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Paul Merrell

The Government's Secret Plan to Shut Off Cellphones and the Internet, Explained | Connecting the Dots, News & Notes, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com - 0 views

billmoyers.com/...nes-and-the-internet-explained

cyberwar internet-kill-switch cellphone-kill-switch DHS litigation FOIA

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • This month, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Department of Homeland Security must make its plan to shut off the Internet and cellphone communications available to the American public. You, of course, may now be thinking: What plan?! Though President Barack Obama swiftly disapproved of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak turning off the Internet in his country (to quell widespread civil disobedience) in 2011, the US government has the authority to do the same sort of thing, under a plan that was devised during the George W. Bush administration. Many details of the government’s controversial “kill switch” authority have been classified, such as the conditions under which it can be implemented and how the switch can be used. But thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), DHS has to reveal those details by December 12 — or mount an appeal. (The smart betting is on an appeal, since DHS has fought to release this information so far.) Yet here’s what we do know about the government’s “kill switch” plan:
  • What are the constitutional problems? Civil liberties advocates argue that kill switches violate the First Amendment and pose a problem because they aren’t subject to rigorous judicial and congressional oversight. “There is no court in the loop at all, at any stage in the SOP 303 process,” according to the Center for Democracy and Technology. ”The executive branch, untethered by the checks and balances of court oversight, clear instruction from Congress, or transparency to the public, is free to act as it will and in secret.” David Jacobs of EPIC says, “Cutting off communications imposes a prior restraint on speech, so the First Amendment imposes the strictest of limitations…We don’t know how DHS thinks [the kill switch] is consistent with the First Amendment.” He adds, “Such a policy, unbounded by clear rules and oversight, just invites abuse.”
Paul Merrell

Zionism's Last Card and Hope For Palestine - Alan Hart - 0 views

www.alanhart.net/st-card-and-hope-for-palestine

U.S. foreign policy Israel Palestine Israel-lobby Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Following the interim agreement with Iran the next six months will tell us whether or not the American-led Zionist lobby and Zionism itself has played its last card and lost. If it does lose President Obama will be free to use the leverage he has to try to cause Israel to be serious about peace on terms almost all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept (and which would not pose any threat to the wellbeing and security of those Jews now living in Palestine that became Israel and who wanted to stay). The stakes could not be higher. As I write I am recalling what former President Carter said to my wife and I when we met with him and Rosalyn, words I quote in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews and which bear repeating. “Any American president has only two windows of opportunity to take on the Zionist lobby – in the first nine months of his first term and the last year of his second term if he has one.”
  • I am happy to go public with this positive speculation in part because of an article by Philip Weiss. In it he noted that Netanyahu has been playing the Iran threat card “to keep the world’s eyes off the West Bank and Jerusalem.” Then, commenting on Netanyahu’s statement that Israel will not allow Iran to attain nuclear capability, he wrote this. “The ardent supporters of the Jewish state in the U.S. have never been in a worse position. They are largely supportive of this deal (as are a majority of all Americans, I add). They will have to throw Netanyahu under the bus.” Not long ago the proclaimed view of some American supporters of Israel right or wrong was that Obama was throwing Israel under a bus. The idea that American Jews should now throw Netanyahu under it appeals to me, as I am sure it does to Obama. If Congress does back away from doing Zionism’s bidding to wreck the prospects for a new-start American and European accommodation with Iran, what options if any will Netanyahu’s Israel have to distract the world’s media and political attention from Zionism’s on-going colonization – ethnic cleansing slowly and by stealth – of the occupied West Bank? Only one that I can see. War.
  • Though events may prove me wrong, my overall speculation is that Zionism’s last card is not a winner and that Obama will succeed in getting, six months or so from now, what he wants – a new-start and mutually beneficial relationship with Iran. And defeat for the Zionist lobby will, as I indicated in my opening paragraph, free him to use the presidential leverage to try to oblige Israel to be serious about peace on terms the vast majority of Palestinians could accept.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In the context above what I am suggesting is that if and when he is free to put real pressure on Israel to be serious about peace with the Palestinians, Obama should make best use of the Kennedy quote – “What we want from Israel arises because our relationship is a two-way street”. And he could and should put flesh on that bone by saying, among other things, that it is not in America’s own best interests to allow Israel to go on denying the Palestinians an acceptable measure of justice. But his crunch point could and should be something like this. “What America wants and needs, in order to best protect its own interests in the Arab and wider Muslim world, is an end to Israel’s denial of an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians. Unless we get that, I as president will have no choice but to use the leverage at my disposal to press you.” Israelis would know, even if Obama didn’t spell it out, that the pressure would include an end to American vetoes of Security Council resolutions condemning Israel and sanctions. If Obama was to go public with such a position in the wake of defeat for the Zionist lobby over the Iran nuclear issue, I think it’s reasonable to assume that a big majority of Jewish Americans would signal, if only by their silence and/or refusal to condemn Obama, that their first loyalty was to America not Israel.
  • There is no certainty about how the Jews of Israel would respond, but there’s a good case for believing that because what most of them care most about is the relationship with America, a significant majority of them would say to Netanyahu and his coalition government something like: “Enough is enough. We insist that you make peace with the Palestinians on terms they can accept, even if that means a short, sharp civil war with those settlers who refuse to withdraw from the West Bank and be relocated and compensated.”
  • For those who might believe there is little or no prospect of a Jewish civil war in the event of President Obama insisting with leverage as necessary on Israel making peace with the Palestinians on terms they could accept, I recommend Chapter 12 of Volume Three of the American edition of my book. This chapter is titled The Blood Oath. It reveals that Sharon convened a secret meeting of many senior military officers to sign a blood oath committing them to make common cause with those settlers who would resist “to the death” the implementation of any government decision to withdraw from the West Bank. My named and quoted source for that dramatic story was none other than Ezer Weizman, Israel’s defense minister of the time. When Ezer told me of the secret meeting minutes after he learned about it, he asked me a question. Did I think Sharon would act in accordance with the blood oath he and others had signed? I said: “What I think is of no consequence. I’m a visiting goy. You’re Israel’s defense minister, what do you think?” He replied: “Of course, he would. He’s mad enough to nuke the entire fucking Arab world!“ The coming months will tell us how mad Netanyahu is. And also whether or not the optimism expressed in this post was justified.
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 13
     
