On this week’s episode of Unauthorized Disclosure, Kevin Gosztola and I spoke with Nafeez Ahmed, a writer and contributor to The Guardian, about his groundbreaking article, “Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown.”

(Download the episode here or subscribe for free on iTunes here)

In both the UK and US there is a disturbing trend of the defense establishment militarizing social science to monitor, study and counter nonviolent activism that challenges the status quo, which both countries have classified as a threat on par with terrorism. The Pentagon has gone so far as to label peace groups that explicitly advocate nonviolence as “social contagions” and “potential supporters of political violence.”  Ahmed explains the creepy reasoning behind this mentality and what it means for activists moving forward in a world increasingly destabilized by climate change-fueled resource shortages and a globalized economic order that’s failing the majority of the world’s population.

In the discussion portion of the episode, Kevin and I talk about the Obama administration citing an Israeli supreme court decision as legal justification for executing American citizens abroad without trial, the thirteen Americans who challenged their placement on the no-fly list and won, and the scandalous water shut-offs in Detroit.