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sandy0988

Pakistan accused Indian navy to unrest Indian ocean - 0 views

newsdoctrine.com/an-navy-to-unrest-indian-ocean

Pakistan Indian navy ocean

shared by sandy0988 on 13 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • sandy0988 on 13 Feb 17
     
    Pakistan's fear of Indian Navy comes out in open
Paul Merrell

NSA spied on Indian embassy and UN mission, Edward Snowden files reveal | World news | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ance-indian-embassy-un-mission

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback India lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • The US National Security Agency may have accessed computers within the Indian embassy in Washington and mission at the United Nations in New York as part of a huge clandestine effort to mine electronic data held by its south Asian ally.Documents released by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden also reveal the extent and aggressive nature of other NSA datamining exercises targeting India as recently as March of this year.The latest revelations – published in the Hindu newspaper – came as Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, flew to Europe on his way to the US, where he will meet President Barack Obama.The NSA operation targeting India used two datamining tools, Boundless Informant and Prism, a system allowing the agency easy access to the personal information of non-US nationals from the databases of some of the world's biggest tech companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
  • The largest amount of intelligence was gathered from Iran, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.
  • According to one document obtained by the Hindu, the US agency used the Prism programme to gather information on India's domestic politics and the country's strategic and commercial interests, specifically categories designated as nuclear, space and politics.
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  • A further NSA document obtained by the Hindu suggests the agency selected the office of India's mission at the UN in New York and the country's Washington embassy as "location targets" where records of Internet traffic, emails, telephone and office conversations – and even official documents stored digitally – could potentially be accessed after programs had been clandestinely inserted into computers.In March 2013, the NSA collected 6.3bn pieces of information from internet networks in India and 6.2bn pieces of information from the country's telephone networks during the same period, the Hindu said.After the Guardian reported in June that Pm program allowed the NSA "to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders", both US and Indian officials claimed no content was being taken from the country's networks and that the programs were intended to aid "counter-terrorism".
  • A home ministry official told the newspaper the government had been "rattled" to discover the extent of the the programme's interest in India. "It's not just violation of our sovereignty, it's a complete intrusion into our decision-making process," the official said.
  • The Hindu argued that "the targeting of India's politics and space programme by the NSA busts the myth of close strategic partnership between India and US", pointing out that the other countries targeted in the same way as India "are generally seen as adversarial" by Washington.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Sep 13
     
    An important bit of proof that NSA digital surveillance involves far more than counter-terrorism. 
Paul Merrell

India: Taken Over by Foreign Banks? | Global Research - 1 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5355972

banksters India

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • On October 12, Raghuram Rajan, the new Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, announced that the RBI will soon issue new rules allowing a more liberal entry of foreign banks in India. “That is going to be a big opening because one could even contemplate taking over Indian banks, small Indian banks and so on,” he stated in Washington at an event organized by the Institute of International Finance, a global banking lobby group. The announcement of a reversal of long-standing regulatory policy for banking at an event organized by a lobby group is questionable as the wider developmental and regulatory concerns related to a liberalized entry of foreign banks are yet to be discussed in Parliament. In the Indian context, the key policy issue is — do the benefits of foreign bank entry greatly outweigh the potential costs? Foreign banks have been operating in India for the past many decades and yet we find no evidence of the widely held notion that foreign banks add to domestic competition, increase access to financial services and ensure greater financial stability in the host countries. As witnessed during the global financial crisis of 2008, foreign banks reduced their domestic lending in India by as much as 20 per cent whereas the state-owned banks played a counter-cyclical role during the crisis.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13
     
    Seems that the the transnational banksters who owe allegiance to no nation or people are poised to take over India, despite a dismal track record thus far in providing banking services for rural areas and farmers. India is prone to famines with millions of casualties. Under British rule, the Great Famine of 1876-78 killed some 5.5 million people whilst Lord Lytton supervised the export of some 6.4 million hundredweight of Indian wheat to England. One might imagine that India will fare little better under international bankster neocolonialism. 
Gary Edwards

Soros Foresaw the End of an Era - The New York Review of Books - 0 views

www.nybooks.com/21934

soros marxism socialism politics financial-crisis economy hedge-funds obama banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Nov 08
     
    NYTImes Review of Soros Book: "The End of an Era": At the start of this year, Soros, convinced (correctly) that the financial crisis was far from over, adopted a bearish investment strategy, which he describes thus: "short US and European stocks, US ten-year government bonds, and the US dollar; long Chinese, Indian, and Gulf States stocks and non-US currencies." Initially, some of these positions didn't pay off. Between January and March, US bonds rallied and Indian stocks tumbled, wiping out gains in other parts of Quantum's portfolio. Just how Soros has fared in the past few months of market turmoil may be known only to investors in Quantum, but it would be foolhardy to bet against him.
Paul Merrell

India says U.S. spying on internet data of its citizens unacceptable - Xinhua | English... - 0 views

news.xinhuanet.com/...c_132448569.htm

surveillance state NSA India

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • India Tuesday voiced concern over the reported U.S. spying on internet data of Indian citizens, saying it would be "unacceptable" if domestic privacy laws were violated. "We are concerned and surprised about it. We will find it to be unacceptable if Indian laws relating to the privacy of information of Indian ordinary citizens have been violated. Surely we will, frankly, find it unacceptable," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said in the national capital. India is the fifth most tracked country by American intelligence agencies which used a secret data-mining program to keep a tab on the worldwide internet data, according to media reports. The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said that both the United States and India "do have a cyber security dialogue" to discuss issues like the internet monitoring. "We intend to seek information and details during consultations between interlocutors from both sides on this matter in that forum," he said.
kiranmatkar

Jayalalithaa's Legacy: Industrial, Social, Crime Rankings Among India's Best - 1 views

http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/jayalalithaas-legacy-industrial-social-crime-rankings-among-indias-best-21065 Tamil Nadu's 19th chief minister (she was also the 11th, 14th, 16th and 18th) J ...

Jayalalithaa Jayalalithaa-news Tamil-Nadu's-19th-chief-minister

started by kiranmatkar on 06 Dec 16 no follow-up yet
webmasterrk

SATTA MATKA,MATKA RESULT,KALYAN MATKA,KALYAN MATKA TIPS,INDIAN MATKA - 0 views

matkamasti.in

http:__sattamaster.in http:__matkamasti.in is a website which provides free and paid satta tips numbers result chart everyday for Kalyan Matka Mumbai Rajdhani Night Milan Matka. Lucky Number today results are online daily Also &

shared by webmasterrk on 25 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • webmasterrk on 25 Sep 14
     
    SATTA MATKA,MATKA RESULT,KALYAN MATKA,KALYAN MATKA TIPS,INDIAN MATKA,MAIN MILAN RAJDHANI CHART,DPBOSS,SATTA MATKA
  • webmasterrk on 26 Sep 14
     
    SATTA MATKA,MATKA RESULT,KALYAN MATKA,KALYAN MATKA TIPS,INDIAN MATKA,MAIN MILAN RAJDHANI CHART,DPBOSS,SATTA MATKA
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: Taking Back Our Constitution by Anthony G.P. Marini - 0 views

www.americanthinker.com/...ing_back_our_constitution.html

Take-Back-America usa-constitution tea-party constitutional-conservatism

shared by Gary Edwards on 14 Aug 10 - Cached
  • However, any powers that the Congress derives regarding commerce activities arise from Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: "[Congress has the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes[.]"This clause was considered silent because lawmakers couldn't figure out a straight-faced way to exploit this narrowly-defined power: The actual wording gives Congress power to regulate commerce among the states, but not between individual citizens
  • So by conflating a generous reinterpretation with commerce-related laws, the Congress gave itself the authority to regulate individual citizens.
  • Congress required new powers of the purse...the power to tax outside of those powers explicitly set forth in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:
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  • Congress was able to accomplish what was once unthinkable by past Congresses. Congress acquired the legislative tools required to implement a sweeping, socially progressive agenda using just two words: Commerce and Welfare.
  • two mid-1930s Supreme Court decisions2 did the Congress finally get their desired taxation superpowers.
  • clause. However actual expansions of these powers were a long time coming, and
  • not until
  • Gary Edwards on 14 Aug 10
     
    Americans, the Constitution of the United States of America doesn't belong to us anymore. We have let our guard down one too many times with regard to our constitutional responsibilities, rights, and liberties, and now elected politicians control the document. Because of a lack of vigilance and perhaps of laziness on our part, our representatives and our government constrain and dominate us using legislative powers obtained from interpretations, penumbrae, and self-serving close calls for scant (and vaguely defined) words in our Constitution. It took a long time for Congress and the government to amass these powers that they have taken from us, and they certainly won't relinquish them as easily as we gave them up. But with unflinching purpose, we must begin to take the Constitution back, as well as reimpose limits on congressional powers, for the sake of future Americans. The start of flagrant congressional abuse of the Constitution may be traced to the late 19th century1, when lawmakers found they could exploit the previously "silent" commerce clause. As Americans are highly dependent upon commerce, a government that can control all aspects of commerce is a very powerful government indeed. However, any powers that the Congress derives regarding commerce activities arise from Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: "[Congress has the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes[.]" This clause was considered silent because lawmakers couldn't figure out a straight-faced way to exploit this narrowly-defined power: The actual wording gives Congress power to regulate commerce among the states, but not between individual citizens. So by conflating a generous reinterpretation with commerce-related laws, the Congress gave itself the authority to regulate individual citizens.
Paul Merrell

Western Spy Agencies Secretly Rely on Hackers for Intel and Expertise - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...-nsa-gchq-rely-intel-expertise

surveillance state NSA-targets hackers

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The U.S., U.K. and Canadian governments characterize hackers as a criminal menace, warn of the threats they allegedly pose to critical infrastructure, and aggressively prosecute them, but they are also secretly exploiting their information and expertise, according to top secret documents. In some cases, the surveillance agencies are obtaining the content of emails by monitoring hackers as they breach email accounts, often without notifying the hacking victims of these breaches. “Hackers are stealing the emails of some of our targets… by collecting the hackers’ ‘take,’ we . . .  get access to the emails themselves,” reads one top secret 2010 National Security Agency document. These and other revelations about the intelligence agencies’ reliance on hackers are contained in documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The documents—which come from the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters agency and NSA—shed new light on the various means used by intelligence agencies to exploit hackers’ successes and learn from their skills, while also raising questions about whether governments have overstated the threat posed by some hackers.
  • By looking out for hacking conducted “both by state-sponsored and freelance hackers” and riding on the coattails of hackers, Western intelligence agencies have gathered what they regard as valuable content: Recently, Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) and Menwith Hill Station (MHS) discovered and began exploiting a target-rich data set being stolen by hackers. The hackers’ sophisticated email-stealing intrusion set is known as INTOLERANT. Of the traffic observed, nearly half contains category hits because the attackers are targeting email accounts of interest to the Intelligence Community. Although a relatively new data source, [Target Offices of Primary Interest] have already written multiple reports based on INTOLERANT collect. The hackers targeted a wide range of diplomatic corps, human rights and democracy activists and even journalists: INTOLERANT traffic is very organized. Each event is labeled to identify and categorize victims. Cyber attacks commonly apply descriptors to each victim – it helps herd victims and track which attacks succeed and which fail. Victim categories make INTOLERANT interesting: A = Indian Diplomatic & Indian Navy B = Central Asian diplomatic C = Chinese Human Rights Defenders D = Tibetan Pro-Democracy Personalities E = Uighur Activists F = European Special Rep to Afghanistan and Indian photo-journalism G = Tibetan Government in Exile
  • In those cases, the NSA and its partner agencies in the United Kingdom and Canada were unable to determine the identity of the hackers who collected the data, but suspect a state sponsor “based on the level of sophistication and the victim set.” In instances where hacking may compromise data from the U.S. and U.K. governments, or their allies, notification was given to the “relevant parties.” In a separate document, GCHQ officials discuss plans to use open source discussions among hackers to improve their own knowledge. “Analysts are potentially missing out on valuable open source information relating to cyber defence because of an inability to easily keep up to date with specific blogs and Twitter sources,” according to one document. GCHQ created a program called LOVELY HORSE to monitor and index public discussion by hackers on Twitter and other social media. The Twitter accounts designated for collection in the 2012 document:
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  • These accounts represent a cross section of the hacker community and security scene. In addition to monitoring multiple accounts affiliated with Anonymous, GCHQ monitored the tweets of Kevin Mitnick, who was sent to prison in 1999 for various computer and fraud related offenses. The U.S. Government once characterized Mitnick as one of the world’s most villainous hackers, but he has since turned security consultant and exploit broker. Among others, GCHQ monitored the tweets of reverse-engineer and Google employee, Thomas Dullien. Fellow Googler Tavis Ormandy, from Google’s vulnerability research team Project Zero, is featured on the list, along with other well known offensive security researchers, including Metasploit’s HD Moore and James Lee (aka Egypt) together with Dino Dai Zovi and Alexander Sotirov, who at the time both worked for New York-based offensive security company, Trail of Bits (Dai Zovi has since taken up a position at payment company, Square). The list also includes notable anti-forensics and operational security expert “The Grugq.” GCHQ monitored the tweets of former NSA agents Dave Aitel and Charlie Miller, and former Air Force intelligence officer Richard Bejtlich as well as French exploit vendor, VUPEN (who sold a one year subscription for its binary analysis and exploits service to the NSA in 2012).
  • Documents published with this article: LOVELY HORSE – GCHQ Wiki Overview INTOLERANT – Who Else Is Targeting Your Target? Collecting Data Stolen by Hackers – SIDtoday  HAPPY TRIGGER/LOVELY HORSE/Zool/TWO FACE – Open Source for Cyber Defence/Progress NATO Civilian Intelligence Council – Cyber Panel – US Talking Points
  • The U.S., U.K. and Canadian governments characterize hackers as a criminal menace, warn of the threats they allegedly pose to critical infrastructure, and aggressively prosecute them, but they are also secretly exploiting their information and expertise, according to top secret documents. In some cases, the surveillance agencies are obtaining the content of emails by monitoring hackers as they breach email accounts, often without notifying the hacking victims of these breaches. “Hackers are stealing the emails of some of our targets… by collecting the hackers’ ‘take,’ we . . .  get access to the emails themselves,” reads one top secret 2010 National Security Agency document. These and other revelations about the intelligence agencies’ reliance on hackers are contained in documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The documents—which come from the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters agency and NSA—shed new light on the various means used by intelligence agencies to exploit hackers’ successes and learn from their skills, while also raising questions about whether governments have overstated the threat posed by some hackers.
Paul Merrell

In 2008 Mumbai Attacks, Piles of Spy Data, but an Uncompleted Puzzle - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...but-an-uncompleted-puzzle.html

surveillance state Mumbai-massacre NSA

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • In the fall of 2008, a 30-year-old computer expert named Zarrar Shah roamed from outposts in the northern mountains of Pakistan to safe houses near the Arabian Sea, plotting mayhem in Mumbai, India’s commercial gem.Mr. Shah, the technology chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terror group, and fellow conspirators used Google Earth to show militants the routes to their targets in the city. He set up an Internet phone system to disguise his location by routing his calls through New Jersey. Shortly before an assault that would kill 166 people, including six Americans, Mr. Shah searched online for a Jewish hostel and two luxury hotels, all sites of the eventual carnage.
  • But he did not know that by September, the British were spying on many of his online activities, tracking his Internet searches and messages, according to former American and Indian officials and classified documents disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. They were not the only spies watching. Mr. Shah drew similar scrutiny from an Indian intelligence agency, according to a former official briefed on the operation. The United States was unaware of the two agencies’ efforts, American officials say, but had picked up signs of a plot through other electronic and human sources, and warned Indian security officials several times in the months before the attack.
Paul Merrell