    'Twould be nice if it worked out this way. But Obama is spineless so I won't hold my breath. 
Paul Merrell

Fresh spy leak shows Australia offered to share data on its citizens - 0 views

www.smh.com.au/...s-citizens-20131202-2ykvt.html

surveillance state 5-eyes 5-eyes-data-types Australia

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Information about ordinary Australian citizens has been offered to Australia's global spying partners, according to the latest reports of leaked intelligence from US whistleblower Edward Snowden. In revelations that will add pressure to the Abbott government, which is still reeling from the Indonesian spying leak, The Guardian is reporting that Australia's surveillance agency has indicated it would share “bulk” data with its “5-eyes” partners – an intelligence-sharing network comprising the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
  • “The document shows the partners discussing whether or not to share 'medical, legal or religious information',” the report states. Advertisement <iframe id="dcAd-1-4" src="http://ad-apac.doubleclick.net/N6411/adi/onl.smh.news/federalpolitics/politicalnews;cat=federalpolitics;cat1=politicalnews;ctype=article;pos=3;sz=300x250;tile=4;ord=3.4276163E7?" width='300' height='250' scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0"> </iframe> The latest spying revelations are based on a secret 2008 document obtained by Mr Snowden, a former contractor who had access to high-level US government intelligence. Mr Snowden's document reveals notes of what was discussed at a “5-eyes” conference hosted by Britain's GCHQ in Cheltenham on April 22-23, 2008. According to the report, Australia's intelligence agency, then known as the Defence Signals Directorate, told its global intelligence partners it could share “bulk, unselected, unminimised metadata as long as there is no intent to target an Australian national”.
  • The partners also agreed that medical, legal or religious would not be automatically excluded from the sharing arrangement, but would instead be considered by the owning agency ‘‘on a case-by-case basis’’.  The Australian intelligence agency was reportedly willing to reveal more about its country's citizens, with fewer privacy restraints, than other countries. According to The Guardian’s report, the documents reveal that Canada imposed more rigorous privacy restrictions than Australia, agreeing to share information on the condition that information about its citizens first be redacted. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was confident Australian intelligence agencies were acting in accordance with the law and there were adequate safeguards in place.
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 13
     
