Finally, we bring you some good news related to surveillance! Sam interviews Scarlet Kim, Legal Officer with Privacy International about their victory in the European Court of Human Rights against the United Kingdom’s mass interception programs. We dedicate the entire episode to this interview since it covers much ground and is truly a historic win for civil liberties, the rule of law, and democracy.

The wide-ranging conversation covers not only U.K. based surveillance from GCHQ, Mi6, Mi5; but also the FIVE EYES alliance, abuses of intelligence databases, secrecy & the …

Interviews take up most of the time allotment for this edition of North Star Radio Hour.

Sam interviews Jake Braun, former Department of Homeland Security White House Cyber Security Liaison and Co-founder of the DEFCON Voting Village. The two discuss the alarming, but repairable, vulnerabilities in voting machines. Next Thursday, Braun and the hackers of the Voting Village will present their findings to Congress.

Later on, Sam interviews John Edwards of WedgeLive! fame about the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, his coverage of neighborhood and city politics, Neighbors for More Neighbors, …

We start this edition of North Star Radio Hour with an important update to our on-going investigation into the Al Ditty whistleblower story. Sam sits down with Teresa Nelson, the Legal Director for the ACLU of Minnesota. The two discuss the legalities surrounding the subpoena that the MPD used to identify Al as the whistleblower, who setup an email account to anonymously leak police plans to KARE11. Teresa confirms our previously held suspicion that issuing a subpoena in this way is not in accordance with the law, …

Sam sits down with Dave Hutchinson, or “Hutch.” Hutchinson is running for Sheriff of Hennepin County in an effort to unseat Rich Stanek who he describes as a “bully.”  A victory for Hutchinson would make him the first LGBTQ sheriff in the Midwest. From his campaign website:

“Since 2006, he has served with the Metro Transit Police Department.  He currently holds the position of sergeant, working on the north side of Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs.  He also supervises the Peer Support Program, Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), …

Concerned citizens met at the Hosmer Library in South Minneapolis to expose what they describe as a right-wing plot against the public sector, academia, media, environment, courts and Democracy in general. All of the speakers were women who felt moved by the book Democracy in Chains by Nancy Maclean which provides a deep dive into the alarming plot and provides documentary evidence to back up the claims.

Representative Karen Clark rounds off the conversation by detailing her encounters at the Minnesota Legislature with legislation that was clearly drafted by ALEC, the …

EXCLUSIVE: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests reveal domestic intelligence gathering via spy satellites stationed in orbit above the United States. The documents we received range in classification from unclassified to top secret and even top secret / talent keyhole. NSP received this FOIA from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) detailing their partnership with the FBI, DHS and other intelligence agencies.

Revelations provided by this FOIA include: acknowledgement of a “one-of-a-kind” intelligence hub operated out of Buckley AFB in Colorado which includes hundreds of NSA staff; the use of spy satellite intelligence …

Segment one features an interview with Chris of Unicorn Riot. Chris is part of a team of investigative reporters that published internal documents provided by a source within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The documents included training manuals, instructions for avoiding entrapment defenses from targets of ICE activities, detailed descriptions of covert front companies and a whole lot more. Read the manuals and tweet your findings using #ICEBreaker.

Segment two includes a wide-ranging discussion focused on CellHawk surveillance but also, protest movements, nuance in reporting, the FBI Sky Spies, how people …

This week we take a look at the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause and how the Trump administration is in flagrant violation. In the next segments we analyze the Trump rallies and those who chose to attend and continue to support Trump with a flashback to an interview with Jared Yates Sexton.

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Sam sits down with ACLU of Minnesota Legislative Director Ben Feist. Feist has been lobbying for oversight, accountability and to protect our liberties for around five years. He’s been at the forefront of fights over regulations of newly disclosed surveillance technologies such as license plate readers (ALPRs), StingRay and KingFish cellphone snooping devices, and drones.

The conversation starts off covering the CellHawk revelations North Star Radio Hour brought forth and continues from there. The two talk about Feist’s impressions from the last legislative session, national politics, movements and much more. Be sure to …

This week we broadcast a mash-up of previous interviews Sam and Jerod conducted with NSA whistleblower Kirk Wiebe and FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley. For the full versions check out the ICYMI episodes here & here.

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