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Paul Merrell

Obama to Place Some Restraints on Surveillance - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...hamper-surveillance-court.html

surveillance state NSA Obama Obama-decision

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • President Obama will issue new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will ask Congress to help decide some of the toughest issues, according to people briefed on his thinking.Mr. Obama plans to increase limits on access to bulk telephone data, call for privacy safeguards for foreigners and propose the creation of a public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret intelligence court. But he will not endorse leaving bulk data in the custody of telecommunications firms, nor will he require court permission for all so-called national security letters seeking business records.
  • President Obama will issue new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will ask Congress to help decide some of the toughest issues, according to people briefed on his thinking.Mr. Obama plans to increase limits on access to bulk telephone data, call for privacy safeguards for foreigners and propose the creation of a public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret intelligence court. But he will not endorse leaving bulk data in the custody of telecommunications firms, nor will he require court permission for all so-called national security letters seeking business records.
  • The emerging approach, described by current and former government officials who insisted on anonymity in advance of Mr. Obama’s widely anticipated speech, suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. The result seems to be a speech that leaves in place many current programs, but embraces the spirit of reform and keeps the door open to changes later. The decision to provide additional privacy protections for non-American citizens or residents, for instance, largely codifies existing practices but will be followed by a 180-day study by the director of national intelligence about whether to go further. Likewise, instead of taking the storage of bulk data out of government hands, as recommended by a review panel he appointed, Mr. Obama will leave it in place for now and ask lawmakers to weigh in.The blend of decisions, to be outlined in a speech at the Justice Department and in a presidential guidelines memorandum, will be Mr. Obama’s highest-profile response to the disclosures about the National Security Agency made in recent months by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor who has fled to Russia.
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  • The developments came as the nation’s judiciary waded into the highly charged debate. In a letter made public on Tuesday, a judge designated by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to express the views of the judicial branch warned that some changes under consideration would have a negative “operational impact” on a secret foreign intelligence court.Judge John D. Bates, a former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, urged Mr. Obama and Congress not to alter the way the court is appointed or to create an independent public advocate to argue against the Justice Department in secret proceedings. Any such advocate, he wrote, should instead be appointed only when the court decided one was needed.Judge Bates objected to the workload of requiring that courts approve all national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas allowing the F.B.I. to obtain records about communications and financial transactions without court approval. And he raised concerns about greater public disclosure of court rulings, arguing that unclassified summaries would be “likely to promote confusion and misunderstanding.”
  • But the president will not, at least for now, back the panel’s suggestion that telecommunications firms keep such data and that the government be allowed to tap into those databases only when necessary. Intelligence officials complained it would be inefficient to have to go to multiple companies, so some officials proposed creating an independent consortium to store the data instead.Mr. Obama has decided against keeping the data at the private providers because they do not want that responsibility, officials said, and no independent consortium currently exists. As a result, he will ask Congress to work with him to determine the best way to store the data.
  • The judge’s objection to the proposal on national security letters dovetailed with that of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who argued it would be inefficient to have to go to a judge each time records were sought. Mr. Obama has decided not to require court approval in every case, but might still require it in some circumstances, according to one administration official.Mr. Obama will cut back on the number of people whose phone records can be examined by the N.S.A. through its bulk data program. Currently the agency can scrutinize call records of people as far as three steps, or “hops,” removed from a suspect. Mr. Obama’s review panel proposed limiting searches to people just two steps removed. He is also likely to cut down the number of years such data can be retained; currently it is deleted after five years.
  • The judge’s letter, versions of which he sent to the leaders of several congressional committees, was released as all five members of Mr. Obama’s surveillance review group testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, seeking support for their recommendations.Illustrating the cross-pressures on the president, the advisers argued for the appointment of the independent version of a public advocate, a recommendation the president is expected to follow, though it is not clear how he will structure the position.
  • The letter by Judge Bates was accompanied by 15 pages of often specific comments about possible surveillance reforms.It is highly unusual for judges to weigh in on public policy debates involving the other two branches of government, but Judge Bates, the director of the Administrative Office of the United States Court, said that Chief Justice Roberts had designated him to “act as a liaison” and that he had consulted other judges.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 14
     
    I keep wondering if Barack Obama just might be the most timid President the U.S. has ever had. Certainly, he lacks the courage to lead the nation. 
Paul Merrell

CURIA - Documents - 0 views

curia.europa.eu/...document.jsf

surveillance state EU Court-of-Justice data-retention data privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • 37      It must be stated that the interference caused by Directive 2006/24 with the fundamental rights laid down in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter is, as the Advocate General has also pointed out, in particular, in paragraphs 77 and 80 of his Opinion, wide-ranging, and it must be considered to be particularly serious. Furthermore, as the Advocate General has pointed out in paragraphs 52 and 72 of his Opinion, the fact that data are retained and subsequently used without the subscriber or registered user being informed is likely to generate in the minds of the persons concerned the feeling that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance.
  • 43      In this respect, it is apparent from recital 7 in the preamble to Directive 2006/24 that, because of the significant growth in the possibilities afforded by electronic communications, the Justice and Home Affairs Council of 19 December 2002 concluded that data relating to the use of electronic communications are particularly important and therefore a valuable tool in the prevention of offences and the fight against crime, in particular organised crime. 44      It must therefore be held that the retention of data for the purpose of allowing the competent national authorities to have possible access to those data, as required by Directive 2006/24, genuinely satisfies an objective of general interest.45      In those circumstances, it is necessary to verify the proportionality of the interference found to exist.46      In that regard, according to the settled case-law of the Court, the principle of proportionality requires that acts of the EU institutions be appropriate for attaining the legitimate objectives pursued by the legislation at issue and do not exceed the limits of what is appropriate and necessary in order to achieve those objectives (see, to that effect, Case C‑343/09 Afton Chemical EU:C:2010:419, paragraph 45; Volker und Markus Schecke and Eifert EU:C:2010:662, paragraph 74; Cases C‑581/10 and C‑629/10 Nelson and Others EU:C:2012:657, paragraph 71; Case C‑283/11 Sky Österreich EU:C:2013:28, paragraph 50; and Case C‑101/12 Schaible EU:C:2013:661, paragraph 29).
  • 67      Article 7 of Directive 2006/24, read in conjunction with Article 4(1) of Directive 2002/58 and the second subparagraph of Article 17(1) of Directive 95/46, does not ensure that a particularly high level of protection and security is applied by those providers by means of technical and organisational measures, but permits those providers in particular to have regard to economic considerations when determining the level of security which they apply, as regards the costs of implementing security measures. In particular, Directive 2006/24 does not ensure the irreversible destruction of the data at the end of the data retention period.68      In the second place, it should be added that that directive does not require the data in question to be retained within the European Union, with the result that it cannot be held that the control, explicitly required by Article 8(3) of the Charter, by an independent authority of compliance with the requirements of protection and security, as referred to in the two previous paragraphs, is fully ensured. Such a control, carried out on the basis of EU law, is an essential component of the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data (see, to that effect, Case C‑614/10 Commission v Austria EU:C:2012:631, paragraph 37).69      Having regard to all the foregoing considerations, it must be held that, by adopting Directive 2006/24, the EU legislature has exceeded the limits imposed by compliance with the principle of proportionality in the light of Articles 7, 8 and 52(1) of the Charter.
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  • 58      Directive 2006/24 affects, in a comprehensive manner, all persons using electronic communications services, but without the persons whose data are retained being, even indirectly, in a situation which is liable to give rise to criminal prosecutions. It therefore applies even to persons for whom there is no evidence capable of suggesting that their conduct might have a link, even an indirect or remote one, with serious crime. Furthermore, it does not provide for any exception, with the result that it applies even to persons whose communications are subject, according to rules of national law, to the obligation of professional secrecy. 59      Moreover, whilst seeking to contribute to the fight against serious crime, Directive 2006/24 does not require any relationship between the data whose retention is provided for and a threat to public security and, in particular, it is not restricted to a retention in relation (i) to data pertaining to a particular time period and/or a particular geographical zone and/or to a circle of particular persons likely to be involved, in one way or another, in a serious crime, or (ii) to persons who could, for other reasons, contribute, by the retention of their data, to the prevention, detection or prosecution of serious offences.
  • 1        These requests for a preliminary ruling concern the validity of Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC (OJ 2006 L 105, p. 54).
  • Digital Rights Ireland Ltd (C‑293/12)vMinister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources,Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform,Commissioner of the Garda Síochána,Ireland,The Attorney General,intervener:Irish Human Rights Commission, andKärntner Landesregierung (C‑594/12),Michael Seitlinger,Christof Tschohl and others,
  • JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber)8 April 2014 (*)(Electronic communications — Directive 2006/24/EC — Publicly available electronic communications services or public communications networks services — Retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of such services — Validity — Articles 7, 8 and 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union)In Joined Cases C‑293/12 and C‑594/12,
  • 34      As a result, the obligation imposed by Articles 3 and 6 of Directive 2006/24 on providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks to retain, for a certain period, data relating to a person’s private life and to his communications, such as those referred to in Article 5 of the directive, constitutes in itself an interference with the rights guaranteed by Article 7 of the Charter. 35      Furthermore, the access of the competent national authorities to the data constitutes a further interference with that fundamental right (see, as regards Article 8 of the ECHR, Eur. Court H.R., Leander v. Sweden, 26 March 1987, § 48, Series A no 116; Rotaru v. Romania [GC], no. 28341/95, § 46, ECHR 2000-V; and Weber and Saravia v. Germany (dec.), no. 54934/00, § 79, ECHR 2006-XI). Accordingly, Articles 4 and 8 of Directive 2006/24 laying down rules relating to the access of the competent national authorities to the data also constitute an interference with the rights guaranteed by Article 7 of the Charter. 36      Likewise, Directive 2006/24 constitutes an interference with the fundamental right to the protection of personal data guaranteed by Article 8 of the Charter because it provides for the processing of personal data.
  • 65      It follows from the above that Directive 2006/24 does not lay down clear and precise rules governing the extent of the interference with the fundamental rights enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter. It must therefore be held that Directive 2006/24 entails a wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with those fundamental rights in the legal order of the EU, without such an interference being precisely circumscribed by provisions to ensure that it is actually limited to what is strictly necessary.66      Moreover, as far as concerns the rules relating to the security and protection of data retained by providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks, it must be held that Directive 2006/24 does not provide for sufficient safeguards, as required by Article 8 of the Charter, to ensure effective protection of the data retained against the risk of abuse and against any unlawful access and use of that data. In the first place, Article 7 of Directive 2006/24 does not lay down rules which are specific and adapted to (i) the vast quantity of data whose retention is required by that directive, (ii) the sensitive nature of that data and (iii) the risk of unlawful access to that data, rules which would serve, in particular, to govern the protection and security of the data in question in a clear and strict manner in order to ensure their full integrity and confidentiality. Furthermore, a specific obligation on Member States to establish such rules has also not been laid down.
  • 60      Secondly, not only is there a general absence of limits in Directive 2006/24 but Directive 2006/24 also fails to lay down any objective criterion by which to determine the limits of the access of the competent national authorities to the data and their subsequent use for the purposes of prevention, detection or criminal prosecutions concerning offences that, in view of the extent and seriousness of the interference with the fundamental rights enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, may be considered to be sufficiently serious to justify such an interference. On the contrary, Directive 2006/24 simply refers, in Article 1(1), in a general manner to serious crime, as defined by each Member State in its national law.61      Furthermore, Directive 2006/24 does not contain substantive and procedural conditions relating to the access of the competent national authorities to the data and to their subsequent use. Article 4 of the directive, which governs the access of those authorities to the data retained, does not expressly provide that that access and the subsequent use of the data in question must be strictly restricted to the purpose of preventing and detecting precisely defined serious offences or of conducting criminal prosecutions relating thereto; it merely provides that each Member State is to define the procedures to be followed and the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain access to the retained data in accordance with necessity and proportionality requirements.
  • 55      The need for such safeguards is all the greater where, as laid down in Directive 2006/24, personal data are subjected to automatic processing and where there is a significant risk of unlawful access to those data (see, by analogy, as regards Article 8 of the ECHR, S. and Marper v. the United Kingdom, § 103, and M. K. v. France, 18 April 2013, no. 19522/09, § 35).56      As for the question of whether the interference caused by Directive 2006/24 is limited to what is strictly necessary, it should be observed that, in accordance with Article 3 read in conjunction with Article 5(1) of that directive, the directive requires the retention of all traffic data concerning fixed telephony, mobile telephony, Internet access, Internet e-mail and Internet telephony. It therefore applies to all means of electronic communication, the use of which is very widespread and of growing importance in people’s everyday lives. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 3 of Directive 2006/24, the directive covers all subscribers and registered users. It therefore entails an interference with the fundamental rights of practically the entire European population. 57      In this respect, it must be noted, first, that Directive 2006/24 covers, in a generalised manner, all persons and all means of electronic communication as well as all traffic data without any differentiation, limitation or exception being made in the light of the objective of fighting against serious crime.
  • 62      In particular, Directive 2006/24 does not lay down any objective criterion by which the number of persons authorised to access and subsequently use the data retained is limited to what is strictly necessary in the light of the objective pursued. Above all, the access by the competent national authorities to the data retained is not made dependent on a prior review carried out by a court or by an independent administrative body whose decision seeks to limit access to the data and their use to what is strictly necessary for the purpose of attaining the objective pursued and which intervenes following a reasoned request of those authorities submitted within the framework of procedures of prevention, detection or criminal prosecutions. Nor does it lay down a specific obligation on Member States designed to establish such limits. 63      Thirdly, so far as concerns the data retention period, Article 6 of Directive 2006/24 requires that those data be retained for a period of at least six months, without any distinction being made between the categories of data set out in Article 5 of that directive on the basis of their possible usefulness for the purposes of the objective pursued or according to the persons concerned.64      Furthermore, that period is set at between a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 24 months, but it is not stated that the determination of the period of retention must be based on objective criteria in order to ensure that it is limited to what is strictly necessary.
  • 52      So far as concerns the right to respect for private life, the protection of that fundamental right requires, according to the Court’s settled case-law, in any event, that derogations and limitations in relation to the protection of personal data must apply only in so far as is strictly necessary (Case C‑473/12 IPI EU:C:2013:715, paragraph 39 and the case-law cited).53      In that regard, it should be noted that the protection of personal data resulting from the explicit obligation laid down in Article 8(1) of the Charter is especially important for the right to respect for private life enshrined in Article 7 of the Charter.54      Consequently, the EU legislation in question must lay down clear and precise rules governing the scope and application of the measure in question and imposing minimum safeguards so that the persons whose data have been retained have sufficient guarantees to effectively protect their personal data against the risk of abuse and against any unlawful access and use of that data (see, by analogy, as regards Article 8 of the ECHR, Eur. Court H.R., Liberty and Others v. the United Kingdom, 1 July 2008, no. 58243/00, § 62 and 63; Rotaru v. Romania, § 57 to 59, and S. and Marper v. the United Kingdom, § 99).
  • 26      In that regard, it should be observed that the data which providers of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks must retain, pursuant to Articles 3 and 5 of Directive 2006/24, include data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication and its destination, to identify the date, time, duration and type of a communication, to identify users’ communication equipment, and to identify the location of mobile communication equipment, data which consist, inter alia, of the name and address of the subscriber or registered user, the calling telephone number, the number called and an IP address for Internet services. Those data make it possible, in particular, to know the identity of the person with whom a subscriber or registered user has communicated and by what means, and to identify the time of the communication as well as the place from which that communication took place. They also make it possible to know the frequency of the communications of the subscriber or registered user with certain persons during a given period. 27      Those data, taken as a whole, may allow very precise conclusions to be drawn concerning the private lives of the persons whose data has been retained, such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other movements, the activities carried out, the social relationships of those persons and the social environments frequented by them.
  • 32      By requiring the retention of the data listed in Article 5(1) of Directive 2006/24 and by allowing the competent national authorities to access those data, Directive 2006/24, as the Advocate General has pointed out, in particular, in paragraphs 39 and 40 of his Opinion, derogates from the system of protection of the right to privacy established by Directives 95/46 and 2002/58 with regard to the processing of personal data in the electronic communications sector, directives which provided for the confidentiality of communications and of traffic data as well as the obligation to erase or make those data anonymous where they are no longer needed for the purpose of the transmission of a communication, unless they are necessary for billing purposes and only for as long as so necessary.
  • On those grounds, the Court (Grand Chamber) hereby rules:Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC is invalid.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Jul 14
     
    EU Court of Justice decision in regard to a Directive that required communications data retention by telcos/ISPs, finding the Directive invalid as a violation of the right of privacy in communications. Fairly read, paragraph 59 outlaws bulk collection of such records, i.e., it requires the equivalent of a judge-issued search warrant in the U.S. based on probable cause to believe that the particular individual's communications are a legitimate object of a search.  Note also that paragraph 67 effectively forbids transfer of any retained data outside the E.U. So a barrier for NSA sharing of data with GCHQ derived from communications NSA collects from EU communications traffic. Bye-bye, Big Data for GCHQ in the E.U. 
Paul Merrell

National security bill opens the door to expanded control orders and secret evidence | ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...rol-orders-and-secret-evidence

civil-liberties Australia secret-evidence litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, Attorney-General George Brandis introduced a new national security bill into the Senate. This is the fifth tranche of national security legislation to be introduced into parliament since July 2014.
  • This bill includes a host of new measures designed to address the evolving threat posed by terrorism. These include: a new offence of advocacy of genocide; amendments to the control order regime, so it applies to persons 14 years and older, and new measures to monitor controlees; and clarification of the basis for issuing a preventative detention order. But the bill’s most concerning aspect is the proposal to expand the secrecy provisions available to courts in control order proceedings. Keeping national security information secret in court Since 2004, legislation has been in place to deal with information that is likely to prejudice national security in federal court proceedings. This legislation created a special closed hearing procedure to determine whether national security information could be disclosed in court and, if so, in what form. This process regulates disclosure between the parties – that is, who gets to see what.
  • The bill expands this by creating special provisions that allow the court to consider sensitive material that the controlee and legal representative have not seen in proceedings to impose, confirm or vary a control order. It provides that a court can consider all of the information: contained in an original source document in control order proceedings, even where the controlee and their legal representative have been provided with only a redacted or summarised form of the document; contained in an original source document in control order proceedings, even where the controlee and their legal representative have not been provided with any information contained in the original source document; and provided by a witness, even where the information provided by the witness is not disclosed to the controlee or their legal representative. The bill’s effect is to allow secret evidence into control order proceedings.
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  • “Secret evidence” is that which is not disclosed to an affected party and their legal representative. It is not new. A successful claim of public interest immunity, for example, results in secret material being excluded from the evidence presented in court. What is new in the anti-terror context is legislation that allows the courts to rely on secret evidence in control order proceedings.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Australia, along with the UK, cotinues its steady march to the right on national security matters. The admissibility of secret evidence in judicial proceedings is antithetical to notions of Due Process and a fair trial, as well as to public oversight of judicial proceedings.  
Paul Merrell

Israel decries US 'knife in back' over Palestinian govt - Yahoo News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/alestinian-govt-210018880.html

war & peace Israel Palestine Kerry Obama Netanyahu negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Washington's support for a new Palestinian government backed by Israel's Islamist foe Hamas, has left the Jewish state feeling betrayed, triggering a new crisis with its closest ally. Several Israeli ministers expressed public anger on Tuesday after the US State Department said it was willing to work with the new Palestinian unity government put together by the West Bank leadership and Gaza's Hamas rulers. Technocratic in nature, the new government was sworn in on Monday in front of president Mahmud Abbas, with Washington offering its backing several hours later.
  • Speaking to reporters on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the new cabinet would be judged "by its actions.""At this point, it appears that president Abbas has formed an interim technocratic government that does not include ministers affiliated with Hamas," she said. "With what we know now, we will work with this government."
  • The US endorsement was viewed as a major blow for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had on Sunday urged the international community not to rush into recognising the new government, which he said would only "strengthen terror."
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  • "Unfortunately, American naivety has broken all records," said Communications Minister Gilad Erdan, a cabinet hardliner who is close to Netanyahu."Collaborating with Hamas, which is defined as a terror organisation in the United States, is simply unthinkable. "US capitulation to Palestinian tactics badly damages the chance of ever returning to negotiations and will cause Israel to take unilateral steps to defend its citizens from the government of terror which Abu Mazen (Abbas) has set up." Public radio said Netanyahu was feeling "betrayed and deceived," particularly as he had assured his security cabinet that US Secretary of State John Kerry had promised him Washington would not recognise the new government immediately.
  • "And it wasn't immediate -- it was five hours later that this recognition took place," the radio noted ironically. A senior political official quoted by the Israel Hayom freesheet, widely regarded as Netanyahu's mouthpiece, said the US move was "like a knife in the back." - 'Answer with annexation' - Israeli commentators said the Palestinians had chalked up a "major success" in driving a new wedge between Israel and its US ally.
  • With the peace process in tatters, hardliners within Netanyahu's rightwing coalition have been pushing for Israel to take unilateral steps such as the annexation of the main Jewish settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
  • The security cabinet agreed on Monday to set up a team to examine the annexation option, but Yediot Aharonot commentator Shimon Shiffer said the move was a sop to Bennett and other hardliners rather than a serious policy change.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    What's remarkable here is that Obama has apparently ratcheted down his fear of the Israel Lobby. But it's not as though Mr. Netanyahu was not warned that the world would see Israel as responsible if it blew up the Kerry-brokered negotiation between Israel and Palestine. Israel did blow it up by not delivering the last shipment of Palestinian prisoners required by the pre-negotiation agreement, attempting to gain further concessions using their release as leverage.  Palestine responded by joining a large number of U.N. treaty organizations and was thus recognized by most nations on the planet as a nation: a critically important move, because it is recognition by other nations as a nation that qualifies Palestine as a full-fledged U.N. member rather than an observer state, an application Palestine can now make at the time of its choosing. That is also important because Palestine is now positioned to join the Rome Convention that created the International Criminal Court, providing Palestine with legal standing to file war crime charges against high Israeli officials that would then obligate the Court to investigate. Palestine is holding back on that move, using it as bargaining leverage on the world stage.   Palestine also responded by forming a coalition "unity" government with Hamas, the political party that nominally rules the Gaza strip, the world's largest open-air concentration camp. At Israel's request, the U.S. had several years ago designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. But that was a purely political move. It seems that the political situation has changed. Obama is pivoting out of the Mideast as he performs his ballyhooed "pivot to Asia," which is actually a pivot to contain Russia that isn't working and a pivot to subjugate Africa and its huge store of untapped natural resources, including lots of oil. Blocking China's economic deals in Africa with military force seems to be the current top concern in the White House. Israel was already a pari
Paul Merrell

Engendering Crises to Justify the National Security State The Future of Freedom Foundation - 0 views

fff.org/...fy-the-national-security-state

security state national-security peace-dividend essays

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The latest issue of Time magazine, one of the very models of the mainstream press, says it all: “NATO’s Back in Business, Thanks to Russia’s Threat to Ukraine.” The basic theme of the article is that we should be thankful that NATO didn’t go out of business when the Cold War ended. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the article suggests, proves that keeping NATO in existence was a wise decision. What a crock.
  • The best thing the American people could have ever done is not having embraced the totalitarian-type apparatus known as the national-security state. In the name of fighting communism, it caused America to abandon its founding principles and ideals of liberty and limited government and turned America toward dark side practices that characterize communist and other totalitarian regimes. The next-best thing the American people could have done is having dismantled the national-security state apparatus at the end of the Cold War. The best thing the American people could do today is dismantle, not reform, the national-security state apparatus. That’s a key to restoring a balanced, harmonious, peaceful, moral, free, and prosperous society to our land.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Apr 14
     
