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● 04.10.14

●● Political News: Western Foreign Policy, Torture, Surveillance, and Assassination

Posted in News Roundup at 6:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

PRISM

Condoleezza Rice Joins Dropbox’s Board As It Names New CFO, COOCondoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor has joined the board of cloud file storage and syncing firm Dropbox.Fedora Google Drive Client with Grive and Grive ToolsEdward Snowden briefs Europe on PRISM and data security

Torture

Shorter DiFi: The Torture Report Started in Response to Michael Hayden’s LieShare the Torture ReportThe CIA Tortured Prisoner With Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Songs Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea penning revealing memoir The CIA used Red Hot Chili Peppers to Torture Detainees, Plus More Artists UsedRed Hot Chili Peppers Used By CIA To Torture PrisonerWhile much has been said of the torture techniques used by the US government in the early days of the War on Terror, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation, a prisoner named Abu Zubaydah was subjected to all 10 sanctioned torture techniques, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers.Feinstein asks White House to edit torture report instead of CIARevealed: Senate report contains new details on CIA black sitesNewly Revealed Portions of CIA Torture Manual: Doctoring Tapes, Foreign “Illegal” Detentions, Interrogating “Defectors”“Tapes can also be edited and spliced, with effective results, if the tampering can be hidden,” the CIA manual explained in a section previously redacted. The CIA further elaborated on the effects of having a tape “edited to make it sound like a confession.”Guest editorial: Bruising report on CIA abuses needs quick, full disclosureLawyers for alleged USS Cole bomber seek details on CIA rendition programJust-released transcripts of a secret session at the Guantanamo war court show defense lawyers want a list of the countries where the CIA secretly jailed the alleged USS Cole bomber, and the names of people who worked at the agency’s black sites. But the prosecution won’t provide them.CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou, in Latest ‘Letter from Loretto,’ Describes Work in Prison ChapelJudge moves on Senate-CIA reportDeclassify CIA report, learn from its lessonsWhite House Allows CIA To Heavily Edit Torture ReportWhen the CIA was an outpost of ArabismFrom Cold War-era coups to “enhanced interrogation” in the “war on terror,” the CIA has courted the suspicion and hatred of the Muslim world. But it was not always so. For several years after its creation in 1947, the agency was an outpost of support for Arab nationalism in the U.S. government. CIA’s moral black holeFeinstein opposes letting CIA edit reportThe head of the Senate Intelligence Committee appealed to President Barack Obama to reconsider his administration’s decision to task the CIA with editing a torture report harshly critical of the spy agency’s treatment of terror suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks before it can be made public.

Syria

Tony Blair: We should invade Syria whether the British public wants it or notYou can’t keep a good war criminal down: Tony Blair cannot resist calling for more war every time he opens his mouth.

Iraq

The Feminist Defence of Blowing Out the Brains of Small ChildrenRather a side issue, but even if we accept Zoe Williams view that dead Iraqi children don’t matter, she appears not to have noticed that Blair introduced tuition fees, academies, kick-started NHS privatization, allowed the banksters’ bonanza leading to worldwide economic crash and oversaw the greatest widening of the gap between rich and poor in British history.

Somalia

You Been Lied To: 7 Things You May Not Know About Somali ‘Pirates’In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. It’s nine million people who have been battling widespread starvation ever since. America and other European nations saw this as a great opportunity to rob the country of its food supply and dump their nuclear waste in Somalia’s now unprotected seas.According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, approximately 12 miles into the ocean from the coast is sovereign territory of the state. Every Somali highjacking that has ever occurred happened within those 12 miles.

Venezuela

Venezuela protests are sign that US wants our oil, says Nicolás MaduroUK ‘aid’ is financing a corporate scramble for Africa£600 million of UK aid money is going to help companies like Unilever and Monsanto take over African land and agriculture, writes Miriam Ross. The corporate power-grab will be disastrous for the small-scale farmers who feed at least 70% of Africa’s people.

