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Olympics Racket Rears Ugly Heads in Brazil and Russia

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:20:00 +0000

Brazil, Russia Force Olympic-Sized Wake-up Call

by Damien Gillis - The Canadian.org

For years, the occasional Cassandra has tried alerting the world to the true nature, purpose and "legacy" of the Olympic Games - yet their warnings have fallen on deaf ears, muted by the cacophony of corporate advertising, saccharine network TV coverage and "patriotic" celebration.

All that may be about to change - thanks to the grave challenges facing two Games in development: Russia's Sochi 2014 and Brazil's Rio 2016. Their respective problems look like those of previous Games on steroids.

Projected costs for Sochi, still over half a year off, now top a record $51 Billion! In Brazil, runaway Olympic spending is a key grievance of protesters now marching in the streets. What began as a reaction to escalating bus fares has grown into a heated conversation about the government's spending priorities. What Brazilians need now is better health care, schools and public transit, not shiny, new stadiums for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, they declare.

While Vladimir Putin is unlikely to lose his grip on power over the preposterous bill for Sochi, according to Time, Brazil's nationwide protests "could threaten President Dilma Rousseff’s re-election hopes next year" That would be a first. The Olympics playing a direct part in the ouster of a national leader.

It's about time the Olympic Games are seen for what they really are - a multibillion-dollar racket designed to fleece taxpayers for infrastructure spending that benefits developers, while providing a global platform for corporate advertisers, supported by draconian, often unconstitutional protection from trademark violations.

Of course, the International Olympic Committee, though clearly a "for-profit" operation, pays no taxes. It exists, on many levels, outside the laws of the countries in which it operates. A pretty sweet deal they've enjoyed all these years.

Olympic critics have long been dismissed as unpatriotic Debbie Downers. The Olympics, after all, are about the triumph of the human spirit, the celebration of amateur athletic achievement, those precious moments like the one when Canada's son scored against the Americans in overtime of the Gold Medal hockey game. I was in Whistler Village, watching Sid the Kid on the big screen when it happened, surrounded by 5,000 rejoicing compatriots, covered from head to toe in red and white. It was electric, unforgettable.

But that is not what the Olympics are about - at least not anymore.

Let us not forget the role Greece's $11 Billion Olympic folly played in its present-day financial woes. It's been all downhill for the country since it hosted the Athens Games in 2004. As this Bloomberg story notes:

With public debt totaling €168 billion in 2004, it’s clear that the Olympics alone did not bring about an economic collapse. Yet the Athens Games epitomized the structural problems that bedeviled the country for decades. It’s not just a question of how much money was spent on the Olympics, it’s also how it was spent and where it came from. After a period of austerity to tighten up its finances and qualify for euro entry in 2001, the Greek government loosened the purse strings once it entered the single currency. The games were just one of several areas where public spending was unchecked and funded by unsustainable borrowing.

Canada has been no stranger to Olympic-related fiscal issues. It took Montreal three decades to pay off its debt from the Games.

In BC, we've cleverly hidden much of the true infrastructure costs of the 2010 Games as public-private-partnership contracts - along with other assorted expenses the government is loathe to publicize - in a $100 Billion secret debt category, euphemistically labelled "contingencies and contractual liabilities".

The intellectual leader of the anti-Olympic movement in Vancouver, Dr. Chris Shaw, wrote a fine book on the subject, aptly titled Five Ring Circus - which filmmaker Conrad Schmidt followed up with a companion documentary.

In his book, Shaw catalogues and foresees the gentrifying effects of the Games on social housing in Vancouver and the diversion of tax dollars toward otherwise unjustifiable infrastructure projects to open up real estate opportunities for developers. He describes a symbiotic relationship between local property and construction magnates hungry for taxpayer-subsidized infrastructure and IOC "vultures endlessly circling the globe, waiting for local developers in the various countries to bring down the prey, the local citizenry."

The IOC gets its tax-free profits, corporate sponsors get their global audience, media get their ratings, and the developers get the long-lasting prize: new roads and bridges to open up previously inaccessible or low-value land to development - plus billions of dollars of government construction contracts. "Tying the Games to such projects," Shaw writes, "suddenly imbues them with a different aura, and all previous rationality about real costs versus potential benefits goes out the window."

Shaw also predicted the unconstitutional creation and application of laws designed to sweep trademark infringement and unseemly vagrants off Vancouver's streets, lest our image be tarnished or the IOC and its corporate partners offended. For their efforts, Shaw and his colleagues were harassed at their homes and places of work by overzealous Games security forces.

The 2002 Salt Lake City Games brought the corruption of the bidding process into full view, as lead organizers admitted to bribing the IOC's selection committee, forcing the resignation of key Salt Lake organizers. As subsequent investigations would reveal, this was far from the exception, rather the rule in the Olympic bidding process. In the wake of the Salt Lake Scandal, a senior Swiss IOC official, Marc Hodler, alleged that bribery has featured extensively in Games votes since at least 1990 - including the selection of Nagano 1998 and Sydney 2000.

According to a 2004 BBC story, "IOC vice-president Kim Un-Yong was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail on corruption charges. He was found guilty by a South Korean court of embezzling more than $3m from sports organizations he controlled, and accepting $700,000 in bribes."

This systemic bribery and corruption appear to extend to corporate partners as well. According to Bloomberg, the world's largest mining company, BHP Billiton, is currently under investigation in its native Australia, regarding its "dealings with foreign officials, including Chinese dignitaries, under a multimillion-dollar hospitality and sponsorship program at the 2008 Olympics."

Will the excesses of Sochi and the social unrest spawned in part by Rio lead to major changes on the Olympic front? Hard to say; the IOC has demonstrated a teflon-like ability to deflect all manner of controversy in the past - from bribery and corruption to a litany of high-profile doping scandals. Maybe this time is different. Perhaps the broader civil uprisings the Olympics are now getting roped into in Greece, Brazil - and, who knows?, one day maybe Russia - will finally change the Games.

Obama Admin. Preparing a New Day for Syria (sans Syrians)

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:30:00 +0000

War by Another Name in Syria

by Franklin Lamb - CounterPunch

Beirut - The Group of Eight leaders meeting in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, having called for an international conference on the ongoing crisis in Syria to be held “as soon as possible” could not agree on much else that might end the civil war anytime soon there. The White House now is reportedly in private agreement with Russia and Iran that the Assad government will remain in power until next year’s election.

Consequently, an 18 month old US-led Plan B has been dusted off by the Obama administration according to Washington Congressional and Beirut diplomatic sources. If successful, there is growing confidence among pro-Zionist neocons in Congress that while Syrian regime-change has failed for several reasons that thwarted the Gulf funded military campaign, Syria can still be brought to heel through an economic campaign dressed to look, well, down right “humanitarian.”

The term “equivalent of the Marshall Plan” is being employed by some in the White House and Pentagon this month to describe a proposed large-scale “humanitarian rescue program” being prepared for Syria, according to some Western diplomats based in Lebanon.

However, the 1948 Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program or ERP) was an American program to aid Europe, through which the United States provided $ 13 billion, in today’s monetary terms, approximately 100 billion dollars of economic support, to help rebuild European economies devastated by war.

With respect to Syria, the “ equivalent of the Marshall Plan” currently being finalized is very different from what General George |C. Marshall explained to his Harvard University audience, 66 years ago this month, when he announced the post WW II initiative.

The already project Syria amounts to 19th century economic imperialism as a means to achieve control of Syria by hijacking its economy while shielding Israel from the rising tide of protests in this region, as armed groups across the spectrum are beginning to focus on directly confronting the Zionist theft and continuing occupation of Palestine.

What Washington has in mind constitutes an attempt to gain control over Syria by controlling its economy via contracts for rebuilding the country and “lending” the hoped for post-Assad Syrian government as much as 300 billion dollars to be secured by Syrian assets. IMF economists estimate the value of the public sector in Syria, exceeds half a trillion dollars. Under the US-led pan, creditors can take control of ownership of the public sectior, if Syria accepts the plan for pledges to secure debt. The buyers of the debt will be largely American and indirectly Israeli businessmen as well as from the Gulf. Qatar specifically is gambling on this plan, to work with “international parties”, to immerse Syria in debt, and then drive the country to sell the private sector at a very small fraction of their true values.

Some who are warning against the scheme point out that Syrians are capable of rebuilding their own country and have the labor force and raw materials to do it. Foreign aid will be welcomed by the Syrian government but not at the price of ceding the Arab Syrian Republic to a new western crafted economic order. What is hidden in the war on Syria is reported to be much bigger than has been divulged to date, and involves winding down the military actions in favor of economic aggression against the Syrian population which the layers of US sanctions to date is just a harbinger.

In this context, according to Western Diplomatic sources, the US government and some Gulf countries have tried to bribe Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of Syria’s President, to break with the government and leave the country. Some other well-known figues have also been offered large sums of cash to break ranks. Last month, one prominent Syrian nationalist who works with the government told this observer of receiving a $ 50 million dollar offer to defect and leave Syria. The official rejected the bribe and ridiculed the government that made the offer by explaining that as proud Syrian nationalists, no amount of money would break the sacred bond between Syrians and their country.

With respect to Mr. Maklouf, he did not react to being placed on the US Treasury Department’s “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) list which blocks assets and prohibits, under severe penalties, U.S. citizens from dealing with them, nor did he dignify an American clemency offer with even a reply. Rather he has maintained his steadfast support for Syria in the face of several attempts to assassinate him as well as targeting him, as a leader of the Syrian business community, with American orchestrated (OFAC) defamatory media campaigns, to pressure Presidenrt Bashar al-Assad to break with him. Rather than rejecting Syria for American offers of protection, Makhlouf channeled much of his assets for the benefit of domestic charities and rehabilitative projects, providing jobs for the unemployed and loans for small investors as well as “at cost” family housing for many of the internally displaced. This initiative continues. Makhlouf has provided his borse shares in the largest telecommunications companies in Syria to charity associations in order to insure financial independence and resources that the Authority can rely upon, to ease somewhat, the devastating effects on the current crisis on the Syrian civil society.

According to analysts among the Western diplomatic corps in Beirut, many wealthy Syrian capitalists fell into the U.S. trap, wherein SDN economic sanctions prompted them to leave Syria and defect from the regime. The United States and its European partners continue to wage an economic war against Syria by imposing crippling sanctions which are affecting the lives of ordinary citizens in many ways from food and fuel costs to medical care.

Why Rami Makhlouf and other strong nationalists in Syria’s business community are being targeted as a prelude to fully launching the US-led “Syrian Marshall Plan” is that their bonds with Syria as well as their business acumen are blocking the Western scheme because they provide the Syrian government with much needed additional financial strength to rebuild Syria, in cooperation with other countries, but without being subject to the economically fatal conditions the US-led plan envisages. Many in the financial and academic community view the proposed SMP plan as nearly certain to hold the Syrian economy hostage to foreigners for scores of years.

The US Treasury Department considers Makhlouf and others like him in the Syrian business community as fully capable, if allowed, of helping Syria’s government to collect huge sums from international investors to help rebuild Syria without being subject to Western domination.

“The anti-Mahhlouf black propaganda campaign, according to a Washington DC source familiar with the intensified preparations, commented that the SMP was designed to include a wide ranging assault in the visual and written media, audio, as well as in the electronic media: “ Almost certainty funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both of which like their western partners who are actually constructing the SMP project, view Makhlouf as a key obstacle to realizing their plans to hijack and control the Syrian economy as part of a soft war, whereby the US and its allies, western and middle eastern, controls Arab economies while keeping US boots off the grounds of Arabia or spending more US treasure in this region.”

Targeting Rami Makhlouf, and other Syrian businessmen by Qatari media and other Arabic paid media outlets, is designed to hit Syria economically, because weakening the Syrian economic security at its core, is a more certain path, than endless military campaigns, to quickly smash the state. Makhlouf and his colleagues are seen as preventing this.

The ultimate goal of Qatar and certain Gulf countries, with US complicity, is not just expanding their investments in this region, as much as Doha is intent on connecting the Arab world to the American-Zionist axis politically and economically. The speed with which Israeli, Gulf, and Western businessmen showed up at the Corinthian, Radisson, and Rixos hotels in Tripoli, Libya, literally within days of the murder of Maoammar Qaddafi, “to help rebuild this country” is instructive on these same interests seeking to control a war damaged country by removing obstacles. Indeed, Russian intelligence reported at the time that the salafists who apprehended Qaddafi in Serte on October 20, 2011, as he attempted to flee, received verbal instructions from a Gulf country (UAE) to kill him in order to eliminate competition for dominating the Libyan econnomy and to silence those who might torpedo their best laid plans..

The targeting of Mr. Rami Makhlouf and dozens of like-minded Syrian businessmen, who refused to abandon their country, continues. Yet today, like thousands of other Syrian volunteers including the approximately 10,000 who work with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARCS) their time and resources serve their country in order to lessen the suffering of the civilian population. They have stood firm and did not flee, as did some corrupt former supporters and officials of the government.

This week, Syria’s President put the goal of the Marshall Plan for Syria succinctly, without identifying it, “What is happening in Syria is a project for those states to push a non-submissive state towards the brink and to look for a new president who says ‘yes’ (to their orders). They have not found and they will not find in the future,” Assad stressed while adding, “The interference is a blatant violation of international law and the sovereignty of this country; they (western states and their Gulf allies) want to destabilize the country and spread chaos and backwardness.”

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon
and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

Brazil Rising: Hundreds of Thousands in the Streets

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:26:00 +0000

Hundreds of Thousands of Brazilians Protest Country's Harsh Inequities

by TRNN

Protest against bus fare increase sparked nationwide protest movement demanding systemic change.

More at The Real News

In Brazil, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of São Paulo Tuesday following a Monday night where an estimated 280,000 protesters took to the streets nationwide highlighting a range of concerns, including political corruption, inadequate social services, and to demand a just and sustainable development. The protests began last week in São Paulo over a hike in bus fares, organized by the Free Fare movement which demands free public transportation. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff condemned the violence, but said her government is listening to the voices calling for change.

The Money at the Heart of America's Proto-Fascist Movement

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:45:00 +0000

Follow the Money: The Heart of the Secret State

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

No one, anywhere, has been writing about the deeper and wider implications of the Snowden revelations than Arthur Silber. (I hope you're not surprised by this.) In a series of powerful, insightful essays, Silber has, among other things, laid bare the dangers of the oddly circumscribed 'gatekeeper' approach of the journalistic guardians (at, ironically, the Guardian) of Snowden's secrets, particularly their slow drip-feed of carefully self-censored tidbits from the famous Powerpoint presentation that Snowden secreted from the bowels of the United Stasi of the American intelligent apparat. Eschewing the Wikileaks approach, the guardians at the Guardian have not let us judge the material for ourselves, opting instead to adopt, unwittingly, the same approach of the apparat: "we are the keepers of knowledge, we will decide what you need to know."

As Silber notes, this doesn't vitiate the worth of the revelations, but it does dilute their impact, leaving gaps that the apparat -- and its truly repulsive apologists all through the 'liberal media' -- can exploit to keep muddying the waters. He explores these ramifications, and others, in "In Praise of Mess, Chaos and Panic" and "Fed Up With All the Bullshit."

In his latest piece, "'Intelligence, Corporatism and the Dance of Death," he cuts to the corroded heart of the matter, the deep, dark not-so-secret secret that our secret-keepers are trying to obscure behind their blizzards of bullshit: it's all about the Benjamins.

After noting the gargantuan outsourcing of "intelligence" to private contractors like Booz Allen -- the very firm that employed Snowden -- Silber gives a quick precis of the essence of state-corporate capitalism (see the originals for links):

The biggest open secret all these creepy jerks are hiding is the secret of corporatism (or what Gabriel Kolko calls "political capitalism"):

There is nothing in the world that can't be turned into a huge moneymaker for the State and its favored friends in "private" business, at the same time it is used to amass still greater power. This is true in multiple forms for the fraud that is the "intelligence" industry.

The pattern is the same in every industry, from farming, to manufacturing, to every aspect of transportation, to the health insurance scam, to anything else you can name. In one common version, already vested interests go to the State demanding regulation and protection from "destabilizing" forces which, they claim, threaten the nation's well-being (by which, they mean competitors who threaten their profits). The State enthusiastically complies, the cooperative lawmakers enjoying rewards of many kinds and varieties. Then they'll have to enforce all those nifty regulations and controls. The State will do some of it but, heck, it's complicated and time-consuming, ya know? Besides, some of the State's good friends in "private" business can make a killing doing some of the enforcing. Give it to them! Etc. and so on.

Silber then goes on:

... But that's chump change. The real money is elsewhere -- in, for instance, foreign policy itself. You probably thought foreign policy was about dealing with threats to "national security," spreading democracy, ensuring peace, and whatever other lying slogans they throw around like a moldy, decaying, putrid corpse. The State's foreign policy efforts are unquestionably devoted to maintaining the U.S.'s advantages -- but the advantages they are most concerned about are access to markets and, that's right, making huge amounts of money. Despite the unending propaganda to the contrary, they aren't terribly concerned with dire threats to our national well-being, for the simple reason that there aren't any: "No nation would dare mount a serious attack on the U.S. precisely because they know how powerful the U.S. is -- because it is not secret."

How does the public-"private" intelligence industry make foreign policy? The NYT story offers an instructive example in its opening paragraphs:

When the United Arab Emirates wanted to create its own version of the National Security Agency, it turned to Booz Allen Hamilton to replicate the world’s largest and most powerful spy agency in the sands of Abu Dhabi.

It was a natural choice: The chief architect of Booz Allen’s cyberstrategy is Mike McConnell, who once led the N.S.A. and pushed the United States into a new era of big data espionage. It was Mr. McConnell who won the blessing of the American intelligence agencies to bolster the Persian Gulf sheikdom, which helps track the Iranians.

“They are teaching everything,” one Arab official familiar with the effort said. “Data mining, Web surveillance, all sorts of digital intelligence collection."

See how perfect this is? All the special people are making tons of money -- and, when the day arrives that the U.S. wants to ramp up its confrontational stance with Iran, well, there's the UAE helping to "track the Iranians" with all the tools that the U.S. has given them and taught them to use. And how easy would it be to get the UAE to provide the U.S. with just the right kind of new and disturbing "intelligence" that would get lots of people screaming about the "grave Iranian threat"? You know the answer to that: easy peasy. A wink and a nod -- and off the U.S. goes, with bombing runs or whatever it decides to do. But whatever it does will be determined in greatest part not by a genuine threat to U.S. national security (there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Iran's leaders are all suicidal), but by what will make the most money for the State and its good friends.