    Excellent essay that laces together the history of the security state and national "defense."
Gary Edwards

Hussman Funds: Timothy Geithner Meets Vladimir Lenin - January 4, 2010 - 0 views

hussmanfunds.com/...wmc100104.htm

financial-crisis obammunism banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.'
  • Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.'
  • Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.'
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  • “In effect, the Federal Reserve decided last week to overstep its legal boundaries – going beyond providing liquidity to the banking system and attempting to ensure the solvency of a non-bank entity. Specifically, the Fed agreed to provide a $30 billion “non-recourse loan” to J.P. Morgan, secured only by the worst tranche of Bear Stearns' mortgage debt. But the bank – J.P. Morgan – was in no financial trouble. Instead, it was effectively offered a subsidy by the Fed at public expense. Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.'
  • the Treasuries purchased by the Fed have always been accompanied directly or indirectly by revenue to the government that could be spent on behalf of its citizens for government programs that had the vote of Congress.
  • What has happened over the past two years is that the Federal Reserve has purchased about $1.25 trillion dollars in mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – securities that the Treasury has now made an unlegislated (or at minimum, unintentionally legislated), bureaucratic decision to fully back.
  • Fiscal policy was always the domain of Congress alone.
  • Prior to 2008, the total amount of monetary base created in the history of the United States was about $800 billion.
  • the Treasury has committed to “allow the cap on Treasury's funding commitment under these agreements to increase as necessary to accommodate any cumulative reduction in net worth.”
  • In a sharp break from the past, the issuance of these Treasury securities will not be accompanied by any revenue to the government for Congressionally approved programs.
  • Every dollar of bad mortgage debt that should have been written off is now enshrined as two dollars of government-backed debt. One dollar as the original debt, which will now be made whole, and one dollar of new Treasury securities, which must be issued to make that original debt whole. Accordingly, the holders of both securities will have claims against our national assets and future wealth.
  • Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.'
  • Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.
  • “In effect, the Federal Reserve decided last week to overstep its legal boundaries – going beyond providing liquidity to the banking system and attempting to ensure the solvency of a non-bank entity. Specifically, the Fed agreed to provide a $30 billion “non-recourse loan” to J.P. Morgan, secured only by the worst tranche of Bear Stearns' mortgage debt. But the bank – J.P. Morgan – was in no financial trouble. Instead, it was effectively offered a subsidy by the Fed at public expense. Rick Santelli of CNBC is exactly right. If this is how the U.S. government is going to operate in a democratic, free-market society, ‘we might as well put a hammer and sickle on the flag.'
  • “The deal was made under duress, to the benefit of a private company, on the basis of financial assurances that the bureaucrats involved had no business making.
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Jan 10
     
    the Fed is now engaging in unlegislated, back-door fiscal policy. excerpt:  "The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency." Vladimir Lenin, leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution Last week, while Congress and the nation were preoccupied with the holidays, the Treasury made a Christmas eve announcement that it would be providing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac unlimited financial support for the next three years. Put simply, in a single, coordinated stroke, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have encroached on spending powers that are enumerated for the Congress alone. Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), the Treasury has no such open-ended authority. Indeed, the applicable portion of the Act explicitly limits the total amount of mortgage principal (not losses, but total principal) as follows: .......... In a sharp break from the past, the issuance of these Treasury securities will not be accompanied by any revenue to the government for Congressionally approved programs. The Treasuries will be issued, the money will be handed over the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and those funds will go largely to the Federal Reserve and other holders of existing mortgage debt simply to replace the bad, but bailed-out agency securities with cash as they mature. The public gets nothing for something - the issuance of the Treasuries is in itself their expenditure.
Paul Merrell

Disclosing Classified Info to the Press - With Permission | - 0 views

fas.org/...authorized-disclosure

surveillance state NSA authorized-disclosures

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Intelligence officials disclosed classified information to members of the press on at least three occasions in 2013, according to a National Security Agency report to Congress that was released last week under the Freedom of Information Act. See Congressional Notification — Authorized Disclosures of Classified Information to Media Personnel, NSA memorandum to the staff director, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 13, 2013. The specific information that NSA gave to the unnamed reporters was not declassified. But the disclosures were not “leaks,” or unauthorized disclosures. They were, instead, authorized disclosures. For their part, the reporters agreed not to disseminate the information further. “Noteworthy among the classified topics disclosed were NSA’s use of metadata to locate terrorists, the techniques we use and the processes we follow to assist in locating hostages, [several words deleted] overseas support to the warfighter and U.S. allies in war zones, and NSA support to overall USG efforts to mitigate cyber threats. The [deleted] personnel executed non-disclosure agreements that covered all classified discussions.” In one case, “classified information was disclosed in order to correct inaccurate understandings held by the reporter about the nature and circumstances of [deleted].” On another occasion, “classified information was disclosed in an effort to limit or avoid reporting that could lead to the loss of the capability [deleted].”
  • In all three cases, “the decision to disclose classified information was made in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence pursuant to Executive Order 13526, and in each case the information disclosed remains properly classified.” This seems like a generous interpretation of the Executive Order, which does not mention disclosures to the press at all. It does say, in section 4.2(b) that “In an emergency, when necessary to respond to an imminent threat to life or in defense of the homeland, the agency head or any designee may authorize the disclosure of classified information […] to an individual or individuals who are otherwise not eligible for access.” In an emergency, then, but not just “to correct inaccurate understandings.” Still, the report accurately reflects the true instrumental nature of the classification system. That is, the protection of classified information under all circumstances is not a paramount goal. National security secrecy is a tool to be used if it advances the national interest (and is consistent with law and policy) and to be set aside when it does not. So hypocrisy in the handling of classified information is not an issue here. The concern, rather, is that the power of selective disclosure of classified material can be easily abused to manage and to manipulate public perceptions. The congressional requirement to report on authorized disclosures of classified information to the press may help to mitigate that danger.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jan 17
     
    This would set up an interesting Freedom of Information Act case aimed at resolving the issue whether the "authorized" disclosures established a waiver of the FOIA exemption for national security information. A waiver, viewed most simplistically, is any conduct that is inconsistent with later assertion of a right. Deliberate disclosure to anyone who lacks a national security clearance would seem to be inconsistent with later assertion of the exemption. That the purpose of the disclosures was to adjust the attitudes of press members seems a very poor justification in that it establishes particular reporters as a class of persons entitled to more disclosure than other members of the public. Yet the Supreme Court has held time and again that journalists have no more right to access government information than any other member of the public. So there is a strong argument that everyone should be entitled to the same disclosures.
Paul Merrell

White House Seeks to Soothe Relations With Venezuela - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-relations-with-venezuela.html

war & peace Venezuela U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • A White House official said Tuesday that Venezuela was not a threat to the national security of the United States, backing off language in an executive order that had inflamed relations with the South American nation and drawn criticism from other countries in the region.The comments came as President Obama prepared to leave for a trip to the Caribbean and Latin America that will include a meeting of heads of state from the hemisphere.“The United States does not believe that Venezuela poses some threat to our national security,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, during a telephone call with reporters to discuss the president’s trip.
  • He was referring to an executive order signed by Mr. Obama last month that called for economic sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials who the United States said were involved in human rights abuses or violations of due process. Continue reading the main story Related in Opinion Editorial: A Failing Relationship With Venezuela MARCH 12, 2015 The executive order said that Venezuela was a threat to national security and that it constituted a national emergency for the United States.
  • The language escalated tensions between the two countries and provoked an angry response from President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Even Venezuelan opposition leaders said it was excessive and had inadvertently played to Mr. Maduro’s political benefit.American officials had previously sought to play down the language in the order, saying that the administration was required by law to make the security threat designation to carry out the sanctions.But Mr. Rhodes went further on Tuesday, explicitly stating that Venezuela did not pose a threat, adding that the language was “completely pro forma.”“We, frankly, just have a framework for how we formalize these executive orders,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 15
     
    "completely pro forma".  "When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all." So because Congress said Obama has to make a written finding of a threat to national security in order to issue sanctions, Obama can make such a finding whether or not there is such a threat? Outrageous. Any judge who ruled that it is a winning argument would be laughed off the bench. Mr. Rhodes insults the public's intelligence. 
Paul Merrell

Responding to Failure: Reorganizing U.S. Policies in the Middle East | Middle East Poli... - 0 views

mepc.org/...nizing-us-policies-middle-east

war & peace Mideast Israel Arabs Shia-nations U.S.-foreign-policy recommendations