    Sharing "medical, legal, or religious information." 
Paul Merrell

EU imposes record 1.7bn euro fines on major intl banks over rate-rigging - RT Business - 0 views

rt.com/...s-rates-libor-manipulation-690

banksters Libor EU European Commission antitrust fines

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The European Commission has slapped record fines of 1.7 billion euros on six major banks for manipulating lending rates that play a key role in the global economy. The penalties will add to already escalating costs for leading global lenders. The EU fines marks the latest to be levied on banks and financial institutions for making profits or masking their problems by fraudulently rigging the rates that reflect the cost of lending money to each other. The banks fined are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan, Societe Generale, and RP Martin, the EC said in a statement.
  • The borrowing rates involved - the London interbank offered rate (Libor), the Tokyo and the euro area equivalents - are used to set price of trillions of dollars of financial products, ranging from mortgages to derivatives. “What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other,” said Joaquín Almunia, European Commission Vice-President in charge of competition policy.
Paul Merrell

Stand Firm, John Kerry - Zbigniew Brzezinski and Frank Carlucci and Lee Hamilton and Carla A. Hills and Thomas Pickering and Henry Siegman - POLITICO Magazine - 0 views

www.politico.com/...rm-john-kerry-105483_full.html

war & peace Palestine Israel negotiations Brzezinski

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, FRANK CARLUCCI, LEE HAMILTON, CARLA A. HILLS, THOMAS PICKERING and HENRY SIEGMAN
  • e commend Secretary of State John Kerry’s extraordinary efforts to renew Israeli-Palestinian talks and negotiations for a framework for a peace accord, and the strong support his initiative has received from President Barack Obama. We believe these efforts, and the priority Kerry has assigned to them, have been fully justified. However, we also believe that the necessary confidentiality that Secretary Kerry imposed on the resumed negotiations should not preclude a far more forceful and public expression of certain fundamental U.S. positions: Settlements: U.S. disapproval of continued settlement enlargement in the Occupied Territories by Israel’s government as “illegitimate” and “unhelpful” does not begin to define the destructiveness of this activity. Nor does it dispel the impression that we have come to accept it despite our rhetorical objections. Halting the diplomatic process on a date certain until Israel complies with international law and previous agreements would help to stop this activity and clearly place the onus for the interruption where it belongs.
  • Palestinian incitement: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s charge that various Palestinian claims to all of historic Palestine constitute incitement that stands in the way of Israel’s acceptance of Palestinian statehood reflects a double standard. The Likud and many of Israel’s other political parties and their leaders make similar declarations about the legitimacy of Israel’s claims to all of Palestine, designating the West Bank “disputed” rather than occupied territory. Moreover, Israeli governments have acted on those claims by establishing Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank. Surely the “incitement” of Palestinian rhetoric hardly compares to the incitement of Israel’s actual confiscations of Palestinian territory. If the United States is not prepared to say so openly, there is little hope for the success of these talks, which depends far more on the strength of America’s political leverage and its determination to use it than on the good will of the parties.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The Jewishness of the state of Israel: Israel is a Jewish state because its population is overwhelmingly Jewish, Jewish religious and historical holidays are its national holidays, and Hebrew is its national language. But Israeli demands that Palestinians recognize that Israel has been and remains the national homeland of the Jewish people is intended to require the Palestinians to affirm the legitimacy of Israel’s replacement of Palestine’s Arab population with its own. It also raises Arab fears of continuing differential treatment of Israel’s Arab citizens. Israelis are right to demand that Palestinians recognize the fact of the state of Israel and its legitimacy, which Palestinians in fact did in 1988 and again in 1993. They do not have the right to demand that Palestinians abandon their own national narrative, and the United States should not be party to such a demand. That said, Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, provided it grants full and equal rights to its non-Jewish citizens, would not negate the Palestinian national narrative.
  • Israeli security: The United States has allowed the impression that it supports a version of Israel’s security that entails Israeli control of all of Palestine’s borders and part of its territory, including the Jordan Valley. Many former heads of Israel’s top intelligence agencies, surely among the best informed in the country about the country’s security needs, have rejected this version of Israel’s security. Meir Dagan, a former head of the Mossad, dismissed it as “nothing more than manipulation.” Israel’s confiscation of what international law has clearly established as others’ territory diminishes its security. Illegal West Bank land grabs only add to the Palestinian and the larger Arab sense of injustice that Israel’s half-century-long occupation has already generated, and fuels a revanchismthat sooner or later will trigger renewed violence. No Palestinian leader could or would ever agree to a peace accord that entails turning over the Jordan Valley to Israeli control, either permanently or for an extended period of time, thus precluding a peace accord that would end Israel’s occupation. The marginal improvement in Israel’s security provided by these expansive Israeli demands can hardly justify the permanent subjugation and disenfranchisement of a people to which Israel refuses to grant citizenship in the Jewish state.
  • The terms for a peace accord advanced by Netanyahu’s government, whether regarding territory, borders, security, resources, refugees or the location of the Palestinian state’s capital, require compromises of Palestinian territory and sovereignty on the Palestinian side of the June 6, 1967, line. They do not reflect any Israeli compromises, much less the “painful compromises” Netanyahu promised in his May 2011 speech before a joint meeting of Congress. Every one of them is on the Palestinian side of that line. Although Palestinians have conceded fully half of the territory assigned to them in the U.N.’s Partition Plan of 1947, a move Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, has hailed as unprecedented, they are not demanding a single square foot of Israeli territory beyond the June 6, 1967, line. Netanyahu’s unrelenting efforts to establish equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian demands, insisting that the parties split the difference and that Israel be granted much of its expansive territorial agenda beyond the 78 percent of Palestine it already possesses, are politically and morally unacceptable. The United States should not be party to such efforts, not in Crimea nor in the Palestinian territories. We do not know what progress the parties made in the current talks prior to their latest interruption, this time over the issue of the release of Palestinian prisoners. We are nevertheless convinced that no matter how far apart the parties may still be, clarity on America’s part regarding the critical moral and political issues in dispute will have a far better chance of bringing the peace talks to a successful conclusion than continued ambiguity or silence.
  • The co-authors, senior advisers to the U.S./Middle East Project, are, respectively, former national security adviser, former U.S. secretary of defense; former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; former U.S. trade representative; former under secretary of state for political affairs, and president, U.S./Middle East Project.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Apr 14
     