Silber then underscores once more the highly instructive principle laid out by Robert Higgs:

I remind you once again of what I call The Higgs Principle. As I have emphasized, you can apply this principle to every significant policy in every area, including every aspect of foreign policy. Here is Robert Higgs explaining it:

As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers-that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: follow the money.

When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one, etc., etc. – none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth, costs not borne by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing.

....It's all about wealth and power. Here and there, in episodes notable only for their rarity, "the intelligence world" might actually provide a small piece of information actually related to "national security." Again, I turn to Gabriel Kolko:

It is all too rare that states overcome illusions, and the United States is no more an exception than Germany, Italy, England, or France before it. The function of intelligence anywhere is far less to encourage rational behavior--although sometimes that occurs--than to justify a nation's illusions, and it is the false expectations that conventional wisdom encourages that make wars more likely, a pattern that has only increased since the early twentieth century. By and large, US, Soviet, and British strategic intelligence since 1945 has been inaccurate and often misleading, and although it accumulated pieces of information that were useful, the leaders of these nations failed to grasp the inherent dangers of their overall policies. When accurate, such intelligence has been ignored most of the time if there were overriding preconceptions or bureaucratic reasons for doing so.

Silber concludes:

...The intelligence-security industry isn't about protecting the United States or you, except for extraordinarily rare, virtually accidental occurrences. It's about wealth and power. Yet every politician and every government functionary speaks reverently of the sacred mission and crucial importance of "intelligence" in the manner of a syphilitic preacher who clutches a tatty, moth-eaten doll of the Madonna, which he digitally manipulates by sticking his fingers in its orifices. Most people would find his behavior shockingly obscene, if they noticed it. But they don't notice it, so mesmerized are they by the preacher with his phonily awestruck words about the holy of holies and the ungraspably noble purpose of his mission. Even as the suppurating sores on the preacher's face ooze blood and pus, his audience can only gasp, "We must pay attention to what he says! He wants only the best for us! He's trying to save us!"

What the preacher says -- what every politician and national security official says on this subject -- is a goddamned lie. The ruling class has figured out yet another way to make a killing, both figuratively and literally. They want wealth and power, and always more wealth and power. That's what "intelligence" and "national security" is about, and nothing else at all. When you hear Keith Alexander, or James Clapper, or Barack Obama talk about "intelligence" and surveillance, how your lives depend on them, and why you must trust them to protect you if you wish to continue existing at all, think of the preacher. Think of his open sores, of the blood and pus slowly dribbling down his face.

All of them are murdering crooks running a racket. They are intent on amassing wealth and power, and they've stumbled on a sure-fire way to win the acquiescence, and often the approval, of most people. They are driven by the worst of motives, including their maddened knowledge that there will always remain a few people and events that they will be unable to control absolutely. For the rest of us, their noxious games are a sickening display of power at its worst. For us, on a faster or slower schedule, in ways that are more or less extreme, their lies and machinations are only a Dance of Death.

There is much more in Silber's essays; go read them all now, if you haven't done already.

The Inherent Child Slavery of the Gulf States

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:42:00 +0000

Khadamas for Sale: Child Exploitation Bonanza

by Ramzy Baroud - The Palestine Chronicle

Last night at the hotel lobby of an Arab Gulf country, a family walked in aiming for the westernized café that sells everything but Arabic coffee. The mother seemed distant as she pressed buttons on her smart phone. The father looked tired as he buffed away on his cigarette, and a whole band of children ran around in refreshing chaos that broke the monotony of the fancy but impersonal hotel setting.

Chasing behind the children for no other reason but to be constantly vigilant to any unexpected harm was a very skinny Indonesian teenager wearing a tightly wrapped headscarf, worn out blue jeans and a long shirt. She was the maid, or khadama as maids are called here, meaning a servant.

The girl was but a child, of the same build and overall demeanor of my 14-year-old daughter who is busy with her studies anticipating a very exciting summer ahead. If she is lucky, the Indonesian ‘khadama’ can only expect one day off per two weeks, as she spends all of her time toiling for numerous hours, has no rights, with little or no pay and cannot escape. In most Gulf countries, cheap foreign laborers are asked to hand over their passports in a scheme involving authorities, employment agencies and employers. This is done to ensure compliance and obedience of young men and women that are mostly from southeast Asian countries.

Some Arab countries have become a breeding ground for a form of modern slavery that capitalizes on existing miseries found elsewhere in order to feed the insatiable consumerism that permeates most societies. It is particularly disheartening considering that Islamic doctrines emphasized labor rights many centuries ago, leaving no room whatsoever for alternative interpretations to religious texts that people are created equal, deserving of respect, freedom and dignity.

The injustice doesn’t start and end there. Rich Arab countries are but a mere manifestation of a relentless global phenomenon that requires more than unbinding international conventions but a major shift in cultural attitude.

June 12 was World Day Against Child Labor, an occasion that barely warranted some habitual mentioning by some news media, but certainly not enough to compete with headlines pertaining to the latest gadgets and yet more revealing photos of one Kardashian woman or another. I wonder if we tend to avoid such topics because once they are truly discussed, to varied degrees, we all become culpable? From the brand name clothes we wear, the fancy gadgets we haul around to pretty much everything else we consume, there is surely to be found traces of the sweat and tears of some oppressed laborer or a child with much potential but little hope.

No, this is not a guilt trip, but a pressing issue than can no longer be ignored or lumped into some vague notions about the world at large, being unfair and such. Many forms of injustice are driven by conscious decisions made by all of us. They can also be reversed by conscious decisions made by some of us.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) has done much to delineate the problem and tried to engage various governments around the world to alleviate the suffering of laborers, especially the children amongst them. Most countries around the world ratified ILO Conventions into law, but most are yet to challenge the rooted exploitation in their own societies.

Browsing through the text of ILO’s fundamental child labor Conventions (namely No. 138. No. 182 and the more recently No. 189, adopted at the International Labor Conference of 2011), there is enough clarity regarding the minimum age of admission to employment, the ‘worst forms of child labor’ in domestic work and many other related issues. Yet while governments are giddily signing such Conventions - knowing that accountability is almost nonexistent - often time little changes on the ground.

In Burma, an activist, Hsu Hnget told Irrawaddy news, that child labor is “so deeply rooted in society that it had become a ‘tradition.’”

According to a survey conducted by Child Rights and You, and cited in the Huffington Post, “19 percent of people in South Delhi believe that an individual is a child if he or she is below the age of 10 and most did not know about the laws that prohibit child labor.”

In Indonesia, ILO estimates that almost 2.5 million children are toiling at work, while they should not be working in the first place. The Jakarta Post reported that 21 percent of them are domestic workers and 60 percent work in the tobacco industry. According to the ILO and other organizations, many of them work for no pay.

“The children in the tobacco fields worked three to seven hours per day, earning only Rp 15,000 (US$1.51) to Rp 25,000,” reported the Jakarta Post on June 15.

Bangladesh is particularly rife with such exploitation, the type that also involves many western companies seeking cheap labor and large profit margins. Many of those who perished under the rubble of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka on April 24 were children, and of course, exploited adults. Since then two relevant anniversaries came and went with little change in work conditions: Labor Day events on May 1 and World Day Against Child Labor on June 12.

There are an estimated 215 million children classified as child labors. Amongst them, according to the International Labor Organization, “10.5 million kids are employed to cook and clean homes, where they're often subjected to hazardous conditions and sexual abuse.”

In the Middle East, exploiting laborers is also a ‘tradition’, where there is no uproar, or even a slightly serious protest at the dismal work conditions, especially those involving children. This is not limited to foreign workers, but nationals as well. According to a global interactive map on ILO website, “an estimated 13.4 million, or about 15 percent of all children in the (Arab) region are child laborers.”

In a separate study, the ILO explains the types of exploitation in Arab countries. “Working children in this region are vulnerable to participation in illicit activities such as drug trafficking and the commercial sex industry, recruitment by religious extremists, poor health, exposure to unsafe working environments, and lack of access to skills training.”

Of course, the Syrian civil war is expectedly important to any discussion related to exploitation as its horrible consequences are now extending all over the region. Many Syrian children are being exploited in Lebanon and elsewhere as laborers and prostitutes, reported Al Akhbar on June 11. Similar reports are resurfacing elsewhere, throughout Arab countries, Turkey and Europe. “Not far from the Lebanese hot zones, media strategy expert Issam Azouri describes the situation of a child receiving $20 a day to throw a hand grenade or burn a tire,” according to Al Akhbar, which also reported on a 4-year-old boy that begs to survive.

In some tragic way, the Indonesian teenage ‘servant’ from the hotel lobby last night might not even qualify to be included under ‘worst forms of labors’ per ILO Convention No. 182 which defines the type of labor that is similar to slavery.

Regardless, we must not wait yet another year to make a passing mention of the tens of millions of exploited children, nod our heads in predictable tandem about how unfair the world is, and how lucky we are to be spared such injustice. Child laborers would not exist if it were not for the many more millions of willing exploiters, seeking khadamas, fine cigars and brand name garments. The world, after all, is made up by us, so we'd better take responsibility for it and its exploited children.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press).

Lost to the War on Terror: Canada Subsumed by U.S. Security Perimeter

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:03:00 +0000

Canada Being Assimilated Into a U.S. Dominated North American Security Perimeter

by Dana Gabriel - Be Your Own Leader

Canada’s prime minister recently addressed the CFR, a globalist think tank who have been a driving force behind the push towards deeper North American integration. The U.S. and Canada are now further advancing this agenda through the Beyond the Border agreement. Both countries are increasing bilateral border transportation and infrastructure coordination. This includes a common approach to border management, security and control. They are also integrating an information sharing system that would be used to track everyone crossing the U.S.-Canada border and entering or leaving the continent. Without much fanfare and seemingly little resistance, Canada is being assimilated into a U.S. dominated North American security perimeter.

In May, the Conservative government highlighted the benefits of the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border action plan which was announced back in 2011. The deal, “focuses on addressing security threats at the earliest point possible and facilitating the lawful movement of people, goods, and services into Canada and the United States, and creates a long-term partnership to improve the management of our shared border.” The goal is to further increase, “security, economic competitiveness and prosperity through numerous measures, including reducing border wait times and improving infrastructure at key crossings to speed up legitimate trade and travel.” The Beyond the Border Executive Steering Committee recently met to discuss the objectives that have already been achieved and the work that still needs to be done. Another important facet of the economic and security perimeter agreement is the Regulatory Cooperation Council action plan. A stakeholder dialogue session is planned for June 20, which will review its implementation progress and will seek further input regarding the next stage of U.S.-Canada regulatory integration.

Last month, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a joint report on the findings of Phase I of the Entry/Exit Information System. The program included collecting and exchanging biographic information at four selected land border ports of entry. In a news release, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Acting Commissioner Thomas Winkowski stated that, “The results of Phase I demonstrate the capacity of the United States and Canada to increase information sharing capabilities.” He added, “This kind of cooperation epitomizes the Beyond the Border Action Plan.” The next phase of the entry/exit initiative is set to begin at the end of this month. It will involve exchanging the biographic data collected from third-country nationals and permanent residents of Canada and the U. S. at all common ports of entry. Both countries are further merging databases and are expanding surveillance and intelligence gathering operations. In 2014, they will also start sharing biometric information at the border. This will further advance the creation of a North America security perimeter where all travellers will be tracked and traced in real time.

As part of the commitment made under the Beyond the Border deal, both countries have announced the Border Infrastructure Investment Plan which was, “developed to establish a mutual understanding of recent, ongoing and potential border infrastructure investments. It outlines the approach that Canada and the United States will take to coordinate plans for physical infrastructure upgrades.” In June 2012, Canada reached an agreement with the State of Michigan to build a second bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. This was followed by a presidential permit issued in April of this year that officially paved the way for construction of the project. A U.S. State Department press release explained that, “Consistent with the bilateral Beyond the Border Initiative, this permit contributes to ensuring that our border infrastructure supports increased competitiveness, job creation, and broad-based prosperity in the United States and Canada.” It went on to say that the new bridge, “will help to meet future capacity requirements in a critical travel corridor, promote cross-border trade and commerce, and advance our vital bilateral relationship with Canada.”

In March, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews signed a memorandum of understanding which established a truck cargo pre-inspection pilot project. The joint undertaking is another component of the Beyond the Border agreement and would shift inspections and clearances away from the actual border crossing. The first phase, “will test the concept of conducting U.S. CBP primary cargo inspection in Canada, and will be implemented at the Pacific Highway crossing between Surrey, British Columbia and Blaine, Washington.” The second phase, “will further test how pre-inspection could enhance border efficiency and reduce wait times to facilitate legitimate trade and travel, and will be implemented at the Peace Bridge crossing between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.” The perimeter security deal is laying the foundation for a future U.S.-Canada binational organization that would jointly manage and control the border.

The CBSA is also testing additional technology at the Morses Line, Quebec and Piney, Manitoba ports of entry. Under the remote traveller pilot project, people entering either location after regular hours of service, “will be processed by a border services officer located at a remote processing centre through a two-way audio and one-way video kiosk. Cameras will be installed to provide the officer with the ability to see the traveller and the vehicle.” The program which could later be expanded to other areas , “is part of the Small and Remote Ports of Entry Initiative, one of the deliverables under the Beyond the Border Action Plan.” NAUNEWZ pointed out that, “Although a lot of this technology is already installed and being utilized in limited ways at most of the main Canada-U.S. border crossing points, these smaller border crossings are ideal testing grounds for their ‘no borders’/NAU agenda.”

On May 16, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper participated in question and answer session before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The conversation centered around economic growth, foreign investment and the role of the G20 with regards to global governance. Other issues focused on Canada-U.S. relations. Harper lobbied for approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline which would carry oil from western Canada to the Texas gulf coast. He dismissed environmental issues associated with the project and argued that it would be a step towards North American energy independence. The Obama administration is expected to make a final decision on the pipeline sometime this year. Harper also acknowledged the Beyond the Border and the Regulatory Cooperation Council action plans. He blamed sovereignty concerns and the continued negativity surrounding NAFTA as the main obstacles to even deeper continental integration. Prime Minister Harper used his audition in front of the CFR as an opportunity to demonstrate to the U.S. political and corporate elite that he is committed to defending the interests of big business and further pushing plans for a North American Union (NAU).

The Beyond the Border action plan is the most significant step forward in U.S.-Canada cooperation since NAFTA. It provides the framework for future North American integration. When fully implemented, the agreement can be expanded and updated. So far, the agenda has quietly slipped under the radar. By incrementally incorporating various pilot projects and excluding Mexico from the process, it has managed to avoid the controversy of past initiatives. The perimeter security deal is being sold as vital to improving the flow of trade and travel across the border. In order to appease U.S. fears, Canada has made numerous concessions with no guarantees that it will lessen border restrictions. As part of a North American security perimeter, Canada will always be at the mercy of any new U.S. security measures, regardless of the dangers they may pose to privacy and civil liberties.

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, security, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com Visit his blog at Be Your Own Leader

Related articles by Dana Gabriel:
U.S.-Canada Harmonizing Border Security and Immigration Measures
Taking the U.S.-Canada Partnership to the Next Level
Merging U.S.-Canada Arctic Foreign Policy
The Return of ACTA: U.S. Dictating Canada’s Intellectual Property Laws

Truth Tellers and Genocide Denial in Palestine

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:58:00 +0000

Walker Tells the Truth, the ADL Avoids It

by William A. Cook

“… the ADL blasted Walker for describing Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians as “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “crimes against humanity,” and “cruelty and diabolical torture” (Haaretz June 18, 2013).

Alice Walker’s new book, The Cushion in the Road, spends over eighty pages on the Israeli state and its treatment of Palestinians. Apparently the ADL took umbrage to her free expression of ideas about the Zionist ideology that has managed to imprison the Palestinians in their own land while stealing most of it.

This they call Anti-Semitism. Freedom of speech is only for those who do not criticize Israel or for Zionists and their supporters who criticize anyone that criticizes Israel.

What they do not tolerate is the possibility that Israel may be brought to court to determine if it does commit crimes against humanity and for that it pays enormous amounts of money to our Congress to ensure that the American people by veto will prevent legal determination of their acts.

The basic question boils down to this: does Walker tell the truth or not, or does the ADL denigrate a great American author because of her views that threaten to expose the reality of Israel committing Genocide against the Palestinians?

As editor of a book devoted to the very points Walker raises, I’d like to mention that anyone interested in the truth, knowing that the US will deny the world the opportunity to bring the state of Israel before the International Court of Justice, need only spend time reading the 20 authors from around the world who have provided chapters to The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction, published by Macmillan Company in 2010, to understand that genocide is taking place but that it has been the policy of the Israeli state from 1947.

All of the authors are known experts in the field of mid-east history and politics including names like Dr. Ilan Pappe, Dr. Richard Falk, Chris Hedges, Robert Fisk, Jeff Halper, et al., all competent and serious observers of this disastrous crisis that has subjugated the Palestinian people to humiliation, depression, economic deprivation, isolation, destruction, despair and death.

The opening Introduction establishes, with previously classified documents, that the policy of the Jewish Agency from the beginning was to erase the Arabs from Palestine. The Nakba was the means while the terrorism against the British Mandate forces was the consequence, and the extent of this calculated effort to erase a people from their own land continues to the present day.

How totally hypocritical and loathsome of the ADL to attempt to discredit a humanitarian of Walker’s stature by claiming that she lies, that she is racist, that she is ignorant when in reality the ADL and its sympathizers are themselves hypocritical, loathsome and vile in their attacks. Let the world know the truth: bring Israel before the International Court to let the people of the world witness the genocide that they have maintained against the Palestinians for more than 65 years.

The 96% Solution: Enbridge Refuses Bitter Pill of British Columbia Rejection

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:04:00 +0000

Enbridge Won't Take 'No' for an Answer, Despite 96% Opposition

by Damien Gillis - The Canadian.org

Despite over 9,500 public submissions to the Joint Review Panel for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline - with a resounding 96% opposed - John Carruthers, the company president in charge of the project, remains confident it will proceed.

Carruthers told reporters outside the final round of hearings in Terrace, BC this week, "I think the chances of it going ahead are very probable."

Either this is desperate, last-ditch posturing - in which case Mr. Carruthers is misleading his shareholders - or, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he believes what he says.

Consider the implications for a moment, given the wholesale rejection of the project from every quarter.

Enbridge has been told, "NO", six ways from Sunday over the past five years.

