The news suggest , that snoden is an outlaw.......the comedy of errors is only exacerbated via the incompetence in the u.s. government using private contracters in trying to destroy the character of Mr. Snowden .
This situation has been paid for by The Mainstream, the imbedded functionaries, owned by special interest, Not in the American interest but global multinational corporations that billions are funneled into the police state. Americans must realize the concept of "Ownership determines the Content" of the mainstream media. They (the for profit centers of mass media will surely show complicity as this plays out) That is the real reason the news media foists this propaganda....to cover their ass. These so called journalist, hacks really, They are being paid handsomely to read what are told to. We, as a global force, must not buy into to the party line and focus on the message and not the messenger like they want to us believe.....the powers that be are scrambled to quash any dissent. Just like the Romans was to deny and murder the messenger........................... true reporters are dying and no one gives a fuck because of the misinformed masses. And by the way many more people are dying, because of US policy. many more than anything Snoden reveled . We are being led by psychopaths with wealth......a sort of hording disorder.
Bottom line: the unknowing masses are going to believe what they want, or chiefly, what they are told to believe. Do your own research, and most will be shocked at the deceptions of Americas propaganda machine .. look at alternative news sources. The actions of the u.s. have grossly abused global serfs that seek a peaceful existence, lackeys of corporate interest are destroying the fucking planet wantonly.
The major news networks are now insulting the collective intelligence of all of us that used to trust the government and news media to tell us the truth. No one is watching the watching dogs and that is by design. Support wistleblowers for they are brave enough to put their ass on the line for all of us. That is what true patriots of conscience are task to do for the good of all humanity. Follow the orwellian tactics that the established have chose to abuse regular law-abiding citizens. Shocking, I do not feel safer, but my rights, even under the magna carta, have been usurped. Stand up for the future of humanity!!
There is a limit to what the hard-working average citizen is going to take.............that threshold has now been crossed.....The megalomanics are hiding behind wealth, these are the real cowards kosmicdebris
The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion.
The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are
carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in
the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of
speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if
public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted,
even if laws exist to protect them.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
The
men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring
liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell
them the truth." - H. L. Mencken
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor
"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - Friederich Nietzsche
bts
aj
War Criminals Bush and Blair Claim Another Victim
"I Am Sorry That It Has Come to This": A Soldier's Last Words
Daniel Somers
Daniel wrote the following letter to his family before taking his life.
Obama Backs First-Strike Nuclear War as U.S. Policy
By Francis A. Boyle
The
entire 2013 NPR and Obama's recent nuclear arms "reduction" proposals
must be understood within this context of the United States pursuing
an offensive, strategic first-strike nuclear war-fighting capability
as augmented by non-nuclear strike forces:
Libya, Syria, Lies, Perfidies and Tony Blair
By Felicity Arbuthnot
Having
covertly provided arms and equipment to insurgents from numerous
different countries for over two years, they have now moved to the
overt stage.
US Warns Moscow Not To Let Edward Snowden Escape Russia
By Spencer Ackerman in Washington and Miriam Elder in Moscow
The Obama
administration urged Russia not to allow the surveillance
whistleblower Edward Snowden to leave the country, as his attempted
escape to South America descended into confusion and farce on Monday.
Cheney: I Helped Set Up Secret NSA Spy Program
Lawmakers Favored Secrecy on Surveillance
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON
Former
Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday U.S. congressional leaders he
briefed in 2004 on a surveillance program recently disclosed by leaker
Edward Snowden supported it, and both Republicans and Democrats wanted
to keep it secret.
Edward Snowden Legal Defense Fund
We've raised over $20,000 $23,000 for Snowden's legal defense fund and the number is still growing!
Can you
chip in to his legal defense? Every penny raised by the PCCC Strategic
Fund on this page will go to Edward's legal fees.
The Pursuit of Edward Snowden:
Washington in a Rage, Striving to Run the World
By Norman Solomon
So far,
Edward Snowden has outsmarted the smartest guys in the echo chamber --
and he has proceeded with the kind of moral clarity that U.S. officials
seem to find unfathomable.
Offering Snowden Aid, WikiLeaks Gets Back in the Game
By Scott Shane
In a
statement on Saturday, Mr. Assange suggested that President Obama was
the real "traitor," for betraying the hopes of a generation of
idealists represented by both Private Manning and Mr. Snowden. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35402.htm
Glenn Greenwald is "Aiding and Abetting" Democracy
By John Nichols
Criminalizing investigative reporting may undermine and intimidate journalism, but it is even more devastating to democracy.
A Giant Blackmail Machine
NSA Spying: So They Are Listening In, After All
By Tom Burghardt
Is it any
wonder then, that House and Senate leaders driving the "oversight"
clown car are the ones now braying loudest for Ed Snowden's head!
From The Archives
The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis
Video
Bill
Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out
by the Executive Branch of the United States Government.
This Really is Big Brother
The Leak Nobody's Noticed
By Digby
This
McClatchy piece is as chilling to me as anything we've heard over the
past few weeks about the NSA spying. In fact, it may be worse:
Forget al Qaida, The Real Terrorists Are Right Here
By Stephen Pizzo
If you
are a shark looking to make a killing the best hunting grounds are in
Washington where you can sell any idea, any weapon or high tech doodad
you claim will "make American safer from ...." you fill in the blank:
Muslim terrorists, Mexican immigrants, hackers.... etc.
