Pandora’s Terrifying Promise: Can Nuclear Power Save the Planet?

A conversation about a new documentary, its provocative claims—and the facts it leaves out.

Mark Hertsgaard and Terry Tempest Williams

The Meta Question

What is the NSA doing with your metadata?

Jaron Lanier

‘We Steal Secrets’ Misses the Leak for the Leakers

Just as the Assange saga consumes too much of Alex Gibney’s film, so today’s Snowden obsession deflects attention away from our sprawling surveillance state.

Peter Maass

America’s Surveillance Net

There is a revolution afoot—one that is being carried out by the government against the fundamental law of the land.

Jonathan Schell

Noted

Ari Berman on the Supreme Court's ruling in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Greg Mitchell on the US media and Syria, Dave Zirin on the protests in Brazil

Various Contributors

Government Spying: Why You Can’t ‘Just Trust Us’

For proof that the current surveillance programs are ripe for abuse, Americans need only look at what preceded them.

Marcy Wheeler

Iran’s Stunning Reform Victory

In a clear challenge to hardliners, President-elect Hassan Rouhani vowed, ‘I have come to destroy extremism.’

Bob Dreyfuss

The Five Stages of Living in a National Surveillance State

Tom Tomorrow

Immortality

Calvin Trillin

The Upside of Genocide

The reputations of Reagan-era officials who enabled the Guatemalan genocide have not been tarnished.

Eric Alterman

Everyone Loves Mandela

South Africans of all races have reason to celebrate the life of the country’s first post-apartheid president.

Gary Younge

Unsparing Truths: On Lucille Clifton

A poet’s reckonings with suffering and indifference.

Jordan Davis

The Last Unfinished Page: On Euclides da Cunha

A portrait of the journalist and intellectual who championed the caboclos of the young Brazilian republic.

Lorna Scott Fox

Roberts’s Rules of Order

Marcia Coyle’s damning study of the Roberts Court’s conservative agenda.

Michael O’Donnell

‘We Steal Secrets’ Misses the Leak for the Leakers

Just as the Assange saga consumes too much of Alex Gibney’s film, so today’s Snowden obsession deflects attention away from our sprawling surveillance state.

Peter Maass

Letters

A Syrian quagmire?… cheap clothing = death… Thoreau… mass transit… The Nation as ‘security threat’

Our Readers

Puzzle No. 3287

And don’t miss Kosman and Picciotto’s crossword blog, Word Salad.

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto