Embassy closures earn little respect for a US that's lost the benefit of the doubt

Embassy closures earn little respect for a US that's lost the benefit of the doubt

We might be forgiven for thinking embassy closures provoked by terrorist threats were all very convenient for the NSA

Richard Norton-Taylor
theguardian.com, Monday 5 August 2013 16.30 BST


A Yemeni soldier at a checkpoint on the road to the US embassy in Sanaa. Photograph: Hani Mohammed/AP

Not so long ago, a decision by the US and other western countries to close their embassies because of a risk of terrorist attacks, citing "chatter" from intercepted communications between al-Qaida-inspired jihadists, would have been treated overwhelmingly with unquestioning respect.

...

That they needed to go so far out of their way to defend the NSA is testament to growing concern among many other members of Congress and the US public, according to opinion polls, since the disclosure by Edward Snowden, to the Guardian and Washington Post, of the extent to which the NSA is intercepting the personal communications of Americans and non-Americans alike.

...

That scepticism may lead to potentially dangerous cynicism is the fault of the failure adequately and convincingly to hold the intelligence agencies to account. The detail of operations, certainly recent ones and ones planned for the near future, may need to be protected by secrecy. But as other commentators have pointed out, the US government, in its approach to secrecy and in particular in its attitude towards WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, has not been able to distinguish between a US Apache helicopter crew shooting unarmed men, including Reuters journalists in Iraq, and the exposure of operations that might conceivably threaten the lives of innocent Americans.

The US and UK securocracies have not been able to distinguish between the invasion of privacy and a legitimate need to protect the public from terrorist threats. Until they do so, they will sacrifice the "benefit of the doubt" approach, the public's trust, that they will need to depend on in future.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/embassy-closures-us-nsa

From ACLU to Californians. Legislators seriously considering surveillance drones to spy. Take action

NSA handing over non-terror intelligence to the Justice Department. From NSA intercepts

They started overseas before that. One of the reasons we hate Evo Morales so much

is that our DLC got some US-raised and backed neoliberal in office (Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada) to install a neoliberal free-market economy. He ran on the catchy slogan of "yes we can" years before it became popular here and nothing much else.

Water privatization was what got him ousted when this asshole had the gall to tell poor Bolivians that 1/4 of their income was now going to go to Bechtel and their resources now belonged to multinationals. They had the gall to try privatize the rain water too. Riots ensued after he ordered the police to massacre peaceful protesters and he fled to the US after looting the Bolivian treasury. Bolivia keeps asking the US to honor the extradition treaty and return him to face trial for the massacre. We just thumb our nose at them and ratchet up the rhetoric against Evo Morales who had the nerve to kill off all those neoliberal reforms and improve the lot of his people instead of filling the coffers of corporate vultures.

The Bolivian poor threw them out. Surely there's a lesson to be learned there somewhere.

America's refusal to extradite Bolivia's ex-president to face genocide charges

Obama justice officials have all but granted asylum to Sánchez de Lozada – a puppet who payrolled key Democratic advisers

Glenn Greenwald
theguardian.com, Sunday 9 September 2012 19.22 BST


Thousands of Bolivian Indians rallying in La Paz to demand the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, 16 October 2003. The sign reads, 'Goni, Zorro, murderers of the people', in reference to the president and his defense minister. Photograph: Reuters/Carlos Barria

In October 2003, the intensely pro-US president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, sent his security forces to suppress growing popular protests against the government's energy and globalization policies. Using high-powered rifles and machine guns, his military forces killed 67 men, women and children, and injured 400 more, almost all of whom were poor and from the nation's indigenous Aymara communities. Dozens of protesters had been killed by government forces in the prior months when troops were sent to suppress them.

The resulting outrage over what became known as "the Gas Wars" drove Sanchez de Lozada from office and then into exile in the United States, where he was welcomed by his close allies in the Bush administration. He has lived under a shield of asylum in the US ever since.

The Bolivians, however, have never stopped attempting to bring their former leader to justice for what they insist are his genocide and crimes against humanity: namely, ordering the killing of indigenous peaceful protesters in cold blood (as Time Magazine put it: "according to witnesses, the military fired indiscriminately and without warning in El Alto neighborhoods&quot . In 2007, Bolivian prosecutors formally charged him with genocide for the October 2003 incident, charges which were approved by the nation's supreme court.

Bolivia then demanded his extradition from the US for him to stand trial. That demand, ironically, was made pursuant to an extradition treaty signed by Sánchez de Lozada himself with the US. Civil lawsuits have also been filed against him in the US on behalf of the surviving victims.

The view that Sánchez de Lozada must be extradited from the US to stand trial is a political consensus in Bolivia, shared by the government and the main opposition party alike. But on Friday night, the Bolivian government revealed that it had just been notified by the Obama administration that the US government has refused Bolivia's extradition request:

"'Yesterday (Thursday), a document arrived from the United States, rejecting the extradition of people who have done a lot of damage to Bolivia,' leftist [President Evo] Morales, an outspoken critic of US foreign policy in Latin America, said in a speech.