Ex-U.S. Attorney backs Leonard Peltier's bid for clemency - NY Daily News - 0 views

www.nydailynews.com/...bid-clemency-article-1.2933475

tyranny Peltier clemency AIM

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • The U.S. Attorney whose office prosecuted Native American activist Leonard Peltier 40 years ago wrote to President Obama just before Christmas to support the aging prisoner’s bid for clemency. James Reynolds, the former U.S. Attorney in Iowa, contacted the White House and the Department of Justice in a Dec. 21 letter asking that Peltier — now 71 and in failing health — be given a compassionate release. “I think it’s time,” Reynolds, 77, told the Daily News from his Florida home. “Forty years is enough,” the former U.S. attorney said.
  • He also admitted he’s not convinced of Peltier’s guilt — even though the activist was convicted of fatally shooting FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams and has spent the last four decades behind bars. “I don’t know. Who knows?” Reynolds said, when asked if the wrong man might have gone to prison. “The hardest thing is to try and go back and reconstruct history. He may not have (done the crime),” Reynolds said, adding that Peltier “would not be the first” to suffer a wrongful conviction.
  • “When you stand at the bottom and you look at the naked underbelly of our system, it has got flaws. It’s still the best one we’ve got, but at certain points there has to be a call for clemency and that’s where we are,” the former U.S. attorney said.
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  • As for the famously controversial trial for the June 1975 shootings and subsequent appeal from Peltier — which was rejected — Reynolds admitted that “we might have shaved a few corner here and there.” Reynolds was appointed to his position by former President Jimmy Carter in 1980. His predecessor, Evan Hultman, handled the original prosecution of Peltier for the FBI agents deaths during a wild shoot out at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Reynolds asked Hultman to stay on and help block Peltier’s appeal, which failed to get his conviction overturned.
  • Peltier, who was part of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s — a group the FBI was investigating for suspected subversive activities — is considered a political prisoner by Amnesty International. His fight for freedom has garnered support from all corners of the globe and is a cause celebrated among many different social justice groups.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 17
     
    40 years later, the D.A. admits it may have been a wrongful conviction. Whew!
Gary Edwards

There Once Were Giants: The American Poetry of the Hollywood Western - 2 views

www.claremont.org/...article_detail.asp

claremont-institute John-Marini Liberty-Valance American-Westerns progressive-socialism

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 12
     
    Excellent essay by John Marini of the Libertarian Claremont Institute. The "brutal good" of both Batman and Tom Doniphon, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" are once again on display. Awesome stuff! John first discusses Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive movement; emphasising how progressives, and particularly social scientists, dismissed the past as inferior to the glorious future their progressive thinking would usher in. Yeah, "those" progressive's whose legacy might well be the collapse of civilization! "For progressive historians, the past was not intelligible in its own right, but only with reference to the future, that is, to some form of the idea of progress which, although "almost synonymous with life itself," was wholly unknown to past generations. What had seemed to Abraham Lincoln, for example, to be the American Founders' heroic virtues and tragic limitations appeared to the sophisticated historian as mere reflections of outdated attitudes and beliefs-prejudices of a less enlightened time." Then John goes on to contrast the poetry and truth portrayed in the genre of the American Western Movie. He choses John Ford's classic, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" to make his point. And beautifully so. excerpt: "The old West was situated in the Godforsaken wilds of the desert or wilderness, without community, without law, without civilization. It was a place where simple survival was difficult, a place where nature was uncompromising, just as society had been in the places left behind. The West offered the possibility of a new beginning, of re-founding, of establishing governments form reflection and choice, rather than mishaps of birth and tradition. In the West, men seemed to have it in their power to make the world over again, and this made it necessary or possible to think again about the conditions, purposes, and limits of human community. But the western movie showed that even in a new land with a fresh start, the law was not easily
webmasterrk

SATTA MATKA,KALYAN MATKA,SATTA MASTER MIND GAME,FASTEST MATKA RESULT - 0 views

sattamaster.in

http:__sattamaster.in http:__matkamasti.in is a website which provides free and paid satta tips numbers result chart everyday for Kalyan Matka Mumbai Rajdhani Night Milan Matka. Lucky Number today results are online daily Also &

shared by webmasterrk on 25 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • webmasterrk on 25 Sep 14
     
    SATTA MATKA KALYAN MATKA & FASTEST MATKA RESULT,INDIAN MATKA,MATKA,MAIN MUMBAI MATKA,MATKA CHARTS,SATTAMATKA GUESSING,MATKA MASTER GAME
  • webmasterrk on 26 Sep 14
     
    SATTA MATKA KALYAN MATKA & FASTEST MATKA RESULT,INDIAN MATKA,MATKA,MAIN MUMBAI MATKA,MATKA CHARTS,SATTAMATKA GUESSING,MATKA MASTER GAME
Paul Merrell

One Click Politics - 0 views

oneclickpolitics.com/...movetoamend

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Senate Joint Resolution 19 is a proposed Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, but it doesn’t address corporate constitutional rights at all. Please send a message to the authors of SJR19 -- let them know that Corporate Personhood MUST be included in the language of the amendment... What You Can Do: Help movetoamend accomplish these goals by contributing your power of voice. Take action now by sending a message to Congress telling them why these issues are important to you.
  • Formed in September 2009, Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests.
  • Senate Joint Resolution 19 is a proposed Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, but it doesn’t address corporate constitutional rights at all. Please send a message to the authors of SJR19 -- let them know that Corporate Personhood MUST be included in the language of the amendment... What You Can Do: Help movetoamend accomplish these goals by contributing your power of voice. Take action now by sending a message to Congress telling them why these issues are important to you.
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Jun 14
     
    I have never forwarded action alerts to others by email. The typical action alert winds up sharing your email address with at least one other organization. The next thing you know you're getting donor solicitations from both the Republican and Democratic party central national coordinating committees. It's not just that I'm a political independent; it's an ongoing task to unsubscribe from unwanted mailing lists. Today I got an action alert from Move to Amend, only the second I have received from the organization. This group does not share your email address with anyone. If you choose to participate in this action alert, which is nearing 1 million messages sent, there is a send button near the bottom of the page to participate. That takes you to a page where you can read the message that will be sent. Move to Amend is a non-partisan organization that has been working toward a constitutional amendment for around 4 years that would clear the way for Congress to regulate campaign contributions, in light of Supreme Court decisions declaring that corporations have a First Amendment right to make campaign contributions in any amount they desire. But their amendment would also abolish constitutional rights for all fictional legal "persons" other than human beings and government at the local, state, and national levels. Move to Amend has been going about the process the right way and to date has scored supporting resolutions in 16 state legislatures and hundreds of community governments. That's enough to get oligarchs worried. So there's a bill gathering steam in the U.S. Senate, SJR 19, that's a watered-down version. It grants Congress and the states power to regulate campaign contributions, but it does not speak to the problem of granting human constitutional rights to entities that have existence only in the eyes of the law. The Senate bill is here: http://goo.gl/Nkvfkg Our nation's Founders unmistakably did not contemplate that corporations would have constitution
Paul Merrell