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • I want to speak with you today about the Middle East. This is the region where Africa, Asia, and Europe come together. It is also the part of the world where we have been most compellingly reminded that some struggles cannot be won, but there are no struggles that cannot be lost. It is often said that human beings learn little useful from success but can learn a great deal from defeat. If so, the Middle East now offers a remarkably rich menu of foreign-policy failures for Americans to study. • Our four-decade-long diplomatic effort to bring peace to the Holy Land sputtered to an ignominious conclusion a year ago. • Our unconditional political, economic, and military backing of Israel has earned us the enmity of Israel’s enemies even as it has enabled egregiously contemptuous expressions of ingratitude and disrespect for us from Israel itself.
  • • Our attempts to contain the Iranian revolution have instead empowered it. • Our military campaigns to pacify the region have destabilized it, dismantled its states, and ignited ferocious wars of religion among its peoples. • Our efforts to democratize Arab societies have helped to produce anarchy, terrorism, dictatorship, or an indecisive juxtaposition of all three. • In Iraq, Libya, and Syria we have shown that war does not decide who’s right so much as determine who’s left. • Our campaign against terrorism with global reach has multiplied our enemies and continuously expanded their areas of operation. • Our opposition to nuclear proliferation did not prevent Israel from clandestinely developing nuclear weapons and related delivery systems and may not preclude Iran and others from following suit.
  • • At the global level, our policies in the Middle East have damaged our prestige, weakened our alliances, and gained us a reputation for militaristic fecklessness in the conduct of our foreign affairs. They have also distracted us from challenges elsewhere of equal or greater importance to our national interests. That’s quite a record.
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  • One can only measure success or failure by reference to what one is trying achieve. So, in practice, what have U.S. objectives been? Are these objectives still valid? If we’ve failed to advance them, what went wrong? What must we do now to have a better chance of success? Our objectives in the Middle East have not changed much over the course of the past half century or more. We have sought to 1. Gain acceptance and security for a Jewish homeland from the other states and peoples of the region; 2. Ensure the uninterrupted availability of the region’s energy supplies to sustain global and U.S. security and prosperity; 3. Preserve our ability to transit the region so as to be able to project power around the world; 4. Prevent the rise of a regional hegemon or the deployment of weapons of mass destruction that might threaten any or all of these first three objectives; 5. Maximize profitable commerce; and 6. Promote stability while enhancing respect for human rights and progress toward constitutional democracy. Let’s briefly review what’s happened with respect to each of these objectives. I will not mince words.
  • Israel has come to enjoy military supremacy but it remains excluded from most participation in its region’s political, economic, and cultural life. In the 67 years since the Jewish state was proclaimed, Israel has not made a single friend in the Middle East, where it continues to be regarded as an illegitimate legacy of Western imperialism engaged in racist removal of the indigenous population. International support for Israel is down to the United States and a few of the former colonial powers that originally imposed the Zionist project on the Arabs under Sykes-Picot and the related Balfour Declaration. The two-state solution has expired as a physical or political possibility. There is no longer any peace process to distract global attention from Israel’s maltreatment of its captive Arab populations. After years of deference to American diplomacy, the Palestinians are about to challenge the legality of Israel’s cruelties to them in the International Criminal Court and other venues in which Americans have no veto, are not present, or cannot protect the Jewish state from the consequences of its own behavior as we have always been able to do in the past. Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza are fueling a drive to boycott its products, disinvest in its companies, and sanction its political and cultural elite. These trends are the very opposite of what the United States has attempted to achieve for Israel.
  • In a stunning demonstration of his country’s most famous renewable resource — chutzpah — Israel’s Prime Minister chose this very moment to make America the main issue in his reelection campaign while simultaneously transforming Israel into a partisan issue in the United States. This is the very opposite of a sound survival strategy for Israel. Uncertainties about their country’s future are leading many Israelis to emigrate, not just to America but to Europe. This should disturb not just Israelis but Americans, if only because of the enormous investment we have made in attempts to gain a secure place for Israel in its region and the world. The Palestinians have been silent about Mr. Netanyahu’s recent political maneuvers. Evidently, they recall Napoleon’s adage that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake. This brings me to an awkward but transcendently important issue. Israel was established as a haven from anti-Semitism — Jew hatred — in Europe, a disease of nationalism and Christian culture that culminated in the Holocaust. Israel’s creation was a relief for European Jews but a disaster for the Arabs of Palestine, who were either ethnically cleansed by European Jewish settlers or subjugated, or both.  But the birth of Israel also proved tragic for Jews throughout the Middle East — the Mizrahim. In a nasty irony, the implementation of Zionism in the Holy Land led to the introduction of European-style anti-Semitism — including its classic Christian libels on Jews — to the region, dividing Arab Jews from their Muslim neighbors as never before and compelling them to join European Jews in taking refuge in Israel amidst outrage over the dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland. Now, in a further irony, Israel’s pogroms and other injustices to the Muslim and Christian Arabs over whom it rules are leading not just to a rebirth of anti-Semitism in Europe but to its globalization.
  • The late King `Abdullah of Saudi Arabia engineered a reversal of decades of Arab rejectionism at Beirut in 2002. He brought all Arab countries and later all 57 Muslim countries to agree to normalize relations with Israel if it did a deal — any deal — with the Palestinians that the latter could accept. Israel spurned the offer. Its working assumption seems to be that it does not need peace with its neighbors as long as it can bomb and strafe them. Proceeding on this basis is not just a bad bet, it is one that is dividing Israel from the world, including Jews outside Israel. This does not look like a story with a happy ending. It’s hard to avoid the thought that Zionism is turning out to be bad for the Jews. If so, given the American investment in it, it will also have turned out to be bad for America. The political costs to America of support for Israel are steadily rising. We must find a way to divert Israel from the largely self-engineered isolation into which it is driving itself, while repairing our own increasing international ostracism on issues related to Israel.  
  • Despite Mr. Netanyahu’s recent public hysteria about Iran and his efforts to demonize it, Israel has traditionally seen Iran’s rivalry with the Arabs as a strategic asset. It had a very cooperative relationship with the Shah. Neither Israelis nor Arabs have forgotten the strategic logic that produced Israel's entente with Iran. Israel is very much on Daesh’s list of targets, as is Iran. For now, however, Israel’s main concern is the possible loss of its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Many years ago, Israel actually did what it now accuses Iran of planning to do. It clandestinely developed nuclear weapons while denying to us and others that it was doing so. Unlike Iran, Israel has not adhered to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or subjected its nuclear facilities to international inspection. It has expressed no interest in proposals for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. It sees its ability to bring on nuclear Armageddon as the ultimate guarantee of its existence.
  • To many, Israel now seems to have acquired the obnoxious habit of biting the American hand that has fed it for so long. The Palestinians have despaired of American support for their self-determination. They are reaching out to the international community in ways that deliberately bypass the United States. Random acts of violence herald mayhem in the Holy Land. Daesh has proclaimed the objective of erasing the Sykes-Picot borders and the states within them. It has already expunged the border between Iraq and Syria. It is at work in Lebanon and has set its sights on Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Lebanon, under Saudi influence, has turned to France rather than America for support. Hezbollah has intervened militarily in Iraq and Syria, both of whose governments are close to Iran. Egypt and Turkey have distanced themselves from the United States as well as from each other. Russia is back as a regional actor and arms supplier. The Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey now separately intervene in Libya, Syria, and Iraq without reference to American policy or views. Iran is the dominant influence in Iraq, Syria, parts of Lebanon, and now Yemen. It has boots on the ground in Iraq. And now Saudi Arabia seems to be organizing a coalition that will manage its own nuclear deterrence and military balancing of Ir
  • To describe this as out of control is hardly adequate. What are we to do about it? Perhaps we should start by recalling the first law of holes — “when stuck in one, stop digging.” It appears that “don’t just sit there, bomb something” isn’t much of a strategy. When he was asked last summer what our strategy for dealing with Daesh was, President Obama replied, “We don’t yet have one.” He was widely derided for that. He should have been praised for making the novel suggestion that before Washington acts, it should first think through what it hopes to accomplish and how best to do it. Sunzi once observed that “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." America’s noisy but strategy-free approach to the Middle East has proven him right. Again the starting point must be what we are trying to accomplish. Strategy is "the discipline of achieving desired ends through the most efficient use of available means" [John Lewis Gaddis].Our desired ends with respect to the Middle East are not in doubt. They have been and remain to gain an accepted and therefore secure place for Israel there; to keep the region's oil and gas coming at reasonable prices; to be able to pass through the area at will; to head off challenges to these interests; to do profitable business in the markets of the Middle East; and to promote stability amidst the expansion of liberty in its countries. Judging by results, we have been doing a lot wrong. Two related problems in our overall approach need correction. They are “enablement” and the creation of “moral hazard.” Both are fall-out from  relationships of codependency.
  • Enablement occurs when one party to a relationship indulges or supports and thereby enables another party’s dysfunctional behavior. A familiar example from ordinary life is giving money to a drunk or a drug addict or ignoring, explaining away, or defending their subsequent self-destructive behavior.  Moral hazard is the condition that obtains when one party is emboldened to take risks it would not otherwise take because it knows another party will shoulder the consequences and bear the costs of failure. The U.S.-Israel relationship has evolved to exemplify codependency. It now embodies both enablement and moral hazard. U.S. support for Israel is unconditional.  Israel has therefore had no need to cultivate relations with others in the Middle East, to declare its borders, or to choose peace over continued expansion into formerly Arab lands. Confidence in U.S. backing enables Israel to do whatever it likes to the Palestinians and its neighbors without having to worry about the consequences. Israel is now a rich country, but the United States continues to subsidize it with cash transfers and other fiscal privileges. The Jewish state is the most powerful country in the Middle East. It can launch attacks on its neighbors, confident that it will be resupplied by the United States. Its use of U.S. weapons in ways that violate both U.S. and international law goes unrebuked. 41 American vetoes in the United Nations Security Council have exempted Israel from censure and international law. We enable it to defy the expressed will of the international community, including, ironically, our own.
  • We Americans are facilitating Israel's indulgence in denial and avoidance of the choices it must make if it is not to jeopardize its long-term existence as a state in the Middle East. The biggest contribution we could now make to Israel's longevity would be to ration our support for it, so as to cause it to rethink and reform its often self-destructive behavior. Such peace as Israel now enjoys with Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians is the direct result of tough love of this kind by earlier American administrations. We Americans cannot save Israel from itself, but we can avoid killing it with uncritical kindness. We should support Israel when it makes sense to do so and it needs our support on specific issues, but not otherwise. Israel is placing itself and American interests in jeopardy. We need to discuss how to reverse this dynamic.
  • Moral hazard has also been a major problem in our relationship with our Arab partners. Why should they play an active role in countering the threat to them they perceive from Iran, if they can get America to do this for them? Similarly, why should any Muslim country rearrange its priorities to deal with Muslim renegades like Daesh when it can count on America to act for it? If America thinks it must lead, why not let it do so? But responsible foreign and defense policies begin with self-help, not outsourcing of military risks. The United States has the power-projection and war-fighting capabilities to back a Saudi-led coalition effort against Daesh. The Saudis have the religious and political credibility, leadership credentials, and diplomatic connections to organize such an effort. We do not. Since this century began, America has administered multiple disappointments to its allies and friends in the Middle East, while empowering their and our adversaries. Unlike the Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey, Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Given our non-Muslim identity, solidarity with Israel, and recent history in the Fertile Crescent, the United States cannot hope to unite the region’s Muslims against Daesh.  Daesh is an insurgency that claims to exemplify Islam as well as a governing structure and an armed force. A coalition led by inhibited foreign forces, built on papered-over differences, and embodying hedged commitments will not defeat such an insurgency with or without boots on the ground.
  • When elections have yielded governments whose policies we oppose, we have not hesitated to conspire with their opponents to overthrow them. But the results of our efforts to coerce political change in the Middle East are not just failures but catastrophic failures. Our policies have nowhere produced democracy. They have instead contrived the destabilization of societies, the kindling of religious warfare, and the installation of dictatorships contemptuous of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Frankly, we have done a lot better at selling things, including armaments, to the region than we have at transplanting the ideals of the Atlantic Enlightenment there. The region’s autocrats cooperate with us to secure our protection, and they get it. When they are nonetheless overthrown, the result is not democracy or the rule of law but socio-political collapse and the emergence of  a Hobbesian state of nature in which religious and ethnic communities, families, and individuals are able to feel safe only when they are armed and have the drop on each other. Where we have engineered or attempted to engineer regime change, violent politics, partition, and ethno-religious cleansing have everywhere succeeded unjust but tranquil order. One result of our bungled interventions in Iraq and Syria is the rise of Daesh. This is yet another illustration that, in our efforts to do good in the Middle East, we have violated the principle that one should first do no harm.
  • Americans used to believe that we could best lead by example. We and those in the Middle East seeking nonviolent change would all be better off if America returned to that tradition and forswore ideologically motivated hectoring and intervention. No one willingly follows a wagging finger. Despite our unparalleled ability to use force against foreigners, the best way to inspire them to emulate us remains showing them that we have our act together. At the moment, we do not. In the end, to cure the dysfunction in our policies toward the Middle East, it comes down to this. We must cure the dysfunction and venality of our politics. If we cannot, we have no business trying to use an 8,000-mile-long screwdriver to fix things one-third of the way around the world. That doesn’t work well under the best of circumstances. But when the country wielding the screwdriver has very little idea what it’s doing, it really screws things up.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15
     
    Chas Freeman served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the war to liberate Kuwait and as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1993-94. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy" and is the author of five books, including "America's Misadventures in the Middle East" and "Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige."  I have largely omitted highlighting portions of the speech dealing with Muslim nations because Freeman has apparently lost touch with the actual U.S., Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, and Turish roles in creating and expanding ISIL. But his analysis of Israel's situation and recommendations for curing it seem quite valid, as well as his overall Mideast recommendation to heed the First Law of Holes: "when stuck in one, stop digging."   I recommend reading the entire speech notwithstanding his misunderstanding of ISIL. There is a lot of very important history there ably summarized.
Paul Merrell

