memory from the past. Refugees in search for a safe haven find themselves being locked up indefinitely in a prison regime. Independent medical attention is being made as difficult as possible. Politics crushes basic human rights and it actually seems like a large group of the voters – fed ...