Banking Giant HSBC 'A Criminal Enterprise'
Whistleblower makes damning case in video interview
By Jerome R. Corsi
John Cruz, a former vice president and relationship manager said, the financial institution was laundering money each month.
'You F--ked Up, You Trusted Us': Talking Ratings Agencies
By Matt Taibbi
The
material those lawyers found leaves virtually no doubt that the great
ratings agencies like Moody's and S&P essentially put their
analysis up for sale in the years leading up to the crash.
The Stunning Hypocrisy of the U.S. Government
By WashingtonsBlog
Congress
has exempted itself from the prohibition against trading on inside
information ... the law that got Martha Stewart and many other people
thrown in jail.
Capitalism, Democracy, and Elections
By Richard D. Wolff
Real
democracy means that important decisions affecting people's lives are
made genuinely and equally by the affected people. The capitalist
organization of enterprises thus directly contradicts real democracy.
Hard News
Iraq: 60 killed, some 100 injured in multiple blast in Baghdad:
At
least 60 Iraqi people were killed and nearly 100 injured in a series
of bombings in Baghdad on Monday, an interior ministry source said.
Maliki: Iraqi army subject to attacks by Nusra Front at borders with Syria: :
The
Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki revealed on Monday that the Iraqi army
forces were subject to attacks from the Nusra Front at the
Iraqi-Syrian borders.
42 people killed as Lebanese commandos seize complex of militant preacher:
Lebanese
commandos seized Monday a complex belonging to Sheikh Ahmad Assir in
the southern coastal city of Sidon, in the second day of clashes
between the military and gunmen loyal to the militant preacher that
have claimed the lives of at least 17 soldiers and more than 25 gunmen.
Gunmen run rampant in Tripoli:
Gunmen
have been roaming the streets of the northern city of Tripoli on
Monday morning in a show of support to Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed
al-Asir, reported the National News Agency.
Assad Must Go: Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs :
When
Israel debates whether the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad is
"good or bad for the Jews," it should consider the devastating impact
his ouster would have on Israel's sole strategic foe, Iran, Shine said.
- Assad remaining in power would be far worse than his ouster,
although that position has not yet been adopted as official Israeli
policy.
Israeli air force attacks Gaza Strip:
The
Israeli air force (IAF) attacked targets in the Gaza Strip overnight,
following rocket fire from the Palestinian territory into southern
Israel, sources from both sides of the conflict said.
Egypt's crackdown on Gaza tunnels takes economic toll on Palestinians:
Amid intensified crackdown on smuggling tunnels, prices of commodities such as cement and fuel are soaring.
Egypt's president denounces sectarian killings:
President
Mohammed Mursi's office on Monday condemned the killing of four Shiite
Muslims by a Sunni mob, reportedly incited by ultraconservative
Salafis, in a village near Cairo.
US to provide training for Yemen police force:
This
new rapprochement between Sana'a and Washington comes less than a week
after Yemeni officials confirmed the arrivals of American troops to
Yemen.
Fact or fiction?
ISAF says 33 Taliban militants killed in Afghanistan:
Security
forces killed 33 Taliban "enemies" and wounded three during an
operation in southern Afghanistan's Urozgan province, military
officials said.
Seven Police Officers Killed in Uruzgan Bomb Blast:
The incident took place in the Chenarto district of the province, when a police vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb.
Nato Occupation Force Soldier Killed In IED Attack in Eastern Afghanistan:
"An
International Security Assistance Force service member died following
an IED attack in eastern Afghanistan today," said a statement released
by Isaf on Sunday.
5 soldiers killed, 6 hurt in militant attack in Indian Kashmir:
In
a major attack, five Indian soldiers were killed and six others
injured when militants attacked an Indian army convoy in Indian
administered Kashmir on Monday evening.
Edward Snowden's location unclear after Moscow airport confusion - live updates:
Farcical scene as Snowden apparently misses Cuba flight - Ecuador: processing Snowden's asylum request.
Assange: Snowden, Manning victims of Obama's war on whistleblowers - Video -
"The
current status of Mr Snowden and Harrison is that both are healthy and
safe and they are in contact with their legal teams," the WikiLeaks
founder said. "Snowden is not a traitor, he is not a spy he is a
whistleblower who told the public the important truth," he pointed out.
Snowden receives refugee document of passage from Ecuador: Julian Assange :
Such papers did not necessarily mean that Snowden would be granted asylum in Ecuador, Assange said.
Pelosi booed for saying NSA leaker Snowden violated the law:
Pelosi
received the loudest boos and heckles from the crowd when she said
Snowden had run afoul of the law by leaking documents to the media on a
pair of secret NSA surveillance programs.
Rand Paul: DNI James Clapper lied, Edward Snowden told the truth - Video -
"I
do think that when history looks at this, they are going to contrast
the behavior James Clapper, our national intelligence director, with
Edward Snowden," - "Mr. Clapper lied in Congress, in defiance of the
law, in the name of security. Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of
privacy. So I think there will be a judgment, because both of them
broke of the law."
