Resurrecting Terror in Guatemala

Guatemalan Presidential Election on Sunday

• More than a decade after the signing of the Peace Accords that ended 30 years of brutal conflict costing 200,000 lives, violence and shabby politics still walk hand-in-hand in Guatemala.

• Guatemala has one of the most unequal distributions of income in the Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, in the wake of President Bush’s visit to the country in May, a new interest in large-scale ethanol production was ignited which is likely to lead to an even greater degree of the concentration of wealth. Nevertheless, the main issue at hand in the upcoming election is neither poverty alleviation nor securing proper energy resources, but the mounting toll of recently alleged politically-motivated assassinations of more than 80 Guatemalans.

• The two main parties continue to point fingers at each other, but none of their epidermal solutions go to the root of the problem.

Guatemala: A Nation on the Ropes
September brings with it the annual commemoration of 9/11 in the United States. Although the date represents a landmark moment, which at the same time serves as a trigger for a random discussion of terrorism, far fewer commentators in this country have noted that two days earlier another important event in the modern history of terrorism occurs—the first round of the Guatemalan general elections.

At almost 13 million people, and the most populous Central American nation, Guatemala is strategically positioned in the heart of the Western Hemisphere, with access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and with a long and bitter history of unremitting violence and human rights abuses, Guatemala will hold its general elections in just a few days. The president, national legislators and mayors will be facing the electorate; no governors, senators, or state representatives are running as Guatemala has neither an upper house nor a state legislature, and governors are appointed by the president. That said, the explosive fact on the docket is that more than 80 Guatemalans, half of them political candidates or their supporters, have been assassinated since the injunction of the electoral campaign.

A Deadly Tool
As Jorge Rodriguez, lawyer and former coordinator of the Justice Pastoral, observed, “it is a trend that, in Guatemala, the violence level increases during the electoral periods.” Perhaps the main reason behind these grim mathematics is that after persuading the combatants to lay down their weapons, the 1996 Acuerdos de Paz Firme y Duradera (Peace Accords) were supposed to mark not only the end of 30 years of fratricidal bloodshed and ongoing civil conflict, but also the closing down of an industry that, until then, had been providing a blood-soaked living for both leftist rebel death squad forces, and the violence-prone armed forces.

It should not be forgotten that, although the international community had been pressing for the end of the war between the militia and leftist forces at least since 1992, the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 caught many Guatemalans by surprise. In December of that year, senior rebel officials and the armed forces met with the Arzú administration after months of secret talks and United Nations mediation, and what turned out to be a shaky peace was declared. However, the low-rank fighters largely had been left in the dark about the whole process. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that the culture of using violence for one’s livelihood developed as a prime result of the lack of re-training opportunities and the resultant high rates of unemployment. This came as a result of decades of civil war, with the country not seeing the end of the road when it came to violence. It makes eminent sense that trained fighters, suddenly unemployed with neither the necessary skills to be competitive in an already saturated formal job sector, nor in the least bit interested in a proposed land-gun exchange, would try to find new and darker markets for their talents. In addition to the classic strategy of working as mercenaries—increasingly under the command of Mexican drug lords looking for a calmer place to manage their operations, rather than in their own turbulent nation—Guatemalan former combatants also found another niche. This was recruiting from the streets an army of gunslingers among the fearless and hopeless of the forgotten youth from poor rural areas to urban slums. This can help to explain the rapid increase in organized crime in urban areas, and its emulation by the maras—a more sophisticated version of urban youth gangs.

Election Time
In this context, the general elections have presented themselves as a unique opportunity for those in the business of violence to profit. In a country that lacks a democratic experience, electoral events could generate a topical demand for those experienced in using violence to induce political instability, in order to achieve the desired results at the polls. Guatemala may be experiencing a novel era of 12 years without a military coup, but the 2007 election is already stained by a surge in violence.

Widespread Violence aimed against urban transportation
The assassination of more than 40 drivers in urban transportation services—many of which were not even followed by robbery—has generated great fear among that sector as well as apprehension among various segments of the political class.

In a recent article [June 29, 2007], Prensa Libre reports that Mario Taracena, a representative from one of the main political parties—the moderate leftist National Unity Hope (UNE)—delivered a denouncement to the Ministry of Governance, Adela Camacho de Torrebiarte, in which he accused Mark Klugmann, an experienced American political campaign advisor, of inciting violence on behalf of UNE’s main rival, the rightist Patriotic Party (PP). According to Taracena, Klugmann, who previously had worked on the campaigns of political figures such as Ronald Reagan (U.S.) and Porfírio Pepe Lobo Sosa (Honduras), was behind a campaign strategy aimed at creating political instability in the country, through harassment of urban transportation drivers, in order to generate chaos in the streets. Many in Central America believe that a similar strategy was used in the 2005 presidential election in Honduras. Klugmann’s reply to his critics was laconic: “What I do as a professional advisor has nothing to do with what an unbalanced representative says,” and added “three Guatemalan political parties contacted me and in one case we reached an agreement, but it was for surveys and public opinion research.” Whether Klugmann is working for the PP or not is at the moment unknown, but as pointed out in Prensa Libre’s article, Pepe Lobo’s old puño duro (strong first) slogan does bear some similarity to the new mano dura (strong hand) slogan of PP’s Presidential candidate, General Otto Pérez Molina.

The UNE and PP parties have used the media to debate one another, turning up the heat on the election. When it came to the drivers, while UNE’s Álvaro Colom seconded Taracena’s claim in saying that “the drivers’ deaths fulfill an electoral campaign that aims to benefit a certain candidate,” General Pérez Molina’s taut answer was that the PP was “willing to submit itself to any investigation because we don’t have any connection with the killings, as the UNE has so irresponsibly denounced.” It is true that so far the Public Ministry has not found any evidence linking the drivers’ deaths to the PP. However, Honduran legal assessor and wingman of President Manuel Zelaya, Enrique Flores, raised a telling point: Whoever is actually behind the attacks, “…one political party seems to be taking advantage of the violence out of political motivations, manipulating the facts in order to inspire fear in the population and both better gain votes and manipulate the public opinion.” With these words Flores, who is said to favor Colom, seems to be indicating that the PP, whose “strong hand” slogan is presented as a “zero tolerance” solution to the country’s increasing problem of violence, thereby links itself to that strategy.

Targeted Violence: Death of 40 political candidates and supporters
If it were the murder of the drivers alone that made violence the hot topic of the first half of the electoral campaign, politicians themselves weren’t left out of the deadly loop for long. The Public Ministry recently released figures indicating that more than 40 political candidates and campaign workers have been gunned down since the beginning of the electoral campaign.

As Juan Luis Florido, general inspector of the Public Ministry pointed out, it is unlikely that all the murders had a political motivation. For instance, the death of Edwin Saúl Martínez, a mayoral pre-candidate for Jalpatagua, seems to have been connected with narcotraffic activities, and the murder of Clara Luz López, candidate for the concejal of Casillas, appears to have been a crime of passion.

Furthermore, Colom again pointed a finger at the PP, in general, and General Pérez Molina, more specifically, as being responsible for at least several of the deaths. During a meeting with the foreign press on August 29th, Colom claimed that at least 14 of the 18 murders related to his party were committed by “members of the mobs … associated with the Military Intelligence. They (PP) have the support of old chiefs of the Military Intelligence … the people responsible for the black campaign against me.”

During the civil war the army’s Military Intelligence allegedly was one of the prime architects responsible for kidnappings, torture and killings, and Otto Pérez Molina, before being elevated to the status of general, is suspected of being involved with such activities as a member of its staff. General Pérez Molina’s answer was to menace Colom with legal reprimands. In his opinion “This is an open black campaign against me and against the PP, because the UNE is desperate now that they have realized that they are going to lose the elections.”

Coming from a militant or gang background the suspicion that political parties were hiring hit men in order to intimidate both prospective voters as well as targeting candidates has been enough to establish quite a chaotic situation with less than a week to go before the election. The members of the Electoral Supreme Court were unanimous in demanding that the parties’ maintain a campaign free of violence and verbal attacks, but its president, Óscar Bolaños, went even farther. In the last meeting with the political parties electoral observers on Wednesday, he stated: “I don’t see an atmosphere for elections. In a democratic system we all should be aware that this isn’t a matter of winning or losing, but of having a vision of what is the best for Guatemala.” Just three days after Bolaños’ appeal, two more political figures were killed.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow Thomaz Alvares de Azevedo e Almeida
September 5th, 2007

Art of Political Prosecution

Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution

by Scott Horton

Current and former Justice Department officials I have interviewed have consistently identified Michael Chertoff, his successor Alice Fisher and his protégé Noel Hillman, as figures with a strong interest in political prosecutions. Each apparently took an interest in the Siegelman case for all the wrong reasons, I am told, and each had regular communications with the White House throughout this period.

But the Siegelman case was only one of many cases with political overtones which were closely dogged by loyal Republican Party activists at the top of the criminal process at Justice. Today the Los Angeles Times is offering more evidence linking Chertoff to political vendettas using the prosecutorial resources of the Department of Justice. David Savage and Tom Hamburger report:

Shortly after President Bush took office in 2001, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, met with the conservative group Judicial Watch. It wanted criminal charges brought against Hillary Rodham Clinton in connection with a lavish fundraising event in Los Angeles the year before.

