It's easy to take democracy and civil society for granted when it's all you have known. Americans are aware of the repression and brutality in faraway lands. But for most, autocracy is a word: not a threat, not a way of life. If you are born in an unfree state-like my guest, Oleksandra Matviichuk, and I were-it is a different story. We were both born in the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, known to you as the U.S.S.R., Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
He then revealed, for the first time, details of his private meeting with Trump at the White House, when Trump pointed out a painting of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only president to serve more than two terms: He showed me a painting. He said, Turn around.' And I said, Oh, there's FDR.' And I went, Of course.' And he goes, he said, What do you mean?' I said, I know exactly what you mean.' And then he went on and on about the third term.
Trump's pronouncement is about much more than deterring killings, though. With speed and brazenness, Trump seems intent on creating a new, federal arrest and detention system outside of existing norms, aimed at everyday citizens and controlled by his whims. The death penalty is part of it, but stomping on civil rights is at the heart of it - ruthlessly exploiting anxiety about crime to aim repression at whatever displeases him, from immigration protesters to murderers.
PSAKI: Trump has surrounded himself with people who already treat him like a dictator. And I was going to try to describe for you just how sycophantic this cabinet meeting today was, how much it would make North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or Russian President Putin blush. But my attempt to summarize this meeting, just no matter how hard I tried, just could simply not do it justice. And this is one of those things you really have to see for yourself.
He enlisted a whole bunch of Ideology-patriarchy; social conservatism; utterly fake upside-down Christianity-in service of those basic motivations, not only to justify his own appetite for and personal acts of sadism and domination but to cast punishment and predation as far out into the world as he could manage. He studied psychology and the Bible so that he could borrow their authority and instrumentalize them to do widespread cruelty more effectively.
Ron Deibert plans to address the merging of technology and authoritarianism at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference, emphasizing the role of big tech in collective insecurity.
"We have crossed a line. We are in a place we did not want to be, but we are there. The thing we were all warning about for the last few years is not coming, it is here."
"Her phone buzzes-no bars. Wi-Fi icon: dead. The protest footage from last night sits trapped in her device like a caged bird with clipped wings. She filmed everything: the tear gas clearing, protesters linking arms, riot shields retreating."
The plea from inside a Russian prison by 11 political prisoners emphasizes the need for a ceasefire or peace agreement with the mass release of political prisoners and Ukrainian hostages.
Costa calls it "one of the fastest religious shifts in human history," with the percentage of Brazilians who identify as evangelical jumping sixfold over the past 40 years, to nearly a third of the population.
James Ryan declared that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.
The home secretary's decision to proscribe Palestine Action and to lay an order so swiftly in parliament on Monday will be viewed as a dangerous acceleration to authoritarianism.
In this authoritarian and suffocating climate where being an American feels like a curse, it is hard to move, let alone imagine what one can do to transform this horror to good.