An unprecedented, unified "No" from First Nations all along the pipeline and tanker routes - backed by others all around the province and beyond. Over 160 altogether. Their resolve has not wavered - even when Enbridge tried to engineer the splintering of this phalanx through a trumped up, discredited deal with a rogue Gitxsan treaty negotiator, the ham-fisted maneuver backfired badly. The "unbroken wall" of opposition promised by chiefs like Jackie Thomas of the Saik'uz Fisrt Nation has held all this time.

Northern municipalities - Prince Rupert, Terrace, Smithers - have passed resolutions telling Enbridge, "No."

Ecologists, biologists, statisticians, fishermen, marine safety and oil spill recovery experts, even respected economists have lined up to tell Enbridge, "No."

The province's Official Opposition and Government have both, essentially, told Enbridge, "No."

In fact, the only person who has said "Yes" to Mr. Carruthers is Stephen Harper - and even his support is wavering these days. His top BC minister, James Moore, responded to the Clark Government's closing statement against the pipeline at the JRP hearings, noting, "there are many pathways for Canadian resources to get out of the country, and we'll see if Enbridge looks at other opportunities." According to CBC, "He said his government supports B.C.'s five conditions for heavy oil pipelines...Moore says his government supports getting natural resources out of Canada, whether through Northern Gateway, or other projects, but any company must be accountable to the people living where it wants to build."

Harper is changing his tune because even he can see what everyone else but Carruthers can: this project is dead in the water.

Mr. Carruthers' confidence is based on his own subjective certainty that Northern Gateway is "a tremendously needed project for Canadians to get full value for their resources which are critically needed and that need is even more urgent than it's been."

This baseless fear-mongering was echoed by Enbridge lawyer Richard Neufeld, who also took the stand Monday to extoll his company's project. If Enbridge were denied, "Canada would be facing, we submit, an economic catastrophe of unprecedented proportions," Neufeld told the Joint Review Panel.

This laughable, self-serving rhetoric flies in the face of the independent economic analysis of former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan and many others who have warned of the economic perils to Canadians from exporting unrefined bitumen to foreign markets. Even the venerable Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) acknowledges that building a petro-economy leads to net economic losses as manufacturing and other sectors are squeezed by artificially inflated currencies.

It is by no means a given that opening up BC's coast to raw fossil fuel exports will do anything but imperil our "Super, Natural" brand and the $13.4 Billion tourism economy upon which it depends.

Mr. Carruthers is confusing what's in the economic interest of Canadians with that of himself and the foreign-owned oil producers who would use his infrastructure to export Canadian jobs and resource wealth to foreign markets. They are not remotely one and the same. When we hear "the economy", we must always ask, "whose economy?"

And what of the inordinate human, environmental and, yes, economic costs of the climate catastrophe this project would help facilitate? Even the US Government is coming to terms with the socioeconomic costs of carbon. Applying their own calculations to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline yields a prediction of up to half a trillion dollars in carbon-driven social costs.

There is no glut of supply in North America's pipelines, no "bitumen bubble" driving down Tar Sands prices. Canada is a net importer of oil, for Pete's sake. American buyers pay less for Canadian dilbit and syncrude because they are inferior products to light crude, thus meriting a discounted price.

That will always be the case, whether the customer is China or America. International crude prices may be higher for now, but dilbit will always be discounted - and the minimal additional profits from international markets are sure to wind up in the largely foreign pockets of shareholders, not trickling down the Canadian public, as we are to believe.

Contrary to Carruthers and Neufeld's Chicken Little prognostications, the sky will not fall on Canada's economy should Enbridge face rejection. And what does their opinion count for on this score anyway? They are the project proponent - not independent economists.

That's what makes this all so insulting - the righteous indignation, the holier-than-thou pontificating, the outrageous scare tactics, the thumbing of noses by these gentlemen from Calgary at BC's First Nations and citizens.

If Mr. Carruthers is delusional, as I suspect, then that's his problem I suppose (and that of his shareholders).

If, on the other hand, he's right and his much-maligned project does go ahead, then what does that say about this country in which we live? When 96% of the engaged citizenry and assorted experts who take the time to prepare and submit their thoughts to a two-year National Energy Board hearing speak against the project; when First Nations who hold unceded, constitutionally protected title and rights to these lands and waters remain unequivocally opposed...and it goes ahead, what does that say about Canada?

If that happens, we can all just quit referring to this country as a democracy. Full stop.

But I don't think that's what's going to happen at this stage. I think Mr. Carruthers is full of it.

What has me more concerned these days is the following scenario: Enbridge gets rejected. Instead, we see three or four "gas pipelines" built to BC's coast - sailing past regulatory hurdles while the public and media are distracted by Enbridge. The "gas pipelines" are ostensibly to feed boondoggle LNG projects in Kitmat and Prince Rupert - which never materialize because the economic fundamentals simply aren't there (more on that next column). Said "gas pipelines" get converted to dilbit pipelines, LNG terminals swapped for dilbit terminals. And, presto! It won't be called Enbridge, but - except for Mr. Carruthers - who cares? Same impact on our economy and environment.

Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon.

Iraq Redux: Guardian Buys US Syrian WMD Claims

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:58:00 +0000

'A Political Ploy'? The Guardian Editors Swallow US Claims on Syrian WMD

by David Edwards - Media Lens

Last week, we reviewed the questions and doubts surrounding claims that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria.

The Obama administration has since claimed that its 'red line' has indeed been crossed – it now has firm evidence that Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons. As a result, the US will begin supplying Syrian insurgents with small arms and ammunition. White House foreign policy adviser Benjamin Rhodes gave dates and locations for alleged sarin attacks but no details of the fighting or numbers of people killed.

In a subsequent article for McClatchy Washington Bureau, Matthew Schofield noted that chemical weapons experts remain 'skeptical of U.S. claim that Syria used sarin'. Jean Pascal Zanders, a leading expert on chemical weapons, until recently a senior research fellow at the European Union's Institute for Security Studies, commented:

'It's not just that we can't prove a sarin attack; it's that we're not seeing what we would expect to see from a sarin attack. In a world where even the secret execution of Saddam Hussein was taped by someone, it doesn't make sense that we don't see videos, that we don't see photos, showing bodies of the dead, and the reddened faces and the bluish extremities of the affected.'

Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said that 'my guess is they [US officials] have it right'. But Thielmann noted that the White House statement on the crossing of the 'red line' in Syria was 'carefully and prudentially worded' and acknowledged the lack of a 'continuous chain of custody for the physiological samples from those exposed to sarin'.

As we discussed last month, a secure chain of custody is vital for ensuring samples have not been contaminated. Alastair Hay, a toxicologist at the University of Leeds, commented:

'To make a legal case - whether it's against the Syrian government or opposition group - you need an ironclad chain of custody.'

Philip Coyle, a senior scientist at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, said that the lack of hard, public evidence made it difficult for experts to assess the validity of the administration's claims. What happened 'doesn't look like a series of sarin attacks to him', Schofield reports of Coyle, who also commented: 'Without blood samples, it's hard to know. It does not eliminate all doubt in my mind.'

Anthony Cordesman, a security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, argues that 'the "discovery" that Syria used chemical weapons might be a political ploy... The real reasons [for US intervention] are the broader humanitarian issues involved and far more urgent U.S. strategic interests'.

Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin's top foreign policy adviser, said:

'What was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing. It would be hard to even call them facts.'

The Independent's Robert Fisk again poured scorn on the claims:

'Washington's excuse for its new Middle East adventure - that it must arm Assad's enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them - convinces no-one in the Middle East. Final proof of the use of gas by either side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush's claim that Saddam's Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.'

Despite all of this, a Guardian editorial offered a strikingly different judgement. Noting that Obama had decided to authorise military aid on the basis 'that Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against the opposition', the editors commented:

'That use is an outrage and is against international agreements. It adds to the charge sheet against the Assad regime.'

These are among the most shocking comments we have ever seen in the Guardian. Despite the indisputable fraudulence of US-UK claims regarding Iraqi WMD, an equally staggering litany of lies on Libya, and despite the existence of gaps and doubts so reminiscent of Iraq 2002-2003, the Guardian is willing to quietly endorse the latest claims on Syria – 'Assad' clearly has used chemical weapons and that use should be added to the charge sheet against him.

Once again, when it really matters, the Guardian editors are on-message, on-side and boosting war propaganda.

Unfortunately, the Guardian has form. On January 24, 2003, at a crucial time, leading Guardian reporter Martin Woollacott wrote of Saddam Hussein:

'Among those knowledgeable about Iraq there are few, if any, who believe he is not hiding such weapons. It is a given.' (Woollacott, 'This drive to war is one of the mysteries of our time - We know Saddam is hiding weapons. That isn't the argument,' The Guardian, January 24, 2003)

In fact, this was not only false, it was a near-exact reversal of the truth. Hans Blix, former head of UNMOVIC arms inspections in Iraq (November 2002-March 2003), said in June 2003:

'If anyone had cared... to study what UNSCOM [UN arms inspection team in Iraq, 1991-1998] was saying for quite a number of years, and what we were saying, they should not have assumed that they would stumble on weapons.' (Miles Pomper and Paul Kerr, 'An Interview With Hans Blix,' Arms Control Today, June 16, 2003)

Ironically, in a leading article on the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq disaster, the Guardian later observed:

'What is already clear from the first week alone is that the decisions, secret or otherwise, that led to war were the product of systemic failure. Intelligence analysts, diplomats, in fact the entire machinery of the British government, proved supine against Washington's will. Under that pressure, almost everyone buckled.' (Leading Article: 'Iraq inquiry: Dancing to American drums,' The Guardian, November 28, 2009)

The press included!

Supposedly at the other end of the media 'spectrum', a leading article in The Times echoed the Guardian's view:

'Assad's chemical attacks are a barbarous form of warfare intended to spread terror. Arming the rebels is a temperate response to try to force a political settlement.' (Leading article, 'Syria's Red Line,' The Times, June 15, 2013)

The French Government 'Believes' - An Exchange With The BBC's Jonathan Marcus

On June 13, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, responded to last week's media alert:

David,

Far be it from me to puncture your corporate conspiracy view [sic] of the Journalistic world but having ones own thoughts quoted against one is a little annoying.

In your piece on Syria and Sarin you mention the BBC article's scepticism regarding the French claims and then you castigate me for a subsequent piece where I suggest that if Sarin really has been used and the French have proof then this would be a "potential game-changer" - note the use of the word "potential".

The earlier scepticism in the BBC article was based on my preceding piece which appeared on the same BBC web site, text below:

"Laurent Fabius is certain of one thing; that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria.
"But beyond this he seems to have few facts. He cannot say - or does not choose to say - exactly where the sarin was used (except that it was employed on several occasions) or by whom.

"The Syrian government has the chemical agent in its arsenal, although it is always possible that some stocks could have fallen into the hands of rebel forces.

"This is not yet the sort of game-changer that might provoke some dramatic shift in US or Western policy. For now it looks like a renewed effort by the French to maintain the diplomatic pressure on President Bashar al-Assad as efforts continue to convene a peace conference in Geneva."

I think this injects a sufficient note of scepticism and is clearly what the reference in the BBC article is drawn from. I don't think either I or the BBC have swallowed any stories about CW - as us "militaristic hacks tend to call it" (irony there). My judgement is that we have not seen anything yet in the publicly available material from Syria which suggests without any doubt the use of sarin - no Halabja style footage for example.

I think we have been suitably cautious and continue to be so. We do I think have a responsibility also to report what key actors say while also highlighting, as we do - that there is little evidence so far for their assertions. Try to be reassured.

JM

We responded the same day:

Hi Jonathan

Thanks for taking the trouble to email, we appreciate it. You write that 'having ones own thoughts quoted against one is a little annoying'. It certainly is and we apologise for any irritation caused. We're trying to open up debate rather than offend individual journalists.

By the way, for what it's worth, we've said many times that we don't at all believe that media performance can be explained by any kind of conspiracy theory.

I am of course aware that you used the word 'potential' when you commented that the French sarin claims were a 'potential game-changer', but I was making a different point. I noted that you had written:

'The French government now believes not only that the nerve agent sarin has been used in Syria, but that it was deployed by "the regime and its accomplices".'

You've reinforced that in your reply: 'Laurent Fabius is certain of one thing; that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria.'

I'm sure you recall how in 2002 and 2003 journalists like Andrew Rawnsley of the Observer were forever making this kind of claim:

'The intelligence material that the Prime Minister sees makes him genuinely disturbed - it would not be going too far to say petrified - about Saddam Hussein's potential ability to use weapons of mass destruction.' (Andrew Rawnsley, 'How to deal with the American goliath,' The Observer, February 24, 2002)

Our question to Rawnsley and others, then, was: 'How on earth can a journalist know what Blair really believes?'

After all, despite their earlier impassioned claims, it is now really incontrovertible that US-UK leaders did not at all believe that Iraq was a threat to the West in 2002-2003. Ray McGovern, a former high-ranking CIA analyst, commented:

'It was 95 per cent charade. And they all knew it: Bush, Blair, Howard.' (Quoted, John Pilger, 'Blair's Mass Deception,' Daily Mirror, February 3, 2004)

That's the point I was making when I suggested you take a leaf out of the Greenwald book of journalism. You claim the French government 'believes' and is 'certain' that the Syrian government has used sarin. But doesn't the example of Iraq suggest that this may not in fact be the case?

In your reply you comment:

'My judgement is that we have not seen anything yet in the publicly available material from Syria which suggests without any doubt the use of sarin - no Halabja style footage for example.'

Agreed. Do you then agree that the BBC's headline, ''World "must act" Over Syria Weapons', was irresponsible?

Thanks again for writing.

Best wishes

David Edwards

Marcus wrote again on June 13:

As with newspapers the author of the piece does not write the headlines.

I only wrote to correct your error not to get drawn into a lengthy exchange.

My belief is that your view of much of the media world is wrong - though like everything it is not without is faults - and I think it does boil down to a rather simplistic conspiracy theory when all is said and done.
JM

We replied:

Thanks. Yes, I totally understand you don't want a lengthy exchange. But do you not agree that you in fact don't know what the French government really 'believes'? Shouldn't that uncertainty be reflected in your journalism?
Best
DE

Marcus responded briefly:

I think I probably don't really know what you believe - though I think I have a pretty good idea !

An interesting light was thrown on this discussion the following day, when Marcus wrote on the BBC website:

'Thus the US response to President Assad's apparent crossing of a "red line" seems tentative at best.'

Just one day earlier, Marcus had written to us:

'My judgement is that we have not seen anything yet in the publicly available material from Syria which suggests without any doubt the use of sarin - no Halabja style footage for example.' (Marcus, Email to Media Lens, June 13, 2013)

We quoted these comments to Marcus, asking: 'What happened to change your view over the last 24 hours?'

Marcus replied:

Again I don't understand you - what does the word apparent mean in this context? The piece - if you can take in more than a sentence at a time, raises all sorts of questions about the evidence - at least I think it does.

You were plain wrong again in the last criticism of me - but clearly you are not going to admit this.

Look David - it was fun while it lasted but I am changing my policy and no longer replying to e-mails coming from you or your supporters. You are not accurate or precise in your criticisms. Far from it. I can only marvel at your application - is Medialens your part-time time hobby or a job. Do you have private means ? Oh my goodness that was a question - but please don't answer. Or as you would put it " don't you agree that this is all becoming a pain in the proverbial........"

I have been contacted in the past by a number of fellow journos far more eminent than me who marvel at my willingness to engage with you. They think I am nuts.

I am coming to the conclusion they may have been right

Au revoir

JM

We replied:

Hi Jonathan

The comment, 'Assad's apparent crossing of a "red line",' asserts that Assad does indeed appear to have drossed a 'red line', that it seems to be the case. Yesterday you said there was no firm evidential basis for the claim. You could have said 'alleged crossing of a "red line"', or 'claimed'.

Why do fellow journalists think you're nuts for responding to polite, rational challenges? Isn't that what democracy is all about?

Best

DE

Once again, commentators are nodding sagely at the 'limited but persuasive' intelligence and sincere convictions of well-intentioned Western politicians. Our Dear Leaders are 'certain', 'they are convinced', they 'believe' that sarin has been used. And why on earth would we not also 'believe'?

Suggested Action

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk

Chris Elliott, Guardian readers' editor
Email: reader@guardian.co.uk

Jonathan Marcus, BBC diplomatic editor
Email: jonathan.marcus@bbc.co.uk

Whose Spoons Stir Syria's Roiling Pot?

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:21:00 +0000

Israel Stirs the Pot in Syria

by Jonathan Cook - CounterPunch

Nazareth - For much of the past two years Israel stood sphinx-like on the sidelines of Syria’s civil war. Did it want Bashar al-Assad’s regime toppled? Did it favour military intervention to help opposition forces? And what did it think of the increasing visibility of Islamist groups in Syria? It was difficult to guess.

In recent weeks, however, Israel has moved from relative inaction to a deepening involvement in Syrian affairs. It launched two air strikes on Syrian positions last month, and at the same time fomented claims that Damascus had used chemical weapons, in what looked suspiciously like an attempt to corner Washington into direct intervention.

Last week, based on renewed accusations of the use of the nerve agent sarin by Syria, the US said it would start giving military aid directly to the opposition.

With suspicions of Israeli meddling growing, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was finally forced last week to deny as ”nonsense” evidence that Israeli forces are operating secretly over the border.

Nonetheless, the aura of inscrutability has hardly lifted, stoked by a series of leaks from Israeli officials. Their statements have tacked wildly between threats to oust Assad one moment and denials that Israel has any interest in his departure the next.

Is Israel sending out contradictory signals to sow confusion, or is it simply confused itself?

The answer can be deduced in the unappealing outcomes before Israel whoever emerges triumphant. Israel stands to lose strategically if either Assad or the opposition wins decisively.

Assad, and before him his father, Hafez, ensured that for decades the so-called separation of forces line between Syria and Israel, after the latter occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, remained the quietest of all Israel’s borders.

A taste of what might happen should the Syrian regime fall was provided in 2011 when more than 1,000 Palestinians massed in the no man’s land next to the Golan, while Assad’s attention was directed to repressing popular demonstrations elsewhere. At least 100 Palestinians crossed into the Heights, with one even reaching Tel Aviv.

Last week, following intensified fighting between the rebels and the Syrian army over Quneitra, a town next to the only crossing between Israel and Syria, UN peacekeepers from Austria started pulling out because of the dangers.

Briefly the opposition forces captured Quneitra, offering a reminder that any void there would likely suck in Palestinian militants and jihadists keen to settle scores with Israel. That point was underlined by one Israeli official, who told the Times of London: “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos, and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there.”

