Mike Masnick: In the name of protecting free speech, the U.S. government just banned five Europeans from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech.

Russian state has tolerated parallel probiv market for its convenience but now Ukrainian spies are exploiting it Russia is scrambling to rein in the country’s sprawling illicit market for leaked personal data, a shadowy ecosystem long exploited by investigative journalists, police and criminal groups. For more than a decade, Russia’s so-called probiv market – a term derived from the verb “to pierce” or “to punch into a search bar” – has operated as a parallel information economy built on a network of corrupt officials, traffic police, bank employees and low-level security staff willing to sell access to restricted government or corporate databases. Continue reading...

Family feuds and strategic change are redefining who holds power inside the Murdoch empire.

America is in for a confusing, troubling holiday.

If the bloc were to crumble, rest assured Americans would come to regret it very quickly.