Declaration For The Americas Moves Toward Signing Without US And Canada - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...204328

OAS Indigenous-people's-rights U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Negotiations held over the past 18 years toward resolving historic issues of land dispossession and conflicts over natural resources with indigenous peoples of the Americas are finally expected to reach consensus by May. “We were told there are some states very interested in getting the declaration done so we can move to another stage in the Organization of American States (OAS) and be able to enforce the rights recognized,” said Leonardo A. Crippa, a senior attorney for the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington. “It’s aiming to be completed by May so the text can be submitted for approval to the General Assembly of the OAS, which is meeting in D.C. in June.”
  • This process began in 1989, when the OAS General Assembly approved a resolution to ask the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) to prepare a declaration on the rights of indigenous people of North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The IACHR submitted the first Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1997. Also that year, the Indian Law Resource Center and other indigenous rights groups such as the Native American Rights Fund in Colorado petitioned the OAS to create a working group to discuss issues with member states and work toward reaching consensus on resolutions.
  • “We are doing our best to advise indigenous representatives, have discussions with the OAS, and compose language that is more defined than the U.N. Declaration [on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] to reflect regional issues,” Crippa said. Yet, as Crippa notes, the United States and Canada, among other OAS states, have not accepted the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and continue to refuse to sign onto the draft declaration. A statement released by the U.S. delegation to the negotiations in March states: “The United States remains committed to addressing the urgent issues of indigenous peoples in the hemisphere, including combating societal discrimination against indigenous peoples, increasing indigenous participation in national political processes, addressing lack of infrastructure and poor living conditions in indigenous areas, and collaborating on issues of land rights and self governance.” It also notes that the U.S. “continues to believe the OAS can be mobilized to make a practical difference in the lives of indigenous peoples,” but reiterates that it refuses to sign the declaration.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • 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.
  • “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.
  • 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.
  • 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.”
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Apr 15
     
    Did the U.S. refuse because it wishes to retain the option of exploiting indigenous peoples' lands? 
Paul Merrell

Steven Salaita settles lawsuit with Univ. of Illinois | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-settles-lawsuit-univ-illinois

war & peace Israel Palestine Salatia litigation settlement BDS

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Steven Salaita will not be reinstated under the terms of an out of court settlement with the University of Illinois. The deal will pay Salaita $875,000 – about ten times the annual salary he would have received as a tenured professor in the American Indian Studies program at the university’s flagship Urbana-Champaign campus. “This settlement is a vindication for me, but more importantly, it is a victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment,” Salaita said in a release from his legal counsel, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the law firm Loevy & Loevy. The settlement brings an end to Salaita’s breach of contract lawsuit against university trustees and administrators over his August 2014 firing because of his tweets excoriating Israel’s attack on Gaza. Salaita had sought reinstatement as well as financial damages.
  • The university statement said Salaita would receive a lump sum of $600,000, while the remaining amount would cover his legal fees.
  • Salaita’s case became a cause celebre for academic freedom, highlighting the role of pro-Israel donors in pressuring university administrators. Thousands of academics pledged to boycott the university until he was reinstated. The Salaita affair devastated and demoralized the university’s celebrated American Indian Studies program, leading to the departure of several faculty. His firing also earned the University of Illinois a formal censure from the American Association of University Professors for violating academic freedom, a rare rebuke and severe blow to its reputation.
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  • Salaita had scored successes in the early phases of his federal lawsuit. In August, US District Judge Harry Leinenweber backed Salaita’s contention that he had a binding contract with the university. Yet there was never a guarantee that even if he won at trial that the court would order his reinstatement. In September, the judge found that university officials had destroyed emails that may have contained key evidence Salaita needed to prove his case. This came after sensational revelations that top officials, including then Chancellor Phyllis Wise, had been using private email accounts to discuss the case and evade disclosure laws. Wise and another official, Provost Ilesanmi Adesida, resigned in disgrace, adding to the disarray at the frequently scandal-plagued state university.
  • In August, Salaita took up a year-long post as Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut.
lawofficeofamit

Best property disputes lawyer in Chandigarh-Law Office Of Amit Goyal - 0 views

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shared by lawofficeofamit on 29 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • lawofficeofamit on 29 Dec 18
     
    Are you facing a property dispute in Chandigarh? Here is what you can do with help of the best property disputes lawyer in Chandigarh. Some facts about property disputes in Chandigarh The most common property disputes in Chandigarh can be seen where illegal possession, illegal sale of property and disputes related to landlord and tenant occur. The issues arise in the lack of registry information and dispute regarding the status of the title. Property disputes lawyer in Chandigarh can help with legal advice or case handling. Here are some facts to provide more information on property disputes in Indian Jurisdiction.
ashkif as

Data Entry Jobs VACANCY, Income Rs. 35,000/ - per Month, 2000 Job Vacancy in your city. - 0 views

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shared by ashkif as on 11 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • ashkif as on 11 Jan 19
     