For that reason, the Israeli military is reported to considering two responses familiar from Lebanon: invading to establish a security zone on the other side of the demarcation line, or covertly training and arming Syrian proxies inside the same area.

Neither approach turned out well for Israel in Lebanon, but there are indications – despite Netanyahu’s denial – that Israel is already pursuing the second track.

According to the New York Times, Israel is working with Syrian villagers not allied to Assad or the opposition and offering “humanitarian aid” and “maintaining intense intelligence activity”. In an interview with the Argentinian media last month, Assad accused Israel of having gone further, “directly supporting” opposition groups inside Syria with “logistical support”, intelligence on potential targets and plans for attacking them.

If the future looks bleak for Israel with Assad gone, it looks no brighter if he entrenches his rule.

A strong Assad means Syria will continue to play a pivotal role in maintaining a military front opposed to Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. That in turn means a strong Iran and a strong Hizbullah, the Shia militia in Lebanon.

Hizbullah’s formidable record in guerrilla warfare is the main reason Israel no longer occupies south Lebanon. Similarly, Hizbullah’s arsenal of rockets is a genuine restraint on greater Israeli aggression towards not only Lebanon but Syria and Iran too.

Israel’s air strikes in early May appear to have targeted shipments through Syria of more sophisticated weaponry for Hizbullah, probably supplied by Iran. Longer range missiles and anti-aircraft systems are seen as “game-changing” by Israel precisely because they would further limit its room for offensive manoeuvres.

Israel will be equally stymied if Assad stays in power and upgrades his anti-aircraft defences with the S-300 system promised by Russia.

Either way, Israel’s much vaunted ambition to engineer an attack on Iran to prevent what it claims is Tehran’s goal of developing a nuclear bomb – joining Israel in the club of Middle Eastern nuclear-armed states – would probably come at too high a price to be feasible.

So what does Israel consider in its interests if neither Assad’s survival nor his removal is appealing?

According to some well-placed Israeli commentators, the best Israel can hope for is that Assad holds on but only just. That would keep the regime in place, or boxed into its heartland, but sapped of the energy to concern itself with anything other than immediate matters of survival. It would be unable to offer help to Hizbullah, isolating the militia in Lebanon and cutting off its supply line to Iran.

In closed-door discussions, analyst Ben Caspit has noted, the Israeli army has put forward as its “optimal scenario” Syria breaking up into three separate states, with Assad confined to an Alawite canton in Damascus and along the coast.

A long war of attrition between Assad and the opposition has additional benefits for Israel following the decision by Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to draft thousands of fighters to assist the Syrian army. Protacted losses could deplete Hizbullah’s ranks and morale, while fighting is likely to spill over from Syria into Lebanon, tying up the militia on multiple fronts.

But there is a risk here too. If Hizbullah performs well, as it did in defeating the rebels this month at the town of Qusayr, its position in Lebanon could be strengthened rather than weakened. And in that situation Assad’s debt to Hizbullah would only deepen.

Such calculations are doubtless exercising Israeli military minds.

The greatest danger of all is that yet more parties get drawn in, turning the conflict into a regional one. That would be the likely outcome if Israel chooses to increase its interference, or if the US comes good with its recent threats to increase military aid to the opposition or impose a no-fly zone over parts or all of Syria.

Either way, Israel might see the transformation of Syria in to a new mini-cold war theatre as advantageous.

However, the Israeli sphinx isn’t offering any answers quite yet.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His new website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

A version of this article first appeared in The National, Abu Dhabi.

Not With a Whimper But a Sigh: Progessively Pragmatic Assessments of Obama Presidency

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:33:00 +0000

Absolving Obama , or The Lamentable Sigh of the Depressed Progressive

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

Something very, very bad happened over the weekend.

President Obama made Digby sigh.

What did President Obama do that made Digby sigh? Well, that thing about increasing American military involvement in Syria. Digby quotes, and agrees with, a piece by Mark Lynch which she calls "a deeply skeptical and very depressing assessment of the decision to intervene in Syria."

Digby -- like most other sentient beings on the planet, and at least 85 percent of all Americans in the most recent polls -- believes that intervening in Syria is a bad decision and will in all likelihood make the situation, already a vast cauldron of human suffering, worse.

So who is to blame for this terrible decision, this stupid decision, this bad decision that will almost certainly extend, expand and prolong the suffering of multitudes of innocent human beings?

Now you and I might think that the person responsible for the decision to send American weapons to the Syrian rebels rests with the commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces and the Chief Executive of the U.S. government, positions subsumed within the office of the President of the United States -- a post currently held by Barack Obama.

But it turns out that President Barack Obama is not responsible for the decision of the commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces and the Chief Executive of the U.S. government to send American arms to the Syrian rebels.

So who is responsible, if Obama is not? You'll never guess.

Circumstances.

Yes, apparently, once again our noble Nobelist has been torn away from his true intentions and, very reluctantly, with heavy heart -- indeed, with the kind of tragic grandeur that perhaps only President Daniel Day-Lewis might have known in the grimmest days of the Civil War -- been forced, forced against his will, against the very inclination of his soul, to send the American war machine into yet another country.

For who can forget his anguished reluctance to escalate the Afghan War with his Bush-like surge? Or the heart-tormented nights he spent before intervening illegally in Libya? Or the sweat-drops of blood he shed in fervent prayer before escalating the drone attacks on Pakistani villages? Or the spiritual torment he must go through each and every week before, sadly, reluctantly, he orders a new raft of "extrajudicial killings" by his globe-spanning death squads?

And now, once again, despite what we may be sure were weeks of fervent petition to the Lord to let this cup pass from him, the president has been forced to act against his will and make another bad, stupid, murderous decision. As Digby puts it:

Everything I read says that President Obama, unlike many in his cabinet (including his former Secretary of State) has been extremely reluctant to engage but finds himself hemmed in by the circumstances.

You see, he has been "hemmed in by circumstances." Despite his extreme reluctance to use the American military machine in dubious, sinister and counterproductive operations -- and despite his position as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces, the most powerful military in the history of the world, and as Chief Executive of the U.S. government, likewise the most powerful state in human history, he has been "hemmed in by circumstances" and forced to make this bad decision.

Yes, he can order the assassination of anyone on earth. Yes, he can read the emails and web trails of anyone on earth. Yes, he can launch a nuclear war tomorrow and destroy the planet. But he cannot resist the "circumstances" that have compelled him to intervene in Syria. Poor man. Poor, powerless, tragic man.

And what are those circumstances? Well, that is not crystal clear in Digby's lament, but apparently the main circumstance is the fact that a "red line" which Barack Obama himself freely decided would be the trigger for intervention has, apparently, according to assertions by his "intelligence" chiefs -- including many of the same people (such as his hand-picked Director of National Intelligence, James "Saddam moved his non-existent WMD to Syria" Clapper) who provided the "slam-dunk" intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

These are the "circumstances" that have "hemmed in" Obama. These are the iron chains which this poor man, who has no power -- not even the power to change his own mind about red lines and triggers -- is now bound with.

But it's not just Obama. Sadly, all our presidents are poor, powerless men, hemmed in by similar circumstances. As Digby tells us:

He certainly isn't the first president to find himself in that situation. America's military empire has perhaps been the most "exceptional" thing about us in recent decades.

Why, I suppose even poor, powerless George W. Bush found himself in such a hemming situation, forced by his own rhetoric and bullshit "red lines" to invade Iraq. And poor old Big Dawg Bill Clinton found himself forced to press the sanctions on Iraq that killed more than half a million children. And .....

It is all, as Digby says, very depressing. Depressing that America keeps going around the world fomenting war, chaos, bloodshed, instability and ruin, bankrupting its own people in the process while stuffing the pockets of war profiteers. And depressing too that none of our presidents apparently have the power to stop this from happening. They are all "hemmed in by circumstances," by the American military empire ... that same military empire that each one of them fought tooth and nail to get control of.

Digby concludes:

I hope he resists the pressures that Lynch illustrates above [i.e., sliding into ever-deeper involvement]. But the first step is always the hardest. The next ones will probably be easier which argues for not taking the step in the first place.

Sigh.

I must confess that my first reaction to the news that Obama is intervening militarily in Syria -- I'm sorry, that circumstances are intervening militarily in Syria -- was not exactly a sigh. But hey, maybe Digby's right. For really, what else can we do, but sigh and shrug and frown a little frown? He's "our guy" after all, right? Not perfect, but the best "we" can do for now, right? "We" fought like hell to re-elect him, so when he does something stupid, destructive, repressive or murderous, what else can you do? Turn on him? Leave the progressive "tribe"? God forbid! No, "we" can do so much more from inside the tent, bringing progressive pressure to bear by judicious but respectful criticism (and maybe some on-line petitions or something), tempered with "our" general support. Right? Right?

Sigh.

Snowden Press Reverb: Celeb Journos Throw 4th Under the Cyberdefense Bus

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:27:00 +0000

David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Bill Keller Wish Edward Snowden Had Just Followed Orders

by Norman Solomon

Edward Snowden’s disclosures, the New York Times reported on Sunday, “have renewed a longstanding concern: that young Internet aficionados whose skills the agencies need for counterterrorism and cyberdefense sometimes bring an anti-authority spirit that does not fit the security bureaucracy.”

Agencies like the NSA and CIA -- and private contractors like Booz Allen -- can’t be sure that all employees will obey the rules without interference from their own idealism. This is a basic dilemma for the warfare/surveillance state, which must hire and retain a huge pool of young talent to service the digital innards of a growing Big Brother.

With private firms scrambling to recruit workers for top-secret government contracts, the current situation was foreshadowed by novelist John Hersey in his 1960 book The Child Buyer. When the vice president of a contractor named United Lymphomilloid, “in charge of materials procurement,” goes shopping for a very bright ten-year-old, he explains that “my duties have an extremely high national-defense rating.” And he adds: “When a commodity that you need falls in short supply, you have to get out and hustle. I buy brains.”

That’s what Booz Allen and similar outfits do. They buy brains. And obedience.

But despite the best efforts of those contractors and government agencies, the brains still belong to people. And, as the Times put it, an “anti-authority spirit” might not fit “the security bureaucracy.”

In the long run, Edward Snowden didn’t fit. Neither did Bradley Manning. They both had brains that seemed useful to authority. But they also had principles and decided to act on them.

Like the NSA and its contractors, the U.S. military is in constant need of personnel. “According to his superiors . . . Manning was not working out as a soldier, and they discussed keeping him back when his unit was deployed to Iraq,” biographer Chase Madar writes in The Passion of Bradley Manning.

“However, in the fall of 2009, the occupation was desperate for intelligence analysts with computer skills, and Private Bradley Manning, his superiors hurriedly concluded, showed signs of improvement as a workable soldier. This is how, on October 10, 2009, Private First Class Bradley Manning was deployed . . . to Iraq as an intelligence analyst.”

In their own ways, with very different backgrounds and circumstances, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have confounded the best-laid plans of the warfare/surveillance state. They worked for “the security bureaucracy,” but as time went on they found a higher calling than just following orders. They leaked information that we all have a right to know.

This month, not only with words but also with actions, Edward Snowden is transcending the moral limits of authority and insisting that we can fully defend the Bill of Rights, emphatically including the Fourth Amendment.

What a contrast with New York Times columnists David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and Bill Keller, who have responded to Snowden’s revelations by siding with the violators of civil liberties at the top of the U.S. government.

Brooks denounced Snowden as “a traitor” during a June 14 appearance on the PBS NewsHour, saying indignantly:

“He betrayed his oath, which was given to him and which he took implicitly and explicitly. He betrayed his company, the people who gave him a job, the people who trusted him. . . . He betrayed the democratic process. It’s not up to a lone 29-year-old to decide what's private and public. We have -- actually have procedures for that set down in the Constitution and established by tradition.”

Enthralled with lockstep compliance, Brooks preached the conformist gospel: “When you work for an institution, any institution, a company, a faculty, you don't get to violate the rules of that institution and decide for your own self what you’re going to do in a unilateral way that no one else can reverse. And that's exactly what he did. So he betrayed the trust of the institution. He betrayed what creates a government, which is being a civil servant, being a servant to a larger cause, and not going off on some unilateral thing because it makes you feel grandiose.”

In sync with such bombast, Tom Friedman and former Times executive editor Bill Keller have promoted a notably gutless argument for embracing the NSA’s newly revealed surveillance programs. Friedman wrote (on June 12) and Keller agreed (June 17) that our government is correct to curtail privacy rights against surveillance -- because if we fully retained those rights and then a big terrorist attack happened, the damage to civil liberties would be worse.

What a contrast between big-name journalists craven enough to toss the Fourth Amendment overboard and whistleblowers courageous enough to risk their lives for civil liberties.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” - normansolomon.com

Squeezing India: Washington Unhappy with Iran/India Energy Ties

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:47:00 +0000

India's Energy Ties with Iran Unsettle Washington

by John C.K. Daly - Oilprice.com

India's relentless search for hydrocarbons to fuel its booming economy has managed the rather neat diplomatic trick of annoying Washington, delighting Tehran and intriguing Baghdad, all the while leaving the Indian Treasury fretting about how to pay for its oil imports, given tightening sanctions on fiscal dealings with Iran.

On 7 June the US State Department reluctantly announced that it was renewing India's six-month waivers for implementing sanctions against Iran, along with seven other countries eligible for waivers from the sanctions owing to good faith efforts to substantially reduce their Iranian oil imports. In New Delhi's case, it is the U.S. and EU-led sanctions rather than any willingness on India's part that has seen a fall in its Iranian oil imports. India is the second largest buyer of Iranian oil, a nation with whom it has traditionally had close ties. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that India, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Taiwan had all qualified for an exception to sanctions under America's Iran Sanctions Act, based on additional significant reductions in the volume of their crude oil purchases from Iran. Kerry told reporters, "Today's determination is another example of the international community's strong and steady commitment to convince Iran to meet its international obligations. This determination takes place against the backdrop of other recent actions the administration has taken to increase pressure on Iran, including the issuance of a new executive order on June 3. The message to the Iranian regime from the international community is clear: take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, or face increasing isolation and pressure."

But even with Washington's beneficence, New Delhi is struggling to find ways to pay for its Iranian oil imports.

The U.S. and European sanctions have deeply affected Iran's international oil trade, reducing its exports by more than 50 percent and costing Iran billions of dollars in revenue since the beginning on last year. Tightening the screws, the Obama administration is now attempting to reduce Iran's oil exports even further, to less than 500,000 barrels per day through tighter sanctions. Nevertheless, despite plummeting sales overseas, Iran, OPEC's second largest oil exporter, remains one of the world's largest oil producers, with sales bringing in tens of billions of dollars in revenue annually.

And Iran is anxious to keep India as a favored customer. Last month Iran offered India lucrative terms for developing its oilfields, routing a proposed natural gas pipeline through the sea to avoid Pakistan as well as insurance to Indian refiners provided New Delhi raised oil imports. Making its case, Iran sent a high-level delegation led by Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi to India to urge New Delhi to raise its oil purchases, which slid to 13.3 million tons in 2012-13 from 18 million tons in 2011-12. Heightening Iran's concerns, later this year Indian imports are slated to fall further to around 11 million tons.

After meeting Ghasemi Indian Oil Minister M. Veerappa Moily issued a statement noting, “The Iranian side encouraged the Indian side to increase its crude purchase. “The Indian side explained that it would encourage companies to maintain their engagement in terms of crude oil purchase, taking into account their requirements, based on commercial and international considerations.”

While Iranian-Indian trade ties continue to deepen, with Indian-based Consul General of Iran Hassan Nourian predicting that bilateral trade between India and Iran will be worth $25 billion by 2017, India is hedging its bets about energy imports, and where to make up the shortfall from the increased sanctions regime.

…and what better place to look than the Middle East's rising petro-state, Iraq?

India's External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid is heading for Baghdad for a two-day visit beginning 19 June.

Top of the agenda?

Oil - Iraq is now India's second largest supplier of oil after Saudi Arabia, having replaced Iran and become a “critical partner” of India.

It is a potential marriage made in heaven. Iraq needs an assured market for its increasing crude production, having set itself a production target of 7 million bpd from its current 3 million bpd, while India is in search of a long-term partnership with a major oil producer.

While such deepening ties will thrill Washington as much as they distress Iran, there is still a wild card in the Iraqi mix – China, now Iraq's biggest customer, already purchasing nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, almost 1.5 million barrels a day. Worse still for Indian aspirations, China is now trying for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake currently owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq's largest oil fields, West Qurna.

New Delhi's choices are stark – make Washington happy, alienate long-time partner Iran, and keep fingers crossed that Beijing doesn't stitch up any further Iraqi concessions.

Tough call.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Indias-Energy-Ties-with-Iran-Unsettle-Washington.html

Five Gloved Fingers: Creating the Global Security State

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 23:24:00 +0000

The Making of a Global Security State: The Five Uncontrollable Urges of a Secrecy-Surveillance World

by Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch

As happens with so much news these days, the Edward Snowden revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) spying and just how far we’ve come in the building of a surveillance state have swept over us 24/7 -- waves of leaks, videos, charges, claims, counterclaims, skullduggery, and government threats. When a flood sweeps you away, it’s always hard to find a little dry land to survey the extent and nature of the damage. Here’s my attempt to look beyond the daily drumbeat of this developing story (which, it is promised, will go on for weeks, if not months) and identify five urges essential to understanding the world Edward Snowden has helped us glimpse.

Tomgram: Engelhardt, You Are Our Secret

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The Making of a Global Security State: The Five Uncontrollable Urges of a Secrecy-Surveillance World

by Tom Engelhardt

1. The Urge to be Global

Corporately speaking, globalization has been ballyhooed since at least the 1990s, but in governmental terms only in the twenty-first century has that globalizing urge fully infected the workings of the American state itself. It’s become common since 9/11 to speak of a “national security state.” But if a week of ongoing revelations about NSA surveillance practices has revealed anything, it’s that the term is already grossly outdated. Based on what we now know, we should be talking about an American global security state.

Much attention has, understandably enough, been lavished on the phone and other metadata about American citizens that the NSA is now sweeping up and about the ways in which such activities may be abrogating the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Far less attention has been paid to the ways in which the NSA (and other U.S. intelligence outfits) are sweeping up global data in part via the just-revealed Prism and other surveillance programs.