A White House petition to pardon Edward Snowden
George Monbio: How can we invest our trust in a government that spies on us? Op-Ed:
We should not fear some Orwellian future state where we're subjected to total electronic scrutiny - it's our present reality
Canada enacts law threatening masked protesters with ten-year jail terms:
Legislation
that gives the Canadian state draconian and arbitrary powers to
suppress protests became law last week after approval
UK and China sign three year currency swap to make business in Yuan:
Currency-swap
agreements allow central banks to swap currencies and can be used by
firms to settle trade in local currencies rather than in US dollars, as
happens now, since China's currency is not fully convertible to other
currencies.
Bond Fund Outflows Hit Record Level on Tapering Fears:
"Fund
investors are unloading bonds at a record pace. The combined outflow
of $47.2 billion is the highest in any month on record, handily
eclipsing the previous record of $41.8 billion in October 2008," said
TrimTabs CEO David Santschi, in a report released on Monday.
76% of Americans Are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck:
Roughly
three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with
little to no emergency savings, according to a survey released by
Bankrate.com Monday.
Traffic ticket money to fund future police pay raises:
An
Atlanta police source told Channel 2's Amy Napier Viteri there are
concerns that linking pay raises to tickets creates an indirect quota
system
Hard News - June 23, 2013
21 killed in separate attacks in Iraq:
A suicide bomber kills at least 13 people at a Shi'ite mosque north of Baghdad, after three other attacks leave eight dead
Report: Man who executed Saddam Hussein killed in Iraq:
One
of the executioners involved in the hanging of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein has been killed, the outlawed Baath Party said in a statement
on Friday. While not providing a date for when the executioner was
killed, the statement identified him as Mohammed Nassif al-Maliki, who
allegedly appeared in the video of Saddam's execution.
Rebel attack kills 7 people as fighting rages :
In
Damascus on Sunday, rebels launched an attack on a police post in the
northern part of the city, which left four policemen and three fighters
dead, a watchdog said.
Blasts kill 5 in Damascus:
Local
media reports that a suicide bombing went off behind a bakery shop in
the Northeast Damascus district of Rukin Addien. The attack may have
been targeting a nearby police station.
No proof who used chemical weapons: UN:
THE
head of a UN human rights investigation on Syria said it was still
impossible to tell for sure who has used chemical weapons in the
country's devastating conflict.
Qatar: Friends of Syria agree on 'secret' measures to arm rebels:
The
11 main countries which form the "Friends of Syria" coalition agrees
"to provide urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment to the
opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to
enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies,"
according to Reuters.
Syria's rebel leader urges extremist fighters to unify in return for weapons:,
The
Free Syrian Army has offered powerful Islamist rebel groups a share of
advanced new weapons if they unify under the FSA banner.
U.S. gives Syrian rebels missile training in secret camps:
Covert
training bases were set up in Jordan and Turkey months before
President Obama approved plans to arm the opposition fighting to oust
Syria's President Assad, U.S. officials and rebel leaders claim.
Fact or fiction:
Turkey shuts US-NATO arms corridor to Syrian rebels :
Turkish
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan phoned President Barack Obama in Berlin
Wednesday, June 19, to report his sudden decision to shut down the
Turkish corridor for the transfer of US and NATO arms to the Syrian
rebels.
Report: Jordan transfers military vehicles to Syrian rebels:
The
A-Sharq Saudi newspaper reported that Jordan allowed a shipment of
heavy military vehicles be transported through its territory to rebel
forces in Syria. At the same time, the Jordanian army boosted its
forces near the Syrian border.
US army in Jordan expands to '1000 troops':
"The
total comes to about 1000" troops, up from about 250 personnel that
have been in place for months, a US defence official said on condition
of anonymity.
Two Qatari officers transferred chemical materials used by terrorists in Khan al-Assal: Report:
The
newspaper pointed out that the transfer of chemical substances was
done with the knowledge of Ankara, according to security information
disclosed by an intelligence apparatus of a certain regional state.
Turkey protests put strain on Syria planning:
As
the United States needs Turkey's help to get weapons into the hands of
those fighters, Erdogan faces the threat of more street protests the
moment he pursues unpopular policies.
Clashes in Lebanon kill at least 3 as Syrian conflict spreads:
Clashes
broke out in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon on Sunday, claiming
the lives of at least three army soldiers and stoking fears that
violence triggered by the war in Syria will increasingly engulf its
smaller neighbor.
Two shot dead as Egypt readies for opposition rallies:
A
man was shot dead in overnight clashes north of Cairo between
supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist government, security
sources said, raising tensions ahead of big opposition rallies planned
next Sunday.
"Iran and American Foreign Policy: Where Did the U.S. Go Wrong?" : Video -
Noam
Chomsky and Flynt and Hillary Leverett, authors of the controversial
"Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the
Islamic Republic of Iran."
10 tourists killed by Pakistani militants:
At
least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death
overnight a Pakistani and 10 foreign tourists, including an American,
who were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area
of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said
Sunday.