“Chertoff personally assured us he would pursue it,” the group’s president, Tom Fitton, said recently, recalling the meeting with several top Justice officials. “They said they weren’t afraid of taking on the Clintons.” Justice did not pursue a case against the senator from New York, but instead went after one of her fundraisers, David Rosen, who eventually was acquitted.

Now Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has announced his resignation, brought down in part by allegations that he let politics influence Justice Department decisions. And Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is a prominent candidate to succeed him. Justice Department officials say pressure from Judicial Watch — which made its name by suing the Clintons in the 1990s — played no role in the decision to prosecute Rosen. Chertoff will not discuss the case. But it seems to be an early example of department actions under Bush that critics say were tinged with partisanship.

The key to Chertoff’s politicization of the prosecutorial service lay in placing a key political protégé in a key position: Noel Hillman was put in charge of the Public Integrity Section, the Justice Department’s division responsible for investigating and prosecuting public officials.

When Chertoff took over the criminal division, one of his first targets for change was the Public Integrity Section. This unit, established after the Watergate scandal, handled corruption cases involving public officials and others with political ties. It had a reputation as nonpartisan, professional and cautious.

Chertoff demoted career prosecutor Lee J. Radek, who had headed the section for many years, and eventually brought in a New Jersey protege, Noel L. Hillman. “There is a new sheriff in town,” Hillman told a lawyers’ group shortly after taking over…

Others… said they were concerned that the unit’s traditional insulation from partisan pressures had become frayed under Chertoff and Hillman. Hillman raised eyebrows by seeking — and eventually getting — a White House appointment to a federal judgeship. According to one veteran prosecutor, there was “a new intensity of interest among top officials like Chertoff in what cases were pursued or not pursued.” The prosecutor requested anonymity because he remains in government service and is not authorized to speak to reporters.

Noel Hillman took an extraordinary and aggressive role in pushing the Siegelman case forward around the same time that, according to an affidavit submitted by a Republican campaign attorney, Jill Simpson, Karl Rove was speaking with senior Alabama G.O.P. figures about using the Justice Department to “get rid of” Siegelman. Hillman then proceeded to apply for and obtain a judicial appointment—to the U.S. District Court in New Jersey. He acknowledges spending several months in discussions with the White House about his judicial appointment. It doesn’t require a lot of imagination to think of other topics that might have figured in these discussions, conducted with the man who was handling the Abramoff case, as well as the Siegelman prosecution.

Hillman was touted throughout this period as the “Abramoff prosecutor,” though that’s a title that requires quite a bit of qualification. Indeed, the Public Integrity Section did go after JackAbramoff, Michael Scanlon and a number of other key figures. But a study of the way their investigation trailed off in Alabama raises strong suspicions. Evidence pointed to the funneling of millions of dollars in Mississippi Choctaw Indian money into the campaign of Don Siegelman’s adversary, Bob Riley. The project involved a significant number of Riley’s Congressional and campaign staff, many of whom had direct links to Abramoff. However, instead of looking into these connections, Hillman began to channel his investigative and prosecutorial resources into an amazing quest to “get Siegelman.” And that assured that the Alabama leads of the Abramoff case were dropped and went dead. In fact they seem to have been dropped right about the time that President Bush decided to have a secret meeting with judicial candidate Hillman.

Considering these facts, it’s little wonder that the White House dropped Hillman’s nomination to the Third Circuit just as the U.S. attorneys scandal surfaced.

The Los Angeles Times report concerning the highly political vendetta prosecution of Rosen greatly strengthens the accusations made by a Michigan attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, in a case with strong parallels and similar political circumstances. It also casts a strong light on the mindset and working relationships within Justice at the time the chase after Alabama Governor Siegelman began.

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Canadian Fascists: The Future Police State will be Televised

Democracy's new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment


So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping the dissenters. Welcome to a world of total surveillance

Naomi Klein
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian


As protesters gathered recently outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront George Bush, Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, and Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, Associated Press reported this surreal detail: "Leaders were not able to see the protesters in person, but they could watch the protesters on TV monitors inside the hotel ... Cameramen hired to ensure that demonstrators would be able to pass along their messages to the three leaders sat idly in a tent full of audio and video equipment ... A sign on the outside of the tent said, 'Our cameras are here today providing your right to be seen and heard. Please let us help you get your message out. Thank You.'"

Yes, it's true: like contestants on a reality TV show, protesters at the SPP meeting were invited to vent into video cameras, their rants to be beamed to "protest-trons" inside the summit enclave. It was security state as infotainment - Big Brother meets, well, Big Brother. The spokesperson for Prime Minister Harper explained that although protesters were herded into empty fields, the video link meant that their right to political speech was protected. "Under the law, they need to be seen and heard, and they will be."

It is an argument with sweeping implications. If videotaping activists meets the legal requirement that dissenting citizens have the right to be seen and heard, what else might fit the bill? How about all the other security cameras that patrolled the summit - the ones filming demonstrators as they got on and off buses and peacefully walked down the street? What about the mobile phone calls that were intercepted, the meetings that were infiltrated, the emails that were read? According to the new rules set out in Montebello, all these actions may soon be recast not as infringements on civil liberties but the opposite: proof of our leaders' commitment to direct, unmediated consultation. Elections are a crude tool for taking the public temperature - these methods allow constant, exact monitoring of our beliefs. Think of surveillance as the new participatory democracy; of wiretapping as the political equivalent of MTV's Total Request Live.

Protesters in Montebello complained that while they were locked out, chief executives from about 30 of the largest corporations in North America - from Wal-Mart to Chevron - were part of the official summit. But perhaps they had it backwards: the CEOs had only an hour and 15 minutes of face time with the leaders. The activists were being "seen and heard" around the clock. So instead of shouting about police-state tactics, maybe they should have said: "Thank you for listening." (And reading, and watching, and photographing, and data-mining.)

The Montebello "seen and heard" rule also casts the target of the protests in a new light. The SPP is described in the leaders' final statement as an "ambitious" plan to "keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade". In other words, a merger of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the homeland security complex - Nafta with spy planes. The model dates back to September 11, when Paul Cellucci, the US ambassador to Canada, pronounced that in the new era, "security will trump trade". But there was an out clause: the trade on which the economies of Canada and Mexico depend could continue uninterrupted, as long as the governments of those countries were willing to welcome the tentacles of the US war on terror. Canadian and Mexican business leaders leaped to surrender, aggressively pushing their governments to give in to US demands for "integrated" security in order to keep the goods and the tourists flowing.

Almost six years later, the business leaders at Montebello - under the banner of the North American Competitiveness Council, an official wing of the SPP - were still holding up "thickening borders" as the bogeyman. The fix? According to the SPP website, "technological solutions, improved information-sharing, and, potentially, the use of biometric identifiers". From experience we know what this means: continent-wide no-fly lists, integrated databases, as well as the $2.5bn contract to Boeing to build a "virtual fence" on the northern and southern borders of the United States, equipped with unmanned drones.

In short, under the SPP vision of the continent, "thick" borders will soon be replaced with a nearly invisible web of continental surveillance - almost all of it run for profit. Two members of the SPP advisory group - Lockheed Martin and General Electric - have already received multibillion-dollar contracts from the US government to build this web. In the Bush era, security doesn't trump big business; it may be the biggest business of all.

In the run-up to the SPP summit, a spate of surveillance scandals helped paint a fuller picture. First, Congress not only failed to curtail the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping but opened the door to snooping into bank records, phone call patterns and even physical searches - all without any onus to prove the subject is a threat.

Next, the Boston Globe reported on plans to link thousands of CCTV cameras on streets, subways, apartment buildings and businesses into networks capable of tracking suspects in real time. And on August 15 confirmation came that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - the arm of the American military that runs spy planes and satellites over enemy territory - would be fully integrated into the infrastructure of domestic intelligence gathering and local policing, becoming the "eyes" to the National Security Agency's "ears".

Add a few more hi-tech tools - biometric IDs, facial-recognition software, networked databases of "suspects", GPS bundled into ever more electronic devices - and you have something like the world of total surveillance most recently portrayed in The Bourne Ultimatum.

Which brings us back to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Who needs clumsy old border checks when the authorities are making sure we are seen and heard at all times - in high definition, online and off, on land and from the sky? Security is the new prosperity. Surveillance is the new democracy.

· Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, is published next month; a version of this article appears in the Nation www.thenation.com
www.naomiklein.org

Quebec police admit using provocateurs

Quebec police admit using provocateurs


CP/CUPE HANDOUT
In this handout photo provided by CUPE, police and 'protesters' clash in Montebello, Que. on Monday, Aug.22. Quebec provincial police confirmed Thursday, Aug. 23, that the three protestors shown being detained here were Quebec provincial police undercover officers. Email story



YouTube: Video of alleged police provocateursSpeak Out: '09 pullout?Travers: Communication breakdown, but no conspiracyIs the jelly bean up to standard?Border impasse continuesVideo: Cameraman injuredCP Video: Police, protesters face offTravers: Bush woes ensure little actionSummit notebookBig business slams summit secrecyLeaders eye border disaster protocolLittle expected at meetingEditorial: When Harper plays hostAug 23, 2007 09:33 PM
Steve Lambert
Canadian press

MONTREAL—With the proof caught on video, Quebec provincial police were forced to admit Thursday that three undercover agents were playing the part of protestors at this week’s international summit in Montebello, Que.