Sometimes, naming practices are revealing in themselves, and the National Security Agency’s key data mining tool, capable in March 2013 of gathering “97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide,” has been named “boundless informant.” If you want a sense of where the U.S. Intelligence Community imagines itself going, you couldn’t ask for a better hint than that word “boundless.” It seems that for our spooks, there are, conceptually speaking, no limits left on this planet.

Today, that "community" seeks to put not just the U.S., but the world fully under its penetrating gaze. By now, the first “heat map” has been published showing where such information is being sucked up from monthly: Iran tops the list (14 billion pieces of intelligence); then come Pakistan (13.5 billion), Jordan (12.7 billion), Egypt (7.6 billion), and India (6.3 billion). Whether you realize this or not, even for a superpower that has unprecedented numbers of military bases scattered across the planet and has divided the world into six military commands, this represents something new under the sun. The only question is what?

The twentieth century was the century of “totalitarianisms.” We don’t yet have a name, a term, for the surveillance structures Washington is building in this century, but there can be no question that, whatever the present constraints on the system, “total” has something to do with it and that we are being ushered into a new world. Despite the recent leaks, we still undoubtedly have a very limited picture of just what the present American surveillance world really looks like and what it plans for our future. One thing is clear, however: the ambitions behind it are staggering and global.

In the classic totalitarian regimes of the previous century, a secret police/surveillance force attempted, via every imaginable method, including informers, wire tappers, torture techniques, imprisonment, and so on to take total control of a national environment, to turn every citizen’s life into the equivalent of an open book, or more accurately a closed, secret file lodged somewhere in that police system. The most impressive of these efforts, the most global, was the Soviet one simply because the USSR was an imperial power with a set of disparate almost-states -- those SSRs of the Caucasus and Central Asia -- within its borders, and a series of Eastern European satellite states under its control as well. None of the twentieth-century totalitarian regimes, however, ever imagined doing the same thing on a genuinely global basis. There was no way to do so.

Washington’s urge to take control of the global communications environment, lock, stock, and chat room, to gather its “data” -- billions and billions of pieces of it -- and via inconceivably powerful computer systems, mine and arrange it, find patterns in it, and so turn the world into a secret set of connections, represents a remarkable development. For the first time, a great power wants to know, up close and personal, not just what its own citizens are doing, but those of distant lands as well: who they are communicating with, and how, and why, and what they are buying, and where they are travelling, and who they are bumping into (online and over the phone).

Until recently, once you left the environs of science fiction, that was simply beyond imagining. You could certainly find precursors for such a development in, for instance, the Cold War intelligence community’s urge to create a global satellite system that would bring every inch of the planet under a new kind of surveillance regime, that would map it thoroughly and identify what was being mapped down to the square inch, but nothing so globally up close and personal.

The next two urges are intertwined in such a way that they might be thought as a single category: your codes and theirs.

2. The Urge to Make You Transparent

The urge to possess you, or everything that can be known about you, has clearly taken possession of our global security state. With this, it’s become increasingly apparent, go other disturbing trends. Take something seemingly unrelated: the recent Supreme Court decision that allows the police to take a DNA swab from an arrestee (if the crime he or she is charged with is “serious”). Theoretically, this is being done for “identification” purposes, but in fact it's already being put to other uses entirely, especially in the solving of separate crimes.

If you stop to think about it, this development, in turn, represents a remarkable new level of state intrusion on private life, on your self. It means that, for the first time, in a sure-to-widen set of circumstances, the state increasingly has access not just -- as with NSA surveillance -- to your Internet codes and modes of communication, but to your most basic code of all, your DNA. As Justice Antonin Scalia put it in his dissent in the case, “Make no mistake about it: As an entirely predictable consequence of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.” Can global DNA databases be far behind?

If your DNA becomes the possession of the state, then you are a transparent human being at the most basic level imaginable. At every level, however, the pattern, the trend, the direction is the same (and it’s the same whether you’re talking about the government or giant corporations). Increasingly, access to you, your codes, your communications, your purchases, your credit card transactions, your location, your travels, your exchanges with friends, your tastes, your likes and dislikes is what’s wanted -- for what’s called your “safety” in the case of government and your business in the case of corporations.

Both want access to everything that can be known about you, because who knows until later what may prove the crucial piece of information to uncover a terrorist network or lure in a new network of customers. They want everything, at least, that can be run through a system of massive computers and sorted into patterns of various potentially useful kinds. You are to be, in this sense, the transparent man or transparent woman. Your acts, your life patterns, your rights, your codes are to be an open book to them -- and increasingly a closed book to you. You are to be their secret and that “you” is an ever more global one.

3. The Urge to Make Themselves Opaque

With this goes another reality. They are to become ever less accessible, ever more impenetrable, ever less knowable to you (except in the forms in which they would prefer you to know them). None of their codes or secrets are to be accessed by you on pain of imprisonment. Everything in the government -- which once was thought to be “your” government -- is increasingly disappearing into a professional universe of secrecy. In 2011, the last year for which figures are available, the government classified 92 million documents. And they did so on the same principle that they use in collecting seemingly meaningless or harmless information from you: that only in retrospect can anyone know whether a benign-looking document might prove anything but. Better to deny access to everything.

In the process, they are finding new ways of imposing silence on you, even when it comes to yourself. Since 2001, for instance, it has become possible for the FBI to present you with a National Security Letter which forces you to turn over information to them, but far more strikingly gags you from ever mentioning publicly that you got such a letter. Those who have received such letters (and 15,000 of them were issued in 2012) are legally enjoined from discussing or even acknowledging what’s happening to them; their lives, that is, are no longer theirs to discuss. If that isn’t Orwellian, what is?

President Obama offered this reassurance in the wake of the Snowden leaks: the National Security Agency, he insisted, is operating under the supervision of all three branches of the government. In fact, the opposite could be said to be true. All three branches, especially in their oversight roles, have been brought within the penumbra of secrecy of the global security state and so effectively coopted or muzzled. This is obviously true with our ex-professor of Constitutional law and the executive branch he presides over, which has in recent years been ramping up its own secret operations.

When it comes to Congress, the people’s representatives who are to perform oversight on the secret world have been presented with the equivalent of National Security Letters; that is, when let in on some of the secrets of that world, they find they can’t discuss them, can’t tell the American people about them, can’t openly debate them in Congress. In public sessions with Congress, we now know that those who run our most secret outfits, if pushed to the wall by difficult questions, will as a concession respond in the “least untruthful manner” possible, as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper put it last week.

Given the secret world’s control over Congress, representatives who are horrified by what they’ve learned about our government’s secrecy and surveillance practices, like Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, can only hint at their worries and fears. They can, in essence, wink at you, signal to you in obscure ways that something is out of whack, but they can’t tell you directly. Secrecy, after all.

Similarly, the judiciary, that third branch of government and other body of oversight, has, in the twenty-first century, been fully welcomed into the global security state’s atmosphere of total secrecy. So when the surveillance crews go to the judiciary for permission to listen in on the world, they go to a secret court, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court, locked within that secret world. It, in turn, notoriously rubberstamps whatever it is they want to do, evidently offering no resistance whatsoever to their desires. (Of the 6,556 electronic surveillance requests submitted to the court in Obama’s first term in office, for instance, only one was denied.) In addition, unlike any other court in America, we, the American people, the transparent and ignorant public, can know next to nothing about it. And you know perfectly well why: the overriding needs of secrecy.

What, though, is the point of “oversight” if you can’t do anything other than what that secret world wants you to do?

We are, in other words, increasingly open to them and they are increasingly closed to us.

4. The Urge to Expand

As we’ve known at least since Dana Priest and William Arkin published their stunning series, “Top Secret America,” in the Washington Post in 2010, the U.S. Intelligence Community has expanded post-9/11 to levels unimaginable even in the Cold War era. Then, of course, it faced another superpower, not a small set of jihadis largely located in the backlands of the planet. It now exists on, as Arkin says, an “industrial scale.” And its urge to continue growing, to build yet more structures for surveillance, including a vast $2 billion NSA repository in Bluffdale, Utah, that will be capable of holding an almost unimaginable yottabyte of data, is increasingly written into its DNA.

For this vast, restless, endless expansion of surveillance of every sort and at every level, for the nearly half-million or possibly far more private contractors, aka “digital Blackwater,” now in the government surveillance business -- about 70% of the national intelligence budget reportedly goes to the private sector these days -- and the nearly five million Americans with security clearances (1.4 million with top security clearances, more than a third of them private contractors), the official explanation is "terrorism." It matters little that terrorism as a phenomenon is one of the lesser dangers Americans face in their daily lives and that, for some of the larger ones, ranging from food-borne illnesses to cars, guns, and what’s now called “extreme weather,” no one would think about building vast bureaucratic structures shrouded in secrecy, funded to the hilt, and offering Americans promises of ultimate safety.

Terrorism certainly rears its ugly head from time to time and there’s no question that the fear of some operation getting through the vast U.S. security net drives the employees of our global security state. As an explanation for the phenomenal growth of that state, however, it simply doesn’t hold water. In truth, compared to the previous century, U.S. enemies are remarkably scarce on this planet. So forget the official explanation and imagine our global-security-state-in-the-making in the grips of a kind of compulsive disorder in which the urge to go global, make the most private information of the citizen everywhere the property of the American state, and expand surveillance endlessly simply trumps any other way of doing things.

In other words, they can’t help themselves. The process, the phenomenon, has them by the throat, so much so that they can imagine no other way of being. In this mood, they are paving the way for a new global security -- or rather insecurity -- world. They are, for instance, hiking spending on “cybersecurity,” have already secretly launched the planet’s first cyberwar, are planning for more of them, intend to dominate the future cyber-landscape in a staggering fashion, continue to gather global data of every sort on a massive scale, and more generally are acting in ways that they would consider criminal if other countries engaged in them.

5. The Urge to Leak

The massive leaks of documents by Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have few precedents in American history. Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers leak is their only obvious predecessor. They are not, however, happenstances of our moment. They are signs of what’s to come. If, in surveillance terms, the urge to go global and impose ultimate secrecy on both the state’s secrets and yours, to prosecute whistleblowers to the maximum (at this point usually via the Espionage Act or, in the case of Manning, via the charge of “aiding the enemy,” and with calls of “treason” already in the air when it comes to Snowden), it’s natural that the urge to leak will rise as well.

If the surveillance state has reached an industrial level of operations, and ever more secrets are being brought into computer systems, then vast troves of secrets exist to be revealed, already cached, organized, and ready for the plucking. If the security state itself goes global, then the urge to leak will go global, too.

In fact, it already has. It’s easy to forget that WikiLeaks was originally created not just for American secrets but any secrets. Similarly, Manning uploaded his vast trove of secrets from Iraq, and Snowden, who had already traveled the world in the service of secrecy, leaked to an American columnist living in Brazil and writing for a British newspaper. His flight to Hong Kong and dream of Icelandic citizenship could be considered another version of the globalizing impulse.

Rest assured, they will not be the last. An all-enveloping atmosphere of secrecy is not a natural state of being. Just look at us individually. We love to tell stories about each other. Gossiping is one of the most basic of human activities. Revealing what others don’t know is an essential urge. The urge, that is, to open it all up is at least as powerful as the urge to shut it all down.

So in our age, considering the gigantism of the U.S. surveillance and intelligence apparatus and the secrets it holds, it’s a given that the leak, too, will become more gigantic, that leaked documents will multiply in droves, and that resistance to regimes of secrecy and the invasion of private life that goes with them will also become more global. It’s hard from within the U.S. to imagine the shock in Pakistan, or Germany, or India, on discovering that your private life may now be the property of the U.S. government. (Imagine for a second the reaction here if Snowden had revealed that the Pakistani or Iranian or Chinese government was gathering and storing vast quantities of private emails, texts, phone calls, and credit card transactions from American citizens. The uproar would have been staggering.)

As a result of all this, we face a strangely contradictory future in which ever more draconian regimes of secrecy will confront the urge for ever greater transparency. President Obama came into office promising a “sunshine” administration that would open the workings of the government to the American people. He didn’t deliver, but Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, and other leakers have, and no matter how difficult the government makes it to leak or how hard it cracks down on leakers, the urge is almost as unstoppable as the urge not to be your government’s property.

You may have secrets, but you are not a secret -- and you know it.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture (just published in a Kindle edition), runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook or Tumblr. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse’s The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare.

Copyright 2013 Tom Engelhardt

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Sharon Noble, Michael Geist, Janine Bandcroft June 17th, 2013

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:56:00 +0000

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Pacific Free Press

Welcome to the dawning deja vu day of the bravely rebranded British Columbia. Yes, Toto, you're not back in dust bowl Kansas, but awake in the new reality of a BC dust bowl to come, if returned premier Christy Clark and her claque of counter-Evolutionaries manage to ram their "mandate" through the province's Legislature.

You see, Christy and her crusty coterie would have us all whisked back to the times of WAC Bennett; where leather-necked, hard hewn he-men hacked their way through primordial forests, and o'er top the perilous crag to cut timber and dig ore; venturing forth to roughshod tame the wild, and harness mighty Nature herself into Man's service.

At least, that's more or less the nation-building narrative Clark would have us believe; the truth of the matter is depressingly more prosaic.

Listen. Hear.

Christy and the friends of Gordo the former, our near universally unloved previous political Judas are merely to continue the pillage of what remains of the province's once peerless public energy sector, as they simultaneously destroy our environment. It's a neat trick, promising to literally obliviate our past, while effectively obliterating our future in a fell, if four years prolonged blow.

One of the many dark Voldemortian efforts feeding the BCLiberals false legend of bringing good things to light here is the infamous Smart Meter program. Foisted upon us with neither word of warning, nor debate in the rump Assemblage in Victoria by "he whose name BCLiberals are bade never spake," the billion dollar boondoggle is worse than irretrievable folly, it's dangerous and probably illegal.

Sharon Noble is an activist with the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters, a grassroots group that has opposed the intrusion of BC's new standard of Hydro power metering for the past two years. Last month, they filed a class-action suit against the utility, citing broken promises and alleged customer intimidation by BC Hydro regarding installation of the devices, and a litany of health and privacy concerns the devices create.

Sharon Noble in the first half.

And; while the NSA unwarranted spying story rages in the United States, what's Canada's New Government doing here? Are Canada's telephone and internet providers similarly tasked by secretive homegrown spook agencies to monitor all our calls, while counting too every keystroke Canadians make? Short answer: Probably.

Dr. Michael Geist is professor of law at the University of Ottawa, where he too holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He is too the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including: 2010's Kroeger Award for Policy Leadership, and the Public Knowledge IP3 Award; the 2009 Les Fowlie Award for Intellectual Freedom from the Ontario Library Association; and 2008's Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award among others. Michael Geist's syndicated column, 'Law Bytes' is featured in the Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen among other publications, and he's also served as editor for the books,'"Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda', and 'In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law'. He's also the author of the eponymous blog, MichaelGeist.ca, where he last week published the article, 'Who Is Watching the Watchers?: Ten Questions About Canada's Secret Metadata Surveillance Activities.'

Michael Geist and electronic cloak and dagger Canadian style in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's going on on the streets of our city, and beyond. But first, Sharon Noble and the wacky world of BC Hydro's WiFi Smart meter program.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, M. Shahid Alam, Gilad Atzmon, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, Ramzy Baroud, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, William Bowles, Mordecai Briemberg, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Paul Cienfuegos, David Cromwell, Ezili Danto, Jon Elmer, Yves Engler, Laura Flanders, Amy Goodman, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Malalai Joya, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Frances Moore Lappe, Ingmar Lee, Dave Lindorff, Alexandra Morton, Loretta Napoleoni, Andrew Nikiforuk, Ken O'Keefe, Greg Palast, Michael Parenti, Robert Parry, John Pilger, Kevin Pina, Paul Craig Roberts, David Rovics, Danny Schechter, David Schindler, Vandana Shiva, Tim Shorrock, Norman Solomon, Jean Saint-Vil, Harvey Wasserman, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Andy Worthington, Mickey Z., Howard Zinn and many others.

Class Action Filed Against BCHydro "Smart" Meters

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:46:00 +0000

Groups File Class Action Suit over Smart Meters

By Natascia Lypny - The Tyee

By Natascia Lypny

by Natascia Lypny - The Tyee

Two anti-smart meter groups have filed a class action lawsuit against BC Hydro in an effort to end the installation of the devices in the homes of people who oppose them.

For two years, Sharon Noble of the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters said she's received "hundreds" of emails from people who say they were pressured by BC Hydro to replace their analog meters with the new wireless model and are now suffering health problems.

An Okanagan Valley customer alleges that BC Hydro cut off her power last week. According to a press release by the two groups, the woman, who suffers from electro-sensitivity, had had a smart meter installed against her will. (In January, BC Hydro announced it would not install smart meters against a customer's will.)

The press release alleges that after repeated attempts to get the corporation to remove it, the customer ordered a replacement analog meter from the United States, but BC Hydro said it didn't meet Canadian standards. The customer then found a Canadian meter that met the requirements, but the corporation insisted on the smart meter. Refusing, she had her power cut off, alleges the release.

Noble said the groups are protecting the identity of the woman, who is now seeking her own injunction against BC Hydro's action.

The class action lawsuit is seeking participants who have indicated to BC Hydro that they did not want a smart meter placed in their homes, yet one was, or will soon be, installed regardless.

"The way the smart meter program is being rolled out right now should be stopped," said the director of Citizens for Safe Technology, Una St. Clair. "It's not about the health of the people, it's about the health of the industry's pocket."

A BC Hydro spokesperson in charge of spokesperson was not available for a phone interview by press time, but a statement from the power generator authority said that smart meters have been proven safe and "are helping make substantial improvements to our electrical grid."

"Smart meters communicate using radio frequency signals similar to those used safely for decades in televisions, radios and other common household devices," the statement reads.

Noble explained the lawsuit is based on two premises: that the Open Access Transmission Tariff, which details how BC Hydro interacts with its customers, describes the rules and regulations around meters but not transmitters (a category under which the two groups classify smart meters); and a violation of the recently introduced intrusion upon seclusion law by the Ontario Supreme Court, which protects people's personal privacy. Noble claimed smart meters collect and transmit personal data in a way that violates this law.

The two groups announced the lawsuit Monday, and Noble couldn't say how many people had signed on yet.

"If a lawsuit does proceed, BC Hydro would work through the judicial process to present the facts about the new metering system," BC Hydro told The Tyee in a statement.

Nearly 30,000 people have signed Citizens for Safe Technology's petition calling for a moratorium on the smart meter program until the above conditions are met.

Noble wants a no-fee opt-out process introduced so that people have the choice whether or not to have smart meters in their homes, and those who have had them already installed may request they be removed.