Does Our Military Know Something We Don't About Global Warming? - Forbes - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...g-we-dont-about-global-warming

climate-change preparations DoD

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Every branch of the United States Military is worried about climate change. They have been since well before it became controversial. In the wake of an historic climate change agreement between President Obama and President Xi Jinping in China this week (Brookings), the military’s perspective is significant in how it views climate effects on emerging military conflicts.
  • At a time when Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush 41, and even British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, called for binding international protocols to control greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. Military was seriously studying global warming in order to determine what actions they could take to prepare for the change in threats that our military will face in the future. The Center for Naval Analysis has had its Military Advisory Board examining the national security implications of climate change for many years. Lead by Army General Paul Kern, the Military Advisory Board is a group of 16 retired flag-level officers from all branches of the Service. This is not a group normally considered to be liberal activists and fear-mongers.
  • This year, the Military Advisory Board came out with a new report, called National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change, that is a serious discussion about what the military sees as the threats and the actions to be taken to mitigate them. “The potential security ramifications of global climate change should be serving as catalysts for cooperation and change. Instead, climate change impacts are already accelerating instability in vulnerable areas of the world and are serving as catalysts for conflict.”
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  • Bill Pennell, former Director of the Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, summed up the threat in recent discussions about climate and national security: “The environmental consequences of climate change are a significant threat multiplier, which by itself, can be a cause for future conflicts. Global warming will affect military operations as well as its theaters of operations. And it poses significant risks and costs to military and civilian infrastructure, especially those facilities located on the coastline.” “The countries and regions posing the greatest security threats to the United States are among those most susceptible to the adverse and destabilizing effects of climate change. Many of these countries are already unstable and have little economic or social capital for coping with additional disruptions.” “Whether in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, or North Korea, we are already seeing how extreme weather events – such as droughts and flooding and the food shortages and population dislocations that accompany them – can destabilize governments and lead to conflict. For example, one trigger of the chaos in Syria has been the multi-year drought the country has experienced since 2006 and the Assad Regime’s ineptitude in dealing with it.”
  • So why is the country as a whole, and those who normally support our military, so loathe to prepare for possible threats from this direction? In 1990, Eugene Skolnikoff summarized the national policy issues surrounding global warming and why it has been so difficult to rationally develop policy to address it. “The central problem is that outside the security sector, policy processes confronting issues with substantial uncertainty do not normally yield policy that has high economic or political costs. This is especially true when the uncertainty extends not only to the issues themselves, but also to the measures to avert them or deal with their consequences.” “The climate change issue illustrates – in fact exaggerates – all the elements of this central problem. Indeed, no major action is likely to be taken until those uncertainties are substantially reduced, and probably not before evidence of warming and its effects are actually visible. Unfortunately, any increase in temperature will be irreversible by the time the danger becomes obvious enough to permit political action.” And this was in 1990!
  • As Arctic ice diminishes, the region will see new shipping routes, new energy zones, new fisheries, new tourism and new sources of conflict not covered by existing maritime treaties. Since the United States is not party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) treaty, we will not have maximum operating flexibility in the Arctic. Even seemingly small administrative issues may become important in the new era, e.g., the Unified Command Plan presently splits Arctic responsibility between two Combatant Commands: U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and U.S. European Command (EUCOM). This type of things needs to be resolved with the coming global changes in mind. Source: Center for Naval Analysis
Paul Merrell

European Human Rights Court Deals a Heavy Blow to the Lawfulness of Bulk Surveillance |... - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...w-lawfulness-bulk-surveillance

surveillance state bulk-collection ECHR litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • In a seminal decision updating and consolidating its previous jurisprudence on surveillance, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights took a sideways swing at mass surveillance programs last week, reiterating the centrality of “reasonable suspicion” to the authorization process and the need to ensure interception warrants are targeted to an individual or premises. The decision in Zakharov v. Russia — coming on the heels of the European Court of Justice’s strongly-worded condemnation in Schrems of interception systems that provide States with “generalised access” to the content of communications — is another blow to governments across Europe and the United States that continue to argue for the legitimacy and lawfulness of bulk collection programs. It also provoked the ire of the Russian government, prompting an immediate legislative move to give the Russian constitution precedence over Strasbourg judgments. The Grand Chamber’s judgment in Zakharov is especially notable because its subject matter — the Russian SORM system of interception, which includes the installation of equipment on telecommunications networks that subsequently enables the State direct access to the communications transiting through those networks — is similar in many ways to the interception systems currently enjoying public and judicial scrutiny in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. Zakharov also provides a timely opportunity to compare the differences between UK and Russian law: Namely, Russian law requires prior independent authorization of interception measures, whereas neither the proposed UK law nor the existing legislative framework do.
  • The decision is lengthy and comprises a useful restatement and harmonization of the Court’s approach to standing (which it calls “victim status”) in surveillance cases, which is markedly different from that taken by the US Supreme Court. (Indeed, Judge Dedov’s separate but concurring opinion notes the contrast with Clapper v. Amnesty International.) It also addresses at length issues of supervision and oversight, as well as the role played by notification in ensuring the effectiveness of remedies. (Marko Milanovic discusses many of these issues here.) For the purpose of the ongoing debate around the legitimacy of bulk surveillance regimes under international human rights law, however, three particular conclusions of the Court are critical.
  • The Court took issue with legislation permitting the interception of communications for broad national, military, or economic security purposes (as well as for “ecological security” in the Russian case), absent any indication of the particular circumstances under which an individual’s communications may be intercepted. It said that such broadly worded statutes confer an “almost unlimited degree of discretion in determining which events or acts constitute such a threat and whether that threat is serious enough to justify secret surveillance” (para. 248). Such discretion cannot be unbounded. It can be limited through the requirement for prior judicial authorization of interception measures (para. 249). Non-judicial authorities may also be competent to authorize interception, provided they are sufficiently independent from the executive (para. 258). What is important, the Court said, is that the entity authorizing interception must be “capable of verifying the existence of a reasonable suspicion against the person concerned, in particular, whether there are factual indications for suspecting that person of planning, committing or having committed criminal acts or other acts that may give rise to secret surveillance measures, such as, for example, acts endangering national security” (para. 260). This finding clearly constitutes a significant threshold which a number of existing and pending European surveillance laws would not meet. For example, the existence of individualized reasonable suspicion runs contrary to the premise of signals intelligence programs where communications are intercepted in bulk; by definition, those programs collect information without any consideration of individualized suspicion. Yet the Court was clearly articulating the principle with national security-driven surveillance in mind, and with the knowledge that interception of communications in Russia is conducted by Russian intelligence on behalf of law enforcement agencies.
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  • This element of the Grand Chamber’s decision distinguishes it from prior jurisprudence of the Court, namely the decisions of the Third Section in Weber and Saravia v. Germany (2006) and of the Fourth Section in Liberty and Ors v. United Kingdom (2008). In both cases, the Court considered legislative frameworks which enable bulk interception of communications. (In the German case, the Court used the term “strategic monitoring,” while it referred to “more general programmes of surveillance” in Liberty.) In the latter case, the Fourth Section sought to depart from earlier European Commission of Human Rights — the court of first instance until 1998 — decisions which developed the requirements of the law in the context of surveillance measures targeted at specific individuals or addresses. It took note of the Weber decision which “was itself concerned with generalized ‘strategic monitoring’, rather than the monitoring of individuals” and concluded that there was no “ground to apply different principles concerning the accessibility and clarity of the rules governing the interception of individual communications, on the one hand, and more general programmes of surveillance, on the other” (para. 63). The Court in Liberty made no mention of any need for any prior or reasonable suspicion at all.
  • In Weber, reasonable suspicion was addressed only at the post-interception stage; that is, under the German system, bulk intercepted data could be transmitted from the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) to law enforcement authorities without any prior suspicion. The Court found that the transmission of personal data without any specific prior suspicion, “in order to allow the institution of criminal proceedings against those being monitored” constituted a fairly serious interference with individuals’ privacy rights that could only be remedied by safeguards and protections limiting the extent to which such data could be used (para. 125). (In the context of that case, the Court found that Germany’s protections and restrictions were sufficient.) When you compare the language from these three cases, it would appear that the Grand Chamber in Zakharov is reasserting the requirement for individualized reasonable suspicion, including in national security cases, with full knowledge of the nature of surveillance considered by the Court in its two recent bulk interception cases.
  • The requirement of reasonable suspicion is bolstered by the Grand Chamber’s subsequent finding in Zakharov that the interception authorization (e.g., the court order or warrant) “must clearly identify a specific person to be placed under surveillance or a single set of premises as the premises in respect of which the authorisation is ordered. Such identification may be made by names, addresses, telephone numbers or other relevant information” (para. 264). In making this finding, it references paragraphs from Liberty describing the broad nature of the bulk interception warrants under British law. In that case, it was this description that led the Court to find the British legislation possessed insufficient clarity on the scope or manner of exercise of the State’s discretion to intercept communications. In one sense, therefore, the Grand Chamber seems to be retroactively annotating the Fourth Section’s Liberty decision so that it might become consistent with its decision in Zakharov. Without this revision, the Court would otherwise appear to depart to some extent — arguably, purposefully — from both Liberty and Weber.
  • Finally, the Grand Chamber took issue with the direct nature of the access enjoyed by Russian intelligence under the SORM system. The Court noted that this contributed to rendering oversight ineffective, despite the existence of a requirement for prior judicial authorization. Absent an obligation to demonstrate such prior authorization to the communications service provider, the likelihood that the system would be abused through “improper action by a dishonest, negligent or overly zealous official” was quite high (para. 270). Accordingly, “the requirement to show an interception authorisation to the communications service provider before obtaining access to a person’s communications is one of the important safeguards against abuse by the law-enforcement authorities” (para. 269). Again, this requirement arguably creates an unconquerable barrier for a number of modern bulk interception systems, which rely on the use of broad warrants to authorize the installation of, for example, fiber optic cable taps that facilitate the interception of all communications that cross those cables. In the United Kingdom, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation David Anderson revealed in his essential inquiry into British surveillance in 2015, there are only 20 such warrants in existence at any time. Even if these 20 warrants are served on the relevant communications service providers upon the installation of cable taps, the nature of bulk interception deprives this of any genuine meaning, making the safeguard an empty one. Once a tap is installed for the purposes of bulk interception, the provider is cut out of the equation and can no longer play the role the Court found so crucial in Zakharov.
  • The Zakharov case not only levels a serious blow at bulk, untargeted surveillance regimes, it suggests the Grand Chamber’s intention to actively craft European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence in a manner that curtails such regimes. Any suggestion that the Grand Chamber’s decision was issued in ignorance of the technical capabilities or intentions of States and the continued preference for bulk interception systems should be dispelled; the oral argument in the case took place in September 2014, at a time when the Court had already indicated its intention to accord priority to cases arising out of the Snowden revelations. Indeed, the Court referenced such forthcoming cases in the fact sheet it issued after the Zakharov judgment was released. Any remaining doubt is eradicated through an inspection of the multiple references to the Snowden revelations in the judgment itself. In the main judgment, the Court excerpted text from the Director of the European Union Agency for Human Rights discussing Snowden, and in the separate opinion issued by Judge Dedov, he goes so far as to quote Edward Snowden: “With each court victory, with every change in the law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear. As a society, we rediscover that the value of the right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.”
  • The full implications of the Zakharov decision remain to be seen. However, it is likely we will not have to wait long to know whether the Grand Chamber intends to see the demise of bulk collection schemes; the three UK cases (Big Brother Watch & Ors v. United Kingdom, Bureau of Investigative Journalism & Alice Ross v. United Kingdom, and 10 Human Rights Organisations v. United Kingdom) pending before the Court have been fast-tracked, indicating the Court’s willingness to continue to confront the compliance of bulk collection schemes with human rights law. It is my hope that the approach in Zakharov hints at the Court’s conviction that bulk collection schemes lie beyond the bounds of permissible State surveillance.
Paul Merrell

