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The slides were given to The New York Times by Drew Hendricks, a peace activist in Port Hadlock, Wash. He said he had received the PowerPoint presentation, which is unclassified but marked “Law enforcement sensitive,” in response to a series of public information requests to West Coast police agencies.

A Justice Department spokesman told Reuters Wednesday that “all of the information has been deleted” and that the DEA was “no longer collecting bulk telephony metadata from U.S. service providers.” What the spokesman did not say is that the DEA has access to troves of phone records from multiple sources — and not all of them are obtained from U.S. service providers. As The Intercept’s reporting on Project Crisscross revealed, the DEA has had large-scale access to data covertly collected by the NSA, CIA and other agencies for years. According to NSA documents obtained by Snowden, the DEA can sift through billions of metadata records collected by other agencies about emails, phone calls, faxes, Internet chats and text messages using systems named ICREACH and CRISSCROSS/PROTON.

Notably, the DEA spying reported by USA Today encompassed phone records collected by the DEA using administrative subpoenas to obtain data from phone companies without the approval of a judge. The phone records collected by the agency as part of Project Hemisphere and the data stored on the DICE system were also collected through subpoenas and warrants. But ICREACH alone was designed to handle two to five billion new records every day — the majority of them not collected using any conventional search warrant or a subpoena. Instead, most of the data accessible to the DEA through ICREACH is vacuumed up by the NSA using Executive Order 12333, a controversial Reagan-era presidential directive that underpins several NSA bulk surveillance operations that monitor communications overseas. The 12333 surveillance takes place with no court oversight and has received minimal Congressional scrutiny because it is targeted at foreign, not domestic, communication networks.

This means that some of the DEA’s access to mass surveillance data — records collected in bulk through subpoenas or warrants — may have been shut down by Holder in 2013. But it is likely that the agency still has the ability to tap into other huge data repositories, and questions remain about how that access is being used.

“Our relationships, our leadership, and our influence in the Western Hemisphere are paying the price,” Kelly said.Some experts warn against being too alarmist, and say Russia, China and Iran do not have the ability or desire to project military power beyond their borders. Army War College adjunct professor Gabriel Marcella said Russia's maneuvering is more about posturing than a real threat. "Latin America is seen as an opportunity to challenge the United States in terms of global presence," he said. "They want to show the flag to assert their presence and say they need to be counted on the world stage." Other experts said the encroachment of rivals has huge economic implications for the U.S., which has more trade partners in Latin America than in any other region in the world. 

“[Russia’s presence] serves to destabilize what has become a more stabilized, middle class continent with an increasing respect for the rule of law. ... Any type of unsettling of that environment will scare off investors,” said Jason Marczak, deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.“Market economies and democracies are fundamental for trade, for jobs, and for stable investment environments," he said. Marczak noted the instability in Venezuela, which is facing civil unrest from anti-government protestors.“In Venezuela, a lot of the money that’s been able to prop up President Chavez and now Maduro has been Chinese money,” Kelly said. 

And while Chinese investment in Latin America could have positive aspects for the region, it could also make it more difficult for U.S. official to push labor and environmental safeguards that it argues are building blocks for democracy, Marczak said.  Angel Rabasa, a senior political scientist at RAND, said cuts to the defense budget are going to accelerate a long trend of U.S. neglect and disengagement with Latin America. According to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), there are 10 countries in Latin America that currently have no U.S. ambassador because they either haven’t been nominated yet or confirmed, a sign that the region is seen as a low priority.“We will be losing the ability to influence developments in a region that is very important to us because of proximity,” Rabasa said. 

In addition to her bold confession and Clinton’s embrace of the far-right narrative in the Honduran episode, the Latin America chapter is considerably to the right of even her own record on the region as secretary of state. This appears to be a political calculation. There is little risk of losing votes for admitting her role in making most of the hemisphere’s governments disgusted with the United States. On the other side of the equation, there are influential interest groups and significant campaign money to be raised from the right-wing Latin American lobby, including Floridian Cuban-Americans and their political fundraisers.

The real question is this: if concern over suppression of political rights is not the real reason the U.S. is imposing new sanctions on Venezuela (perish the thought!), what is? Among the most insightful commentators on U.S. policy in Latin America is Mark Weisbrot of Just Foreign Policy. Read his excellent article for Al Jazeera on the recent Obama decree on Venezuela. In essence, Venezuela is one of the very few countries with significant oil reserves which does not submit to U.S. dictates, and this simply cannot be permitted (such countries are always at the top of the U.S. government and media list of Countries To Be Demonized). Beyond that, the popularity of Chavez and the relative improvement of Venezuela’s poor under his redistributionist policies petrifies neoliberal institutions for its ability to serve as an example; just as the Cuban economy was choked by decades of U.S. sanctions and then held up by the U.S. as a failure of Communism, subverting the Venezuelan economy is crucial to destroying this success. As Weisbrot notes, every country in the hemisphere except for the U.S. and Canada have united to oppose U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) issued a statement in February in response to the prior round of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela that “reiterates its strong repudiation of the application of unilateral coercive measures that are contrary to international law.” This week, the chief of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) issued a statement announcing that “UNASUR rejects any external or internal attempt at interference that seeks to disrupt the democratic process in Venezuela.” Weisbrot compares Obama’s decree this week on Venezuela to President Reagan’s quite similar 1985 decree that Nicaragua was a national security threat to the U.S., and notes: “The Obama administration is more isolated today in Latin America than even George W. Bush’s administration was.”