She said the election influenced the timing of the lawsuit: "I want a commitment from Adrian Dix that he will change the Clean Energy Act so that no other family will face the threat of having their electricity turned off because they don't want radiation in their house."

Dix has said that, if elected, he will have the BC Utilities Commission review the smart meter program. The BC Greens promised in their platform to provide alternatives to those adversely affected by the wireless devices and to call a public inquiry into the smart meter program.

Natascia Lypny is completing a practicum at The Tyee.

- See more at:
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/05/03/Smart-Meter-Class-Action/#sthash.cyeZiqd0.dpuf

Meaning of Deep Spying on Americans

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:09:00 +0000

The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America

by James Petras

The exposure of the Obama regime’s use of the National Security Agency to secretly spy on the communications of hundreds of millions of US and overseas citizens has provoked world-wide denunciations. In the United States, despite widespread mass media coverage and the opposition of civil liberties organizations, there has not been any mass protest. Congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as top judges, approved of the unprecedented domestic spy program.. Even worse, when the pervasive spy operations were revealed, top Senate and Congressional leaders repeated their endorsement of each and every intrusion into all electronic and written communication involving American citizens. President Obama and his Attorney General Holder openly and forcefully defended the NSA’s the universal spy operations.

The issues raised by this vast secret police apparatus and its penetration into and control over civil society, infringing on the citizens freedom of expression, go far beyond mere ‘violations of privacy’, as raised by many legal experts.

Most civil libertarians focus on the violations of individual rights, constitutional guarantees and the citizen’s privacy rights. These are important legal issues and the critics are right in raising them. However, these constitutional–legal critiques do not go far enough; they fail to raise even more fundamental issues; they avoid basic political questions.

Why has such a massive police-state apparatus and universal spying become so central to the ruling regime? Why has the entire executive, legislative and judicial leadership come out in public for such a blatant repudiation of all constitutional guarantees? Why do elected leaders defend universal political espionage against the citizenry? What kind of politics requires a police state? What kind of long-term, large scale domestic and foreign policies are illegal and unconstitutional as to require the building of a vast network of domestic spies and a hundred billion dollar corporate-state techno-espionage infrastructure in a time of budget ‘austerity’ with the slashing of social programs?

The second set of questions arises from the use of the espionage data. So far most critics have questioned the existence of massive state espionage but have avoided the vital issue of what measures are taken by the spymasters once they target individuals, groups, movements? The essential question is: What reprisals and sanctions follow from the ‘information’ that is collected, classified and made operational by these massive domestic spy networks? Now that the ‘secret’ of all-encompassing, state political spying has entered public discussion, the next step should be to reveal the secret operations that follow against those targeted by the spymasters as a ‘risk to national security’.

The Politics behind the Police State

The fundamental reason for the conversion of the state into a gigantic spy apparatus is the nature of deeply destructive domestic and foreign policies which the government has so forcefully pursued. The vast expansion of the police state apparatus is not a response to the terror attack of 9/11. The geometrical growth of spies, secret police budgets, and the vast intrusion into all citizen communications coincides with the wars across the globe. The decisions to militarize US global policy requires vast budgetary re-allocation , slashing social spending to fund empire-building; shredding public health and social security to bailout Wall Street. These are policies which greatly enhance profits for bankers and corporations while imposing regressive taxes on wage and salaried workers

Prolonged and extended wars abroad have been funded at the expense of citizens’ welfare at home. This policy had led to declining living standards for many tens of millions of citizens and rising dissatisfaction. The potential of social resistance as evidenced by the brief “Occupy Wall Street” movement which was endorsed by over 80% of the population, .The positive response alarmed the state and led to an escalation of police state measures. Mass spying is designed to identify the citizens who oppose both imperial wars and the destruction of domestic welfare; labeling them as ‘security threats’ is a means of controlling them through the use of arbitrary police powers. The expansion of the President’s war powers has been accompanied by the growth and scope of the state spy apparatus: the more the President orders overseas drone attacks, the greater the number of his military interventions, the greater the need for the political elite surrounding the President to increase its policing of citizens in anticipation of a popular backlash. In this context, the policy of mass spying is taken as ‘pre-emptive action’. The greater the police state operations, the greater the fear and insecurity among dissident citizens and activists.

The assault on the living standards of working and middle class Americans in order to fund the endless series of wars, and not the so-called ‘war on terror’, is the reason the state has developed massive cyber warfare against the US citizenry. The issue is not only a question of a violation of individual privacy: it is fundamentally an issue of state infringement of the collective rights of organized citizens to freely engage in public opposition to regressive socio-economic policies and question the empire. The proliferation of permanent bureaucratic institutions, with over a million security ‘data collectors’, is accompanied by tens of thousands of ‘field operators’, analysts and inquisitors acting arbitrarily to designate dissident citizens as ‘security risks’ and imposing reprisals according to the political needs of their ruling political bosses. The police state apparatus has its own rules of self-protection and self-perpetuation; it has its own linkages and may occasionally compete with the Pentagon. The police state links up with and protects the masters of Wall Street and the propagandists of the mass media – even as it (must) spy on them!

The police state is an instrument of the Executive Branch acting as a vehicle for its arbitrary prerogative powers. However on administrative matters, it possesses a degree of ‘autonomy’ to target dissident behavior. What is clear is the high degree of cohesion, vertical discipline and mutual defense, up and down the hierarchy. The fact that one whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, emerged from the hundreds of thousands of citizen spies is the exception, the lone whistle blower, which proves the rule: There are fewer defectors to be found among the million-member US spy network than in all the Mafia families in Europe and North America.

The domestic spy apparatus operates with impunity because of its network of powerful domestic and overseas allies. The entire bi-partisan Congressional leadership is privy to and complicit with its operations. Related branches of government, like the Internal Revenue Service, cooperate in providing information and pursuing targeted political groups and individuals. Israel is a key overseas ally of the National Security Agency, as has been documented in the Israeli press (Haaretz, June 8, 2013). Two Israeli high tech firms (Verint and Narus) with ties to the Israeli secret police (MOSSAD), have provided the spy software for the NSA and this, of course, has opened a window for Israeli spying in the US against Americans opposed to the Zionist state. The writer and critic, Steve Lendman points out that Israeli spymasters via their software “front companies” have long had the ability to ‘steal proprietary commercial and industrial data” with impunity. Because of the power and influence of the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish organizations, Justice Department officials have ordered dozens of Israeli espionage cases to be dropped. The tight Israeli ties to the US spy apparatus serves to prevent deeper scrutiny into its operation and political goals — at a very high price in terms of the security of US citizens. In recent years two incidents stand out: Israeli security ‘experts’ were contracted to advise the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security in their investigation and ‘Stasi-like’ repression of government critics and environmental activists (compared to ‘al Queda terrorists’ by the Israelis) – the discovery of which forced the resignation of OHS Director James Powers in 2010. In 2003, New Jersey governor, Jim McGreevy appointed his lover, an Israeli government operative and former IDF officer, to head that state’s ‘Homeland Security Department and later resigned, denouncing the Israeli, Golan Cipel, for blackmail in late 2004. These examples are a small sample illustrating the depth and scope of Israeli police state tactics intersecting in US domestic repression.

The Political and Economic Consequences of the Spy State

The denunciations of the mass spy operations are a positive step, as far as they go. But equally important is the question of what follows from the act of spying? We now know that hundreds of millions of Americans are being spied on by the state. We know that mass spying is official policy of the Executive and is approved by Congressional leaders. But we have only fragmented information on the repressive measures resulting from the investigations of “suspect individuals”. We can assume that there is a division of labor among data collectors, data analysts and field operatives following up “risky individuals and groups”, based on the internal criteria known only to the secret police. The key spy operatives are those who devise and apply the criteria for designating someone as a “security risk”. Individuals and groups who express critical views of domestic and foreign policy are “a risk”; those who act to protest are a “higher risk”; those who travel to conflict regions are presumed to be in the “highest risk” category, even if they have violated no law. The question of the lawfulness of a citizen’s views and actions does not enter into the spymasters’ equation; nor do any questions regarding the lawfulness of the acts committed by the spies against citizens. The criteria defining a security risk supersede any constitutional considerations and safeguards.

We know from a large number of published cases that lawful critics, illegally spied upon, have subsequently been arrested, tried and jailed – their lives and those of their friends and family members shattered. We know that hundreds of homes, workplaces and offices of suspects have been raided in ‘fishing expeditions’. We know that family members, associates, neighbors, clients, and employers of “suspects” have been interrogated, pressured and intimidated. Above all, we know that tens of millions of law abiding citizens, critical of domestic economic and overseas war policies, have been censored by the very real fear of the massive operations carried out by the police state. In this atmosphere of intimidation, any critical conversation or word spoken in any context or relayed via the media can be interpreted by nameless, faceless spies as a “security threat” – and one’s name can enter into the ever growing secret lists of “potential terrorists”. The very presence and dimensions of the police state is intimidating. While there are citizens who would claim that the police state is necessary to protect them from terrorists – But how many others feel compelled to embrace their state terrorists just to fend off any suspicion, hoping to stay off the growing lists? How many critical-minded Americans now fear the state and will never voice in public what they whisper at home?

The bigger the secret police, the greater its operations. The more regressive domestic economic policy, the greater the fear and loathing of the political elite.

Even as President Obama and his Democratic and Republican partners boast and bluster about their police state and its effective “security function”, the vast majority of Americans are becoming aware that fear instilled at home serves the interest of waging imperial wars abroad; that cowardice in the face of police state threats only encourages further cuts in their living standards. When will they learn that exposing spying is only the beginning of a solution? When will they recognize that ending the police state is essential to dismantling the costly empire and creating a safe, secure and prosperous America?

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).

Petras’ most recent book is The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack. He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.

MIE: CSIS Redefining "Activists" in Canada

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:19:00 +0000

Are You a Multi-Issue Extremist? How Activism is Becoming Terrorism

by Kevin Logan - The Canadian.org

If you read this site regularly, and subscribe to the claims and advice of Rafe Mair, you probably are. Because the 81 year-old Mair is British Columbia's most well-known and well-loved Multi-Issue Extremist (MIE).

The now long-established CSIS "Counter Terrorism Strategy" has defined individuals who express dissent toward any number of issues in this way.

In particular, people who are committed to opposing unbridled oil and gas development, defined as "activist groups, indigenous groups, environmentalists and others who are publicly critical of government policy."

Many people who feel the current rush to massively exploit Canadian resources is the wrong path, also feel the same about farmed salmon, GMO's and private river power expansionism. To name but a few of the Multiple Issues people are concerned with today.

In all likelihood, those of you sharing these views are "Multi-Issue Extremists", and you have a working file at CSIS.

Many of you have also probably expressed your concerns about these issues on the Internet or attended protest events such as the "Defend our Coast" event last fall, which included a "pledge" of "civil disobedience."

And this is where the rubber hits the road.

Since the upset of the May 14th provincial election, many people endeared to "defending our coast" are ready to double down on their efforts.

There have been escalating calls for civil disobedience as a result of the current election, coupled with the realization that the protest options available to British Columbians are now severely limited on a whole array of pressing issues.

Recently, the unwarranted surveillance of average citizens has come into the spotlight. Most activists are aware that this practice has been in place since 9/11 and some are aware that they existed well before. Defense Minister Peter McKay confirmed in the House this past week that he approved secret electronic eavesdropping in 2011.

The laws ushered in by 9/11 had sunset clauses and were targeted toward "terrorism."

However, since the most recent American "terrorist" event, the Boston Bombing, the Harper government has brought back into effect "sunsetted" anti-terrorist legislation.

Those of you who pledged a commitment of civil disobedience during the Defend our Coast event did so at a time when these laws were not in place, so you should pay particularly close attention to the CSIS "counter-terrorism" initiative and its focus on MEIs and what it all means now that they have been reintroduced.

Because, as of today, most of the millions of Canadian citizens "surveiled" without their knowledge have little if anything to be concerned about, besides the outrageous violation of privacy such practices entail.

However, those of us who have committed to the good fight and pledged to massive civil disobedience have much to be concerned about. In fact, as it stands today, you can be arrested right now, and your electronic footprint and pledge to undertake civil disobedience is all that they require.

You can be taken from your home, without charge, for up to three days. Your release will be conditional, and if you do not agree to the conditions - such as no longer participating in petro-insurgency - you will not be released and could be detained for up to a year.

Yes, you! Right now, you can experience "preemptive arrest" and "preventative detention" under the CSIS counter-terrorism classification of MIE, for what you have already done and what they already have on you. All perfectly legal.

But surely this is all hypothetical - powers that exist on paper that our government wouldn't dare implement in reality. Unfortunately, the government's record over the past several years suggests otherwise.

According to The Guardian, in 2011, "a Montreal, Quebec man who wrote letters opposing shale gas fracking was charged under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act. Documents released in January show the RCMP has been monitoring Quebec residents who oppose fracking."

In February, we learned through a report from two Canadian academics, based on documents they obtained through Access to Information, that prominent ENGOs like Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been classified as "Multi-Issue Extremists". The report observed, "Intelligence agencies have blurred the categories of terrorism, extremism and activism into an aggregate threat matrix."

Industry is apparently getting into the act too. According to a Desmog Blog story this past week, "Documents recently obtained by Bold Nebraska show that TransCanada - owner of the hotly-contested Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline - has colluded with an FBI/DHS Fusion Center in Nebraska, labeling non-violent activists as possible candidates for 'terrorism' charges and other serious criminal charges."

Meanwhile, according to this Dominion story, the Canadian government has been orchestrating briefings for energy companies by CSIS, the RCMP and other agencies to share sensitive information involving activist threats to industry. So while we are all fixated on the most recent American whistle blower's "revelations", we should be directing some of that attention to our own government and gaining a better understanding of the terrain we intend to traverse.

Kevin's career has been diverse, ranging from small business to NGOs through finance and government. Early on, he operated the research department for the Vancouver branch of international brokerage Richardson Greenshields. After leaving the finance industry he owned operated small businesses and eventually established a consulting company which contracts with both the private and public sectors. He served as a ministerial assistant to numerous ministers and a premier in the former BC NDP Administration. Kevin is also an independent researcher and writer who has administered many diverse and successful campaigns.

What Next for Snowden, a Plea Deal?

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:44:00 +0000

Is the Snowden Case Headed for a Plea Deal?

by Peter Lee - China Matters

I’m guessing that there is more to Edward Snowden’s choice of Hong Kong instead of Iceland as an intial refuge than a matter of dim sum over skyr, hangikjöt, kleinur,laufabrauð, and bollur.

At the very least, Snowden can keep the global media pot boiling with interviews to the avid Hong Kong media about exciting China-related hacking secrets, thereby raising his profile and improving his chances of receiving genuine due process from the courts in Hong Kong and the United States.

It’s a better way to keep the world engaged in Snowden’s situation than giving an interview to the Fréttablaðið (Iceland’s biggest newspaper), watching the international stories slip to the inside page, and waiting for somebody to kick the door in.

But there’s another card he can play, especially if he doesn’t want to get extradited to the United States, albeit after a spectacular and presumably fair trial in Hong Kong, and then spend the rest of his life in a US prison.

That’s for him to make a deal with the US Government not to ignite whatever dynamite he’s got on the four laptops he brought to Hong Kong, in return for brief, easy time in some US penitentiary.

After all, in terms of informing and inflaming the public, Snowden’s work is pretty much done.

And he’s done it without revealing any operational details.

Maybe the best use of the rest of the information he’s got is as a “get out of jail” card.

If the USG doesn’t act interested, maybe its attitude will change after a few more embarrassing tidbits make it into the public domain.

I’ll be interested to see if the US government tries to get some kind of injunction to get the Hong Kong papers not to report his revelations and remove Snowden’s public relations megaphone–and diminish his bargaining power.

In the worst case, Snowden could threaten to turn over his goodies to the PRC if he didn’t get a deal.

That would certainly get Washington’s attention; but it would be immediately leaked to the press, branding Snowden with the “traitor” label, destroy any standing he’s been able to accrue, and make him fair game for whatever skullduggery the US decides to send down the pipe.

I doubt that’s Snowden’s strategy.

But maybe he’s bedeviling the US government with the unnerving prospect that the longer he stays in Hong Kong, the better the chance is that he’ll get snatched by PRC security services; and, if he does get arrested prior to extradition, who knows what will happen to him—and his laptops–during interrogation?

It’s a dangerous game with no guaranteed outcome, but what do you expect if you walk out of the United States with a computer full of secrets?

I think Edward Snowden (and Glenn Greenwald) knew what to expect, and that’s why he’s in Hong Kong.

Since I think CounterPunch readers expect some factual meat and potatoes as well as airy speculation, here are some more thoughts on Edward Snowden’s Panopticon:

For Some People, Edward Snowden’s Panopticon Is Already Here

Critics of Snowden’s leak concerning the extent of NSA surveillance often fall back on the argument that “people who don’t do bad things have nothing to fear”, i.e. extensive/intensive surveillance isn’t an issue for non-wrongdoers.

The “Panopticon” issue raised by Snowden (from a Foucault book) states, on the other hand, that omnipresent surveillance is by its nature oppressive—for everyone, including the “good guys”.

The gold standard for routine, workaday surveillance used to be the post office.

Some of us are old enough to remember the halcyon days when the greatest threat to public safety was the danger that a postal worker would go off and shoot himself and/or his boss and coworkers and/or the public at large.

As was reported in the press in the 1990s, a big part of “going postal” was the stressful work conditions (I’m assuming that some of the same practices prevail today, with some modifications, but we’ve got bigger homicidal fish to fry than the post office now and there isn’t as much reporting on the labor conditions inside the USPS).

A key problem at the post office was rampant Taylorism (industrial time management).

Workers who worked hard and were efficient were not rewarded; they got more work and longer routes. Therefore workers “paced themselves” so they would not conspicuously exceed their quotas.

Management’s main job was squeezing more work out of the employees, and a key task was to identify and push the workers who were “pacing themselves”.

The whole system was underpinned by the surveillance system. It wasn’t just to detect mail theft. It was to catch workers who weren’t giving what the USPS considered 100%.

In 1998, Traci Hikull profiled USPS operations in northern California for the San Jose Metro:

Jan Maddux, president of the 1,000-plus-member American Postal Workers Union Local 73, sits in his San Jose office describing some uncharming but typical managerial tactics. “You’re gone 10 minutes and 30 seconds on your break, and you’re AWOL 30 seconds,” he says. “They’ll stand behind you and watch you to make sure you’re not casing [sorting mail] with one hand because that’s wasting time, see? So they’ll write you up.”…

“These people work hard. The workload …” [a local postmaster] sighs, not finishing the sentence. When asked if he thinks the pressure to perform makes employees feel like they’re being watched for slipups, he covers his face with his hands and scrubs at it, the same way people do when they’ve been staring at a computer monitor too long.

