A U.S. judge orders the government to decide by next Tuesday if they're going to force New York Times reporter James Risen to testify, once and for all.

Originally, the sites where war-on-terror detainees would be held and interrogated were to be modeled on American prisons.

Above, video of whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking via live encrypted video link at Freedom of the Press Foundation's recent #EncryptNews event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

I'm in Washington, D.C. today with the Freedom of the Press Foundation for a day-long event, "News Organizations and Digital Security, Solutions to Surveillance Post-Snowden."

Heavy hitters are present, talking about encryption and security in real-world practice–including including Dana Priest, investigative reporter, Washington Post; James Risen, investigative reporter, New York Times; Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist and senior policy analyst, ACLU; Julia Angwin, investigative reporter, ProPublica; all of The Intercept's security team and others. — Read the rest

The event will focus on how news organizations and reporters can use technology and encryption to better protect their sources in the post-Snowden age.

Up until Obama's "most transparent administration", and throughout the entire history of the USA, national security leakers had received a total of 24 months of jail time. There are many more cases pending.

60 Minutes, which has been harshly criticized for running puff pieces for the NSA and FBI recently, is at it again.

US Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that he is resigning. Trevor Timm of Freedom of the Press Foundation says he's been the worst AG where press freedom issues are concerned since Nixon's John Mitchell.

Under the world's most boring headline, the New York Times published a bizarre scoop by reporter James Risen this weekend. Did you read it? — Read the rest

A newly released set of slides from the Snowden leaks reveals that the NSA is harvesting millions of facial images from the Web for use in facial recognition algorithms through a program called "Identity Intelligence." James Risen and Laura Poitras's NYT piece shows that the NSA is linking these facial images with other biometrics, identity data, and "behavioral" data including "travel, financial, behaviors, social network." — Read the rest

The House of Representatives today voted 225-183 to approve an appropriations bill amendment that bars the Justice Department from forcing reporters to testify about their confidential sources. — Read the rest

"United States of Secrets," a new PBS Frontline airing tonight, explores 'the dramatic inside story of the U.S. government's massive and controversial secret surveillance program—and the lengths they went to trying to keep it hidden from the public.'

Part of that story is highlighted on PRI's 'The World' radio show today. — Read the rest

A new report in the New York Times by James Risen and Laura Poitras details how National Security Agency officials seeking dominance in intelligence collection, "pledged last year to push to expand surveillance powers," according to a top-secret strategy document leaked by Edward Snowden. — Read the rest

In an interview with the NYT's James Risen, Edward Snowden explains what was really going on back in his CIA days, when he was allegedly reprimanded for accessing systems he wasn't supposed to see. It turns out Snowden had found a security vulnerability in their sensitive systems, which he reported through channels, got blown off for, and then kept pushing. — Read the rest

James Risen and Laura Poitras, two journalists who have experienced first-hand the consequences of pissing off the federal government in the course of performing uncompromising investigative journalism, have a story in today's New York Times revealing a new layer of the NSA's domestic surveillance activities. — Read the rest

On Tuesday, Bradley Manning was acquitted of "aiding the enemy" for leaking 700,000 classified government documents, including a video of an American airstrike in Baghdad that killed 12 civilians, among them two Reuters journalists. — Read the rest

Emptywheel nails what's so concerning about the new "news media" guidelines released late Friday by US Attorney General Eric Holder:

The First Amendment was written, in part, to eliminate the kind of official press that parrots only the King's sanctioned views.

Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer, has been charged with leaking information to New York Times reporter James Risen. While the Justice Department document doesn't state the nature of the leak, it is presumed to relate to Risen's book "State of War," which covers the CIA's covert spy war with Iran. — Read the rest

American news media was all aflutter yesterday over a story by James Risen in the New York Times about an Immaculate Detection of massive mineral wealth in US-occupied Afghanistan. Finally, some positive news from America's longest-running war in history! Afghanistan is suddenly poised to become "the Saudi Arabia of lithium." — Read the rest

Following up on last week's post about our government's attempts to block investigation into mass killings in Afghanistan by a US-backed warlord (see this NYT article by James Risen):

There is an update to the story today from Mark Benjamin at Salon, where you can also read through the archive of related FBI documents in PDF form. — Read the rest