For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe - T... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html

surveillance-state Verint cellphone-tracking SS7 IMSI surveillance-proliferation

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent. The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people’s travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology.
  • The world’s most powerful intelligence services, such as the National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ, long have used cellphone data to track targets around the globe. But experts say these new systems allow less technically advanced governments to track people in any nation — including the United States — with relative ease and precision.
  • It is unclear which governments have acquired these tracking systems, but one industry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive trade information, said that dozens of countries have bought or leased such technology in recent years. This rapid spread underscores how the burgeoning, multibillion-dollar surveillance industry makes advanced spying technology available worldwide. “Any tin-pot dictator with enough money to buy the system could spy on people anywhere in the world,” said Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, a London-based activist group that warns about the abuse of surveillance technology. “This is a huge problem.”
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  • Yet marketing documents obtained by The Washington Post show that companies are offering powerful systems that are designed to evade detection while plotting movements of surveillance targets on computerized maps. The documents claim system success rates of more than 70 percent. A 24-page marketing brochure for SkyLock, a cellular tracking system sold by Verint, a maker of analytics systems based in Melville, N.Y., carries the subtitle “Locate. Track. Manipulate.” The document, dated January 2013 and labeled “Commercially Confidential,” says the system offers government agencies “a cost-effective, new approach to obtaining global location information concerning known targets.”
  • tracking systems that access carrier location databases are unusual in their ability to allow virtually any government to track people across borders, with any type of cellular phone, across a wide range of carriers — without the carriers even knowing. These systems also can be used in tandem with other technologies that, when the general location of a person is already known, can intercept calls and Internet traffic, activate microphones, and access contact lists, photos and other documents. Companies that make and sell surveillance technology seek to limit public information about their systems’ capabilities and client lists, typically marketing their technology directly to law enforcement and intelligence services through international conferences that are closed to journalists and other members of the public.
  • Security experts say hackers, sophisticated criminal gangs and nations under sanctions also could use this tracking technology, which operates in a legal gray area. It is illegal in many countries to track people without their consent or a court order, but there is no clear international legal standard for secretly tracking people in other countries, nor is there a global entity with the authority to police potential abuses.
  • (Privacy International has collected several marketing brochures on cellular surveillance systems, including one that refers briefly to SkyLock, and posted them on its Web site. The 24-page SkyLock brochure and other material was independently provided to The Post by people concerned that such systems are being abused.)
  • Verint, which also has substantial operations in Israel, declined to comment for this story. It says in the marketing brochure that it does not use SkyLock against U.S. or Israeli phones, which could violate national laws. But several similar systems, marketed in recent years by companies based in Switzerland, Ukraine and elsewhere, likely are free of such limitations.
  • The tracking technology takes advantage of the lax security of SS7, a global network that cellular carriers use to communicate with one another when directing calls, texts and Internet data. The system was built decades ago, when only a few large carriers controlled the bulk of global phone traffic. Now thousands of companies use SS7 to provide services to billions of phones and other mobile devices, security experts say. All of these companies have access to the network and can send queries to other companies on the SS7 system, making the entire network more vulnerable to exploitation. Any one of these companies could share its access with others, including makers of surveillance systems.
  • Companies that market SS7 tracking systems recommend using them in tandem with “IMSI catchers,” increasingly common surveillance devices that use cellular signals collected directly from the air to intercept calls and Internet traffic, send fake texts, install spyware on a phone, and determine precise locations. IMSI catchers — also known by one popular trade name, StingRay — can home in on somebody a mile or two away but are useless if a target’s general location is not known. SS7 tracking systems solve that problem by locating the general area of a target so that IMSI catchers can be deployed effectively. (The term “IMSI” refers to a unique identifying code on a cellular phone.)
  • Verint can install SkyLock on the networks of cellular carriers if they are cooperative — something that telecommunications experts say is common in countries where carriers have close relationships with their national governments. Verint also has its own “worldwide SS7 hubs” that “are spread in various locations around the world,” says the brochure. It does not list prices for the services, though it says that Verint charges more for the ability to track targets in many far-flung countries, as opposed to only a few nearby ones. Among the most appealing features of the system, the brochure says, is its ability to sidestep the cellular operators that sometimes protect their users’ personal information by refusing government requests or insisting on formal court orders before releasing information.
  • Another company, Defentek, markets a similar system called Infiltrator Global Real-Time Tracking System on its Web site, claiming to “locate and track any phone number in the world.” The site adds: “It is a strategic solution that infiltrates and is undetected and unknown by the network, carrier, or the target.”
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Aug 14
     
    The Verint company has very close ties to the Iraeli government. Its former parent company Comverse, was heavily subsidized by Israel and the bulk of its manufacturing and code development was done in Israel. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comverse_Technology "In December 2001, a Fox News report raised the concern that wiretapping equipment provided by Comverse Infosys to the U.S. government for electronic eavesdropping may have been vulnerable, as these systems allegedly had a back door through which the wiretaps could be intercepted by unauthorized parties.[55] Fox News reporter Carl Cameron said there was no reason to believe the Israeli government was implicated, but that "a classified top-secret investigation is underway".[55] A March 2002 story by Le Monde recapped the Fox report and concluded: "Comverse is suspected of having introduced into its systems of the 'catch gates' in order to 'intercept, record and store' these wire-taps. This hardware would render the 'listener' himself 'listened to'."[56] Fox News did not pursue the allegations, and in the years since, there have been no legal or commercial actions of any type taken against Comverse by the FBI or any other branch of the US Government related to data access and security issues. While no real evidence has been presented against Comverse or Verint, the allegations have become a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists.[57] By 2005, the company had $959 million in sales and employed over 5,000 people, of whom about half were located in Israel.[16]" Verint is also the company that got the Dept. of Homeland Security contract to provide and install an electronic and video surveillance system across the entire U.S. border with Mexico.  One need not be much of a conspiracy theorist to have concerns about Verint's likely interactions and data sharing with the NSA and its Israeli equivalent, Unit 8200. 
Paul Merrell

Exclusive: Major nations hold talks on ending U.N. sanctions on Iran - officials | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...-nuclear-idUSKBN0M82IS20150312

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Major world powers have begun talks about a United Nations Security Council resolution to lift U.N. sanctions on Iran if a nuclear agreement is struck with Tehran, a step that could make it harder for the U.S. Congress to undo a deal, Western officials said. The talks between Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — the five permanent members of the Security Council — plus Germany and Iran, are taking place ahead of difficult negotiations that resume next week over constricting Iran's nuclear ability.Some eight U.N. resolutions - four of them imposing sanctions - ban Iran from uranium enrichment and other sensitive atomic work and bar it from buying and selling atomic technology and anything linked to ballistic missiles. There is also a U.N. arms embargo.Iran sees their removal as crucial as U.N. measures are a legal basis for more stringent U.S. and European Union measures to be enforced. The U.S. and EU often cite violations of the U.N. ban on enrichment and other sensitive nuclear work as justification for imposing additional penalties on Iran.
  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress on Wednesday that an Iran nuclear deal would not be legally binding, meaning future U.S. presidents could decide not to implement it. That point was emphasized in an open letter by 47 Republican senators sent on Monday to Iran's leaders asserting any deal could be discarded once President Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017.But a Security Council resolution on a nuclear deal with Iran could be legally binding, say Western diplomatic officials. That could complicate and possibly undercut future attempts by Republicans in Washington to unravel an agreement.Iran and the six powers are aiming to complete the framework of a nuclear deal by the end of March, and achieve a full agreement by June 30, to curb Iran's most sensitive nuclear activities for at least 10 years in exchange for a gradual end to all sanctions on the Islamic Republic.So far, those talks have focused on separate U.S. and European Union sanctions on Iran's energy and financial sectors, which Tehran desperately wants removed. The sanctions question is a sticking point in the talks that resume next week in Lausanne, Switzerland, between Iran and the six powers.
  • But Western officials involved in the negotiations said they are also discussing elements to include in a draft resolution for the 15-nation Security Council to begin easing U.N. nuclear-related sanctions that have been in place since December 2006."If there's a nuclear deal, and that's still a big 'if', we'll want to move quickly on the U.N. sanctions issue," an official said, requesting anonymity.The negotiations are taking place at senior foreign ministry level at the six powers and Iran, and not at the United Nations in New York.
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  • A senior U.S. administration official confirmed that the discussions were underway.The official said that the Security Council had mandated the negotiations over the U.N. sanctions and therefore has to be involved. The core role in negotiations with Iran that was being played by the five permanent members meant that any understanding over U.N. sanctions would likely get endorsed by the full council, the official added.Iran rejects Western allegations it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability.Officials said a U.N. resolution could help protect any nuclear deal against attempts by Republicans in U.S. Congress to sabotage it. Since violation of U.N. demands that Iran halt enrichment provide a legal basis for sanctioning Tehran, a new resolution could make new sanction moves difficult."There is an interesting question about whether, if the Security Council endorses the deal, that stops Congress undermining the deal," a Western diplomat said.
  • Other Western officials said Republicans might be deterred from undermining any deal if the Security Council unanimously endorses it and demonstrates that the world is united in favor of a diplomatic solution to the 12-year nuclear standoff.Concerns that Republican-controlled Congress might try to derail a nuclear agreement have been fueled by the letter to Iran's leaders and a Republican invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress in a March 3 speech that railed against a nuclear deal with Iran.The officials emphasized that ending all sanctions would be contingent on compliance with the terms of any deal. They added that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, will play a key role in verifying Iran's compliance with any agreement.
  • Among questions facing negotiators as they seek to prepare a resolution for the Security Council is the timing and speed of lifting U.N. nuclear sanctions, including whether to present it in March if a political framework agreement is signed next week or to delay until a final deal is reached by the end-June target.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15
     
    Soundslike it's official. U.N. Security Council Resolution is the chosen route past the Israel Firsters in Congress. But notice that Reuters is saying that "Republicans" in Congress are the barrier. Is that a sign that Repubswill be painted as the bad guys here? As in Israel's wants are now a partisan issue? It's factually incorrect. Plenty of Democrats also bow toward AIPAC headquarters  five times a day while praying for Zionist campaign contributions. 
Paul Merrell

NSA giving 'a lot of thought' to privacy rights of overseas citizens - top lawyer | Wor... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...f-overseas-citizens-top-lawyer

surveillance state NSA EO-12333

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The top lawyer for the US intelligence community and the National Security Agency said on Wednesday that the spy agencies are giving new consideration to the privacy rights of non-Americans in the wake of a diplomatic row over the surveillance of foreign leaders. Speaking at a conference on national security law sponsored by the American Bar Association on Thursday, the general counsel for the office of the director of national intelligence, Robert Litt, said intelligence chiefs were giving "a lot of thought" to the issue. His comments came a day after General Keith Alexander, the NSA director, stated that the spy agency is open to scaling back some of its operations on foreign leaders, following an unfolding diplomatic crisis sparked by revelations that the NSA spied on German chancellor Angela Merkel. 
  • US law provides greater legal protection to those defined as "US persons", which includes American citizens and foreigners living in the US. "On the issue of US person versus non-US person, that’s an issue we’re giving a lot of thought to now,” said Litt. “It’s not surprising that the law gives more protections to US citizens or persons who are in this country,” Litt added. “That doesn’t mean that we have no protection for non-US persons, and the principal protection we have is the requirement that the collection, retention and dissemination of information has to be for a valid foreign intelligence purpose.” Litt said the intelligence agencies were “giving some thought to whether there are ways that we can both introduce a little more rigor into that requirement and perhaps a little more transparency into how we enforce that requirement.” Litt and NSA general counsel Rajesh De would not answer a question from the Guardian about the legal basis for a different, unfolding NSA controversy: the new allegation that the NSA intercepts data transiting between the foreign data centers of Google and Yahoo, two longtime NSA partners, published in the Washington Post.
  • But De took issue with a suggestion that the Post story prompted that the NSA interception would at times rely on a seminal executive order that defines basic powers and operations of the intelligence agencies, known as Executive Order 12333, rather than the relatively restrictive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or Fisa. “The implication, the insinuation, the suggestion or the outright statement that an agency like NSA would use authority under Executive Order 12333 to evade, skirt or go around Fisa is simply inaccurate,” De said. On Tuesday, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, testified to the House intelligence panel that they considered US corporations to be “US persons,” meaning their communications and associated data enjoyed legal privileges associated with citizenship. But neither Litt nor De would explain whether that category protected communications data transiting between the data centers of US companies.
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  • Both Litt and De spoke hours before the Senate intelligence committee was due to begin a second day of considering chairwoman Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to increase transparency around the NSA’s surveillance activities. A Tuesday afternoon markup session of the bill – whose text is not yet public – went uncompleted. Feinstein, previously an unequivocal supporter of the NSA, unexpectedly criticized the agency’s surveillance on foreign leaders, a relatively traditional surveillance function. Feinstein on Monday declared herself “totally opposed” to the collection and suggested her oversight committee was not “fully informed” of the practice. A similar rift has emerged between NSA and the White House over how much President Obama knew about the spying, which US officials have said does not currently take place and will not resume. Litt appeared to concede that Obama himself may not have known about spying on Merkel, but contended that the White House and Senate intelligence committee had all the information necessary to understand it was taking place.
  • “I completely disagree with the proposition that the fact that the president and the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee didn’t know every single one of these selectors the NSA was tasking means there is ineffective oversight,” Litt said. “What the president knew and what the Senate intelligence committee knows: they know what our intelligence priorities are. Those are set annually through the interagency process. That says, here’s the kind of information we need to collect. And that gets sent out to the intelligence community and then the intelligence community, through a process that works down through the ranks, figures out what’s the best way to select that. “It’s very easy in hindsight to say, well, this particular selector was sensitive and so the president should have been told that,” Litt continued. “That’s always true in hindsight. Virtually everything we do, if it comes out, is going to be embarrassing.”
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 13
     