But the Quebec police force denied they were attempting to provoke protestors into violence. Rather, they said the three were planted in the crowd to locate any protestors who were not peacefully demonstrating.

Police said the trio’s cover was blown when they refused to toss any objects.

“At no time did the Quebec provincial police officers act as agents provocateurs or commit criminal acts. Also, it is not part of the policy of the police force nor is it part of its strategy to act in this manner. At all times, the officers responded to their mandate to maintain law and order,” the QPP said in a news release on Thursday night.

The police said after viewing a video clip from YouTube.com and video shot by police officers, they were able to confirm the three were Quebec provincial police officers.

Earlier, both the QPP and the RCMP had denied altogether any of their officers were involved.

The Quebec provincial police declined to comment further, a spokeswoman in Montreal said. And while Quebec Justice Minister Jacques Dupuis was made aware of the news, a spokesman from his office said he will not comment on the matter either.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day rejected opposition calls Thursday for an inquiry into agents role in trying to provoke protesters into violence at this week’s North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

“I’ve made the inquiries and there was no RCMP that were involved as far as those three individuals go,” Day told reporters after making a crime-prevention announcement in Winnipeg.

“If people have concerns ... there is a complaints process for the RCMP. There is also one for the Surete du Quebec. This incident happened in Quebec, so I imagine people could also file under that complaints process.”

Day’s words did little to appease Dave Coles, the union leader who confronted the three men on the protest line and accused them of being cops.

“We’re going to talk to our legal counsel and we’ll decide (Friday) what our next action is going to be,” said Coles, president of the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

The Liberals called for a police probe into the issue, while the NDP called on Day to launch a public inquiry. The NDP said the public should be worried about the possibility police officers were used to try to turn a peaceful protest into a violent one.

“If they are police officers, and if they are stepping forward with a mandate to disrupt in any way, that’s a cause for concern,” said New Democrat MP Peter Julian.

The three officers, sporting bandannas, showed up on the front lines of a peaceful protest at the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit earlier this week.

One carried a large rock, and protesters allege the officers were trying to incite a riot so that police could move on the crowd.

The event was captured on video and shows one of the mystery men talking to police officers before being brought to the ground, handcuffed and quietly led away along with his friends.

The men were never charged, and photos show them wearing combat boots with identical markings to the ones worn by police at the scene.

“It’s just too coincidental that these guys attack a (police) line with a boulder and they’re not charged,” Coles said.

“The other four protesters who were arrested (over the weekend) were all charged.”

Quebec Provincial Police and the RCMP have both said they do not use agents to provoke violence.

RCMP spokesman Cpl. Luc Bessette said this week he could not discuss details of security measures for major events such as the summit because it could compromise future operations.

police admit they infiltrated protest

NOTE: Is this denial by the QPP disinformation? One witness says: ""They think that they have the right to infiltrate us as they've done before. But to be packing large boulders, they were going to do something with those rocks and it wasn't peaceful."




http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=66de9807-d2f0-444e-903e-1c0ba64556de&k=39211



Quebec police admit they infiltrated protest
CanWest News Service




Thursday, August 23, 2007








CREDIT: MIKE CARROCCETTO, The Ottawa Citizen Protester Alex Hundert tries to talk his way past police and inside Chateau Montebello. Day 2 at Chateau Montebello, where the North American leaders are meeting.


QUEBEC - The Quebec provincial police acknowledged in a statement Thursday that their agents had infiltrated protesters demonstrating during the recent North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que. but denied that they acted as "agent provocateurs" to instigate violence.


"They had the mandate to spot and identify violent demonstrators to avoid the situation from getting out of hand," the Surete du Quebec said in a statement. "The police officers were identified by demonstrators when they refused to throw projectiles."


"At no time did the Surete du Quebec police officers act as agents provocateurs or committed criminal acts," the statement adds.


A spokesperson for the police force refused to further comment on the statement.


Protesters have accused police of planting agents outside the Chateau Montebello to instigate violence during Monday's demonstration.


A prominent labour official pointed Wednesday to video made available on Youtube and photographs of three burly men, dressed as "Black Bloc" anarchists, standing out in the midst an otherwise peaceful sit-in adjacent to Surete du Quebec and RCMP riot squads.


The video shows the three black-clad bandana-wearing men being singled out by union organizers and the crowd. Other protesters started pointing at them and crying "police."


One of the three men is seen shoving and swearing at Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada, who is angrily confronting the trio, demanding they put down the rocks, remove their bandanas, and identify themselves.


After being backed into a corner against a line of provincial police officers in riot gear, they try to force themselves through the police line and are arrested while the crowd cheers.


"People have the right to peacefully protest something they don't like," said Coles this week, demanding answers from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest.


"They think that they have the right to infiltrate us as they've done before. But to be packing large boulders, they were going to do something with those rocks and it wasn't peaceful."


© CanWest News Service 2007

High Profile Companies Buying Boreal Forest Destruction

Greenpeace report reveals high profile companies buying Boreal Forest destruction
International companies, consumers urged to take action to save forest20 August 2007Print Send to a friend Montreal, Canada — A Greenpeace investigative report released today reveals the names of many high profile and recognizable international companies fueling the destruction of Canada’s Boreal Forest to create everyday consumer products.

Among the 35 companies listed are Best Buy, Grand & Toy, Toys “R” Us, Time Inc., Sears, Coles/Indigo, Penguin Books US and Harlequin. Rona, the Canadian home improvement and hardware store, is also named in the report.

Each company is profiled as a customer of logging and pulp companies Abitibi-Consolidated, Bowater, Kruger and SFK Pulp, whose destructive logging practices are responsible for decimating nearly 200,000 km2 of Boreal Forest, or 3.5 times the size of Nova Scotia.
“Today, we’re naming names,” said Kim Fry, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace. “The logging companies and customers featured in this report are driving the destruction of Canada’s Boreal Forest.”

The report, Consuming Canada’s Boreal Forest: The chain of destruction from logging companies to consumers, calls for action from the international marketplace to protect one of the largest ancient forests left on Earth. It also condemns the governments of Ontario and Quebec, where less than nine and five per cent of the forest, respectively, is protected from industrial development.

“We expect customers of these logging companies to temporarily suspend their multi-million dollar contracts until action is taken on the ground to protect the forest and end destructive logging,” added Fry. “We are looking to the marketplace to transform this situation.”

In addition to environmental destruction—including forest fragmentation, climate impacts and loss of wildlife habitat and ecosystem biodiversity—the report also highlights Abitibi-Consolidated’s refusal to end operations in the traditional territory of Grassy Narrows First Nation, despite a longstanding blockade against logging.

Canada’s Boreal Forest stretches across the north of the country, from Newfoundland to the Yukon. It represents a quarter of the world’s remaining intact ancient forests and stores 47.5 billion tonnes of carbon in its soils and trees. Less than 15 per cent of the Boreal Forest in Quebec and 18 per cent in Ontario remains intact. More than 68 per cent of the area managed by the three logging companies has already been degraded or destroyed.

- 30 -

The report can be downloaded here: http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/documents-and-links/publications/consuming-the-boreal-forest-t
Note to editors: Broadcast-quality video and high resolution photos are available upon request.


Related Reports
Consuming the Boreal Forest: the chain of destruction from logging companies to consumers
14 August 2007

Further contact information for reporters to get video, photos or report details
Kim Fry, Greenpeace Forests Campaigner, 416-406-0664 Jane Story, Greenpeace Communications, 416-930-9055

Hundred-Mile Diet

The Hundred-Mile Diet
by Christopher Ketcham
Released: 24 Aug 2007

It's a pitiful thing to contemplate: By my estimation, close to 85 percent, perhaps even 95 percent, of the food that feeds my hometown of Moab, Utah, population 5,000, gets trucked or flown in over the red-rock desert, often from continental distances. Cut off that supply line -- an absurd, wasteful and polluting operation where the average morsel travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate -- and the city would starve to death in a week.

Eighty years ago Moab fed itself. The locals ate beef from cattle that grazed in the cool of the nearby mountains in summer or on the warm canyon floors in winter, where the townspeople also tended melons, peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, romaine lettuce and much else. The last of the old melon orchards are gone, bulldozed to make way for condo sprawl named after the destroyed gardens -- a classic pattern that holds even for big cities. Among these is Washington, DC, where as recently as the 1950s most residents got their produce from Maryland farms next door that are now subdivisions of tarmac and drywall.