Ukraine

How Many Americans Can Find Ukraine On A Map?Since Russian troops first entered the Crimean peninsula in early March, a series of media polling outlets have asked Americans how they want the U.S. to respond to the ongoing situation. Although two-thirds of Americans have reported following the situation at least “somewhat closely,” most Americans actually know very little about events on the ground — or even where the ground is. On March 28-31, 2014, we asked a national sample of 2,066 Americans (fielded via Survey Sampling International Inc. (SSI), what action they wanted the U.S. to take in Ukraine, but with a twist: In addition to measuring standard demographic characteristics and general foreign policy attitudes, we also asked our survey respondents to locate Ukraine on a map as part of a larger, ongoing project to study foreign policy knowledge. We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge (or lack thereof) is related to their foreign policy views. We found that only one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force… The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.Exposing the U.S. Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Coup [a little old]Behind the U.S.-backed coup that ousted the democratically elected president of Ukraine are the economic interests of giant corporations – from Cargill to Chevron – which see the country as a potential “gold mine” of profits from agricultural and energy exploitation, reports JP Sottile. ‘Blackwater’ footage: Who are the Mercenaries in Eastern Ukraine?Surely these men were not Blackwater – simply because such a company does not exist anymore. It has changed its name twice in recent years and is now called Academi.[...]Greystone Limited mercenaries are part of what is called ‘America’s Secret Army,’ providing non-state military support not constrained by any interstate agreements, The Voice of Russia reported.Geopolitics of Empire: Mackinder’s Heartland Theory and the Containment of RussiaWhat’s been happening in the Ukraine recently makes little sense without seeing it in broader geopolitical and historical contexts, so in my search for a firmer understanding of what’s going on, I’ve been consulting the history books. First off, it needs to be said that the Ukraine is historically a part of Russia. It has been “an independent nation-state” in name since 1991, but has been completely dependent on external support ever since. And most of this “support” has not been in its best interest, to say the least. Meet Obama’s New Ukrainian FriendsMany are militant fascists. They’re thugs. They’re criminals.A Press Kit on Human Rights in UkraineThe flywheel of political repressions in Ukraine is gaining momentum these days. In sharp contrast with the liberal approach by president Yanukovych to the “Euromaidan” rout, the interim Kievan administration did not hesitate much about cracking down the public uprising against the “neo-Nazi regime” on the rise in the East and South of Ukraine. Today only in Kharkov at least 70 activists have been arrested during so-called “anti-terrorist operation”. According to the reports, foreign mercinaries presumably from the US Greystone Ltd private military contractor firm were participating in the operation along with the National Guard (majorly consisting of the ultranationalist Pravy (Right) Sector fighters) and some loyal Interior Ministry units.

AstroTurfing

Examining the Existence of Fascism in the United States“The US corporate media and education system provide the ideological chains of fascism.”Thought money could buy an American election? You ain’t seen nothin’ yetThe supreme court’s relaxing of donation rules just made US elections even more undemocratic and corruptibleThe “Cuban Twitter” Scam Is a Drop in the Internet Propaganda BucketWhat Corruption? McCutcheon Reveals Absurdity of Citizens UnitedThe U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission may actually undermine the Court’s reasoning in Citizens United that unlimited spending from Super PACs pose no risk of corruption.Wikimedia and Twitter Bots Are Breaking the NewsWe already knew that bots were writing news content, automating narrative stories from data-rich topics like sports scores and financial markets. Now, robo-reporters are starting to get scoops. They’re not just writing stories; they’re breaking them.

Privacy

How advertising cookies let observers follow you across the webBack in December, documents revealed the NSA had been using Google’s ad-tracking cookies to follow browsers across the web, effectively coopting ad networks into surveillance networks. A new paper from computer scientists at Princeton breaks down exactly how easy it is, even without the resources and access of the NSA. The researchers were able to reconstuct as much as 90% of a user’s web activity just from monitoring traffic to ad-trackers like Google’s DoubleClick. Crucially, the researchers didn’t need any special access to the ad data. They just sat back and watched public traffic across the network.

NSA

NSA monitors WiFi on US planes ‘in violation’ of privacy lawsCall of cyber duty: Military academies compete against NSA in high-tech security drillStop Comparing the NSA to 1984 (and Start Comparing It to Philip K. Dick)Democratic Congressman: NSA Deputy Director “Idiotic” “Extraordinarily Disrespectful Of The Constitution”Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, has harsh words for comments that NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett made at a recent TED talk. Ledgett said, “President Madison would have been proud” of the process to authorize the NSA’s activities.

