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PBC News & Comment: In Response to Paris Attacks, Spies Recommend More Spying

Stoking fears and playing on them, spooks like CIA boss John Brennan demand police state powers and unlimited surveillance….–French plan for 90-day state of emergency includes controls on media

–at The Guardian, Trevor Timm correct Brennan’s lies and blame-shifting

–at al Jazeera, Bruce Crumley says Patriot Act makes US #1 in domestic spying, and asks if French intelligence failed

–intelligence, media sources name 27-year old Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud as mastermind, say he is in Syria and has been targeted by airstrikes

–Russians conclude that it was a bomb that took down airliner over Sinai

–Putin has made Russia central to Syrian fight, forcing Obama to thaw his icy treatment; Putin argues that IS is funded by 40 nations, including G20 members

–in Canada, several attacks on Muslims including arson of mosque

–Republican governors say they will block transfer of Syrian refugees to their states, but have no power to do so; list from NY Times

–GOP-run House Neanderthals Committee will grill scientists on climate change

–Nate Silver’s 2010 dataset on actual risk of terrorism for Americans is worth revisiting

–Gary Chew reviews the new film Spotlight