A few of my fellow Moabites balk at this foolery and plant their own gardens to take advantage of the desert sun. Jon Olschewski, who is 29 and pays his rent waiting tables at one of Moab's restaurants, where the food tastes like salted rubber, gets up to 70 percent of his family's diet from his 2.5-acre farm, depending on the season. He and his father, a stonemason, tend twenty-three types of fruit and vegetable and herb -- melons, kohlrabi, cilantro, squash, edamame, garlic, dill, chocolate peppers -- and cull the eggs of as many as ten chickens a season. "In the first half of the twentieth century, a semi truck of fruit rolled out of Moab every day," Olschewski tells me. "Out of acres and acres of orchards. Under 5 percent are still here. This town has turned a blind eye to its agricultural roots. And it's something that nobody wants to talk about." He likes to quote Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower, who notes that an average 2.5-acre farm suffices to provide enough produce for 100 locals for a year.

In an era when transcontinental food consumption has exploded -- the value of international food trade is up threefold since 1960, the tonnage of food shipped between nations up fourfold (while population has only doubled) -- Olschewski and his ilk are a beleaguered minority, to be sure. But their numbers across the nation are growing. They even have a name: They call themselves localvores. The term is the invention of a group of Northern Californians who on the occasion of World Environmental Day in the summer of 2005 saw an opportunity to fight global warming by eating only from their Bay Area "foodshed," defined as foods sourced within 100 miles of one's doorstep. Thus was born Locavores.com and the annual Eat Local Challenge, which has flowered into a nationwide movement that asks participants to spend several months out of the year confined to the "hundred-mile diet." Gourmet magazine, in an article by activist-author Bill McKibben, has featured the pleasures and challenges of localvorism, while alt-supermarket chain Whole Foods now dedicates shelf space to delectables identified as "locally grown." Novelist Barbara Kingsolver this spring published Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a memoir -- eleven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list -- that chronicles a year of eating locally after she and her husband fled the deserts of the Southwest for the farms of Virginia. "Our highest shopping goal," Kingsolver writes, "was to get our food from so close to home that we'd know the person who grew it."

Kingsolver was inspired to engage in this all-consuming experiment by the same concern that drove the pioneer localvores in California: Transcontinental foodism is destructive, unsustainable, irrational. According to the Worldwatch Institute, an imported long-distance meal of typical value -- meat, grain, fruits, vegetables -- consumes up to four times as much energy and produces four times as much greenhouse gas emissions as the locally grown equivalent. In 2002 food transportation was among the largest and fastest-growing sources of British greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, trade studies in Britain find that the British import huge quantities of staples such as milk, pork and lamb, while exporting comparable tonnages of these same products -- trapped in lunatic "food swap" trade agreements made possible by cheap oil, subsidized transport and centralized purchases by massive retailers. Perhaps localvorism is best understood as an act of rebellion against a system that should not -- cannot -- stand.

The one state in the union that appears most inclined to cut itself off from the industrial food pipeline is Vermont. A recent study by a graduate student at the University of Vermont found that the state leads the nation in localized movement of agricultural goods, with the highest per capita direct sales of farmers' products -- 1.2 percent -- among the fifty states. Less than 2 percent is not a lot, of course, but it's a start. With this in mind, last winter 133 Vermonters in the Mad River Valley, accompanied by scores of others in five separate localvore "chapters" statewide, joined to exploit their state's market advantage in the so-called Winter Challenge. The Challenge required that participants survive only on a 100-mile foodshed for up to a week in cold February. Robin McDermott, who moved to Vermont with her husband three years ago and co-founded the Mad River Valley Localvores chapter in 2006, is somewhat harder on herself: Her challenge lasts all year.

By early summer, McDermott is planning six months of survival, from the first snows of September until the April melt. She cans, dries, cellars, preserves or freezes almost all of what she eats -- her cellar stocked with carrots and potatoes, onions and beets; her freezer stocked with half a pig and half a lamb and many chickens, because "we know it is no fun for a farmer to slaughter chickens in the middle of the winter."

McDermott is unalloyed in her enthusiasm for the payoff in all this effort. If pipeline food promotes a kind of roboticism and mindlessness -- every food always at hand, strawberries blooming in the aisles in icy January, the beef perfect in T-bones and strips always fresh -- she believes that localvorism promotes intelligence, discretion and choice that go hand in hand with a recognition of limits. Consider the problem of asparagus. "There is a short period during the year, maybe three weeks, when I can get asparagus," McDermott tells me. "You can bet that I know when asparagus time is. I also know when strawberries, peas, spinach, tomatoes and corn will be available, and I plan for them."

There are two other big payoffs: one healthwise, the other as a stand for economic freedom. First, pipeline food is often polluted with additives, preservatives, pesticides and, not least, the germs of the many human hands and environments through which it passes (the latter most evident in the recent rash of Chinese food scandals -- toxic fish, filthy shrimp, contaminated pet food). Second, if there's one big winner in the absurdist world-food supply line, it's large corporations that don't care about local economies. Just five companies control 75 percent of the global vegetable seed market; a handful of transnational companies control 90 percent of the trade in coffee and cocoa; five retailers account for 50 percent of all food purchases in France, Germany and Britain; the ur-predator among corporate retailers, Wal-Mart, is now the largest food retailer in the country.

On the other hand, if Vermonters shifted 10 percent of their food purchases to locally grown products, it would add more than $100 million to the state economy. Part of this added benefit is the infrastructure that arises to grow, process and distribute food (packinghouses, slaughterhouses, dairies, canneries). A study by the London-based New Economics Foundation concludes that food that stays local generates nearly twice as much income for the local economy as food exported or imported.

This spring I met two hippie vegetarians, Buck Butcher and Greg Marchand, as they wandered the West in a pickup chasing indigenous plants to eat (pinyon nuts in the high deserts of Nevada; strawberries, raspberries, currants in southern Montana). During the previous winter, in the hills of Tennessee, the two men culled at least half of their diet foraging in the richness of the temperate woods. Within a mile of their home -- a notable 1/100th of the localvore limit -- they gathered oyster mushrooms, watercress, wintercress, wild onions and Jerusalem artichokes. They roasted breadroots in olive oil with salt and pepper or boiled and mashed them like potatoes. "That was 50 percent of the time," said Buck. "The rest of the time we ate pizza."

Granted, most Americans have neither the leisure nor desire to wander the woods pulling roots, nor the skill and time to sow or kill their protein. We are bound to the diet that's most accessible -- fast food, TV dinners, the wilted things at the supermarket -- because of pressures of rent, work and children and, most important, because that's what the big food distributors make available. "I don't see this as an all-or-nothing proposition," says food scholar Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, which devotes a chapter to localvorism. "Trade in food goes back thousands of years. It's not inherently evil, but we're trading too much. I can't see us going all the way back to local or even regional food production. But we can try to move in that direction, and the localvores are teaching us that. They're also teaching us how hard it is to go back."


Christopher Ketcham is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York, and Moab, Utah.

MARKET CRASH as PROCESS

A FINANCIAL MARKET CRASH IS A PROCESS, NOT AN EVENT
Saturday, 18 August 2007
Liquidity dries up, truth is revealed

By Eric Janszen

Reprinted from ITULIP.COM

Article contains headlines from 1929 as well as a video clip of this week's financial headlines. The similarities are striking.



A financial crash is not sudden, singular event. The way the Crash of 1929 is commonly misunderstood, the market crashed on Monday, October 31, 1929 and soup lines formed Tuesday.

A financial crash is a process lasting as long as a year, punctuated by a few notable grip-and-grin market events that make it into the history books. Underlying the process is the dissolution of a fallacious belief system that developed over a period of many years. Fallacies floated on an ocean of cheap credit. As the credit dries up, facts are revealed under the harsh light of reality.

Multiple fallacious beliefs now show under the light of evidence for all to see. The complicity of the ratings agencies in creating the housing bubble, while notable, is a minor revelation compared to the big three.

Financial Risk is Buried and Gone

False Belief: Risk spreading instruments disperse financial risk, creating greater financial market stability and resilience.

Fact: Underwriters, mostly investment banks, sold exotic credit derivatives and externalized the risk, dumping it mostly on foreign pension funds. Risk spreading instruments create Risk Pollution, causing financial risk to disappear from sight for a time, where it concentrates in the weakest parts of the financial system only to reappear later like PCBs at Love Canal. The subprime mortgage market is the beginning of the discovery of hundreds of Credit Love Canals. A multi-trillion dollar Risk Pollution Superfund will have to be developed, at taxpayer expense, to clean up over ten years of Risk Pollution.

The Housing Bubble Collapse is Benign

False Belief: The Housing Bubble Correction will not seriously damage the economy.

Fact: Every aspect of the economy on which rising home prices depended, from the market for mortgages to furniture to autos, is in decline. The collapse of the housing bubble will cause a recession in the U.S. by Q4 2007.

Deficits Don't Matter

False Belief: Deficits don't matter. An economy can be continuously stripped of its industrial capacity and its assets inflated and traded for profit continuously, and imports can be paid for with borrowed money forever.

Fact: No economy in history has ever survived long running large trade and fiscal deficits. The entire economy needs to be overhauled, from the tax system to the monetary system, to re-build capacity for capital formation, saving, and capital investment in productive industries. USA, Inc. needs to be restructured.

There is very little that the Fed can do to stop the dissolution of fallacies process now that it is underway. Rate cuts will further weaken dollar and create even higher inflation, which is one of the causes of the crash. The Fed will keep the discount window open to prevent cascading debt defaults and bank failures.

