Christian Science Monitor | Backchannels

Is Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood backing a jihad in Syria? (+video)

The Sunni Islamist movement behind Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has called for a mass rally in support of Syria's rebellion. Sectarian tensions over the war there are growing hotter.

Wayne White on arming Syria's rebels

A veteran intelligence analyst on Obama's decision.

Has a 'red line' in Syria been crossed?

And so what if it has?

Wusses, US foreign policy, and the horrific death toll in Syria

Former President Bill Clinton suggested President Obama was being a 'wuss' over intervention in Syria as the UN reported the death toll has reached 93,000.

Is Iran winning in Syria?

An Iran-backed victory for the Syrian regime may give Iran more regional influence, but it could lose its claim to being a leader of resistance.

News flash: The NSA is spying on China

Edward Snowden says the US spies on China and Hong Kong. A surprise to no one. That's practically the whole point of funding spy agencies.

ACLU files suit over NSA surveillance, citing 'chilling effect'

The American Civil Liberties Union charges that secret warrants allowing the National Security Agency to collect mass data on phone usage violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution.

Americans say they are pretty comfortable with expanded government surveillance (+video)

The new polling from Pew suggests that the latest leaks aren't likely to change policy.

Booz Allen Hamilton, federal contractor

How do you keep secrets when Booz Allen, just one of many intelligence contractors, has more than 12,000 employees with top secret access?

Will NSA leaks wake us from our techno-utopian dream?

A vast surveillance state is being made possible by the technologies that we were told would liberate us.

Is the price of 'security' worth it? (+video)

Or, how much terrorism is there, really?

NSA's data flood, through the PRISM of US interests and freedom (+video)

Do revelations about the US government snooping on citizens' telephone and Internet records make it harder for the government to advocate for Internet freedom around the world?

IMF admits it got Greece wrong. What does it get right?

Not much.

Report confirms high toll from Afghan insider attacks in 2012

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction points to the dangers posed to foreign troops from their Afghan counterparts.

Iraq risks 'return' to war? Maybe the wrong question.

Iraq is less violent than it was and the press frequently wonders if the country could descend into war again. What if the war never ended?

Egypt to global democracy NGOs: Drop dead

A group of democracy activists, 16 of them US citizens, were sentenced to jail for their activities by an Egyptian court today.

An Egyptian preacher and a US senator compete over Syria's future

Both Yusuf al-Qaradawi and John McCain want Bashar al-Assad to fall. But in their competing visions you'll find reasons for the White House's reticence over deeper military involvement.

'Occupy' is not a good model for change, in Turkey or anywhere else

Any protest movement that insists on a leaderless, non-ideological approach to political change is unlikely to accomplish much.

In Turkey and Syria, diplomacy by snark

Syria lashes out at Turkey's brutality in a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Why do they hate our NGO funding?

Well, because it is threatening to foreign governments.