Michael Hastings Sent Email About FBI Probe Hours Before Death :
Hours
before dying in a fiery car crash, award-winning journalist Michael
Hastings sent an email to his colleagues, warning that federal
authorities were interviewing his friends and that he needed to go "off
the rada[r]" for a bit.
Wow, this is looking like the largest fundraiser in Avaaz history!! So proud of all of us -- here's the email --
Dear Avaaz community,
This may be the most important email I've ever written to you.
Scientist Julienne Stroeve has studied Arctic ice for decades. Every summer she travels north to measure how much ice has melted. She knows that climate change is melting the ice fast, but on her last trip, she couldn't believe what she saw. Vast areas of Arctic ice have disappeared, beyond our worst expectations.
This is what the experts warned us about. As the earth warms, it creates many "tipping points" that accelerate the warming out of control. Warming thaws the Arctic sea ice, destroying the giant white 'mirror' that reflects heat back into space, which massively heats up the ocean, and melts more ice, and so on. We spin out of control. Already this year -- storms, temperatures -- everything is off the charts.
We CAN stop this, if we act very fast, and all together. And out of this extinction nightmare, we can pull one of the most inspiring futures for our children and grandchildren. A clean, green future in balance with the earth that gave birth to us.
We have 30 months until the Paris Summit, the meeting that world leaders have decided will determine the fate of our efforts to fight climate change. It might seem like a long time - it's not. We have 30 months to get the right leaders in power, get them to that meeting, give them a plan, and hold them accountable. And it's us vs. the oil companies, and fatalism. We can win, we must, but we need to blast out of the starting gate with pledges of just $1 per week until the summit -- we'll only process the donations if we hit our goal. For the world we dream of, let's make it happen:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/30_months_en_nd_rb_135/?bNxfadb&v=26215
Fatalism on climate change is not just futile, it's also incompetent. The hour is late, but it is still absolutely within our power to stop this catastrophe, simply by shifting our economies from oil and coal to other sources of power. And doing so will bring the world together like never before, in a deep commitment and cooperation to protect our planetary home. It's a beautiful possibility, and the kind of future Avaaz was born to create.
Facing this challenge will take heart, and hope, and also all the smarts we have. Here's the plan:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/30_months_en_nd_rb_135/?bNxfadb&v=26215
At the last major climate summit in Copenhagen 2009, we played a pivotal role in German and Japanese 'climate' elections, in shifting Brazilian policy, and in helping win a major global deal on financing, with rich countries promising $100 billion per year to poor countries to help them address climate change. Back then, Avaaz was 3 million people. After Copenhagen, we reflected that we needed to be a lot bigger to meet the challenge posed by climate change. Now, we're 23 million, and growing by 1 million per month.
Climate change is the ultimate global collective action problem, requiring cooperation from every government in the world. And Avaaz is the ultimate collective action solution, with millions of us united in common vision across every nation. This is our time, to build a world for our children that’s beauty matches our dreams. Let's get started.
With hope and appreciation for this amazing community,
Ricken and the entire Avaaz team
MORE INFORMATION:
With Arctic sea ice vulnerable, summer melt season begins briskly (The Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0501/With-Arctic-sea-ice-vulnerable-summer-melt-season-begins-briskly-video
Arctic sea ice levels to reach record low within days (Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/23/arctic-sea-ice-record-low
Five Reasons We Need a New Global Agreement on Climate Change by 2015 (Switchboard NRDC)
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/five_reasons_we_need_a_new_glo.html
The Doha climate talks were a start, but 2015 will be the moment of truth (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/10/doha-climate-talks-global-warming
Arctic sea ice melt disrupts weather patterns (NBC News)
http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/30/18631374-arctic-sea-ice-melt-disrupts-weather-patterns?lite
The Arctic Ice “Death Spiral” (Slate)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/28/arctic_sea_ice_global_warming_is_melting_more_ice_every_year.html
By Jeff Cohen
I know the issue of political spying – and not just because my lawful, nonviolent activism got me spied on by local, state and federal “intelligence” agencies (whose spy files on me were unearthed through successful lawsuits and partly successful Freedom of Information requests). I also spent a dozen years as a journalist, researcher and ACLU lawyer investigating the spies.
There are four basic truths of political spying worth remembering in light of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures about phone record and Internet surveillance. These truths were obvious before computerized spying – e.g. when the FBI’s massive 1960s spy program led to harassment and violence against civil rights and antiwar activists – and are more obvious, and perhaps more dangerous, now that digitized information on millions of us can be so easily vacuumed up.
1) False “facts” and assumptions CIRCULATE WILDLY.
2) Political spying RARELY STAYS ON TARGET; spies tend to wander.
3) Political “intelligence” is often the OPPOSITE OF ACTUAL INTELLIGENCE.
4) Big Brother has flourished under BOTH PARTIES.
FALSE FACTS GONE WILD
As a teenager in Detroit, I borrowed my dad’s car to attend totally lawful gatherings sponsored by groups like People Against Racism (PAR) and Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) – while agents of the Michigan State Police “Red Squad” hid outside and diligently recorded license plate numbers. Stacking false assumption upon false assumption, the bumbling spies linked my dad – a non-political businessman – to revolutionary communists. It was totally bogus as to him and me. Meet Sol Cohen, subversive file No. 358-552-619.