    Free registration Data Entry Jobs, Income Rs. 35,000/ - per Month, 2000 Job Vacancy in your City, Data entry jobs in INDIA, USA, UK, AUSTRALIA, start earning with "Universal Info Service TM (ISO9001:2015 Certified) "Presents Easy Data Typing, Easy ad posting, Easy Proof reading Job for Indian and International Students, House-wife, retired persons & job seekers. Only required basic knowledge of computer & Laptop and internet, Mobile No- +91-9434019000, +91-9474425752 - Advertiser GYU6678...
Paul Merrell

The West Dethroned -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...t-dethroned-paul-craig-roberts

war & peace G20-summit obama Israel AIPAC decline of the American Empire

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • The “New American Century” proclaimed by the neoconservatives came to an abrupt end on September 6 at the G20 meeting in Russia. The leaders of most of the world’s peoples told Obama that they do not believe him and that it is a violation of international law if the US government attacks Syria without UN authorization. Putin told the assembled world leaders that the chemical weapons attack was “a provocation on behalf of the armed insurgents in hope of the help from the outside, from the countries which supported them from day one.” In other words, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Washington–the axis of evil. China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, and Argentina joined Putin in affirming that a leader who commits military aggression without the approval of the UN Security Council puts himself “outside of law.” In other words, if you defy the world, obama, you are a war criminal.
  • We are yet to see an american president who can stand up to Israel. Or, for that matter, a Congress that can. Or a media. The obama regime tried to counter its smashing defeat at the G20 Summit by forcing its puppet states to sign a joint statement condemning Syria. However the puppet states qualified their position by stating that they opposed military action and awaited the UN report.
  • What this reveals is that the support behind the liar obama is feeble and limited. The ability of the Western countries to dominate international politics came to an end at the G20 meeting. The moral authority of the West is completely gone, shattered and eroded by countless lies and shameless acts of aggression based on nothing but lies and self-interests. Nothing remains of the West’s “moral authority,” which was never anything but a cover for self-interest, murder, and genocide.
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  • The idiot Western governments have pissed away their clout. There is no prospect whatsoever of the neoconservative fantasy of US hegemony being exercised over Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, South America, Iran. These countries can establish their own system of international payments and finance and leave the dollar standard whenever they wish. One wonders why they wait. The US dollar is being printed in unbelievable quantities and is no longer qualified to be the world reserve currency. The US dollar is on the verge of total worthlessness. The G20 Summit made it clear that the world is no longer willing to go along with the West’s lies and murderous ways. The world has caught on to the West. Every country now understands that the bailouts offered by the West are merely mechanisms for looting the bailed-out countries and impoverishing the people.
  • In the 21st century Washington has treated its own citizens the way it treats citizens of third world countries. Untold trillions of dollars have been lavished on a handful of banks, while the banks threw millions of Americans out of their homes and seized any remaining assets of the broken families. US corporations had their taxes cut to practically nothing, with few paying any taxes at all, while the corporations gave the jobs and careers of millions of Americans to the Chinese and Indians. With those jobs went US GDP, tax base, and economic power, leaving Americans with massive budget deficits, a debased currency, and bankrupt cities, such as Detroit, which once was the manufacturing powerhouse of the world. How long before Washington shoots down its own homeless, hungry, and protesting citizens in the streets?
  • Washington represents Israel and a handful of powerful organized private interests. Washington represents no one else. Washington is a plague upon the American people and a plague upon the world. http://rt.com/news/g20-against-syria-strike-527/
  • About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Sep 13
     
    Paul Craig Roberts makes a compelling case that the just-completed G20 summit is a historic event, marking the virtual end of U.S. ability to influence other nations to assist in imposing the Neocon/right-wing Israeli hegemonic agenda on the world. The Israel-first AIPAC lobbyists hit the hill beginning Monday morning to produce the authorization for war against Syria, painting it as essential to the Israeli goal of destroying the Iranian government. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/aipac-syria-96344.html The Israel-first lobby almost invariably attains its Congressional goals, regardless of those goals' damage to America. They are willing to fight to the very last drop of American blood to fulfill the Eeretz Israel dream of a Jewish empire in the Mideast and North Africa. Will Congress roll over for Israel's right-wing government yet again? We will know very soon. The key members of Congress to watch on their position in regard to war against Syria are those who are up for re-election next year. None will want to disturb voters this close to election by voting for war. Will that give them sufficient spine to withstand the Israel-firsters?  One can hope.  But the citizen message to Congress needs to be: "No to Obama. No to AIPAC. No to war."
Paul Merrell

Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, It's About Blackmail, Not National Security | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...kmail%2C_not_national_security

