Alternet - 12/29/13, Yasha Levine
 

Google is using its popular Gmail service to build profiles on the hundreds of millions of people who use it.

Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley recently announced that they had gotten together to form a new forward-thinking organization dedicated to promoting  government surveillance reform in the name of “free expression” and “privacy.”

The charade should have been laughed at and mocked — after all, these same companies feed on privacy for profit, and unfettered surveillance is their stock and trade. Instead, it was met with cheers and fanfare from reporters and privacy and tech experts alike. “Finally!” people cried, Silicon Valley has grown up and matured enough to help society tackle the biggest problem of our age: the runaway power of the modern surveillance state.

The Telegraph - 12/31/13, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
 

More: telegraph.co.uk

Reuters - 12/30/13, P.J. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek
 

Fog shrouds the Tyson slaughterhouse in Burbank, Washington December 26, 2013. Credit: REUTERS/Ross Courtney

(Reuters) - The U.S. beef industry's dependence on the muscle-building drug Zilmax began unraveling here, on a sweltering summer day, in the dusty cattle pens outside a Tyson Foods Inc slaughterhouse in southeastern Washington state.

The 17 animals had a factor in common, according to an examination of U.S. government documents and interviews with people who had direct knowledge of the events. In the weeks before the cattle were shipped to Tyson's slaughterhouse, outside the city limits of Pasco, all had been fed Merck & Co Inc's profit-enhancing animal feed additive, Zilmax.

Source: karinllightworker.com - 12/01/13, Karin Lacy
 

Dear Bradley Manning;

My name is Karin Lacy; I am a Lightworker for America.

As part of my work I write Open Letters in which I document my life experience as a Lightworker. Each letter has a theme. I post my Open Letters on my website and also put them as chapters in my books.

Even though I don’t follow the mainstream media I did read the Reuters article on 8-21-13 with the headline: “U.S. Soldier Bradley Manning was sentenced on Wednesday to 35 years in a military prison for turning over more than 700,000 classified files to WikiLeaks in the biggest breach of secret data in the nation’s history.”

I had heard your story before but I didn’t know that you are already held in prison for three years.