We received Sol Cohen’s file in 1983 thanks to a successful First Amendment suit revealing that the “intelligence” unit had accumulated files on 38,000 Michigan residents – including progressive politicians, consumer activists, union leaders – with not one indicted for a crime. (This wasteful surveillance occurred while Detroit’s violent crime rate was soaring.)
What’s worse than all the inaccuracies compiled on these thousands of law-abiding people – the Michigan ACLU found countless examples of guilt by (parking lot) association – is how far they can circulate. My dad’s file showed that spy units in Canada were linking him to PAR and VVAW, two groups he’d never heard of.
Nowadays, thanks to computerized spying, these false facts, suspicions and “connections” can be disseminated further, faster, and longer . . . as in forever. Guilt by association linkages can be amplified. It’s now guilt by algorithm or mathematical formula, says author Christopher Simpson. Operating with our phone records and Internet content, computers can run circles around any Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon champion.
WANDERING OFF TARGET
No matter what group is designated “Public Enemy Number 1” – whether “Communists” in the 1950s/60s or “terrorists” today – most of those surveilled and harassed will not be in the targeted group.
Over the decades, the FBI used the “Communist” pretext to spy on huge numbers of Americans, only a tiny percentage of whom were Communists. Internal documents show that Director J. Edgar Hoover, a racial bigot, unleashed the FBI against civil rights activists after being fully briefed that actual American Communists had shrunk to a tiny number and had virtually no influence on the civil rights movement.
In Los Angeles, I was part of a successful suit against the LAPD intelligence division tasked with preventing “public disorder” – a squad that squandered millions of dollars and voluminous files in the 1970s and 1980s reporting on the activities of such violence-prone rioters as Cesar Chavez, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Jackson Browne, L.A.’s first black mayor and thousands of other nonviolent citizens.
Why do spy agencies so often wander away from their designated “hard” targets to “soft” ones? It’s easier and safer. The FBI devoted far more money and energy to disrupting Martin Luther King Jr. and his nonviolent associates than to the murderous Ku Klux Klan. Today, trying to infiltrate closed, violent groups -- Al Qaeda-types, for example – can get you killed; hanging out in American mosques is much safer . . . and you can convince yourself you’re protecting the homeland.
It was perhaps inevitable that the huge “Counter Terrorism” apparatus set up after 9/11 – Homeland Security, expanded FBI, enriched private security firms (which receive an estimated 70% of the U.S. intelligence budget) – would be used against nonviolent Americans, such as the Occupy movement.
Justification for moving from a few dangerous sharks (actual criminals or terrorists) to lots of non-murderous minnows can often be found in the rhetoric of “aiding and abetting the enemy.” If Bradley Manning can be charged with “aiding the enemy” for leaking evidence of war crimes to the public, is it a big jump for the spies to electronically monitor the 70,000 of us who’ve signed a petition saying that Manning is a hero?
Overly vast surveillance can undermine actual crime-fighting; Glenn Greenwald and others have argued that the NSA’s vacuum operations are less effective against terrorists than targeted suspicion-based surveillance. I saw clearly in the 1980s that the LAPD’s deployment of huge police resources in their obsession to infiltrate dozens of nonviolent progressive groups was a serious distraction from tracking actual criminals. (After our exposures embarrassed the LAPD spy unit, one of its first maneuvers was a name change – almost two decades before the 9/11 attacks, it became the “Anti-Terrorism Division.”)
INTELLIGENCE OFTEN NOT INTELLIGENT
One need only watch Fox News Channel for an hour to see how readily paranoia warps logic, reasoning, and accurate reporting. And paranoia is an occupational hazard among spies, especially top spies like J. Edgar Hoover.
As a junior lawyer on the Southern California ACLU lawsuit that exposed the LAPD’s vast spying, I was continually stunned by the lack of knowledge and intelligence among “Intelligence” officers – and the cluelessness of those making judgments about who was politically suspect and who should be spied on. One officer, for example, concluded that Stevie Wonder was a “socialist” because he performed at an anti-nuclear concert. I remember taking deposition testimony from a police spy whose intelligence report had referred to “Trotskyist protesters.”
Q: Officer, what is a Trotskyist?
A: I do not know.
Q: Do you know if Trotskyists are followers of the teachings of a certain person?
A: I believe they are.
Q: Do you know who it is?
A: No, I don’t.
One LAPD intelligence report about the local law school I attended reveals the standard blend of ignorance, arrogance and paranoia: “The Peoples College of Law and all its disciples and students should be watched with serious consideration. They could impose a serious threat to society.” (Graduates of the school include prominent elected officials, such as the current mayor of Los Angeles.)
With today’s intelligence focus on Islamist terrorists and their alleged supporters, how broad a net is being cast by spies whose understanding of the Islamic world may be no better than domestic spies’ understanding of progressive America? Or no better than the Surveillance State’s biggest supporter in the U.S. Senate?
