"Watching Me Watching You: Complicit Surveillance and Social Networking" by Miyase Christensen

We've all spent so much time and effort being worried about formal surveillance--all those street and lobby cameras--that we're in danger of forgetting how much we cooperate in surveilling and being surveilled online. With about 300 million users, Facebook, and other Internet social networks, deserves special attention in a 'surveillance society'. Analysis from Miyase Christensen.

Le Monde Diplomatique (October 2009)
http://mondediplo.com/2009/10/02networking


"The Land of the Unfree" by Andrew Oxford

One in 35 Americans are caught up in the corrections system and incarceration is on the rise. Why is this when the US crime rate has dropped so remarkably? Andrew Oxford looks at why a wealthy nation with only 5% of the world’s population has 25% of the world’s prisoners.

Le Monde Diplomatique (September 2009)
http://mondediplo.com/2009/09/06usprisons


"China's Wild West: Ethnic Conflict Erupts in Beijing’s ‘New Frontier’" by Martine Bulard

With July's violence in Urumqi following last year's riots in Tibet, is China under threat in its frontier provinces? Xinjiang's minorities, the Muslim Uyghurs in particular, face discrimination. Though their dislocation is more social and cultural than religious, without real autonomy Islamic fundamentalism is set to grow. Martine Bulard reports.

Le Monde Diplomatique (August 2009)
http://mondediplo.com/2009/08/02china