surveillance state blackmail power-projection empire Obama BushII

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • For more than six months, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) have been pouring out from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Germany’s Der Spiegel, and Brazil’s O Globo, among other places.  Yet no one has pointed out the combination of factors that made the NSA’s expanding programs to monitor the world seem like such a slam-dunk development in Washington.  The answer is remarkably simple.  For an imperial power losing its economic grip on the planet and heading into more austere times, the NSA’s latest technological breakthroughs look like a bargain basement deal when it comes to projecting power and keeping subordinate allies in line -- like, in fact, the steal of the century.  Even when disaster turned out to be attached to them, the NSA’s surveillance programs have come with such a discounted price tag that no Washington elite was going to reject them.
  • What exactly was the aim of such an unprecedented program of massive domestic and planetary spying, which clearly carried the risk of controversy at home and abroad? Here, an awareness of the more than century-long history of U.S. surveillance can guide us through the billions of bytes swept up by the NSA to the strategic significance of such a program for the planet’s last superpower. What the past reveals is a long-term relationship between American state surveillance and political scandal that helps illuminate the unacknowledged reason why the NSA monitors America’s closest allies. Not only does such surveillance help gain intelligence advantageous to U.S. diplomacy, trade relations, and war-making, but it also scoops up intimate information that can provide leverage -- akin to blackmail -- in sensitive global dealings and negotiations of every sort. The NSA’s global panopticon thus fulfills an ancient dream of empire. With a few computer key strokes, the agency has solved the problem that has bedeviled world powers since at least the time of Caesar Augustus: how to control unruly local leaders, who are the foundation for imperial rule, by ferreting out crucial, often scurrilous, information to make them more malleable.
  • Once upon a time, such surveillance was both expensive and labor intensive. Today, however, unlike the U.S. Army’s shoe-leather surveillance during World War I or the FBI’s break-ins and phone bugs in the Cold War years, the NSA can monitor the entire world and its leaders with only 100-plus probes into the Internet’s fiber optic cables. This new technology is both omniscient and omnipresent beyond anything those lacking top-secret clearance could have imagined before the Edward Snowden revelations began.  Not only is it unimaginably pervasive, but NSA surveillance is also a particularly cost-effective strategy compared to just about any other form of global power projection. And better yet, it fulfills the greatest imperial dream of all: to be omniscient not just for a few islands, as in the Philippines a century ago, or a couple of countries, as in the Cold War era, but on a truly global scale. In a time of increasing imperial austerity and exceptional technological capability, everything about the NSA’s surveillance told Washington to just “go for it.”  This cut-rate mechanism for both projecting force and preserving U.S. global power surely looked like a no-brainer, a must-have bargain for any American president in the twenty-first century -- before new NSA documents started hitting front pages weekly, thanks to Snowden, and the whole world began returning the favor.
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  • As the gap has grown between Washington’s global reach and its shrinking mailed fist, as it struggles to maintain 40% of world armaments (the 2012 figure) with only 23% of global gross economic output, the U.S. will need to find new ways to exercise its power far more economically. As the Cold War took off, a heavy-metal U.S. military -- with 500 bases worldwide circa 1950 -- was sustainable because the country controlled some 50% of the global gross product. But as its share of world output falls -- to an estimated 17% by 2016 -- and its social welfare costs climb relentlessly from 4% of gross domestic product in 2010 to a projected 18% by 2050, cost-cutting becomes imperative if Washington is to survive as anything like the planet’s “sole superpower.” Compared to the $3 trillion cost of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the NSA’s 2012 budget of just $11 billion for worldwide surveillance and cyberwarfare looks like cost saving the Pentagon can ill-afford to forego. Yet this seeming “bargain” comes at what turns out to be an almost incalculable cost. The sheer scale of such surveillance leaves it open to countless points of penetration, whether by a handful of anti-war activists breaking into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, back in 1971 or Edward Snowden downloading NSA documents at a Hawaiian outpost in 2012.
  • In October 2001, not satisfied with the sweeping and extraordinary powers of the newly passed Patriot Act, President Bush ordered the National Security Agency to commence covert monitoring of private communications through the nation's telephone companies without the requisite FISA warrants. Somewhat later, the agency began sweeping the Internet for emails, financial data, and voice messaging on the tenuous theory that such “metadata” was “not constitutionally protected.” In effect, by penetrating the Internet for text and the parallel Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for voice, the NSA had gained access to much of the world’s telecommunications. By the end of Bush’s term in 2008, Congress had enacted laws that not only retrospectively legalized these illegal programs, but also prepared the way for NSA surveillance to grow unchecked. Rather than restrain the agency, President Obama oversaw the expansion of its operations in ways remarkable for both the sheer scale of the billions of messages collected globally and for the selective monitoring of world leaders.
  • By 2012, the centralization via digitization of all voice, video, textual, and financial communications into a worldwide network of fiber optic cables allowed the NSA to monitor the globe by penetrating just 190 data hubs -- an extraordinary economy of force for both political surveillance and cyberwarfare.
  • With a few hundred cable probes and computerized decryption, the NSA can now capture the kind of gritty details of private life that J. Edgar Hoover so treasured and provide the sort of comprehensive coverage of populations once epitomized by secret police like East Germany’s Stasi. And yet, such comparisons only go so far. After all, once FBI agents had tapped thousands of phones, stenographers had typed up countless transcripts, and clerks had stored this salacious paper harvest in floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets, J. Edgar Hoover still only knew about the inner-workings of the elite in one city: Washington, D.C.  To gain the same intimate detail for an entire country, the Stasi had to employ one police informer for every six East Germans -- an unsustainable allocation of human resources. By contrast, the marriage of the NSA’s technology to the Internet’s data hubs now allows the agency’s 37,000 employees a similarly close coverage of the entire globe with just one operative for every 200,000 people on the planet
  • Through the expenditure of $250 million annually under its Sigint Enabling Project, the NSA has stealthily penetrated all encryption designed to protect privacy. “In the future, superpowers will be made or broken based on the strength of their cryptanalytic programs,” reads a 2007 NSA document. “It is the price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace.” By collecting knowledge -- routine, intimate, or scandalous -- about foreign leaders, imperial proconsuls from ancient Rome to modern America have gained both the intelligence and aura of authority necessary for dominion over alien societies. The importance, and challenge, of controlling these local elites cannot be overstated. During its pacification of the Philippines after 1898, for instance, the U.S. colonial regime subdued contentious Filipino leaders via pervasive policing that swept up both political intelligence and personal scandal. And that, of course, was just what J. Edgar Hoover was doing in Washington during the 1950s and 1960s.