BIG BROTHER ABETTED BY BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS
It’s historically sad but true that the FBI’s original wiretaps on Martin Luther King were authorized by Democratic Attorney General Robert Kennedy – based on misleading information from the Bureau (not unlike the deceptions we get from our country’s top spies today). It’s also true that President Lyndon Johnson – seen as “The Civil Rights President” – used intrusive FBI wiretaps and naked political spying to undermine black Mississippians who sought to be seated as delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Whichever party is in the White House has tended to promote the Surveillance State – even if they were skeptics when the other party held power (watch Joe Biden’s flip-flop on the collection of phone metadata).
Today, with a gusto unseen by previous presidents, Obama has waged war against whistleblowers who’ve warned about Big Brother’s waste or abuse. Obama’s “national security” policies have left at least one neo-con hawk, former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, ecstatic: “Drone strikes. Wiretaps. Gitmo. O is carrying out Bush’s 4th term,” Fleischer tweeted two weeks ago. “Yet he attacked Bush 4 violating Constitution. #hypocrisy.” In a follow-up tweet, Fleischer added: “And just to be clear & so silent liberals understand, I support President O’s anti-terror actions. They’re bi-partisan now.”
The bad news for those concerned about civil liberties is that Watergate-era reforms are often empty shells – like the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court (which rubber stamps almost every request for electronic surveillance) and the intelligence committees of Congress, whether chaired by House Republicans or Senate Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, who was quick to denounce Snowden’s “act of treason.”
The even worse news is that the spies are now propelled by computer power that J. Edgar Hoover would have salivated over.
From inside the belly of Big Brother, Edward Snowden has risked everything to expose some of the latest technological threats to our political and privacy rights. His disclosures have sparked the most intense debate on surveillance and privacy in years. To thank him for his courage, click here.
Jeff Cohen cofounded the online activism group RootsAction.org, and launched the media watch group FAIR in 1986 (partly with settlement funds from the suit against LAPD spying). He is now director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, and author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.”
Dear Avaaz community,
This may be the most important email I’ve written to you. Scientists have found that vast areas of Arctic sea ice are disappearing, accelerating the destruction of our planet -- it is a climate tipping point and we CAN stop it, if we act very fast, and all together. We have 30 months until the biggest climate summit ever. To win it, we need to blast out of the starting gate. Click below to pledge a donation of $1 to help us get there:  |
Scientist Julienne Stroeve has studied Arctic ice for decades. Every summer she travels north to measure how much ice has melted. She knows that climate change is melting the ice fast, but on her last trip, she couldn't believe what she saw. Vast areas of Arctic ice have disappeared, beyond our worst expectations.
This is what the experts warned us about. As the earth warms, it creates many "tipping points" that accelerate the warming out of control. Warming thaws the Arctic sea ice, destroying the giant white 'mirror' that reflects heat back into space, which massively heats up the ocean, and melts more ice, and so on. We spin out of control. Already this year -- storms, temperatures -- everything is off the charts.
We CAN stop this, if we act very fast, and all together. And out of this extinction nightmare, we can pull one of the most inspiring futures for our children and grandchildren. A clean, green future in balance with the earth that gave birth to us.
We have 30 months until the Paris Summit, the meeting that world leaders have decided will determine the fate of our efforts to fight climate change. It might seem like a long time - it's not. We have 30 months to get the right leaders in power, get them to that meeting, give them a plan, and hold them accountable. And it's us vs. the oil companies, and fatalism. We can win, we must, but we need to blast out of the starting gate with pledges of just $1 per week until the summit -- we'll only process the donations if we hit our goal. For the world we dream of, let's make it happen:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/30_months_en_nd_rb_135/?bNxfadb&v=26215
Fatalism on climate change is not just futile, it's also incompetent. The hour is late, but it is still absolutely within our power to stop this catastrophe, simply by shifting our economies from oil and coal to other sources of power. And doing so will bring the world together like never before, in a deep commitment and cooperation to protect our planetary home. It's a beautiful possibility, and the kind of future Avaaz was born to create.
Facing this challenge will take heart, and hope, and also all the smarts we have. Here's the plan:
- 1. Go Political: Elect Climate Leaders -- 5 crucial countries
have elections in the next 30 months. Let's make sure the right people
win, and with the right mandate. Avaaz is one of the only major global
advocacy organizations that can be political. And since this fight will
be won or lost politically, it could be at some points just us vs. the
oil companies to decide who our politicians listen to.
2. Make Hollande a Hero -- French President Francois Hollande will chair the Paris summit - a powerful position. We have to try every tactic and channel -- his personal friends and family, his political constituency, his policy advisors -- to make him the hero we need him to be to make the summit a success.
3. Take it to the Next Level -- The scale of this crisis demands action that goes beyond regular campaigning. It's time for powerful, direct, non-violent action, to capture imagination, convey moral urgency, and inspire people to act. Think Occupy.
4. Out the Spoilers -- Billionaires like the Koch brothers and their oil companies are the major spoilers in climate change - funding junk science to confuse us and spending millions on misleading PR, while buying politicians wholesale. With investigative journalism and more, we need to expose and counter their horrifically irresponsible actions.
