The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to conclude that a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer “has no First Amendment right to publish the information at issue” in a memoir he penned at on his service in the war in Afghanistan. They maintain information the officer wants to publish is “properly classified” and the government is “entitled to substantial deference” that its publication would result in harm from disclosure.

The Obama Administration, that came to power with the promise of historic transparency, has reversed course and begun censoring more public records than at any time since President Barack Obama took office.

The military commissions has posted the two to three minutes from the afternoon proceedings on January 28 that an individual outside of the Guantanamo war court chose to censor. When the censorship occurred, the judge was frustrated as he said he did not know there was anyone outside of the court that could censor the proceedings.

I guess if you’re black, a lesbian, political and write a blog you’re really a national security threat in the eyes of the Pentagon. And you have to read the DOD response.

A military judge has ruled that statements made by defendants on trial for their involvement in the September 11th attacks could be censored if they make statements about how they were tortured or abused.

Judge Col. James Pohl ruled the government had “submitted declarations…from representatives of the CIA, [Department of Defense], and FBI invoking the classified information privilege and explaining how disclosure of the classified information at issue would be detrimental to national security in that the information relates to the sources, methods, and activities by which the United States defends against international terrorism and terrorist organizations.” These explanations included how the government believed disclosure of methods of interrogation or torture would be harmful.

The increasingly omniscient and omnipresent corporation that is Google has released its latest transparency report on requests from government authorities around the world to take down content and hand the data of users over to agencies.

We did it! Facebook is now running our marijuana reform advertisements. But thousands of you signed our petitions and contacted Facebook. The ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke with Facebook on our behalf, and the social network backed down, approving our ads to run on the site.

Lady Gaga has canceled her June 3 concert in Indonesia, the world’s most populace Muslim-majority nation, which calls itself secular, after the hardline fundamentalists Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) threatened violence and “chaos” if she entered the country, calling Gaga a “devil’s messenger.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been trying to prevent former FBI employee and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds from publishing a book she submitted for prepublication review nearly one year ago, the National Whistleblower Center reports. The reasons are spurious. It’s part of a pattern of CIA and FBI suppression of any publications that might expose corruption, incompetence or unlawful activities of the US Government, while hiding behind bogus claims of national security.

Everyone knows the Internet was created for two reasons: Lolcats and to allow free expression of everything else. Yet if elected, Rick Santorum promises something very un-American: To ban pornography on the Internet. That sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey–forget about it. (And teh kittehs may be next).