If Obama and supporters want the government of Venezuela to be punished and/or toppled because they refuse to comply with U.S. dictates, they should at least be honest about their beliefs so that their true character can be seen. Pretending that any of this has to do with the U.S. Government’s anger over suppression of political opponents — when their closest allies are the world champions at that — should be too insulting of everyone’s intelligence to even be an option.

The center’s officials who hired and renewed Garcia Covarrubias’ contracts say he was a highly qualified professor and minimize the allegations against him. “We made inquiries with people in the region, in Chile and so forth, and were never given anything negative about Jaime,” said Margaret Daly Hayes, the center’s first director. “He was vetted by the U.S. government, by the (U.S.) Embassy. They obviously didn’t have anything either or he wouldn’t have been hired.”McClatchy, however, located one of his alleged victims, who described being brutalized by him. “They submitted us to torture, twice a day. We were submerged in feces,” Herman Carrasco, who’s now a real estate agent, told McClatchy in Chile. “They stuck rifle barrels in our anuses.”According to Carrasco, the torture unfolded in October and November 1973 – lorded over by the horsewhip-wielding Garcia Covarrubias – and included electric shock administered to eyelids, genitals and other sensitive areas of the body.“He was the person who tortured us, with his face shown,” said Carrasco, who added that he’d known Garcia Covarrubias from social events before the coup. “He forced us into sexual acts, which shows that besides ferocious cruelty there was a level of psychopathic behavior.”

Despite very graphic torture accusations against Garcia Covarrubias, U.S. officials are rallying behind him.

As the center supported Garcia Covarrubias, it pushed out Andersen in retaliation, the former communications chief said.Last September, Andersen filed a complaint with the Pentagon’s inspector general, with the support of then-Sen. Carl Levin. D-Mich. An inspector general spokeswoman declined to comment. “It’s shameful that at a time the U.S. prestige as a democracy is under attack, that the National Defense University could be playing footsie with a former state terrorism agent,” Andersen said. The details uncovered about Garcia Covarrubias have prompted demands from several members of Congress for a Pentagon accounting of how he was hired and retained his job.“The American people deserve to know that adequate vetting of such individuals would be routine,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., author of the “ Leahy Law,” which restricts U.S. assistance to foreign security forces that violate human rights.

While most of the concerns focused on Garcia Covarrubias, the center also took heat in 2006 for hiring Colombian Gen. Carlos Ospina Ovalle. As army commander, he turned the tables in a decades-old guerrilla war while simultaneously crushing drug cartels. Ospina Ovalle left the center last year and took a post at another National Defense University school.He was hired at the request of the Colombian government and was popular with U.S. military leaders, recalls Downie, the center’s director at the time. “The Colombians wanted, for his own safety, to get him out of Colombia,” said Downie. “This is a guy we certainly wanted to have as a professor.”Human rights groups, however, criticized the general’s hiring and continued employment at the National Defense University. They point to his earlier command in Antioquia province, where right-wing paramilitaries ran roughshod and were linked to the military.“Antioquia in the late 1990s . . . is less than one degree of separation from working with the paramilitaries,” said Adam Isacson, a senior associate specializing in military matters for the Washington Office on Latin America. “If he has not, it’s some miracle that he managed to be the one clean officer.”“Having officers like that, the implicit message is that human rights takes a backseat,” said Isacson.

The 120 nations that form the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) also pronounced their "categorical rejection"of President Obama's executive order. In a communique released on Monday, the countries of the historic bloc "reiterated their firm support for the sovereignty, territortial integrity, and political independence of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela." Citing the UN Charter's committment to peaceful cooperation, the NAM called for dialogue between the US and Venezuela and urged the former to "cease its illegal coercive measures." The NAM was founded in 1961 as an alternative for the countries of the global south to the U.S. and Soviet power blocs, and comprises two-thirds of UN member states and 55% of the world's population.

"One point was important: health as a human right, and the U.S. government did not accept that health should be considered a human right [...] President Obama did not accept the document,” explained Bolivia's first indigenous president.  The previous Summit of the Americas held in Colombia in 2012 likewise failed to issue a final document due to US rejection of language opposing its blockade against Cuba. 

The Venezuelan head of state also named several key issues he called on Obama to address in the context of bilateral talks, including US refusal to "recognize our Revolution", the White House's Executive Decree, the US embassy's role in destabilization efforts, as well as US support for anti-government groups operating from US soil. 

Towards the close of the summit, the US and Canada blocked the approval of a final declaration backed by the 33 other nations of the region, which was the result of four months of prior negotiations. The final declaration requires approval by consensus and the two North American nations opposed several points in the draft document, including health as a human right, technology transfers to developing countries, an end to electronic espionage, and the repeal of Obama's Executive Order.  The US-Canadian veto was criticized by Bolivian President Evo Morales. 