“We’re supervising them not to catch them messing up but to be sure everything is handled properly,” he says finally.

“We have all these spotlights on us, and that’s why we’ve just gotten better and better,” Cattivera adds. “And isn’t that the way it should be? Shouldn’t we be held accountable to make sure you get your mail every day?”…

It’s not hard to see why people lose it working for the post office. The constant surveillance alone would drive some people over the edge, and the peculiar logic takes care of the rest.

The fact of being under continual surveillance is, by itself, enough to stress people out.

A study in England concluded that pervasive workplace surveillance increased stress-related complaints by 7 to 10%:

Monitoring noted by the PSI study includes logging emails and internet usage, keystroke loggers, recording and timing calls and measuring shop-till throughput.

Bearing the brunt of the IT scrutiny are administrative and white-collar employees, such as call-centre staff and data-entry workers, who complained of an increase in work strain of 10 percent when they are being watched.

In 2013, the LA Times’ Alana Samuels wrote a two-part piece on today’s “harsh workplace” and the central role of surveillance. She reported:

Phil Richards used to like his job driving a forklift in a produce and meat warehouse. He took pride in steering a case of beef with precision.

Now, he says, he has to speed through the warehouse to meet quotas, tracked by bosses each step of the way. Through a headset, a voice tells him what to do and how much time he has to do it.

It makes the Unified Grocers warehouse in Santa Fe Springs operate smoothly with fewer employees, but it also makes Richards’ work stressful.

“We’re just like human machines,” said Richards, 52. “But with machines, they don’t care whether you feel good, or if you’re having a bad day.”

Technology has eliminated many onerous work tasks, but it’s now one of the factors contributing to a harsher work environment.

Employers are using technology to read emails and monitor keystrokes, measure which employees spend the most time on social networking websites and track their movements inside and outside the office. They can see who works fastest and who talks the most on the phone. They can monitor how much time people spend talking to co-workers — and how much time they spend in the bathroom.
…

The sanitation truck that James Brooker III drives in Raleigh, N.C., has a GPS device that enables his bosses to track his every move. Co-workers have been disciplined for driving too slowly or for taking an extra 10 minutes on a lunch break on a tough day, he said.

“You’re always worried that you’re not doing your job correctly,” he said. “It makes you stressed out, and there’s so much pressure to rush.”
…

Employers can read workers’ email, see what websites they visit and read any emails or text messages stored on work-issued computers or smartphones. In all but six states (California is one of the exceptions), employers can require employees to provide their passwords to social networking sites. And in most states, employers can monitor their employees and are not required by law to tell them it’s happening.
…

Michael Cunningham found this out the hard way.

His employer suspected he wasn’t working when he said he was and put a GPS device on Cunningham’s personal car without telling him. Officials tracked him driving to a diner instead of work, tracked his son driving to an internship and tracked him during an approved vacation in Massachusetts. A year later, they fired him, explaining the GPS had confirmed their suspicions that he was falsifying his time sheets.

With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Cunningham sued his employer, the New York state Department of Labor, but lost. Judges in New York’s Appellate Division ruled that the law does not prohibit employers from using GPS to monitor employee behavior if it is relevant to the employee’s job performance.

The ruling means that although the government has to get a warrant to use a GPS device to track criminals, it can legally track its employees without approval from the employee or a judge, said Corey Stoughton, the ACLU lawyer on the case.
…

When executives at Dixie Specialty Insurance, a Mississippi company, noticed a few employees were working more slowly than they once had, they installed software from Awareness Technology on company computers to monitor what websites the employees were visiting and block the more popular ones. Productivity jumped, said Cassandra Phillips, the company’s information technology manager.

Software from another company, SpectorSoft Corp., tracks how much time employees spend on certain websites and can measure whether it is “active time” — whether or not the employee is typing or clicking, for example.

In the private sector, the objective of surveillance is enhanced productivity.

And it works best, in true Panopticon style, when employees assume surveillance is universal and pervasive and modify their activity without the local Bill Lumbergh showing up to give them a nudge.

And then the company can lay off Bill Lumbergh! That’d be great! Start chewing those Rolaids, Bill!

In other words, control is internalized together with, of course, the stress.

In private life, I think a similar dynamic will apply as surveillance becomes more pervasive.

The result will not be enhanced productivity; it will be enhanced compliance.

We will experience the Stasi-worthy anxiety that our activities are being continually observed and judged and we may be found wanting.

The slogan could be: “I must do more; what must I do?”

That’s life in the brave new world of the Panopticon.

Safer? Maybe

More stressful? Definitely.

Peter Lee edits China Matters. His ground-breaking story on North Korea’s nuclear program, Big Bang Theory in North Korea, appears in the March issue of CounterPunch magazine. He can be reached at: chinamatters (at) prlee. org.

Christian Massacre: Village Razed by 'Free Syrian Army'

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:37:00 +0000

Syria Militants Massacre Christian Village Population (Graphic Images)

by Intifada-Palestine - Syria Report

More details of a massacre in Homs late last month have emerged following the global outcry of a massacre in Deir el-Zour yesterday.

The massacre, carried out by Free Syrian Army militants reportedly targeted men, women and children in the Christian village of al-Duwayr/Douar close to the city of Homs and the border with Lebanon. The incident received little media attention, having occurred at the same time as thousands of Syrian troops converged on the insurgent-occupied town of al-Qusayr.

According to sources, around 350 heavily armed militants entered the village, broke into homes and assembled residents in the main square of the village where they were executed. The final death toll is not known but photos show severe damage to property in the village.

Syrian army sources said that they reached the village after the massacre, resulting in clashes with militants. Sources also reported that Turkish and Chechen extremists were among the perpetrators. Chechen militants are known to have kidnapped two Christian bishops in Aleppo earlier this year. The following images show al-Duwayr/Douar village after the massacre:

Conditions for ethnic and religious minorities have been made increasingly worse as Free Syrian Army affiliated organisations including Jabhat al-Nusra increase ethnic and sectarian cleansing across Syria. Kidnappings, executions and assassinations are common.

Late last month, around the time of the massacre in Homs, a fifteen year old girl was kidnapped by militants in Damascus, who demanded $100,000 for her release. Miryam Jbeil, a niece Damascus-based Catholic priest Nader Jbeil, was released after a number of days in captivity.

In the aftermath of the Syrian army assault on al-Qusayr, the church was discovered to have been desecrated by Free Syrian Army militants.

What NSA Spying Revelations Reveal About America's Burgeoning Police State Apparatus

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:08:00 +0000

What the NSA Revelations Tell Us about America's Police State

by Tom Burghardt - Antifascist Calling

Ongoing revelations by The Guardian and The Washington Post of massive, illegal secret state surveillance of the American people along with advanced plans for waging offensive cyberwarfare on a global scale, including inside the US, underscores what Antifascist Calling has reported throughout the five years of our existence: that democracy and democratic institutions in the United States are dead letters.

Last week, Guardian investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed that NSA "is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April."

That order from the FISA court "requires Verizon on an 'ongoing, daily basis' to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries."

"The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk--regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing."

The latest revelations track directly back to what USA Today reported in 2006: "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth," and that secretive NSA program "reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans--most of whom aren't suspected of any crime."

"'It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,' said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is 'to create a database of every call ever made' within the nation's borders," USA Today disclosed.

Mission accomplished!

The publication of the FISA order confirms what whistleblowers such as former AT&T technician Mark Klein, Babak Pasdar, as well as NSA insiders William Binney, Russell Tice and Thomas Drake have been warning for years: the architecture of an American police state is not only in place but fully functioning.

According to Binney, just one Narus STA 6400 "traffic analyzer" installed in one of AT&T's "secret rooms" exposed by Klein (there are upwards of 20 scattered across the United States) can can analyze 1,250,000 1,000-character emails every second, or some 100 billion emails a day.

While the Obama administration and their coterie of media flacks argue that these programs are "legal," we would do well to recall that in 2009, The New York Times reported that NSA "intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year."

Although Justice Department and intelligence officials described NSA's massive communications' dragnet as simple "overcollection" that was "unintentional," documents published so far expose such statements for what they are: lies.

Babak Pasdar's Verizon Disclosure

More than five years ago I wrote that "a new FISA whistleblower has stepped forward with information about a major wireless provider apparently granting the state unrestricted access to all of their customers' voice communications and electronic data via a so-called 'Quantico Circuit'."

That whistleblower, Babak Pasdar, the CEO of Bat Blue, revealed in a 2008 affidavit filed with the Government Accountability Project (GAP) that Verizon maintained a high-speed DS-3 digital line that allowed the FBI, the agency which oversees the "Quantico Circuit," virtually "unfettered" access to Verizon's wireless network, including billing records and customer data "transmitted wirelessly."

A year prior to Pasdar's disclosure, Wired Magazine revealed that the FBI was deploying malware which it described as a "computer and internet protocol address verifier," or CIPAV, to spy on selected targets.

Wired disclosed, citing a court affidavit filed in US District Court in the Western District of Washington, that "the spyware program gathers a wide range of information, including the computer's IP address; MAC address; open ports; a list of running programs; the operating system type, version and serial number; preferred internet browser and version; the computer's registered owner and registered company name; the current logged-in user name and the last-visited URL."

Compare Wired's description of CIPAV with what we have learned about the NSA's black program, PRISM, from The Guardian and The Washington Post.

According to Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill's reporting in The Guardian:

"The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information." Additionally, one "chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document obtained by the Guardian, underscores the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details, and more."

"Once that data is gathered," Wired reported in 2007, "the CIPAV begins secretly monitoring the computer's internet use, logging every IP address to which the machine connects," and sends that data "to a central FBI server located somewhere in eastern Virginia."

"The server's precise location wasn't specified, but previous FBI internet surveillance technology--notably its Carnivore packet-sniffing hardware--was developed and run out of the bureau's technology laboratory at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia."

According to Pasdar, with such access the FBI and the NSA are allowed to listen in and record all conversations en-masse; collect and record mobile phone data en-masse; obtain the data that a subscriber accessed from their mobile phone, including internet access, email and web queries; trend individual call patterns and call behavior; identify inbound and outbound callers; track all inbound and outbound calls and trace the user's physical location.

And as we learned last week from The Guardian and The Washington Post, the secret state's technical capabilities have evolved by whole orders of magnitude since initial stories of secret government surveillance were first reported nearly eight years ago by The New York Times.

For example, under NSA's internet-tapping PRISM program the Guardian and Post revealed that "nine leading US Internet companies," have given over access to their central servers to the FBI and NSA, thereby enabling high-tech spooks to extract "audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs."

So pervasive, and intrusive, are these programs, that the whistleblower who revealed their existence, who we now know is former CIA technical specialist Edward Snowden, who had "firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities," are what led him "to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. 'They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type'," the officer said."

Hints of the frightening capabilities of these, and other as yet unknown programs, had been revealed years earlier.

When Pasdar was in the process of migrating Verizon servers and installing a newer and more secure set of firewalls, the security specialist discovered an unnamed "third party" had installed the above-mentioned DS-3 line, a "45 megabit per second circuit that supports data and voice communications."

Stunned when he learned that Verizon officials insisted the circuit should "not have any access control" and "should not be firewalled," Pasdar was told in no uncertain terms that the "owners" of the DS-3 line specified that no record of its existence should ever be made.

"'Everything at the least SHOULD be logged,' I emphasized."

"I don't think that is what they want."

A top project manager who drove out to the site warned Pasdar to "forget about the circuit" and "move on" with the migration. He was further warned that if he "couldn't do that then he would get someone who could."

When the manager left, Pasdar asked one of his Verizon colleagues, "Is that what I think it is?"

"What do you think?", he replied.

"I shifted the focus. 'Forgetting about who it is, don't you think it is unusual for some third party to have completely open access to your systems like this? You guys are even firewalling your internal offices, and they are part of your own company!'"

His colleague replied, "Dude, that's what they want."

"I didn't bother asking who 'they' were this time. 'They' now had a surrogate face,'" top manager dubbed "DS" by Pasdar. "They told me that 'they' went all the way to the top [of Verizon], which is why the once uncertain DS could now be so sure and emphatic."

Disturbed that Verizon was turning over access of their communications infrastructure to secret government agencies, Pasdar wrote:

"For the balance of the evening and for some time to come I thought about all the systems to which this circuit had complete and possibly unfettered access. The circuit was tied to the organization's core network. It had access to the billing system, text messaging, fraud detection, web site, and pretty much all the systems in the data center without apparent restrictions."

"What really struck me," Pasdar noted, "was that it seemed no one was logging any of the activity across this circuit. And if they were, the logging system was so abysmal that they wouldn't capture enough information to build any type of a picture of what had transpired. Who knew what was being sent across the circuit and who was sending it? To my knowledge no historical logs of the communications traversing the 'Quantico Circuit' exists."

The security consultant affirmed that government snoops "may be able to access the billing system to find information on a particular person. This information may include their billing address, phone number(s), as well as the numbers and information of other people on the plan. Other information could also include any previous numbers that the person or others on their plan called, and the outside numbers who have called the people on the plan."

And once the Electronic Security Number (ESN) of any plan member's phone has been identified, well, the sky's the limit!

"With the ESN information and access to the fraud detection systems, a third party can locate or track any particular mobile device. The person's call patterns and location can be trended and analyzed."

"With the ESN," Pasdar averred, "the third party could tap into any and all data being transmitted from any particular mobile device. This would include Internet usage, e-mails, web, file transfers, text messages and access to any remote applications."

"It would also be possible in real-time to tap into any conversation on any mobile phone supported by the carrier at any point."

While the major firms identified by Guardian and Post reporters in the PRISM disclosures deny that NSA has built backdoors into their systems, The New York Times revealed although Twitter declined to make it easier for the government to spy on their users, "other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations. They opened discussions with national security officials about developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users in response to lawful government requests. And in some cases, they changed their computer systems to do so."

According to the Times, the "companies that negotiated with the government include Google, which owns YouTube; Microsoft, which owns Hotmail and Skype; Yahoo; Facebook; AOL; Apple; and Paltalk, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions," the same tech giants called out by the PRISM revelations.

"In at least two cases, at Google and Facebook," reporter Claire Cain Miller disclosed, "one of the plans discussed was to build separate, secure portals, like a digital version of the secure physical rooms that have long existed for classified information, in some instances on company servers. Through these online rooms, the government would request data, companies would deposit it and the government would retrieve it, people briefed on the discussions said."

So much for their non-denial denials!

More pertinently however, the "digital version of the secure physical rooms" described by the Times track directly back to what whistleblower Mark Klein told Wired, along with supporting documents in 2006, about AT&T's secret Room 641A housed in San Francisco.

Klein revealed:

"In 2003 AT&T built 'secret rooms' hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company's popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities."

And as with the "separate, secure portals" described by the Times, AT&T's "secret rooms" are staffed with NSA-cleared corporate employees of the tech giants.

Klein informed us:

"The normal work force of unionized technicians in the office are forbidden to enter the 'secret room,' which has a special combination lock on the main door. The telltale sign of an illicit government spy operation is the fact that only people with security clearance from the National Security Agency can enter this room." (emphasis in original)

How Extensive Is the Surveillance? Well, Boundless!

Back in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that NSA "now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called 'transactional' data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns."

With the Verizon and PRISM disclosures, we now know who those "private companies" are: major US high tech and telecommunications giants.

Journalist Siobhan Gorman revealed that the NSA's "enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light. They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements."

"The effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called 'black programs' whose existence is undisclosed, the current and former officials say."

Amongst the "black programs" disclosed by The Guardian, we learned last week that through the NSA's top secret Boundless Informant program the agency "has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from, raising questions about its repeated assurances to Congress that it cannot keep track of all the surveillance it performs on American communications."

As Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill disclosed, the "Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, 'What type of coverage do we have on country X' in 'near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals intelligence] infrastructure'."

Like their Bushist predecessors, the Obama regime claims the security apparatus is "not listening in" to the phone calls of Americans, asserting instead they are "merely" harvesting metadata, the digital footprints and signatures of electronic devices.

But as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) points out:

"Metadata provides enough context to know some of the most intimate details of your lives. And the government has given no assurances that this data will never be correlated with other easily obtained data. They may start out with just a phone number, but a reverse telephone directory is not hard to find. Given the public positions the government has taken on location information, it would be no surprise if they include location information demands in Section 215 orders for metadata."

Conservative estimates since the 9/11 provocation have revealed that the NSA phone database now contains upwards of 1.9 trillion call-detail records under a program code name MARINA and that a similar database for email and web queries also exists, PINWALE.

The FISA court order signed in April by Judge Roger Vinson directs Verizon to hand over to the NSA "on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order, unless otherwise directed by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls."

One can only assume that other carriers such as AT&T and Sprint have been issued similar orders by the FISA court.

According to the Order, "Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information, including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and terminating telephone number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (ISMI) number, International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, etc.), trunk identifier, telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call."

While the order specifies that "telephony metadata" does not include the "substantive content of any communication" or "the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer," that information, should an individual come in for "special handling" by the secret state, call and internet content is fully-retrievable, courtesy of US high-tech firms, under the MARINA, PINWALE and PRISM programs.

As the heroic whistleblower Edward Snowden told The Guardian last Sunday: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards."

"What they're doing,” Snowden said, poses "an existential threat to democracy."

If what the Bush and now, Obama regimes are doing is not Orwellian blanket surveillance of the American people, then words fail.

The Lab: Revealing Israel's Military Industrial Occupation Complex

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 17:41:00 +0000

The Israeli Lab and the Palestinian Guinea Pigs

by Gilad Atzmon

"The Lab" is a new groundbreaking Israeli documentary film that redefines our entire understanding of the Jewish State, its aims, its identity and its global destructive role. I honestly believe that this film is the deepest and most important commentary on Israel.

In ‘The Lab’, Director Yotam Feldman exposes the Israeli military industry and its operation, he interviews some major protagonists within Israel’s ‘security’ trade.

He elaborates on the role of the industry within the Israeli society and economy - in the last few years Israeli security exports reached an unprecedented level of $7 billion a year.

A full 20% of Israeli exports are military or military related. Approximately 150.000 families in Israel are dependent on that industry. Israel is now the fourth biggest military exporter.

https://vimeo.com/65082874

The Lab from Yotam Feldman on Vimeo.