Here's how it went down last time. You will notice a few parallels.

1929 Headlines

Wave of Buying Sweeps Over Market as Stocks Swing Upward

Radio Flashes High; General Motors and Steels Soar
By Laurence Stern

The atmosphere of doubt and caution which Wall Street in recent weeks has come to regard almost as habitual on Thursdays was swept away yesterday in a rush of buying...

Perhaps the market's own strength weighed as heavily with speculative minds as the logic of the situation, since the tape is the one institution Wall Street does not argue with. At any rate, the market appeared entirely confident from the opening gong. It was a firm, almost buoyant, opening, many initial transactions involving large blocks at sizable price advances...

The advance was one of the most vigorous of the year, amounting to a net gain of 6.97 points in the Dow Jones "average" of thirty representative industrial issues...

- The World, March 15, 1929

_____

Stocks Soar As Bank Aid Ends Fear of Money Panic
By W. A. Lyon

The stock market strode out from under the shadow of a panic in call money that so lately threatened, revived in all its old strength yesterday. Assured that the New York banks were ready with their boundless resources to prevent a money crisis, the public and the professional trader set out to repair the damage done to prices on Monday and the major part of Tuesday.

Stocks in the aggregate, though bucking a 15 per cent rate for loans, enjoyed the greatest advance they have known in a single day in the last two years. Not even the surging bull markets of the memorable year 1928 saw such a day of heavy buying.

- New York Herald Tribune, March 28, 1929

_____

Banker Says Boom Will Run Into 1930

That at least a part of the great amount of money in the securities market may represent temporary employment of funds eventually finding their way into business uses, and that the prosperity of the present business cycle will probably not end in 1929, is the belief expressed by the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation in the quarterly review of the London house of Schroder.

- The World, March 30, 1929

_____

Public Liquidation Spurred by Bears, Hits Low Market Scare Orders From All Over Country Halt Ticker an Hour in Feverish Day
By Laurence Stern

With speculative nerves rubbed raw under the persistent hammering of bearish traders, a renewed wave of public liquidation swept over the stock market yesterday, depressing prices severely and hopelessly clogging the quotation ticker...
...To the majority of the market's followers, who now must be counted in millions, the most significant aspect of the decline is that it has carried the average level of the list to a lower point than was reached on Oct. 4 in the sharp break that climaxed a month of gradual recession.

This raises a pertinent question, whether the bull movement of the last five years has definitely given way to a liquidating market...

-The World, October 20, 1929

_____

Brokers Believe Worst Is Over and Recommend Buying of Real Bargains

Wall Street in looking over the wreckage of the week, has come generally to the opinion that high grade investment issues can be bought now, without fear of a drastic decline. There is some difference of opinion as to whether not the correction must go further, but everyone realizes that the worst is over, and that there are bargains for those who are willing to buy conservatively and live through the immediate irregularity.

-New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1929

_____

Gigantic Bank Pool Pledged To Avert Disaster as Second Big Crash Stuns Wall Street
Largest Financial Powers in the City Meet After Day of Hysterical Liquidation Sinking Prices Below Thursday's
By Laurence Stern

After the stock market had come crashing down again in a veritable deluge of forced and hysterical liquidation, word sped through the financial district last evening that the largest banks in the city were prepared to exert their organized power this morning to prevent further disaster.

Arrangements described as "fully adequate" were completed at a conference at the offices of J. P. Morgan & Co. at Broad and Wall Streets...

Although no formal statement was issued, it was the consensus of those at the meeting that the worst of the liquidation is over and that a natural demand for investment stocks now available on the bargain counter should go far toward an immediate restoration of trading stability.

-The World, October 29, 1929

_____

Stocks Up in Strong Rally; Rockefellers Big Buyers; Exchanges Close 2-1/2 Days
By Ferdinand Lundberg

Revived by spontaneous investment buying and declarations of large extra cash dividends by leading companies, and free of the delirium that has recently gripped share owners, the stock market yesterday received a fresh start and scored a record comeback. Volume on the Stock Exchange totaled 10,727,320 shares, the third largest day on record.

The high spot of the day from a stock market viewpoint was the statement by John D. Rockefeller that there was no need to destroy values and that he and his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., had been heavy buyers of stocks for investment in the last few days, and would continue to buy at present prices...

-- New York Herald Tribune, October 31, 1929

_____

Very Prosperous Year Is Forecast
Guenther Analyzes the Report of Mellon Covering 1929

That 1930 may be a very prosperous year, industrially and otherwise, without the peak conditions that made 1929 and exceptional year for business prosperity, is an observation made by Louis Guenther, publisher of the Financial World, in a statement based upon Secretary Mellon's fiscal report...
"To grow too fast is often unhealthy because of the suddenness with which a readjustment must be met. By far and large the country would be better off were further progress made along more normal lines...

Fortunately, we have returned to a more normal mind in appraising prospects. We are not looking for the Midas touch on everything to which we turn. That makes us more satisfied with normal incomes and normal profit returns."

-The World, December 15, 1929

Mercenary Revolution

The Mercenary Revolution
By JEREMY SCAHILL

If you think the U.S. has only 160,000 troops in Iraq, think again.

With almost no congressional oversight and even less public awareness, the Bush administration has more than doubled the size of the U.S. occupation through the use of private war companies.

There are now almost 200,000 private "contractors" deployed in Iraq by Washington. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of billing corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored and whose crimes are virtually unpunished.

In essence, the Bush administration has created a shadow army that can be used to wage wars unpopular with the American public but extremely profitable for a few unaccountable private companies.

Since the launch of the "global war on terror," the administration has systematically funneled billions of dollars in public money to corporations like Blackwater USA , DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Erinys and ArmorGroup. They have in turn used their lucrative government pay-outs to build up the infrastructure and reach of private armies so powerful that they rival or outgun some nation's militaries.

"I think it's extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force and the use of violence in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives," says veteran U.S. Diplomat Joe Wilson, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War.

The billions of dollars being doled out to these companies, Wilson argues, "makes of them a very powerful interest group within the American body politic and an interest group that is in fact armed. And the question will arise at some time: to whom do they owe their loyalty?"

Precise data on the extent of U.S. spending on mercenary services is nearly impossible to
obtain - by both journalists and elected officials-but some in Congress estimate that up to 40 cents of every tax dollar spent on the war goes to corporate war contractors. At present, the United States spends about $2 billion a week on its Iraq operations.

While much has been made of the Bush administration's "failure" to build international consensus for the invasion of Iraq, perhaps that was never the intention. When U.S. tanks rolled into Iraq in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of "private contractors" ever deployed in a war. The White House substituted international diplomacy with lucrative war contracts and a coalition of willing nations who provided token forces with a coalition of billing corporations that supplied the brigades of contractors.

'THERE'S NO DEMOCRATIC CONTROL'

During the 1991 Gulf War, the ratio of troops to private contractors was about 60 to 1. Today, it is the contractors who outnumber U.S. forces in Iraq. As of July 2007, there were more than 630 war contracting companies working in Iraq for the United States. Composed of some 180,000 individual personnel drawn from more than 100 countries, the army of contractors surpasses the official U.S. military presence of 160,000 troops.

In all, the United States may have as many as 400,000 personnel occupying Iraq, not including allied nations' militaries. The statistics on contractors do not account for all armed contractors. Last year, a U.S. government report estimated there were 48,000 people working for more than 170 private military companies in Iraq. "It masks the true level of American involvement," says Ambassador Wilson.

How much money is being spent just on mercenaries remains largely classified. Congressional sources estimate the United States has spent at least $6 billion in Iraq, while Britain has spent some $400 million. At the same time, companies chosen by the White House for rebuilding projects in Iraq have spent huge sums in reconstruction funds - possibly billions on more mercenaries to guard their personnel and projects.

The single largest U.S. contract for private security in Iraq was a $293 million payment to the British firm Aegis Defence Services, headed by retired British Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, who has been dogged by accusations that he is a mercenary because of his private involvement in African conflicts. The Texas-based DynCorp International has been another big winner, with more than $1 billion in contracts to provide personnel to train Iraqi police forces, while Blackwater USA has won $750 million in State Department contracts alone for "diplomatic security."

At present, an American or a British Special Forces veteran working for a private security company in Iraq can make $650 a day. At times the rate has reached $1,000 a day; the pay dwarfs many times over that of active duty troops operating in the war zone wearing a U.S. or U.K. flag on their shoulder instead of a corporate logo.

"We got [tens of thousands of] contractors over there, some of them making more than the Secretary of Defense," House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Penn.) recently remarked. "How in the hell do you justify that?" In part, these contractors do mundane jobs that traditionally have been performed by soldiers. Some require no military training, but involve deadly occupations, such as driving trucks through insurgent-controlled territory.

Others are more innocuous, like cooking food or doing laundry on a base, but still court grave risk because of regular mortar and rocket attacks.

These services are provided through companies like KBR and Fluor and through their vast labyrinth of subcontractors. But many other private personnel are also engaged in armed combat and "security" operations. They interrogate prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights, protect senior occupation officials and, in at least one case, have commanded U.S. and international troops in battle.