Thomas Drake

Former NSA official to speak in Salt Lake CityThomas Drake will be discussing the spy agency’s practices and how they relate to constitutional rights at an event put on by the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics.NSA Whistleblower Warns USC Students Of Government’s Power

Europe

Op-Ed: U.S. claims using EU companies to circumvent NSA spying unfairRecent U.S. criticism will increase the conflict between the U.S. and Europe over NSA spying. The office of the U.S.Trade Representative(USTR) claims that creating an EU-centric system to avoid NSA spying would violate international trade laws. USTR Warns That EU-Only Cloud To Avoid NSA Surveillance May Violate Trade AgreementsUS Officials: EU’s NSA-Proof Communications System Violates Trade LawsEU Court Scraps NSA Style Spying Legislation

NETmundial

WikiLeaks release: Internet governance body trying to stop NSA surveillanceWikiLeaks has published what the anti-secrecy organization says is the penultimate draft agreement expected to be discussed later this month in Brazil at a global internet governance meeting co-hosted by 12 countries including the United States.

Germany

United States denies Merkel access to her own NSA filesGermany’s interior ministry reportedly approached the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) last October to ask for the file’s content, amid revelations the NSA had been tapping the Chancellor’s mobile phone, Germany’s The Local said in one of its reports.Merkel denied access to own NSA fileMerkel kept in the dark by ‘insufficient’ NSA disclosure of spyingHead of German Parliamentary Committee Investigating NSA ResignsAlthough Edward Snowden has never set foot on German soil—and is unlikely to do so any time soon—he remains a source of high drama for politicians in Berlin.‘No reply’ to NSA phone hack queryHead of German NSA inquiry quits over Snowden row

Holder

Eric Holder Admits That, If It Wanted, NSA Could Collect Internet Searches & Emails Just Like Phone MetadataLawmakers push US attorney general for NSA surveillance changesSeveral U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday urged the nation’s attorney general to curtail the National Security Agency’s collection of overseas electronic communications, saying President Barack Obama’s promise to revamp a surveillance program focused on U.S. telephone records didn’t go far enough.

Censorship

Censorship-shaming awards ‘Jefferson Muzzles’ go to White House, NSA

Reform

What the Proposed NSA Reforms Wouldn’t DoObama privacy chief wants NSA phone-snooping program to end nowDavid Medine had not been on the job for a week as chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board when The Guardian dropped its first of many bombs supplied by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.Feinstein Backs Court Orders for NSA Bulk-Phone Records

Drones

WE CAN DO BETTER | Droning About DronesStrategic Horizons: Amid Debate, U.S. Shares Drone Approach With PartnersWhile Americans debate when and where the United States should use drones to strike at insurgents and terrorists who cannot be reached by other means, they may be overlooking an important trend: the move to supply a targeted killing capability to allied nations. This began when the Bush administration decided to provide technology and advice to help the government of Colombia kill the leaders of its narco-insurgency. Today, the U.S. military is also helping the armed forces of Yemen field systems for the targeted killing of anti-government extremists associated with al-Qaida. This is the beginning of a trend, as more states will field such capabilities, including drones, with or without American help.Killer Drones in a Downward Spiral?The Homebound “Imperial Presidency”The eponymous charge of presidential imperialism, by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. back in 1973, was largely centered on the waging of secret, unilateral war (in Cambodia, say). Such issues were also front and center in the debate over George W. Bush’s claims to executive authority — recall “enhanced interrogations,” the creation of military commissions, surveillance, treaty rights, and the like. And the Obama administration is surely vulnerable to these criticisms. Obama has shown more continuity than change in these areas, embracing a number of Bush-era practices and even pushing past them in some areas, for instance in authorizing the use of drones to kill American citizens overseas and in using military force in Libya without seeking congressional approval. (Bush, by contrast, sought and received legislative sanction for both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.)City Theatre’s GroundedCan Any Court Hold U.S. Accountable for Killing Americans Overseas with Drone Strikes? A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. government’s killing of three Americans in Yemen drone strikes. The case was filed by the families of Samir Khan, Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, his teenage son, Abdulrahman, accusing top U.S. officials of unlawful killings. But on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled the victims’ constitutional rights were never violated and said the U.S. officials involved cannot be held liable. We get reaction from Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the attorneys working on Anwar Al-Awlaki’s case. “The courts have abdicated their roles with torture, they’ve abdicated their roles with indefinite detention,” LaHood says. “Here we thought finally the courts would uphold the Constitution with the killing of American citizens.” Bipartisan Team Wants More Transparency in U.S. Drone PolicyPass the Drone Strike Transparency ActDemocrats, Republicans, and Independents, we all believe that government should be transparent and accountable, right?How should we decide where we stand on a controversial government policy? A crucial first step is to try to establish key facts in the public record.American Held Incommunicado in Yemen for 39 Days, Legal Team Still Doesn’t Know WhyWhat are the drones for? We also know that the US has eavesdropped on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, even though we don’t know yet about the content of her conversations. This eavesdropping scandal could have started a huge diplomatic war between the US and Germany, but in a time when Russia was invading Crimea, these two decided to postpone the crisis for a while. Maybe the US believed this was a good opportunity to remind Germany that its hands are not clean on a number of international issues, too, and that the US knows everything about it. There is a lesson here for Turkey as well.