"Calling the United States a 'paradise of impunity' and a 'refuge for criminals,' Morales said Washington turned down the extradition request on the grounds that a civilian leader cannot be tried for crimes committed by the military …

"Sanchez de Lozada's extradition was also demanded by opposition leaders in Bolivia and they criticized the US decision.

"Rogelio Mayta, a lawyer representing victims of the 2003 violence, said 'the US protection' of Sanchez de Lozada was not surprising.

"'It's yet another display of the US government's double moral standard,' he said."

...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/09/america-refusal-extradite-bolivia

Condemned to Die Because He’s Black

Condemned to Die Because He’s Black



This man could be put to death in Texas literally because he is Black. The judge in the case allowed his race to justify "future dangerousness".

This is lynch law. This is America.

Even one of the trial prosecutors Linda Geffin, is so appalled (because everyone convicted with "future dangerousness" was supposed to get a new hearing) that she started a petition saying he deserves a new hearing. Please sign. 22,636 more signatures NEEDED


===

NEARLY 50 years after the end of Jim Crow, African-Americans are still facing execution because of their race.

Duane Buck could end up being one of them. He was convicted in 1997 of the murders of two people in Harris County, Tex., home to the city of Houston. He does not deny his guilt in these terrible crimes, so there is no question that he must be punished. But what happened at Mr. Buck’s sentencing hearing is appalling, even for Texas, which was once among the handful of states that led the country in the lynching of African-American men and which is now the country’s most prolific executioner.

During the presentation of evidence at the penalty phase of Mr. Buck’s trial — when the jury was required to decide between the death penalty and a life sentence — the trial prosecutor elicited testimony from a psychologist for the defense indicating that Mr. Buck’s race made him more likely to be violent in the future.

The prosecutor asked, “You have determined that the sex factor, that a male is more violent than a female because that’s just the way it is, and that the race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?”

“Yes,” the psychologist, Walter Quijano, answered.

Because a finding of future dangerousness is a prerequisite for a death sentence in Texas, the prosecutor then argued in closing that the jury should rely on that race-based expert testimony to find that Mr. Buck would pose a future danger. The jury accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation, and Mr. Buck was sentenced to death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/opinion/condemned-to-die-because-hes-black.html

Oh please. How can the NSA's capabilities be damaged if the *terrorists" are still chattering?

Which is it? Have the terrorists changed their behavior or not?


Or are they listening to their own chatter now?

How can "the greatest purveyor of violence" pretend to be so concerned about terrorism if we won't look inward and change our behavior?

Here’s what real reform of the NSA looks like (Rush Holt's "Surveillance State Repeal Act")

Here’s what real reform of the NSA looks like

By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 2 at 9:21 am

Rep. Rush Holt has long been one of the most outspoken critics of the surveillance state. First elected in 1998 to represent central New Jersey, the Democrat served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees U.S. intelligence agencies, from 2003 until 2011. He is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate from New Jersey, running against Newark mayor Cory Booker.

Last week, Holt introduced the "Surveillance State Repeal Act". A number of members of Congress have offered proposals to rein in domestic surveillance, but Holt’s bill may be the most ambitious. It would repeal the 2001 Patriot Act, which the NSA has cited as the legal basis for its phone records surveillance program. It would also repeal the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, the legal foundation for the government’s PRISM program. And it would extend whistleblower protections to cover employees of intelligence agencies.

Holt spoke to us from the campaign trail on Thursday. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

======

Timothy B. Lee: How would your legislation be different from other NSA reform proposals?

Rush Holt: This isn’t reform. This is repeal. I voted against both of those (the Patriot Act and the FAA) before. And actually against Patriot before multiple times. Those bills were misguided in their specifics, and now seeing what various agencies have done to stretch the language of those bills to cover things that were never intended to be covered makes clear that they’ve got to go. Even Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) (the author of the Patriot Act) has said it was never intended to be used that way.

Have you been surprised by the revelations that have come out in the last couple of months?

I sat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and chaired the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, which was created at the recommendation of the 9/11 panel, and should be continuing except that Speaker (John) Boehner abolished it when he took office.

So having dealt with the leaders of the intelligence committee, not much surprises me. They’re in the business of secrecy and deception. And unfortunately it carries over to their interaction with Congress. One of the things about your article that I particularly liked was that you pointed out that dogged questioning by reporters has shown that the role of these programs in preventing terrorism has been peripheral at best.

...

The idea of the Fourth Amendment is not to get in the way of law enforcement and intelligence, but rather to see that they do a good job by having to prove at each step of the way that they know what they’re doing, that they’re not off running down hunches and going off on wild goose chases and witch hunts. So I’m not sure what the NSA folks and folks like Clapper have been saying behind closed doors about how effective this stuff is, but I watched it for years, and it is not effective at keeping Americans safer on balance.