Despite repeated calls throughout the summit for President Obama to repeal his Executive Order targeting Venezuela, the US administration has dug in its heels, refusing to repeal the decree.  Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson stated on Saturday that although her government did not consider Venezuela a "threat", the Executive Order would not be repealed given that "it's something that's already been implemented."  The comments follow similar contradictory remarks by Barack Obama on Thursday who also denied that Venezuela posed a threat to the United States, an admission which has been hailed as a victory by President Nicolas Maduro, who initiated a petition campaign that has collected 13 million signatures against the Executive Order.

"We do not believe that Venezuela poses a threat to the United States, nor does the United States threaten the Venezuelan government," clarified Obama in an interview with EFE.  Nonetheless, the US leader indicated no intention of repealing the Executive Order, going on to justify the sanctions imposed on Venezuela, which are allegedly aimed at "discouraging human rights violations and corruption.”

The White House's Executive Order has over the past month ignited a global backlash against US aggression, a reaction which has been lamented by Jacobson.   “I am disappointed that there were not more countries to defend [the sanctions]. They were not made to harm Venezuelans or the Venezuelan government,” noted the Assistant Secretary of State.

The study also found that Brazil is the country with the greatest diversity of indigenous peoples in isolation, followed by Peru and Bolivia. The current version of the OAS declaration includes Article XXVI, agreed by consensus in 2005, specifically for indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation to have the right to remain in that condition and to live freely and in accordance with their cultures. “In most cases the key recommendation is to prevent contact either by state agencies, officials, non-government organizations or companies wanting to exploit resources of their lands,” Crippa said. Their ancestors lived on the land long before the current states even existed. Vulnerable and at risk of disappearing entirely, they cannot advocate for their own rights. The study cites the National Environment Commission of Peru’s findings that from 1950 to 1957 a total of 11 indigenous groups disappeared completely from the Amazon, and of those remaining, 18 are in grave danger of disappearing, as they each have fewer than 225 members.

“There are regional particulates that are unique and not defined in the U.N. Declaration [UNDRIP],” Crippa said. He used the example of people in the Americas living in voluntary isolation, emphasizing, “We need to protect these peoples from internal armed conflicts, such as in Colombia, where they’re caught in the middle of military, paramilitary and guerrilla forces. It’s a situation of a government of a country trying to control land of indigenous peoples without respect to their rights.” Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation are groups or individuals who remain untouched by non-indigenous populations. They do not maintain contact with non-indigenous populations, may reject any type of contact, or may have chosen to return to their traditional culture and break relations with non-native societies in favor of maintaining their own ways of life. A provision to protect indigenous communities living in isolation has been approved in the OAS draft declaration, which has no corresponding provision in UNDRIP.

When efforts to resolve issues have failed to find remedy in their own country, the IACHR can be appealed to. All 35 member states of the OAS are under the jurisdiction of the IACHR, headquartered in Washington. No country can be a part of the OAS process without ratifying the OAS Charter. “All 35 member countries have signed the Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man of 1948,” said Maria Isabel Rivera, director of Press and Publications for the IACHR. “This means the Commission analyzes all cases and petitions and monitors human rights situations in those countries under the light of the rights recognized in the Declaration.” Countries that have not ratified the convention include the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Cuba, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the U.S. Thus, cases originating in these countries cannot be brought to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but they can be brought to IACHR in a petition of injustice.

The OAS draft declaration recommends protections including legislation that specifically addresses indigenous rights to land, culture and self-determination, and training programs for state employees, who may encounter issues that affect communities living in voluntary isolation. It further recommends studies for projects which take into account people living in isolation nearby, and sanctions for those violating natural resources protections. It also calls for limiting commercial tourism in the territories of people living in voluntary isolation and urges companies, organizations and governments to work in coordination with indigenous groups which aim to protect indigenous rights toward free and prior consent. “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, express, and freely develop their cultural identity in all respects, free from any external attempt at assimilation,” the draft also states. “The States shall not carry out, adopt, support, or favor any policy to assimilate the indigenous peoples or to destroy their cultures.”

Over 100 top British political leaders from six different parties and diverse political bodies ranging from the House of Parliament to the EU Parliament have signed on to a statement condemning "any U.S. sanctions on Venezuela" and backing the position taken by UNASUR.

After the government publicly released the recording between Hausman and Mendoza last week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the opposition of once again seeking financial support from the IMF in order to promote “insurrectionary violence” in the country.  “I have proof that the IMF has received a visit from a group of technocrats… who have requested 60 billion dollars in order to put their plan into action, and the fund has told them that they will give them [the money] if they unseat the government,” stated the president on his weekly television show, In Contact with Maduro.  Although Maduro has yet to reveal evidence, Mendoza at least seems to have corroborated the authenticity of the phone conversation, which he has slammed as an “illegal” recording of a “private talk” that he had with Hausman.  Maduro has called for Mendoza to be prosecuted.  “I hope the judicial bodies react,” he stated.