    So if they're not relying on either FISA or EO 12333, are they simply ignoring any legal restraints on the Agency? It's interesting that the NSA house of cards only crumbled with the announcement of spying on 35 foreign national leaders. Personally, I'd vote for putting the leader of every nation in a glass house, butt naked, and able to communicate with others only through a loudspeaker/broadcast system audible to everyone in the world. Secrecy in government is the problem, not a solution. 
Gary Edwards

Impeach Judge James Robart for violating sovereignty and Constitution - 0 views

www.conservativereview.com/...g-sovereignty-and-constitution

Byron-York Trump-Immigration-Order

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Feb 17
     
    "It's still hard to believe we now live in a country where a district judge can demand that we bring in refugees from state sponsors of terror and failed states saturated with terrorists and no data systems during a time of war. It's almost unfathomable that a district judge, an institution created by Congress, can overturn long-standing refugee law and bar the federal government from prioritizing persecuted religious minorities for refugee resettlement. All in contravention to statute, numerous clauses of the Constitution, the social contract, the social compact, popular sovereignty, jurisdictional sovereignty, and 200 years of case law. If Obergefell redefined the building block of all civilization, Judge James Robart's ruling redefined the building block of a sovereign nation. It's hard to comprehend a judicial opinion more divorced from our Constitution, sovereignty, fundamental laws, founding values, history, and tradition. It's also hard to imagine an opinion that is of greater consequence - unless it is ignored. In the long run, Congress must strip the federal judiciary of their power grab and restore Congress' plenary power over immigration, as it was since our founding. However, in the meantime, it's time to make impeachment great again. Impeachment was a critical check on abuse of power   Before the growth of political parties killed the separation of powers, the tool of impeachment was regarded by our founders as one of the most effective ways of checking the executive and judicial branches of government. By my count, impeachment is referenced 58 times in the Federalist Papers and countless times during the Constitutional Convention. Impeachment [U.S.CONST. art. II, §4] was not only reserved for those who engage in criminal behavior. It was clearly designed to check abuse of power. As the Congressional Research Service observes, Congress has identified "improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office" as a criterion for
Paul Merrell

IPS - Obama's Case for Syria Didn't Reflect Intel Consensus | Inter Press Service - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/...-didnt-reflect-intel-consensus

war & peace Syria WMD Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Contrary to the general impression in Congress and the news media, the Syria chemical warfare intelligence summary released by the Barack Obama administration Aug. 30 did not represent an intelligence community assessment, an IPS analysis and interviews with former intelligence officials reveals. The evidence indicates that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper culled intelligence analyses from various agencies and by the White House itself, but that the White House itself had the final say in the contents of the document. Leading members of Congress to believe that the document was an intelligence community assessment and thus represents a credible picture of the intelligence on the alleged chemical attack of Aug. 21 has been a central element in the Obama administration’s case for war in Syria. That part of the strategy, at least, has been successful. Despite strong opposition in Congress to the proposed military strike in Syria, no one in either chamber has yet challenged the administration’s characterisation of the intelligence. But the administration is vulnerable to the charge that it has put out an intelligence document that does not fully and accurately reflect the views of intelligence analysts. Former intelligence officials told IPS that that the paper does not represent a genuine intelligence community assessment but rather one reflecting a predominantly Obama administration influence.
  • In essence, the White House selected those elements of the intelligence community assessments that supported the administration’s policy of planning a strike against the Syrian government force and omitted those that didn’t. In a radical departure from normal practice involving summaries or excerpts of intelligence documents that are made public, the Syria chemical weapons intelligence summary document was not released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence but by the White House Office of the Press Secretary. It was titled “Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013.” The first sentence begins, “The United States government assesses,” and the second sentence begins, “We assess”. The introductory paragraph refers to the main body of the text as a summary of “the intelligence community’s analysis” of the issue, rather than as an “intelligence community assessment”, which would have been used had the entire intelligence community endorsed the document.
  • A former senior intelligence official who asked not to be identified told IPS in an e-mail Friday that the language used by the White House “means that this is not an intelligence community document”. The former senior official, who held dozens of security classifications over a decades-long intelligence career, said he had “never seen a document about an international crisis at any classification described/slugged as a U.S. government assessment.” The document further indicates that the administration “decided on a position and cherry-picked the intelligence to fit it,” he said. “The result is not a balanced assessment of the intelligence.” Greg Thielmann, whose last position before retiring from the State Department was director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, told IPS he has never seen a government document labeled “Government Assessment” either. “If it’s an intelligence assessment,” Thielmann said, “why didn’t they label it as such?”
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  • Former National Intelligence Officer Paul Pillar, who has participated in drafting national intelligence estimates, said the intelligence assessment summary released by the White House “is evidently an administration document, and the working master copy may have been in someone’s computer at the White House or National Security Council.” Pillar suggested that senior intelligence officials might have signed off on the administration paper, but that the White House may have drafted its own paper to “avoid attention to analytic differences within the intelligence community.” Comparable intelligence community assessments in the past, he observed – including the 2002 Iraq WMD estimate – include indications of differences in assessment among elements of the community. An unnamed “senior administration official” briefing the news media on the intelligence paper on Aug. 30 said that the paper was “fully vetted within the intelligence community,” and that, ”All members of the intelligence community participated in its development.”
  • But that statement fell far short of asserting that all the elements of the intelligence community had approved the paper in question, or even that it had gone through anything resembling consultations between the primary drafters and other analysts, and opportunities for agencies to register dissent that typically accompany intelligence community assessments. The same “senior administration official” indicated that DNI Clapper had “approved” submissions from various agencies for what the official called “the process”. The anonymous speaker did not explain further to journalists what that process preceding the issuance of the White House paper had involved. However, an Associated Press story on Aug. 29 referred to “a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence outlining the evidence against Syria”, citing two intelligence officials and two other administration officials as sources. That article suggests that the administration had originally planned for the report on intelligence to be issued by Clapper rather than the White House, apparently after reaching agreement with the White House on the contents of the paper. But Clapper’s name was not on the final document issued by the White House, and the document is nowhere to be found on the ODNI website. All previous intelligence community assessments were posted on that site.
  • The issuance of the document by the White House rather than by Clapper, as had been apparently planned, points to a refusal by Clapper to put his name on the document as revised by the White House. Clapper’s refusal to endorse it – presumably because it was too obviously an exercise in “cherry picking” intelligence to support a decision for war – would explain why the document had to be issued by the White House. Efforts by IPS to get a comment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence suggest strongly that Clapper is embarrassed by the way the Obama White House misrepresented the Aug. 30 document.
  • An e-mail query by IPS to the media relations staff of ODNI requesting clarification of the status of the Aug. 30 document in relation to the intelligence community was never answered. In follow-up phone calls, ODNI personnel said someone would respond to the query. After failing to respond for two days, despite promising that someone would call back, however, ODNI’s media relations office apparently decided to refuse any further contact with IPS on the subject. A clear indication that the White House, rather than Clapper, had the final say on the content of the document is that it includes a statement that a “preliminary U.S. government assessment determined that 1,429 people were killed in the chemical weapons attack, including at least 426 children.” That figure, for which no source was indicated, was several times larger than the estimates given by British and French intelligence. The document issued by the White House cites intelligence that is either obviously ambiguous at best or is of doubtful authenticity, or both, as firm evidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack. It claims that Syrian chemical weapons specialists were preparing for such an attack merely on the basis of signals intelligence indicating the presence of one or more individuals in a particular location. The same intelligence had been regarded prior to Aug. 21 as indicating nothing out of the ordinary, as was reported by CBS news Aug. 23.
  • he paper also cites a purported intercept by U.S intelligence of conversations between Syrian officials in which a “senior official” supposedly “confirmed” that the government had carried out the chemical weapons attack. But the evidence appears to indicate that the alleged intercept was actually passed on to the United States by Israeli intelligence. U.S. intelligence officials have long been doubtful about intelligence from Israeli sources that is clearly in line with Israeli interests. Opponents of the proposed U.S. strike against Syria could argue that the Obama administration’s presentation of the intelligence supporting war is far more politicised than the flawed 2002 Iraq WMD estimate that the George W. Bush administration cited as part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Sep 13
     
    If you vote for either a Democrat or Republican for President, you are in reality voting for the War Party and it will use the same dirty tricks to start the dirty wars. Bush Administration lied to make war against Iraq. Obama lies to get us into Syria. Maybe it's time to launch a "Peace Party" that calls Dems and Repubs out for what they really are, loyal servants of the War Party.  A single issue party aimed at peeling off the the Republican and Democrat disguises from the War Partiers.    Just daydreaming. Homo sapiens have been a vicious lot as far back as archaeology can take us.  We just enhance our destructiveness as the time line moves forward. 
Gary Edwards

ESR | February 20, 2012 | The Federal Reserve rip-off - 0 views

www.enterstageright.com/...0212federserveripoff.htm

Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Feb 12
     
    Ron Paul racks up another near win, as conservative writer Alan Caruba smells the coffee and starts paying attention to the criminal enterprise known as the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  It's about time.  But sadly there are too few conservatives paying attention to the money.  Sadly, conservatives choose to wallow in 1980 political issues where conservative social values and national security - military buildup were the concerns of the day. The truth is that it's always the money.  Follow the money!!  And all things will become clear.  Including how to get America back on track. excerpt: Anyone taking notice of Obama's latest budget has to conclude that his mission is to crash the nation's economy and turn America into a Socialist worker's paradise. The only problem is that Socialism has been a dismal failure everywhere it has been tried. One only has to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union for confirmation of that, the Chinese abandonment of Communist economic theory, and Obama's odd notion that a nation can spend itself out of ever-increasing debt. I am not a fan of Paul's isolationism, but he is absolutely right about getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Established in 1913, the same year income taxes were instituted, the Reserve is not part of the federal government. It is, in fact, privately owned by a consortium of banks and that might include foreign banks as well. In a remarkable essay, "10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve" by Michael T. Snyder, it is clear that the Constitution intended to have the U.S. Treasury to be soley responsible to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." Synder points out that the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is a privately owned banking cartel and one granted the right to create money out of thin air. It is, says Synder "a perpetual debt machine because "whenever more money is created, more debt is creat
Gary Edwards