Snowden

Bill Clinton discusses NSA leaker Snowden during Naval Academy speechFormer President Bill Clinton called Edward Snowden “an imperfect messenger” who, while he leaked critical surveillance information, also began an important national debate on whether technology can interfere with citizen privacy. Snowden to EU: NSA is Spying on Human Rights OrganizationsEdward Snowden: Whistleblower ‘did complain to NSA’ before leaking classified US Government documentsSnowden Speaks: A Vanity Fair Exclusive“Every person remembers some moment in their life where they witnessed some injustice, big or small, and looked away, because the consequences of intervening seemed too intimidating,” former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden tells Vanity Fair about his motivation for leaking tens of thousands of secret documents. “But there’s a limit to the amount of incivility and inequality and inhumanity that each individual can tolerate. I crossed that line. And I’m no longer alone.”Rep Zoe Lofgren asks AG Eric Holder if Internet Searches Are Treated Like Telephone RecordsRep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-19) asks Attorney General Eric Holder if the Department of Justice treats third party information like Internet searches similarly to telephone records under the Patriot Act. This exchange occurred during an April 8, 2014, House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing.Edward Snowden: US government spied on human rights workersNSA Spied On Human Rights Watch And Amnesty InternationalOf course, one of the things that’s bugged me most of all about the response from NSA defenders is the typical line: “we’re not listening to you talk to your grandmother” or whatever similar line may be. But, as more and more revelations have come out, they get closer and closer to the kinds of communications I actually do have on a regular basis. Talking to sources working on interesting technology projects, talking to human rights and civil society groups around the globe. Spying on journalists. Each day there’s more and more evidence that while the NSA might not care about some mythical person talking to his or her mythical grandmother, it is very much collecting all sorts of information that those very same people thought were private — and which clearly have nothing to do with national security.

Europe

ISPs will break the law if they continue to retain our dataYesterday’s invalidation of the Data Retention Directive opens up the question, what do the government and ISPs do next? Both are in a dubious legal situation now that data retention has no legal basis. European Court of Justice finds Data Retention Directive invalidEuropean Court invalidates Data Retention Directive, says mass surveillance of metadata interferes with right to privacyData Retention: EU Court of Justice Denounces Mandatory Data RetentionIn a judgement issued this morning, the Court of Justice of the European Union opposed itself to the bulk data retention of our online communications by ruling the 2006 European Data Retention Directive invalid. In the midst of the ongoing debate on mass surveillance, this legal decision represents an important step towards regaining our fundamental right to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.Victory for privacy rights as ECJ rules that Data Retention Directive is invalidThere was a major victory for privacy rights today when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the 2006 Data Retention Directive is invalid on the grounds that it severely interferes with two of our fundamental rights: the right to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.

Police

​Nevada rancher’s land surrounded by heavily-armed federal agents, his cattle confiscatedAfter 20 years of battling the US government for use of his family’s land, a Nevada rancher’s “one-man range war” may soon end. The family says heavily-armed federal agents have surrounded the ranch as “trespass cattle” are removed from the disputed land.LAPD Cops Sabotaged Equipment Installed to Monitor ThemPolice officers generally insist that they are the biggest fans of being recorded. A PoliceOne explainer on how cops can beat a lawsuit that I’ve highlighted before stresses the important of having footage of an incident that may later be called into question. Video evidence, police instructor Richard Weinblatt wrote, “should actually be welcomed, as the majority of officers do what they are supposed to do and thus will be cleared by the video from any allegations of wrongdoing.”

Human Rights

Britain Increasingly Invokes Power to Disown Its CitizensThe Cost of WarKathy Kelly’s eyewitness reports from the U.S. War in Afghanistan

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