5. Define the Deal -- Even in the face of planetary catastrophe, 195 governments in a room can be just incompetent. We need to invest in top quality policy advice to develop ingenious strategies, mechanisms, and careful compromises so that when the summit arrives, a critical mass of leaders are already bought in to a large part of the deal, and no one can claim that good solutions don't exist.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/30_months_en_nd_rb_135/?bNxfadb&v=26215
At the last major climate summit in Copenhagen 2009, we played a pivotal role in German and Japanese 'climate' elections, in shifting Brazilian policy, and in helping win a major global deal on financing, with rich countries promising $100 billion per year to poor countries to help them address climate change. Back then, Avaaz was 3 million people. After Copenhagen, we reflected that we needed to be a lot bigger to meet the challenge posed by climate change. Now, we're 23 million, and growing by 1 million per month.
Climate change is the ultimate global collective action problem, requiring cooperation from every government in the world. And Avaaz is the ultimate collective action solution, with millions of us united in common vision across every nation. This is our time, to build a world for our children that’s beauty matches our dreams. Let's get started.
With hope and appreciation for this amazing community,
Ricken and the entire Avaaz team
MORE INFORMATION:
With Arctic sea ice vulnerable, summer melt season begins briskly (The Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0501/With-Arctic-sea-ice-vulnerable-summer-melt-season-begins-briskly-video
Arctic sea ice levels to reach record low within days (Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/23/arctic-sea-ice-record-low
Five Reasons We Need a New Global Agreement on Climate Change by 2015 (Switchboard NRDC)
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/five_reasons_we_need_a_new_glo.html
The Doha climate talks were a start, but 2015 will be the moment of truth (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/10/doha-climate-talks-global-warming
Arctic sea ice melt disrupts weather patterns (NBC News)
http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/30/18631374-arctic-sea-ice-melt-disrupts-weather-patterns?lite
The Arctic Ice “Death Spiral” (Slate)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/28/arctic_sea_ice_global_warming_is_melting_more_ice_every_year.html
Trust me: Political Spying + Computers = Big Brother
Monday, 24 June 2013 09:11
I know the issue of political spying – and not just because my lawful, nonviolent activism got me spied on by local, state and federal “intelligence” agencies (whose spy files on me were unearthed through successful lawsuits and partly successful Freedom of Information requests). I also spent a dozen years as a journalist, researcher and ACLU lawyer investigating the spies.
There are four basic truths of political spying worth remembering in light of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures about phone record and Internet surveillance. These truths were obvious before computerized spying – e.g. when the FBI’s massive 1960s spy program led to harassment and violence against civil rights and antiwar activists – and are more obvious, and perhaps more dangerous, now that digitized information on millions of us can be so easily vacuumed up.
1) False “facts” and assumptions CIRCULATE WILDLY.
2) Political spying RARELY STAYS ON TARGET; spies tend to wander.
3) Political “intelligence” is often the OPPOSITE OF ACTUAL INTELLIGENCE.
4) Big Brother has flourished under BOTH PARTIES.
FALSE FACTS GONE WILD
As a teenager in Detroit, I borrowed my dad’s car to attend totally lawful gatherings sponsored by groups like People Against Racism (PAR) and Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) – while agents of the Michigan State Police “Red Squad” hid outside and diligently recorded license plate numbers. Stacking false assumption upon false assumption, the bumbling spies linked my dad – a non-political businessman – to revolutionary communists. It was totally bogus as to him and me. Meet Sol Cohen, subversive file No. 358-552-619.
We received Sol Cohen’s file in 1983 thanks to a successful First Amendment suit revealing that the “intelligence” unit had accumulated files on 38,000 Michigan residents – including progressive politicians, consumer activists, union leaders – with not one indicted for a crime. (This wasteful surveillance occurred while Detroit’s violent crime rate was soaring.)
What’s worse than all the inaccuracies compiled on these thousands of law-abiding people – the Michigan ACLU found countless examples of guilt by (parking lot) association – is how far they can circulate. My dad’s file showed that spy units in Canada were linking him to PAR and VVAW, two groups he’d never heard of.
Nowadays, thanks to computerized spying, these false facts, suspicions and “connections” can be disseminated further, faster, and longer . . . as in forever. Guilt by association linkages can be amplified. It’s now guilt by algorithm or mathematical formula, says author Christopher Simpson. Operating with our phone records and Internet content, computers can run circles around any Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon champion.
WANDERING OFF TARGET
No matter what group is designated “Public Enemy Number 1” – whether “Communists” in the 1950s/60s or “terrorists” today – most of those surveilled and harassed will not be in the targeted group.
Over the decades, the FBI used the “Communist” pretext to spy on huge numbers of Americans, only a tiny percentage of whom were Communists. Internal documents show that Director J. Edgar Hoover, a racial bigot, unleashed the FBI against civil rights activists after being fully briefed that actual American Communists had shrunk to a tiny number and had virtually no influence on the civil rights movement.
In Los Angeles, I was part of a successful suit against the LAPD intelligence division tasked with preventing “public disorder” – a squad that squandered millions of dollars and voluminous files in the 1970s and 1980s reporting on the activities of such violence-prone rioters as Cesar Chavez, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Jackson Browne, L.A.’s first black mayor and thousands of other nonviolent citizens.