Liberty's backlash -- why we should be grateful to Edward Snowden | Fox News - 1 views

www.foxnews.com/...-be-grateful-to-edward-snowden

Judge-Andrew-Napolitano NSA NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower Edward-Snowden

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Aug 13
     
    Liberty's backlash -- why we should be grateful to Edward Snowden By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano Published August 01, 2013 FoxNews.com Last week, Justin Amash, the two-term libertarian Republican congressman from Michigan, joined with John Conyers, the 25-term liberal Democratic congressman from the same state, to offer an amendment to legislation funding the National Security Agency (NSA). If enacted, the Amash-Conyers amendment would have forced the government's domestic spies when seeking search warrants to capture Americans' phone calls, texts and emails first to identify their targets and produce evidence of their terror-related activities before a judge may issue a warrant. The support they garnered had a surprising result that stunned the Washington establishment. It almost passed. The final vote, in which the Amash-Conyers amendment was defeated by 205 to 217, was delayed for a few hours by the House Republican leadership, which opposed the measure. The Republican leadership team, in conjunction with President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, needed more time for arm-twisting so as to avoid a humiliating loss. But the House rank-and-file did succeed in sending a message to the big-government types in both parties: Nearly half of the House of Representatives has had enough of government spying and then lying about it, and understands that spying on every American simply cannot withstand minimal legal scrutiny or basic constitutional analysis. The president is deeply into this and no doubt wishes he wasn't. He now says he welcomed the debate in the House on whether his spies can have all they want from us or whether they are subject to constitutional requirements for their warrants. Surely he knows that the Supreme Court has ruled consistently since the time of the Civil War that the government is always subject to the Constitution, wherever it goes and whatever it does. As basic as that sounds, it is not a universally held belief am
Paul Merrell

U.S. surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadat... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_print.html

surveillance state NSA must-read pen-register

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • On March 12, 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and the Justice Department’s top leadership reached the brink of resignation over electronic surveillance orders that they believed to be illegal. President George W. Bush backed down, halting secret foreign-intelligence-gathering operations that had crossed into domestic terrain. That morning marked the beginning of the end of STELLARWIND, the cover name for a set of four surveillance programs that brought Americans and American territory within the domain of the National Security Agency for the first time in decades. It was also a prelude to new legal structures that allowed Bush and then President Obama to reproduce each of those programs and expand their reach.What exactly STELLARWIND did has never been disclosed in an unclassified form. Which parts of it did Comey approve? Which did he shut down? What became of the programs when the crisis passed and Comey, now Obama’s expected nominee for FBI director, returned to private life?Authoritative new answers to those questions, drawing upon a classified NSA history of STELLARWIND and interviews with high-ranking intelligence officials, offer the clearest map yet of the Bush-era programs and the NSA’s contemporary U.S. operations.STELLARWIND was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.
  • Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet, process trillions of “metadata” records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively. Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.The other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called ­NUCLEON.For Internet content, the most important source collection is the PRISM project reported on June 6 by The Washington Post and the Guardian. It draws from data held by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley giants, collectively the richest depositories of personal information in history.
  • The debate has focused on two of the four U.S.-based collection programs: PRISM, for Internet content, and the comprehensive collection of telephone call records, foreign and domestic, that the Guardian revealed by posting a classified order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to Verizon Business Services.The Post has learned that similar orders have been renewed every three months for other large U.S. phone companies, including Bell South and AT&T, since May 24, 2006. On that day, the surveillance court made a fundamental shift in its approach to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the FBI to compel production of “business records” that are relevant to a particular terrorism investigation and to share those in some circumstances with the NSA. Henceforth, the court ruled, it would define the relevant business records as the entirety of a telephone company’s call database.The Bush administration, by then, had been taking “bulk metadata” from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years. The volume of information overwhelmed the MAINWAY database, according to a classified report from the NSA inspector general in 2009. The agency spent $146 million in supplemental counterterrorism funds to buy new hardware and contract support — and to make unspecified payments to the phone companies for “collaborative partnerships.”When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous. One of them, unnamed in the report, approached the NSA with a request. Rather than volunteer the data, at a price, the “provider preferred to be compelled to do so by a court order,” the report said. Other companies followed suit. The surveillance court order that recast the meaning of business records “essentially gave NSA the same authority to collect bulk telephony metadata from business records that it had” under Bush’s asserted authority alone.
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  • Telephone metadata was not the issue that sparked a rebellion at the Justice Department, first by Jack Goldsmith of the Office of Legal Counsel and then by Comey, who was acting attorney general because John D. Ashcroft was in intensive care with acute gallstone pancreatitis. It was Internet metadata.At Bush’s direction, in orders prepared by David Addington, the counsel to Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the NSA had been siphoning e-mail metadata and technical records of Skype calls from data links owned by AT&T, Sprint and MCI, which later merged with Verizon.For reasons unspecified in the report, Goldsmith and Comey became convinced that Bush had no lawful authority to do that.MARINA and the collection tools that feed it are probably the least known of the NSA’s domestic operations, even among experts who follow the subject closely. Yet they probably capture information about more American citizens than any other, because the volume of e-mail, chats and other Internet communications far exceeds the volume of standard telephone calls.The NSA calls Internet metadata “digital network information.” Sophisticated analysis of those records can reveal unknown associates of known terrorism suspects. Depending on the methods applied, it can also expose medical conditions, political or religious affiliations, confidential business negotiations and extramarital affairs.What permits the former and prevents the latter is a complex set of policies that the public is not permitted to see.
  • In the urgent aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, with more attacks thought to be imminent, analysts wanted to use “contact chaining” techniques to build what the NSA describes as network graphs of people who represented potential threats.The legal challenge for the NSA was that its practice of collecting high volumes of data from digital links did not seem to meet even the relatively low requirements of Bush’s authorization, which allowed collection of Internet metadata “for communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States,” the NSA inspector general’s report said.Lawyers for the agency came up with an interpretation that said the NSA did not “acquire” the communications, a term with formal meaning in surveillance law, until analysts ran searches against it. The NSA could “obtain” metadata in bulk, they argued, without meeting the required standards for acquisition.Goldsmith and Comey did not buy that argument, and a high-ranking U.S. intelligence official said the NSA does not rely on it today.As soon as surveillance data “touches us, we’ve got it, whatever verbs you choose to use,” the official said in an interview. “We’re not saying there’s a magic formula that lets us have it without having it.”
  • When Comey finally ordered a stop to the program, Bush signed an order renewing it anyway. Comey, Goldsmith, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most of the senior Bush appointees in the Justice Department began drafting letters of resignation.Then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden was not among them. According to the inspector general’s classified report, Cheney’s lawyer, Addington, placed a phone call and “General Hayden had to decide whether NSA would execute the Authorization without the Attorney General’s signature.” He decided to go along.The following morning, when Mueller told Bush that he and Comey intended to resign, the president reversed himself.Three months later, on July 15, the secret surveillance court allowed the NSA to resume bulk collection under the court’s own authority. The opinion, which remains highly classified, was based on a provision of electronic surveillance law, known as “pen register, trap and trace,” that was written to allow law enforcement officers to obtain the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls from a single telephone line.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 13
     
    Note particularly the mention that the FISA Court decision to throw the doors open for government snooping was based on "pen register, trap and trace" law. As suspected, now we are into territory dealt with by the Supreme Court in the pre-internet days of 1979 In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), More about that next, in a bookmark also tagged with "pen-register".
Paul Merrell

New regs say passengers cannot fly without biometric ID card - Police State USA - 0 views

www.policestateusa.com/...tsa-to-require-real-id

surveillance state national-id-cards biomettric-ID flying trains politics of fear

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The ability to travel in the United States is about to become more restrictive as the TSA announces it will soon be enforcing new identification standards in American airports. Beginning in 2016, passengers attempting to pass through a federal TSA checkpoint will be subject to the requirements of the REAL ID Act. To that end, the TSA will put higher scrutiny on travelers’ identities, and will only accept a federal passport or a “REAL-ID” card, which is issued by the states to meet federal requirements. Passengers will not be allowed to fly through an American airport without submitting to the advanced federal specifications. Both federal passports and REAL-ID cards require a number of unique personal identifiers to be stored together in government databases, including his or her full name, date of birth, Social Security Number, scanned signature, and other identifiers. Both cards require biometric data: a front-facing digital photograph of the passenger’s face, which is ultimately used with a facial recognition database.
  • The enhanced security measures stem from the passage of the REAL ID Act of 2005, a U.S. law enacted by President Bush that states that a Federal agency may not accept state-issued identification cards without complying with a number of enhanced standards of the REAL ID Act. The states were given a number of years to comply, and many moved to pass their own laws to meet the benchmarks of the REAL ID Act. Due to some sluggish response, DHS extended the compliance deadline several times. Unfortunately, most states were all too willing to bend to the requirements of the federal government in order to obtain “state certifications” of compliance. To signify their compliance with the federal standards, many states are now issuing identity cards emblazoned with gold stars in the corner.
  • According to the Department of Homeland Security, only Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, and American Samoa have not met REAL ID standards as of January 2015. By DHS estimates, 70%-80% of all U.S. drivers are already carrying around REAL ID cards or live in states that have received extensions for compliance. Some states have even gone as far as to require the applicant to present birth certificates, W-2 tax forms, bank statements, and/or pay stubs to verify one’s identity before handing out the new REAL-ID cards. Some cards have RFID chips embedded in them. Among the 39 benchmarks of the REAL ID Act, state ID cards have to be scannable with a bar code reader, and the states are required to share access to an electronic database with all other states.
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  • Once DHS begins enforcing the REAL ID standards, Americans without a compliant state ID will be effectively prohibited from flying at a commercial airport. Passengers would need to obtain passports even to fly on planes that never leave the United States.
  • a few rose in opposition to REAL ID, including Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who was perhaps its most outspoken critic. Dr. Paul, a former presidential candidate, called REAL ID a “Trojan horse” which “transform[s] state drivers licenses into de facto national ID cards.” In an impassioned speech on the House floor on February 9, 2005, Paul laid out a number of specific objections to H.R. 418: The REAL ID Act establishes a national ID card by mandating that states include certain minimum identification standards on driver’s licenses. It contains no limits on the government’s power to impose additional standards. Indeed, it gives authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to unilaterally add requirements as he sees fit.
  • Supporters claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary. However, any state that opts out will automatically make non-persons out of its citizens. The citizens of that state will be unable to have any dealings with the federal government because their ID will not be accepted. They will not be able to fly or to take a train. In essence, in the eyes of the federal government they will cease to exist. It is absurd to call this voluntary. Republican Party talking points on this bill, which claim that this is not a national ID card, nevertheless endorse the idea that “the federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification such as driver’s licenses.” So they admit that they want a national ID but at the same time pretend that this is not a national ID. This bill establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical and possibly other characteristics. What is even more disturbing is that, by mandating that states participate in the “Drivers License Agreement,” this bill creates a massive database of sensitive information on American citizens that will be shared with Canada and Mexico!
  • This bill could have a chilling effect on the exercise of our constitutionally guaranteed rights. It re-defines “terrorism” in broad new terms that could well include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups, or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time. There are no prohibitions against including such information in the database as information about a person’s exercise of First Amendment rights or about a person’s appearance on a registry of firearms owners. REAL ID cards streamline the process for the centralization and federalization of our private biometric data, while offering very little true benefit. In the words of Congressman Ron Paul, the program “offers us a false sense of greater security at the cost of taking a gigantic step toward making America a police state.” Its difficult to argue otherwise when passports may soon be necessary to travel domestically.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Feb 15
     
    This is among the reasons I no longer fly. I refuse to be treated in that distrustful way by my government. Atthough I used to fly several hundred thousands of miles annually, if the airlines want my business, they need to actively and effectively oppose the emergence of the surveillance state. I reject the politics of fear that attempts to justify suppression of liberties. Where I travel is none of the government's business.
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