In a revealing admission, Gen. David Petraeus, who is overseeing Bush's troop "surge," said earlier this year that he has, at times, been guarded in Iraq by "contract security." At least three U.S. commanding generals, not including Petraeus, are currently being guarded in Iraq by hired guns. "To have half of your army be contractors, I don't know that there's a precedent for that," says Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating war contractors.

"Maybe the precedent was the British and the Hessians in the American Revolution. Maybe that's the last time and needless to say, they lost. But I'm thinking that there's no democratic control and there's no intention to have democratic control here."

The implications are devastating. Joseph Wilson says, "In the absence of international consensus, the current Bush administration relied on a coalition of what I call the co-opted, the corrupted and the coerced: those who benefited financially from their involvement, those who benefited politically from their involvement and those few who determined that their relationship with the United States was more important than their relationship with anybody else. And that's a real problem because there is no underlying international legitimacy that sustains us throughout this action that we've taken."

Moreover, this revolution means the United States no longer needs to rely on its own citizens to fight its wars, nor does it need to implement a draft, which would have made the Iraq war politically untenable.

'AN ARM OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'

During his confirmation hearings in the Senate this past January, Petraeus praised the role of private forces, claiming they compensate for an overstretched military. Petraeus told the senators that combined with Bush's official troop surge, the "tens of thousands of contract security forces give me the reason to believe that we can accomplish the mission."

Taken together with Petraeus's recent assertion that the surge would run into mid-2009, this means a widening role for mercenaries and other private forces in Iraq is clearly on the table for the foreseeable future.

"The increasing use of contractors, private forces or as some would say 'mercenaries' makes wars easier to begin and to fight - it just takes money and not the citizenry," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, whose organization has sued private contractors for alleged human rights violations in Iraq.

"To the extent a population is called upon to go to war, there is resistance, a necessary resistance to prevent wars of self-aggrandizement, foolish wars and in the case of the United States, hegemonic imperialist wars. Private forces are almost a necessity for a United States bent on retaining its declining empire. Think about Rome and its increasing need for mercenaries."

Privatized forces are also politically expedient for many governments. Their casualties go uncounted, their actions largely unmonitored and their crimes unpunished. Indeed, four years into the occupation, there is no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations, nor is there any effective law - military or civilian being applied to their activities. They have not been subjected to military courts martial (despite a recent congressional attempt to place them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice), nor have they been prosecuted in U.S. civilian courts. And no matter what their acts in Iraq, they cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts because in 2004 the U.S. occupying authority granted them complete immunity.

"These private contractors are really an arm of the administration and its policies," argues Kucinich, who has called for a withdrawal of all U.S. contractors from Iraq. "They charge whatever they want with impunity. There's no accountability as to how many people they have, as to what their activities are."

That raises the crucial question: what exactly are they doing in Iraq in the name of the U.S. and U.K. governments? Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a leading member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which is responsible for reviewing sensitive national security issues, explained the difficulty of monitoring private military companies on the U.S. payroll: "If I want to see a contract, I have to go up to a secret room and look at it, can't take any notes, can't take any notes out with me, you know - essentially, I don't have access to those contracts and even if I did, I couldn't tell anybody about it."

'A MARKETPLACE FOR WARFARE'

On the Internet, numerous videos have spread virally, showing what appear to be foreign mercenaries using Iraqis as target practice, much to the embarrassment of the firms involved. Despite these incidents and the tens of thousands of contractors passing through Iraq, only two individuals have been ever indicted for crimes there. One was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, while the other pled guilty to possessing child-pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison.

Dozens of American soldiers have been court-martialed - 64 on murder-related charges alone - but not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for a crime against an Iraqi. In some cases, where contractors were alleged to have been involved in crimes or deadly incidents, their companies whisked them out of Iraq to safety.

U.S. contractors in Iraq reportedly have their own motto: "What happens here today, stays here today." International diplomats say Iraq has demonstrated a new U.S. model for waging war; one which poses a creeping threat to global order.

"To outsource security-related, military related issues to non-government, non-military forces is a source of great concern and it caught many governments unprepared," says Hans von Sponeck, a 32-year veteran U.N. diplomat, who served as head of the U.N. Iraq mission before the U.S. invasion.

In Iraq, the United States has used its private sector allies to build up armies of mercenaries many lured from impoverished countries with the promise of greater salaries than their home militaries can pay. That the home governments of some of these private warriors are opposed to the war itself is of little consequence.

"Have gun, will fight for paycheck" has become a globalized law.

"The most worrying aspect is that these forces are outside parliamentary control. They come from all over and they are answerable to no one except a very narrow group of people and they come from countries whose governments may not even know in detail that they have actually been contracted as a private army into a war zone," says von Sponeck.

"If you have now a marketplace for warfare, it is a commercial issue rather than a political issue involving a debate in the countries.

You are also marginalizing governmental control over whether or not this should take place, should happen and, if so, in what size and shape. It's a very worrying new aspect of international relations. I think it becomes more and more uncontrollable by the countries of supply."

In Iraq, for example, hundreds of Chilean mercenaries have been deployed by U.S. companies like Blackwater and Triple Canopy, despite the fact that Chile, as a rotating member of the U.N. Security Council, opposed the invasion and continues to oppose the occupation of Iraq. Some of the Chileans are alleged to have been seasoned veterans of the Pinochet era.

"There is nothing new, of course, about the relationship between politics and the economy, but there is something deeply perverse about the privatization of the Iraq War and the utilization of mercenaries," says Chilean sociologist Tito Tricot, a former political prisoner who was tortured under Pinochet's regime.

"This externalization of services or outsourcing attempts to lower costs - third world mercenaries are paid less than their counterparts from the developed world - and maximize benefits. In other words, let others fight the war for the Americans. In either case, the Iraqi people do not matter at all."

NEW WORLD DISORDER

The Iraq war has ushered in a new system. Wealthy nations can recruit the world's poor, from countries that have no direct stake in the conflict, and use them as cannon fodder to conquer weaker nations. This allows the conquering power to hold down domestic casualties - the single-greatest impediment to waging wars like the one in Iraq. Indeed, in Iraq, more than 1,000 contractors working for the U.S. occupation have been killed with another 13,000 wounded. Most are not American citizens, and these numbers are not counted in the official death toll at a time when Americans are increasingly disturbed by casualties.

In Iraq, many companies are run by Americans or Britons and have well-trained forces drawn from elite military units for use in sensitive actions or operations. But down the ranks, these forces are filled by Iraqis and third-country nationals. Indeed, some 118,000 of the estimated 180,000 contractors are Iraqis, and many mercenaries are reportedly ill-paid, poorly equipped and barely trained Iraqi nationals.

The mercenary industry points to this as a positive: we are giving Iraqis jobs, albeit occupying their own country in the service of a private corporation hired by a hostile invading power.

Doug Brooks, the head of the Orwellian named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, argued from early on in the occupation, "Museums do not need to be guarded by Abrams tanks when an Iraqi security guard working for a contractor can do the same job for less than one-fiftieth of what it costs to maintain an American soldier. Hiring local guards gives Iraqis a stake in a successful future for their country. They use their pay to support their families and stimulate the economy. Perhaps most significantly, every guard means one less potential guerrilla."

In many ways, it is the same corporate model of relying on cheap labor in destitute nations to staff their uber-profitable operations. The giant multinationals also argue they are helping the economy by hiring locals, even if it's at starvation wages.

"Donald Rumsfeld's masterstroke, and his most enduring legacy, was to bring the corporate branding revolution of the 1990s into the heart of the most powerful military in the world," says Naomi Klein, whose upcoming book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, explores these themes.

"We have now seen the emergence of the hollow army. Much as with so-called hollow corporations like Nike, billions are spent on military technology and design in rich countries while the manual labor and sweat work of invasion and occupation is increasingly outsourced to contractors who compete with each other to fill the work order for the lowest price. Just as this model breeds rampant abuse in the manufacturing sector - with the big-name brands always able to plead ignorance about the actions of their suppliers-so it does in the military, though with stakes that are immeasurably higher." In the case of Iraq, the U.S. and U.K. governments could give the public perception of a withdrawal of forces and just privatize the occupation. Indeed, shortly after former British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he wanted to withdraw 1,600 soldiers from Basra, reports emerged that the British government was considering sending in private security companies to "fill the gap left behind."

THE SPY WHO BILLED ME

While Iraq currently dominates the headlines, private war and intelligence companies are expanding their already sizable footprint. The U.S. government in particular is now in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in its history. According to a recent report in Vanity Fair, the government pays contractors as much as the combined taxes paid by everyone in the United States with incomes under $100,000, meaning "more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to [contractors] rather than to the [government]."

Some of this outsourcing is happening in sensitive sectors, including the intelligence community. "This is the magnet now. Everything is being attracted to these private companies in terms of individuals and expertise and functions that were normally done by the intelligence community," says former CIA division chief and senior analyst Melvin Goodman. "My major concern is the lack of accountability, the lack of responsibility. The entire industry is essentially out of control. It's outrageous."