  • Indeed, the mighty British Empire, like all empires, was a global tapestry woven out of political ties to local leaders or “subordinate elites” -- from Malay sultans and Indian maharajas to Gulf sheiks and West African tribal chiefs. As historian Ronald Robinson once observed, the British Empire spread around the globe for two centuries through the collaboration of these local leaders and then unraveled, in just two decades, when that collaboration turned to “non-cooperation.” After rapid decolonization during the 1960s transformed half-a-dozen European empires into 100 new nations, their national leaders soon found themselves the subordinate elites of a spreading American global imperium. Washington suddenly needed the sort of private information that could keep such figures in line. Surveillance of foreign leaders provides world powers -- Britain then, America now -- with critical information for the exercise of global hegemony. Such spying gave special penetrating power to the imperial gaze, to that sense of superiority necessary for dominion over others.  It also provided operational information on dissidents who might need to be countered with covert action or military force; political and economic intelligence so useful for getting the jump on allies in negotiations of all sorts; and, perhaps most important of all, scurrilous information about the derelictions of leaders useful in coercing their compliance.
  • In late 2013, the New York Times reported that, when it came to spying on global elites, there were “more than 1,000 targets of American and British surveillance in recent years,” reaching down to mid-level political actors in the international arena. Revelations from Edward Snowden’s cache of leaked documents indicate that the NSA has monitored leaders in some 35 nations worldwide -- including Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, Mexican presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.  Count in as well, among so many other operations, the monitoring of “French diplomatic interests” during the June 2010 U.N. vote on Iran sanctions and “widespread surveillance” of world leaders during the Group 20 summit meeting at Ottawa in June 2010. Apparently, only members of the historic “Five Eyes” signals-intelligence alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Great Britain) remain exempt -- at least theoretically -- from NSA surveillance. Such secret intelligence about allies can obviously give Washington a significant diplomatic advantage. During U.N. wrangling over the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003, for example, the NSA intercepted Secretary-General Kofi Anan’s conversations and monitored the “Middle Six” -- Third World nations on the Security Council -- offering what were, in essence, well-timed bribes to win votes. The NSA’s deputy chief for regional targets sent a memo to the agency’s Five Eyes allies asking “for insights as to how membership is reacting to on-going debate regarding Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions [..., and] the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals.”
  • Indicating Washington’s need for incriminating information in bilateral negotiations, the State Department pressed its Bahrain embassy in 2009 for details, damaging in an Islamic society, on the crown princes, asking: “Is there any derogatory information on either prince? Does either prince drink alcohol? Does either one use drugs?” Indeed, in October 2012, an NSA official identified as “DIRNSA,” or Director General Keith Alexander, proposed the following for countering Muslim radicals: “[Their] vulnerabilities, if exposed, would likely call into question a radicalizer’s devotion to the jihadist cause, leading to the degradation or loss of his authority.” The agency suggested that such vulnerabilities could include “viewing sexually explicit material online” or “using a portion of the donations they are receiving… to defray personal expenses.” The NSA document identified one potential target as a “respected academic” whose “vulnerabilities” are “online promiscuity.”
  • Just as the Internet has centralized communications, so it has moved most commercial sex into cyberspace. With an estimated 25 million salacious sites worldwide and a combined 10.6 billion page views per month in 2013 at the five top sex sites, online pornography has become a global business; by 2006, in fact, it generated $97 billion in revenue. With countless Internet viewers visiting porn sites and almost nobody admitting it, the NSA has easy access to the embarrassing habits of targets worldwide, whether Muslim militants or European leaders. According to James Bamford, author of two authoritative books on the agency, “The NSA's operation is eerily similar to the FBI's operations under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s where the bureau used wiretapping to discover vulnerabilities, such as sexual activity, to ‘neutralize’ their targets.”
  • Indeed, whistleblower Edward Snowden has accused the NSA of actually conducting such surveillance.  In a December 2013 letter to the Brazilian people, he wrote, “They even keep track of who is having an affair or looking at pornography, in case they need to damage their target's reputation.” If Snowden is right, then one key goal of NSA surveillance of world leaders is not U.S. national security but political blackmail -- as it has been since 1898. Such digital surveillance has tremendous potential for scandal, as anyone who remembers New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s forced resignation in 2008 after routine phone taps revealed his use of escort services; or, to take another obvious example, the ouster of France’s budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac in 2013 following wire taps that exposed his secret Swiss bank account. As always, the source of political scandal remains sex or money, both of which the NSA can track with remarkable ease.
  • By starting a swelling river of NSA documents flowing into public view, Edward Snowden has given us a glimpse of the changing architecture of U.S. global power. At the broadest level, Obama’s digital “pivot” complements his overall defense strategy, announced in 2012, of reducing conventional forces while expanding into the new, cost-effective domains of space and cyberspace. While cutting back modestly on costly armaments and the size of the military, President Obama has invested billions in the building of a new architecture for global information control. If we add the $791 billion expended to build the Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy to the $500 billion spent on an increasingly para-militarized version of global intelligence in the dozen years since 9/11, then Washington has made a $1.2 trillion investment in a new apparatus of world power.
  • So formidable is this security bureaucracy that Obama’s recent executive review recommended the regularization, not reform, of current NSA practices, allowing the agency to continue collecting American phone calls and monitoring foreign leaders into the foreseeable future. Cyberspace offers Washington an austerity-linked arena for the exercise of global power, albeit at the cost of trust by its closest allies -- a contradiction that will bedevil America’s global leadership for years to come. To update Henry Stimson: in the age of the Internet, gentlemen don't just read each other’s mail, they watch each other’s porn. Even if we think we have nothing to hide, all of us, whether world leaders or ordinary citizens, have good reason to be concerned.
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