Why do spy agencies so often wander away from their designated “hard” targets to “soft” ones? It’s easier and safer. The FBI devoted far more money and energy to disrupting Martin Luther King Jr. and his nonviolent associates than to the murderous Ku Klux Klan. Today, trying to infiltrate closed, violent groups -- Al Qaeda-types, for example – can get you killed; hanging out in American mosques is much safer . . . and you can convince yourself you’re protecting the homeland.
It was perhaps inevitable that the huge “Counter Terrorism” apparatus set up after 9/11 – Homeland Security, expanded FBI, enriched private security firms (which receive an estimated 70% of the U.S. intelligence budget) – would be used against nonviolent Americans, such as the Occupy movement.
Justification for moving from a few dangerous sharks (actual criminals or terrorists) to lots of non-murderous minnows can often be found in the rhetoric of “aiding and abetting the enemy.” If Bradley Manning can be charged with “aiding the enemy” for leaking evidence of war crimes to the public, is it a big jump for the spies to electronically monitor the 70,000 of us who’ve signed a petition saying that Manning is a hero?
Overly vast surveillance can undermine actual crime-fighting; Glenn Greenwald and others have argued that the NSA’s vacuum operations are less effective against terrorists than targeted suspicion-based surveillance. I saw clearly in the 1980s that the LAPD’s deployment of huge police resources in their obsession to infiltrate dozens of nonviolent progressive groups was a serious distraction from tracking actual criminals. (After our exposures embarrassed the LAPD spy unit, one of its first maneuvers was a name change – almost two decades before the 9/11 attacks, it became the “Anti-Terrorism Division.”)
INTELLIGENCE OFTEN NOT INTELLIGENT
One need only watch Fox News Channel for an hour to see how readily paranoia warps logic, reasoning, and accurate reporting. And paranoia is an occupational hazard among spies, especially top spies like J. Edgar Hoover.
As a junior lawyer on the Southern California ACLU lawsuit that exposed the LAPD’s vast spying, I was continually stunned by the lack of knowledge and intelligence among “Intelligence” officers – and the cluelessness of those making judgments about who was politically suspect and who should be spied on. One officer, for example, concluded that Stevie Wonder was a “socialist” because he performed at an anti-nuclear concert. I remember taking deposition testimony from a police spy whose intelligence report had referred to “Trotskyist protesters.”
Q: Officer, what is a Trotskyist?
A: I do not know.
Q: Do you know if Trotskyists are followers of the teachings of a certain person?
A: I believe they are.
Q: Do you know who it is?
A: No, I don’t.
One LAPD intelligence report about the local law school I attended reveals the standard blend of ignorance, arrogance and paranoia: “The Peoples College of Law and all its disciples and students should be watched with serious consideration. They could impose a serious threat to society.” (Graduates of the school include prominent elected officials, such as the current mayor of Los Angeles.)
With today’s intelligence focus on Islamist terrorists and their alleged supporters, how broad a net is being cast by spies whose understanding of the Islamic world may be no better than domestic spies’ understanding of progressive America? Or no better than the Surveillance State’s biggest supporter in the U.S. Senate?
BIG BROTHER ABETTED BY BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS
It’s historically sad but true that the FBI’s original wiretaps on Martin Luther King were authorized by Democratic Attorney General Robert Kennedy – based on misleading information from the Bureau (not unlike the deceptions we get from our country’s top spies today). It’s also true that President Lyndon Johnson – seen as “The Civil Rights President” – used intrusive FBI wiretaps and naked political spying to undermine black Mississippians who sought to be seated as delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Whichever party is in the White House has tended to promote the Surveillance State – even if they were skeptics when the other party held power (watch Joe Biden’s flip-flop on the collection of phone metadata).
Today, with a gusto unseen by previous presidents, Obama has waged war against whistleblowers who’ve warned about Big Brother’s waste or abuse. Obama’s “national security” policies have left at least one neo-con hawk, former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, ecstatic: “Drone strikes. Wiretaps. Gitmo. O is carrying out Bush’s 4th term,” Fleischer tweeted two weeks ago. “Yet he attacked Bush 4 violating Constitution. #hypocrisy.” In a follow-up tweet, Fleischer added: “And just to be clear & so silent liberals understand, I support President O’s anti-terror actions. They’re bi-partisan now.”
The bad news for those concerned about civil liberties is that Watergate-era reforms are often empty shells – like the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court (which rubber stamps almost every request for electronic surveillance) and the intelligence committees of Congress, whether chaired by House Republicans or Senate Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, who was quick to denounce Snowden’s “act of treason.”
The even worse news is that the spies are now propelled by computer power that J. Edgar Hoover would have salivated over.
From inside the belly of Big Brother, Edward Snowden has risked everything to expose some of the latest technological threats to our political and privacy rights. His disclosures have sparked the most intense debate on surveillance and privacy in years. To thank him for his courage, click here.
Jeff Cohen cofounded the online activism group RootsAction.org, and launched the media watch group FAIR in 1986 (partly with settlement funds from the suit against LAPD spying). He is now director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, and author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.”
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