RJ Hillhouse, a blogger who investigates the clandestine world of private contractors and U.S. intelligence, recently obtained documents from the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) showing that Washington spends some $42 billion annually on private intelligence contractors, up from $17.54 billion in 2000. Currently that spending represents 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget going to private companies.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that the current head of the DNI is Mike McConnell, the former chair of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the private intelligence industry's lobbying arm. Hillhouse also revealed that one of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence documents, the Presidential Daily Briefing, is prepared in part by private companies, despite having the official seal of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

"Let's say a company is frustrated with a government that's hampering its business or business of one of its clients. Introducing and spinning intelligence on that government's suspected collaboration with terrorists would quickly get the White House's attention and could be used to shape national policy," Hillhouse argues.

MUTLINATIONAL MERCENARIES

Empowered by their new found prominence, mercenary forces are increasing their presence on other battlefields: in Latin America, DynCorp International is operating in Colombia, Bolivia and other countries under the guise of the "war on drugs" - U.S. defense contractors are receiving nearly half the $630 million in U.S. military aid for Colombia; in Africa, mercenaries are deploying in Somalia, Congo and Sudan and increasingly have their sights set on tapping into the hefty U.N. peacekeeping budget (this has been true since at least the early 1990s and probably much earlier). Heavily armed mercenaries were deployed to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while proposals are being considered to privatize the U.S. border patrol.

Brooks, the private military industry lobbyist, says people should not become "overly obsessed with Iraq," saying his association's "member companies have more personnel working in U.N. and African Union peace operations than all but a handful of countries." Von Sponeck says he believes the use of such companies in warfare should be barred and has harsh words for the institution for which he spent his career working: "The United Nations, including the U.N. Secretary General, should react to this and instead of reacting, they are mute, they are silent."

This unprecedented funding of such enterprises, primarily by the U.S. and U.K. governments, means that powers once the exclusive realm of nations are now in the hands of private companies with loyalty only to profits, CEOs and, in the case of public companies, shareholders. And, of course, their client, whoever that may be. CIA-type services, special operations, covert actions and small-scale military and paramilitary forces are now on the world market in a way not seen in modern history. This could allow corporations or nations with cash to spend but no real military power to hire squadrons of heavily armed and well-trained commandos.

"It raises very important issues about state and about the very power of state. The one thing the people think of as being in the purview of the government - wholly run and owned by - is the use of military power," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky. "Suddenly you've got a for-profit corporation going around the world that is more powerful than states, can effect regime possibly where they may want to go, that seems to have all the support that it needs from this administration that is also pretty adventurous around the world and operating under the cover of darkness.

"It raises questions about democracies, about states, about who influences policy around the globe, about relationships among some countries. Maybe it's their goal to render state coalitions like NATO irrelevant in the future, that they'll be the ones and open to the highest bidder. Who really does determine war and peace around the world?"

Jeremy Scahill is author of The New York Times-bestseller "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.". He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute. This article appears in the current issue of The Indypendent newspaper. He can be reached at jeremy(AT)democracynow.org

Banking Against Disaster

A New New Deal


When the levees broke in New Orleans, I wrote about the desperate need for a New Deal for the 21st Century – one which would rebuild a crumbling infrastructure, help address glaring income inequality, and repair the damage done by a Bush administration fiercely hostile to the notion that government can serve the public good.

The collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis is yet another alarm, alerting us to our skewed priorities and need for a public investment agenda.

As The Nation argues in its forthcoming lead editorial, the neglect of our infrastructure is seen in collapsing bridges and exploding steam pipes, flooded subways, traffic-choked streets and clogged-up ports, electrical power brownouts, corroding drinking water systems, uneven broadband access, and an antiquated air traffic system.

The US Department of Transportation estimated that freight bottlenecks cost the economy $200 billion a year--nearly 1.6 percent of GDP. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that it would cost $151 billion and $390 billion every year over the next 20 years to repair obsolete drinking water and wastewater systems, respectively -- systems that average 50 to 100 years of age. According to the Federal Highway Administration, $131.7 billion and $9.4 billion is needed every year over the next 20 years to repair deficient roads and bridges, respectively. Moreover, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that $1.6 trillion over the next five years would be required to alleviate problems with the nation's infrastructure. As John Nichols wrote, "That $1.6 trillion figure sounds like a lot of money, unless it is compared with the anticipated cost of $1 trillion or more for completing George Bush's mission in Iraq."

This is eminently doable, it's a question of political will.

Following the bridge collapse, Senators Christopher Dodd and Chuck Hagel introduced legislation to establish a National Infrastructure Bank that would enable the federal government to help finance infrastructure projects – partly through federal guarantees to state and local governments. Projects would include publicly-owned mass transit systems, roads, bridges, drinking water and wastewater systems, and housing properties. In the House, Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Steven LaTourette introduced The Rebuilding America's Infrastructure Act which would create a low-cost federal financing mechanism to administer zero-interest loans to localities. States choose which projects to fund with the loans according to their specific needs.

The problem is that the Dodd bill, as well-intentioned as it is, would still invest only $60 billion a year – which pales in comparison to the scope of the problem. Similarly, Senator Bernie Sanders good bill to foster green collar jobs – which passed in the House too – also allots only $100 million. A much bolder undertaking is needed.

In a forthcoming paper for the New America Foundation economist (and sometime Nation contributor) James K. Galbraith writes, "Contrary to considerable myth, economic development in America has never been a purely private matter." Galbraith cites the Congress of 1862 and its authorization of land grant universities, homesteading, and the transcontinental railroads. And the New Deal which "laid down much of the public architectural legacy with which we live today."

Galbraith describes attempts in the 1980's to foster higher infrastructure investment on a systematic basis – such as Representatives Lee Hamilton and James Howard's effort to create a Federal Infrastructure Bank "which would have provided funds on a revolving basis to states and cities to support local and regional infrastructure." And late in the Clinton administration similar ideas were discussed "but of course died with the arrival of the Bush government."

In order to address the infrastructure needs – and the transition to a low-carbon emissions society that is required to meet the challenge of global warming – Galbraith calls for a Federal Infrastructure Bank to assist state and local governments with financial resources; and investments in universities and research centers to develop the needed specialists in urban design, environmental engineering, energy economics, transportation systems, carbon sequestration, the management of carbon trading markets and other fields. Galbraith estimates that a new large scale public investment initiative could be undertaken that amounts to new expenditures rising to two percent of GDP over a period of a few years – approximately 290 billion dollars per year in present dollars. (Roughly one-half of the current national security budget.)

In Hometown America, a report based on two years of research by a group of progressive thinkers, the authors write that "for the past 20 to 30 years, major parts of our economy and society have been short-changed – trillions of dollars of investment needed but not made in healthcare, education, energy independence, and a broad range of other essentials. We conclude that serious reforms are needed to make up for these shortfalls and to build a new generation of growth and middle class prosperity."

The report argues that the last great American middle class – created on rising wages, a strong industrial economy, and government programs that expanded public education, increased home ownership and eliminated poverty in old age – has eroded over the last three decades due to globalization, financial liberalization at the expense of middle class prosperity, an increased tax burden on the middle class, and military adventures abroad over public investments at home. The authors call for using "government much like an earlier generation did to create a high-wage and technologically advanced economy with a broad base of middle class jobs."

The report outlines "a new federal revenue sharing and regional decision-making process…."; a National Capital Budget and Development Bank "to finance and oversee the substantial resources that federal, state, and local governments will need to accomplish major reforms in healthcare, education, energy use, and other key areas"; and "reining in an over-reliance on military projection and strengthening economic and diplomatic engagement…."

Specifically, Hometown America calls for investment in the following areas: basic infrastructure – roads, bridges, levees, water systems, electrical grids; a new energy infrastructure for biofuels, hydrogen, solar, and other renewables; the build-out of America's broadband infrastructure; an expanded and advanced air and rail transportation system, including a new Skyways and Rail system to for the American heartland to complement the Interstate Highway system; a new system of federal research centers to push the frontiers of science of technology; and a network of public health clinics, new technology extension centers, and regional art and culture centers. And, as many have pointed out, "For national security, environmental, and economic reasons, the promotion of a renewable energy industry must be the first priority of any new public investment initiative." The Apollo Alliance has provided a blueprint to do just that – with $300 billion invested over the next 10 years, creating 3.3 million jobs, leading to economic growth, more tax revenues, and energy independence.

Citizens need to make it clear to the presidential candidates – and their representatives – that they seek a bold vision to renew our shredded social contract and rebuild our public infrastructure. Otherwise we can expect continued tragedies as we saw last week, and the same path of privilege for the few and treading water for the rest.

Canadian Mercenaries Abroad

Just Because It’s Canadian, Does That Make It Good?
by Yves Engler / August 5th, 2007

A few weeks ago, four Montreal-based GardaWorld (“fifth largest integrated physical security and cash logistics firm worldwide” — according to the company website) employees were kidnapped while providing security for BearingPoint Consultants in Iraq. In a front page Ottawa Citizen article headlined, “How a nice Quebec firm found itself in a war zone”, the head of the company deflected criticism of its 5,000 private soldiers in the Middle East by claiming, “we’re perceived differently because we’re Canadian.”

