In the wake of a dramatic increase in deaths at the hands of U.S border patrol agents, the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to launch a long-awaited investigation into the agency’s use of force. Since 2010, border agents have killed at least 18 people, including Valeria "Munique" Tachiquin, slain by a Border Patrol agent on September 28 in broad daylight several miles north of California’s border with Mexico. Tachiquin was a U.S. citizen and mother of five children. Her family is now brings a wrongful death lawsuit against the Border Patrol.

Crime is going down in America, but more Americans than ever are in prison—and more and more money is being spent and made, turning this country into a giant armed camp. Here are some key points about the private prison industry:

"Although many anarchists are law abiding, there is a history in the Pacific Northwest of some anarchists participating in property destruction and other criminal activity in support of their philosophy," the affidavit reads, according to the newspaper.

Shane Bauer was one of three Americans detained in 2009 while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdish region near the Iranian border. He and Josh Fattal were held for 26 months, and Sarah Shourd — now Bauer’s wife — was held for 13 months, much of it in solitary confinement. Seven months after being freed from prison in Iran, Bauer began investigating solitary confinement in the United States. Now, in his first major article since his release for Mother Jones magazine, Bauer finds California prisoners are being held for years in isolation based on allegations they are connected to prison gangs.

Warrantless wiretaps intimidate several organizations and cast a chill over lawyers, journalists and human rights researchers - Are you, a US citizen, calling cousin Ivor in Budapest, or reaching out to your old pen pal Yasmeen in Sydney? The National Security Agency (NSA) can listen in on your personal cellphone or read what you might be emailing him or her from your personal computer without telling you. The Feds can listen in to you now, "whenever government deems it necessary for foreign intelligence reasons" Jaffer explained to me.