In the last decade, every Israeli military operation led to an immediate sharp increase in sales of Israeli military export around the world: weaponry, systems, intelligence, strategies, doctrines, knowledge and experience.

Feldman provides us with a glimpse into a very organized universe. We visit Israeli weapon fairs around the world but we also see arenas filled to capacity with foreign generals, public officials and diplomats. They are all shopping for Israeli military products. The message is clear, the 7 billion dollars is just part of the story. Israeli military elite is now deeply interwoven with the political and military elite of every country around the globe. This emerging Israeli business buys the Jewish state influence and support.

Watch Foreign Generals shopping around:

https://vimeo.com/68429654

Foreign Generals – A Segment from The Lab from Gilad Atzmon on Vimeo.

"The Lab" makes it evidently clear that the Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza have become test subjects for Israeli tactics, weaponry and fighting philosophy (‘Fighting Torah’, Torat Lechima - as the Israelis call it). The destruction of the Palestinians has now been transformed into a very profitable industry. We are dealing here with nothing short of highly calculated murder.

Through a set of fascinating interviews, Feldman conveys a very genuine picture of the Israeli death merchants. Feldman lets them talk, he hardly interferes. They are sharp, they are genuine, they are even funny at times, occasionally witty, and a few of them, might even be charming if you did not know who they are. But make no mistake, they are sinister, some of them are clearly psychotic, they are mass murderers and they are free. They sell destruction and havoc and do it very successfully.

Watch IDF Yoav Galant, the planner and executioner of Operation Cast Lead, discussing ‘proportions’:

http://youtu.be/tI0Nq9YJa3c

Being myself an Israeli-born and raised successful musician and writer, I think I can recognize Israeli dedication, perseverance and creativity when I see it, no matter into what service it is pressed. (Perhaps I was lucky to be rescued by bebop.) Those Israeli death angels’ talent is driven into the amplification of human misery. The consequences are tragic.

Game Changer

It is far from being a secret that a century of Palestinian struggle led to practically nothing. The state of the Palestinian solidarity movement is even more embarrassing. Feldman's "The Lab" is a game changer, for it can explain decades of impotence.

We are immersed in flawed terminology - ‘colonialism’, ‘apartheid’, ‘conflict’, ‘solution’, ‘Zionism’ are just few examples. Gaza is now a vast Laboratory - the Israelis are the ‘scientists’ and the ‘technicians’, the Palestinians are the ‘guinea pigs’. Watching "The Lab" must lead all of us to fundamentally question our notions. We are dealing with a premeditated war crime. The notion of resolution (as in ‘two-state solution’), for instance, is not applicable. It is clear beyond doubt that in the real world the ‘scientist’ does not negotiate with the ‘guinea pig’. The ‘scientist’ also doesn’t consider sharing reality with his ‘guinea pig’ in a ‘one democratic state.’ "The Lab" is a glimpse into the Israeli mind: you clearly do not find much compassion there.

For decades we were foolish to examine the success and failure of Israeli military operations in reference to Israeli military and political ‘objectives,’ as we surmised them. We were clearly wrong.

As we learn from Feldman’s film, the real objective of Israeli operations may as well be examining new doctrines and operational systems in order to distribute them around the world soon after. Ehud Barak, for instance, wasn’t exactly the most sophisticated Israeli minister of defense, he clearly failed to defend his people or even make them feel secure. However, he was very successful in selling Israeli weapons and doctrines.

Tel Aviv being subject to a barrage of Qassam rockets may be seen by Israelis as devastating news, but from a military industrial point of view, it was a golden opportunity to examine and promote the Israeli anti-missile system Iron Dome. If I am correct here, it becomes clear that like the Palestinians, more and more Israelis are also becoming ‘guinea pigs’ in this ever growing military laboratory.

One may wonder how and when "the Zionist dream" transformed itself into a military business. Only a few of us, writers and scholars, have attempted to answer this question. The transformation of the Jewish State into an oppression factory is apparently a direct outcome of Israel’s supremacist ideology. If we want to understand what is happening in the Jewish State, we must first grasp the notions of choseness, Jewishness and Jewish identity politics.

I guess that enough Palestinians in Gaza do realise by now that they have been part of an Israeli experiment. Every too often we learn from Palestinian doctors that while treating casualties of Israeli aggression they encounter new types of wounds. The Lab explains it but it isn’t Palestine alone. We also witness a growing similarity between the operational mode of police forces around the world and the IDF treatment of the Palestinians.

Watching Yotam Feldman’s "The Lab" explains it all. We are all Palestinians. We are either occupied by Israel or by its proxy forces around the world - those who are trained in Israel and implement Israeli weaponry and tactics.

The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics - Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel in 1963 and had his musical training at the Rubin Academy of Music, Jerusalem (Composition and Jazz). As a multi-instrumentalist he plays saxophones, clarinet and ethnic woodwind instruments.

His album Exile was the BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. He has been described by John Lewis on the Guardian as the “hardest-gigging man in British jazz".

Atzmon is touring extensively around the world playing in festivals, concert halls and clubs. His albums, of which he has recorded twelve to date, often explore political themes and the music of the Middle East.

7 Steps to Protecting Your Online Privacy

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:48:00 +0000

7 Powerful Ways to Maintain Your Privacy and Integrity Online

by Eliot Estep

Information Clearing House - The recent NSA leaks from whistleblower Ed Snowden have publicly confirmed that digital privacy does not exist. The federal government and intelligence agencies have direct server access to the world’s most popular sites and services including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and more. This means that all of your data when using these services including Skype, YouTube, etc has been compromised and can be used against you whenever strategically necessary.

Always remember, you are being recorded and monitored regardless of whether you have done anything wrong or not. This includes your emails, internet activity, searches, banking activity, passwords, etc. Basically everything to build a complete profile about who you are, how you think, how you live, etc. This is very powerful data gathering and the goal of the intelligence agencies is nothing less than Total Information Awareness to be used to control and manage populations.

For these reasons, I have compiled some helpful tips to help you maintain your privacy and integrity when using the Internet. These are by no means comprehensive, but they can be quite useful and give you some semblance of peace when browsing.

1. Use StartPage.com for all your searches. Known as “the world’s most private search engine”, StartPage will allow you to search anonymously and securely through Google. It is probably the only search engine that does not collect or share any personal information about you. You can even access pages through a proxy quickly and easily. StartPage functionality can be easily added to your browser for all searches made through the address bar. If you value your privacy, this is really a no-brainer.

If you use Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc then everything you search is logged to your IP address and is used to build a comprehensive profile about all your online activity. This means that the government literally has the ability to know everything you’ve been interested in, how you type (thus, how you think), and much more. Protect your searches!

2. Consider using an Anonymizer such as Tor to protect your identity. Tor prevents anyone from learning your location, browsing habits, and is an extremely effective tool against network surveillance and traffic analysis. Tor is essentially a network of virtual tunnels run by volunteers that allows your real IP address to remain hidden and undetectable when browsing the Internet. It is used by whistleblowers, hackers, and all those who value anonymity. You can also use it to access sites that your ISP has blocked or banned. Keep in mind, if you use Tor to access personally-identifying sites like Facebook then you pretty much lose your ability to remain anonymous. Learn more about this powerful software and please use it responsibly! To get started quickly, please download the Tor Browser Bundle. Using this software wisely and effectively will likely require changing your browsing habits, so be aware of this.

3. Consider using a private and secure social network like Pidder. This is a private social network that uses encrypted communication and offers the ability to remain anonymous. If you are truly looking for ways to stay in touch with close ones in a uncompromised manner, this could be the site for you. While it will not have the userbase of Facebook, this is still an excellent alternative for secure social networking.

4. Use a firewall and a secure wireless connection. Protecting your inbound and outbound network traffic is essential. There are many free software options available for this. I cannot guarantee the integrity of these programs, but I personally recommend Little Snitch for Mac users. It appears that Outpost may be a good alternative for Windows. The key is to be able to see what services/sites are trying to send/receive data over your connection. The more stringent your firewall rules are, the better. Keep your computer clean by using some kind of anti-spam/spyware software and minimize your use of highly sketchy sites.

5. Delete your cookies regularly and log out of Facebook when you are not actively using it. Almost everytime you visit a site, you download a cookie from that site, which is often used to track and collect data about you, the sites you visit, etc. Therefore, deleting cookies and temporary internet files from your browser frequently is necessary. I recommend CCleaner as an effective way to do this. Most people leave a Facebook tab open and continue browsing, not realizing that every page that has a “Like” button actively logs and tracks their online activity. Facebook collects all your browsing data and then sells it to third parties, including passing it onto intelligence agencies. Therefore, when you are not actively using Facebook, be sure to log out! Why should they know everything you’re up to online?

6. Cover up or disconnect your webcam when you are not using it. Did you know that your webcam can be secretly activated without you being aware of it? Hackers and intelligence agencies have the ability to do this, so effective countermeasures must be taken here. This can be done WITHOUT the indicator light coming on, so you won’t even know that you are being watched or recorded. This is why I recommend taping over or covering up your webcam when you’re not using it. Why take the risk? Do you really want the government to have the ability to spy on you while you are in your bedroom? The same thing can be done on cellphone cameras/microphones, so be aware of that too. The only way your phone cannot be used to track/record you is if the battery is taken out, which is another reason why many new smartphones come with non-removable batteries these days.

7. Learn to use secure email services like HushMail or encrypted email. Communicating using email is vital and part of our everyday lives. If we use services like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo, those services are not secure and are compromised. Therefore, switching over to a secure service such as Hushmail can be valuable. Or learn how to use Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), which is a way to send encrypted email and files that only a trusted third party can open and view. Essentially, PGP uses public-private key cryptography, where you will give out your public key to trusted recipients. Messages can only be decrypted by using your special private key file (that you keep safe) and the sender’s public key. You can even encrypt files so that only a specific person can open them. Learning to use PGP requires some technical knowledge but can be very useful for those who want to communicate securely and is well worth learning, in my opinion. Please see this tutorial or this video to get started. There are some excellent YouTube videos that can really help out with this.

Be smart about how you communicate online. If you take no precautionary measures, then you should assume that your communications are being recorded and monitored at all times. Do not discuss illegal or secret activities on Facebook or through Skype or Gmail. Ultimately, we should be greatly decreasing our use of these compromised services altogether! Be aware of what you type and consider their ramifications if ever made public. We must exercise great discretion and discernment when it comes to our online activities now. The methods listed above are by no means comprehensive and are just a small way to boost your privacy. If you have other privacy tips, please mention them here in the comments for all to see and benefit from. In the end, it is all up to the user to do their part in maintaining their online integrity. Safe browsing my friends!

Eliot Estep : - We are all divine beings of love at our core! I AM a genuine truth-seeker dedicated to living a life of joy, peace, and abundance. I value integrity, freedom, and creative self-expression above all. It is a privilege to be here during this time of great change. Let us prepare. Main areas of research: conspiracies, global affairs, extraterrestrials, spiritual advancement + Sun: ♏ + Moon: ♎ + Ascendant: ♋ +

This article was originally published at Collective Ev

olution

May on Canada-China FIPA Trade Deal and Non-Debate

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:43:00 +0000

Adjournment Proceedings – Canada-China FIPA

by Elizabeth May, MP

Tuesday, June 11th, 2013 in Questions

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I rise, I suppose I should say this morning. It is still June 11 on the calendar in front of the Speaker, but we know that it is June 12, at 12:16 a.m.

I am pursuing a question that I initially asked in question period on March 21. The question relates to the Canada-China investment treaty and its quite extraordinary measures which stand in quite sharp contrast, not only to other treaties in which Canada has become involved, but other investment treaties as well. On March 21, I contrasted some of the provisions of the treaty that had been tabled in the House in February with the small African nation of Benin. For this treaty, we have very low levels of trade compared to the $7 billion with the People’s Republic of China.

I want to highlight one of the aspects of the Benin treaty versus the Canada-China investment treaty tonight. It is very difficult to get a proper debate on this issue. As you know, Mr. Speaker, we have not have had a proper debate on the Canada-China investment treaty, although it stands poised for ratification by the cabinet alone.

I should pause to thank the Hupacasath First Nation, near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, for having the courage to take the matter to court. For three days of the last week, they were in court in Vancouver. We all await the decision of the judge in that matter, adjudicating as to whether first nations’ rights have been violated. No first nations across Canada, whether treaty nations or otherwise, were consulted before the treaty was signed between the current Prime Minister and President Hu of China.

The specific matter I want to concentrate on in the remaining two and a half minutes that I have is the question of exit provisions. The first investment treaty in which Canada became involved was NAFTA, chapter 11, which allows exit by Canada, the U.S. or Mexico on 6 months’ notice. The provisions of the treaty with Benin, to which I referred on March 21, are certainly much longer than that. There is a one-year notice period, and after one year’s notice, any existing investments between Canada and Benin are protected for a further 15 years under the terms of the treaty which Canada and Benin at that point would have exited.

The extraordinary thing about the treaty with the People’s Republic of China is that there is not six months as under NAFTA, or 16 years as under the treaty with Benin, which is bad enough; under the treaty with the People’s Republic of China, Canada is bound for the first 15 years before notice can be given, followed by one year’s written notice and then a further 15 years in which any investments made by the People’s Republic of China are protected.

In other words, once ratified, this treaty will bind any Canadian government in the future for 31 years from the point at which the treaty is ratified. It is quite extraordinary.

I want to comment on a common misconception. Because the current Prime Minister has seen fit to withdraw Canada from a number of treaties, namely the Kyoto protocol and the convention on drought desertification, it has created some sense in the land that a future prime minister can just rip up a treaty.

Let us be clear. The current Prime Minister executed withdrawal from Kyoto under the terms of the Kyoto protocol. One year’s written notice was required. Canada exited the treaty on drought desertification on the terms of that convention. A notice of 90 days was required.

The Canada-China investment treaty would bind any future prime minister and government for 31 years. There is no way out, and if Canada were to unilaterally leave the treaty, it would be subject to damages and damage claims in 100 countries around the world.

In other words, the only way to stop this convention is to prevent ratification.

Shelly Glover: Mr. Speaker, although I have tremendous respect for that member of Parliament and know she works hard and whatnot, I am quite surprised at the lack of knowledge the member has on some of the information regarding this exact treaty. Let me take a moment to refresh my colleague’s memory about why Canada is involved in this specific treaty.

Our government understands the importance of trade to our economy. It represents one out of every five jobs in Canada and accounts for 62% of our country’s GDP. That is why our government moves forward with ambitious pro-trade plans. They are really the most vigorous in our country’s history.

Our plan is to open new markets for Canadian exporters. That includes in the fastest-growing Asia-Pacific region. The opportunities for Canadian exporters in the Asia-Pacific are absolutely phenomenal. Countries in the region include those with economic growth rates of two to three times the global average.

However, before I speak further about the opportunities for Canada in the Asia-Pacific, and particularly with Canada’s second-largest export destination, China, I would like to comment on a reference the member opposite made in her original question to our FIPA with Benin.

The FIPA with Benin is just one example of our government’s engagement in Africa. In fact, in addition to Benin, Canada has concluded FIPA negotiations with Cameroon, Zambia, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal and Tanzania. These investment treaties will strengthen economic ties between Canada and these partner countries and help Canadian companies invest with greater confidence in these markets. At the same time, facilitating two-way investment helps generate jobs, growth and long-term prosperity that we all hope for in Canada.

Our government is proud of the steps we have taken to strengthen ties with our partners in Africa, but we help Canadian exporters and investors capture new opportunities in other fast growing markets around the world, including in Asia.

An important part of our commercial relationship is ensuring that not only two-way trade occurs, but also investment between Canada and other countries can take place in a stable and secure manner. That is why Canada has over 24 foreign investment promotion and protection agreements with key trade and investment partners, including with China, the world’s second largest economy and now Canada’s second largest export destination. This is only second to the United States of America.

Canada’s trade relationship with China continues to grow. In fact, Canadian goods exports to China rose 15% last year, to over $19 billion. Not only that, but Canada’s exports to China have nearly doubled under our Conservative government.

This is a favourable agreement that lends to create the opportunities that Canadian exporters need. It also provides opportunities in China, so Canadians can be present on the ground. That will lead to growth, economic prosperity and job creation.

Along with this trade agreement, there are many other good things to come. I sincerely hope the member opposite will give a second look to the agreement, because there are some wonderful opportunities for Canadians. I hope she will side with us in allowing us to provide those opportunities as have been indicated.

6 is 9 Israel Says Palestinian "Settlers" Should Move to Jordan

noreply@blogger.com (ape) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:34:00 +0000

“The Palestinian Future is In Jordan”: Israeli deputy Defense Minister

by IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli TV, Channel 1, aired an interview with Israeli deputy Defense Minister, Member of Knesset (MK) Danny Danon, who said that there will never be a Palestinian State, and that the Palestinians are "settlers", should be part of Jordan.

During the interview, Danon said that “the Public should not be misled”, as Israel would never allow the establishment of a Palestinian state, whether the United States sends envoys or not, whether it presents initiatives or not.

When asked if Israel would “annex” the West Bank, Dannon said that Israel will not do so, but will continue its settlements activities “on vacant lands in the West Bank”, and will act on to turning the Palestinian areas into “settlements”.

“Jews in the West Bank aren’t settlers anymore, they are citizens of the state of Israel”, the Israeli official said, “Israel will turn the Palestinians into settlers under Jordanian authority, and this is that…”

He further stated that several Israeli members of Knesset agree with his opinions despite the fact they do not go public about them.

Talking to Channel 1, deputy Knesset spokesperson Dr. Ahmad Tibi, leader of Ta'al Party, stated that the statements of Dannon are very serious and dangerous.

“Dannon is the most ‘truthful extremist’ in the Israeli government of Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu”, Tibi said, “Unlike other officials, he does not hide the dangerous intentions and plans of the Israeli government; he does now hide his extremist ideology”.

Dr. Tibi added that many Israeli government ministers and officials, including Netanyahu himself, agree with the opinions of Dannon, and are deliberately placing obstacles in front of U.S Secretary of State, John Kerry, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and any official or government that tries to restart peace talks.

Furthermore, Knesset Member, Ofer Shelah, of Yesh Atid (There Is Future) party, stated that “Israel is becoming the new South Africa”, the Maan News Agency have reported.

“What Dannon is saying is similar to what white settlers used to say in South Africa” Shelah stated, “Jewish settlements in the West Bank are a major obstacle to any peace agreement, the Israeli occupation corrupts the Israeli society”.

This article was originally published at IMEMC