...

Your proposal also would extend whistleblower protections to national security cases, right?

Yes, the legislation provides whistleblower protection for people who work in the intelligence agencies. Right now, they have no whistleblower protection comparable to what exists in other agencies. Especially in the (intelligence) agencies we need that. In agencies that are dominated by secrecy and deception .... If there had been whistleblower protection, I’m quite sure that Snowden would not have done what he did.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/02/heres-what-real-reform-of-the-nsa-looks-like/

Charles D. Varnadore, Whistle-Blower at Nuclear Lab, Dies at 71. "He got tired of fighting"

Charles D. Varnadore, Whistle-Blower at Nuclear Lab, Dies at 71



Charles D. Varnadore at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1992.
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: August 4, 2013

After Charles D. Varnadore complained about safety at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where he worked as a technician, his bosses moved him to an office containing radioactive waste. When an industrial hygienist recommended that either he or the waste be moved, he was put in a room contaminated with mercury. ("After the industrial hygienist advised that either he or the material be moved, Mr. Varnadore was placed in a room that had been a mercury reclamation center. Visible mercury, which is poisonous to the nervous system, was in several places in the room." )

Mr. Varnadore fought back, publicizing questionable safety practices at Oak Ridge, a federal nuclear research center that had helped develop the atomic bomb, and his own treatment, which he characterized as retaliation for his outspokenness.

...

Mr. Varnadore’s complaints also led to stronger laws and practices governing employees who dare to blow the whistle on powerful employers.

....

Mr. Varnadore died at his home in Lenoir City, Tenn., his wife, Frances, said. Asked about the cause, she said, “He got tired of fighting.”

...

“The only conclusion which can be drawn from this record is that they intentionally put him under stress with full knowledge that he was a cancer patient recovering from extensive surgery and lengthy chemotherapy,” the judge, Theodor P. Von Brand wrote in his decision. “Under the circumstances, he was particularly vulnerable to the workplace stresses to which he was subjected.”

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/us/charles-d-varnadore-whistle-blower-at-nuclear-lab-dies-at-71.html

Rep. Grayson was threatened w sanctions by House Intel Committee for distributing NSA info published

Lol, this is the guy trying to craft a bill protecting journalists as soon as he can figure out

how to exclude Wikileaks for all their nefarious reasons.

Senator's Attempt to Define 'Real Journalism' Blasted By Journalists

Feinstein seeks to exclude Wikileaks, unpaid reporters from 'shield law' protecting journalists and their sources
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says a bill protecting reporters and their sources should only apply to 'real journalists,' declaring that WikiLeaks employees, and nonsalaried reporters, don't count.

The "shield law" under debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee would protect journalists and their confidential sources from court orders and subpoenas.

Feinstein criticized the language of the bill Thursday, declaring she was "very disappointed" that the law contained a "flawed definition" of journalists—which she says is inclusive of WikiLeaks and nonsalaried reporters. "I’m concerned this would provide special privilege to those who are not reporters at all," she exclaimed, according to a statement released by her staffers to Common Dreams. Feinstein and Senator Dick Durbin (D - Ill.) are demanding changes to the bill's definition of journalists that reflect these concerns.

As the bill faces a third attempt at passage, after two previous failures, Thursday saw debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee over the definition of journalists and whether unpaid reporters should have the same protections as paid ones. While all parties agreed that WikiLeaks should be excluded from protection, some insisted the language already stipulates that exclusion.

"The world has changed. We’re very careful in this bill to distinguish journalists from those who shouldn’t be protected, WikiLeaks and all those, and we’ve ensured that," said Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y). "But there are people who write and do real journalism, in different ways than we’re used to. They should not be excluded from this bill."

The debate comes amid a chilling climate for journalists and their sources who cross US power. Bradley Manning was found guilty Tuesday of over 20 counts including espionage and is facing a potential 136 years in jail for revealing documents to WikiLeaks that exposed US human rights abuses and corruption across the world.

"It is dangerous to rely on only those sources the government deems worthy of protection," said Nathan Fuller, writer for the Bradley Manning Support Network. "WikiLeaks is a serious news publication: it edits material and protects sources. Wikileaks has anonymous submissions because it knows its contacts don't get protection."

The bill advances following a May scandal in which Justice Department officials were publicly exposed for seizing phone records of AP reporters without due process or notice and monitoring communications of a Fox News reporter.

Meanwhile, journalists expressed outrage at Feinstein's denigration of unpaid reporters in a climate where journalism jobs are quickly disappearing and independent, and often unpaid, reporting plays a key role in exposing the truth and holding power accountable. Author and Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill tweeted the following response:



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https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/02-6