Of course he didn’t mention if the Iraqi mothers whose children have been shot by mercenaries (unaccountable to any law) feel that way on discovering the bullets originate from a Canadian company.

The company’s eagerness to point out their heritage is a strategy that milks Canadians’ deep-seated perception of this country’s altruism. Numerous studies demonstrate that Canadians’ self-appraisal of their country’s foreign policy is the highest in the world.

But do the facts fit our self-image?

It is well known that Canada participated militarily in the Boer War, First World War, Second World War, Korean War, first Gulf War, bombing of Serbia and the war in Afghanistan. What is less well known is that Canada did so without facing a serious threat of invasion and that none of these wars were morally justifiable. (WWII may have been justifiable after the fact, but
Canadian motives for participating were not a high-minded struggle against anti-semitism or fascism. In a summer 1937 meeting with Hitler, Prime Minister McKenzie King lauded the Nazi’s support for the Fascists in Spain and during the war the Canadian government had a “none is too many” policy on immigration for fleeing European Jews.) Canada’s entry into the first three wars was more or less automatic because this country was part of the British Empire. We joined the last four conflicts because, quite frankly, Canada had become part of the U.S. Empire.

Many of us cite peacekeeping as a great Canadian endeavor. Canada and the Early Cold War, a book financed by the Department of Foreign Affairs, lays the myth of benevolent peacekeeping to rest. “The more extreme version of this myth, which makes Lester Pearson [the founder of peacekeeping] into Herbert Evatt raging against Great Power dominance and transforms Canada’s peacekeeping into neutralism or even pacifism, receives no support in the
DCER [documents on Canadian external relations].” Through peacekeeping, Canada was fighting the Western world’s Cold War “by other means.”

Aid is probably the most benevolent aspect of Canadian foreign policy. Yet, an important principle of Canadian aid is that where the US kills, Canada provides aid. Canadian aid expanded drastically in South Vietnam during the American War. More recently, the three major recipients of Canadian aid are Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. In Haiti, that aid was used to help overthrow
an elected government and then legitimate the brutal 26-month coup regime.

Geopolitics has always been the primary reason for disbursing Canadian aid. In the wake of the Chinese revolution, Canada began its first significant [non–European] allocation of foreign aid through the Colombo plan. The man in charge of Canada’s participation in the plan, Nik Cavell, explained the rationale behind the plan. Communism “has made a great inroad in Asia … and is busy day and night softening up, and preparing, other populations ready for the day when they too can be made satellites of an ever-growing world of terrible totalitarian slavery of the human mind and body.”

If some of India and Pakistan’s post-colonial population had not set their sights on a communist solution to their troubles –- with the possibility of Soviet or Chinese assistance — Canada probably would not have been willing to provide aid. The Colombo plan was then extended to Commonwealth Africa and the Caribbean amidst fears the British Empire’s old territories would fall under the influence of the communist bloc.

A 1969 background paper for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) summarizes the rationale of Canadian aid. “To establish within recipient countries those political attitudes or commitments, military alliances or military bases that would assist Canada or Canada’s western allies to maintain a reasonably stable and secure international political
system. Through this objective, Canada’s aid programs would serve not only to help increase Canada’s influence within the developing world, but also within the western alliance.”

The second motivation driving Canadian aid is to advance capitalist interests. Initially all Canadian aid was tied, meaning that the money had to be spent on Canadian-produced goods or services. Even after four decades of criticism half of all Canadian aid is still tied. Additionally, many of the projects funded are chosen because they benefit Canadian corporate interests. A boon to Canadian-owned hotels and airlines, Canadian aid has been used to build airports throughout the Caribbean. And, by the late 1980s, aid became a way to coerce developing countries to adopt structural adjustment programs.

The third motivation behind Canadian aid is domestic: It aims to weaken the Quebec sovereignty movement and social movements generally across the country. In the late 1960s, Canada began to expand its aid to francophone nations as a way to placate Quebec nationalists. Prior to this, Canadian aid was focused on the recently decolonized former British colonies. The aid to the Francophonie was designed to convince Quebec nationalists that the Canadian government was sympathetic to francophone culture. Quebec’s large number of CIDA-funded international non-governmental organizations (and the jobs they provide, especially to young people) is a testament to the federal government’s policy of tying Quebecers to its overall aid objectives.

Of course, state funding for social/political organizations always has an element of co-optation. In the case of international assistance, the federal government would prefer activists join the Canadian University Services Overseas and go teach somewhere in Africa then organize to oppose the capitalist system at home. It’s a way of directing activists towards issues the government finds less politically sensitive as well as making them dependent on the federal government.

The other motivations behind Canadian aid are to feed the hungry, to build schools and other infrastructure, and to help people climb out of poverty. Unfortunately, these motivations are less acted upon than the ones cited above. That is because there are powerful actors in business and government who make sure their interests are satisfied before all others.

Unfortunately, most of us have, so far, paid more attention to the words than to the deeds of our governments and corporations. Only when the vast majority of Canadians pay attention to the reality of foreign affairs and demand altruistic aid, real international co-operation, benevolent peacekeeping instead of militarism, and the rule of law instead of an empire’s might, will these things happen.

Yves Engler is the author of two books: Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (with Anthony Fenton) and Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical. Read other articles by Yves.

D.C. Madam, DCphonelist

“Brandeis Boys” come to D.C. Madam’s rescue with website of phone listings
By The Hill.

As the phone records of the “D.C. Madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey, became public last week, curious Washingtonians started searching a mysterious database at dcphonelist.com that had organized mountains of her documents.

In their first on-the-record phone interview, the men behind the website spoke to the Hill about who they are, how they created the database and why they put it online.

Kevin, Igor and Yoni described their experiences in a conference call. The crew’s fourth member, Danny, was not present.
All asked that their last names not be printed.

Kevin said they were concerned for their respective employers.

“It also prevents people from calling us up and harassing us, or worse,” he said. “The irony is not entirely lost on us.”

The website’s registration remains private and its purveyors are shy with the press, e-mailing an Associated Press reporter for an article on Palfrey last week.

Many have plugged individuals’ phone numbers into the database in attempts to determine who utilized Palfrey’s services.
Some big fish have come under fire following their outing as possible clients, such as Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and a former Bush administration official, Randall Tobias.

The proprietor of a Washington, D.C. escort service, Palfrey has been charged by federal authorities with running a prostitution ring. She has maintained her innocence and released her phone records to find witnesses for her potential trial.

All in their mid-20s, the “D.C. Phone Listers” — as they identified themselves in their first e-mail to The Hill — are computer programmers and IT specialists who live and work in the Boston area. All have informed their employers of their work for the website.

Fast friends since 2001, the Brandeis University alumni studied computer science, political science and philosophy and worked on the college newspaper.

The website’s e-mail address includes the name “Dembitz” — the middle name of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis — in a nod to the group’s alma mater, which was named for the judge.

The four aim to empower local reporters and citizen journalists, who may not have the resources of national media organizations, by posting the searchable database online.

“What this does is let someone in Kansas who has the right phone numbers search the data and see for himself,” Yoni said.

Feedback so far has been “all positive,” according to the group, with a few corrections made and several individuals saying their phone numbers were misdials.

Palfrey is a fan of the group’s work. “God bless them,” said Palfrey, who called the website’s founders “the Brandeis Boys” during an interview.

“I think what they are doing is a great, patriotic service to this country,” Palfrey said. “These fellows are democracy in action.”

Palfrey’s lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said that since Palfrey’s assets have been seized, she could not post a similar database.

“We got quotes from five or six people that said [it] would cost between $15,000 and $30,000 to do this very thing they have done now,” Sibley said. The attorney said the website has helped find about a dozen witnesses.

Not hired by Palfrey, the website team has had little contact with her or her attorney beyond a few e-mails and linking to one another’s websites. Kevin and others have asked Sibley to rescan some of the phone records so they can be used for the website.

The project’s only monetary expenditure so far was buying the domain for $10. The group said it has neither earned nor lost any money. “We joke about selling T-shirts,” Igor said.

“It would be throwing another layer of complication on it by putting ads up,” Kevin said, adding that that “might raise questions about our integrity.”

But the site has cost everyone involved plenty of time, about 100 man-hours between the four. On Monday, July 9, when Palfrey’s phone records were released, the group stayed up until 5 in the morning to complete the site.

After downloading the phone records, Igor used software to turn scanned images into text files, a process known as “optical character recognition,” or OCR. Kevin then took the lead on writing the computer program to parse the phone numbers from the data, while Danny designed the website.

So far, there have been more than 100,000 visits to the site and close to 50,000 searches, according to the team.

Yet the data is not perfect. OCR cannot catch everything, they said, and many of the scanned images could not be translated into useable text files. Plus, “even if the data is accurate, it is a list of numbers, not a list of clients,” Kevin said — hence a prominent disclaimer on the site.

More records are planned for release next week, according to Palfrey. Of the estimated 75,000 outgoing calls, no calls from 1997 have been made public.

“I understand there are more to come,” said Palfrey, talking about potentially other big names in her phone records. “I think the real meat is the lobbyists here because they’re all connected to a member of Congress.”

– By Kevin Bogardus