    Brzezinski and other high former foreign relations officials publicly criticizing the Israeli position and calling for a hardened U.S. position that Israel must halt enlargement of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank before negotiations will resume to "clearly place the onus for the interruption where it belongs," whew! Times are definitely changing. 
Paul Merrell

Nato chief tells allies: spend more on defence to deter Russia - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...n-defence-to-deter-Russia.html

war & peace NATO saber-rattling military-spending

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Britain and its Nato allies must respond to Russia’s “illegal aggression” against Ukraine by spending more on defence, the alliance’s secretary general has said. Writing in The Telegraph, Anders Fogh Rasmussen appeals for Nato members to modernise their armed forces as Russia tries to “carve up” Europe. “Every ally needs to invest the necessary resources in the right capabilities,” writes Mr Rasmussen. “That means modern equipment, intensive training for our forces, and closer cooperation among Nato allies and with our partners. I know how challenging this is in today’s economic climate, but the security climate makes it vital.” Mr Rasmussen adds: “In the long run, a lack of security would be more costly than investing now and we owe it to our forces, and to broader society.” The burden of defending Nato’s 28 members falls increasingly on just one: the United States. Last year, America accounted for 72 per cent of Nato defence spending, up from 59 per cent in 1995.
Paul Merrell

EFF Statement on Passage of Massie-Lofgren Amendment Regarding NSA Backdoors | Electronic Frontier Foundation - 0 views

www.eff.org/...ofgren-amendment-passing-house

surveillance state NSA-reform legislation Defense-spending

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Today, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill designed to cut funding for NSA backdoors. The amendment passed overwhelmingly with strong bipartisan support: 293 ayes, 123 nays, and 1 present. Currently, the NSA collects emails, browsing and chat history under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, and searches this information without a warrant for the communications of Americans—a practice known as "backdoor searches." The amendment would block the NSA from using any of its funding from this Defense Appropriations Bill to conduct such warrantless searches. In addition, the amendment would prohibit the NSA from using its budget to mandate or request that private companies and organizations add backdoors to the encryption standards that are meant to keep you safe on the web. Mark Rumold, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated:
  • Tonight, the House of Representatives took an important first step in reining in the NSA. The House voted overwhelmingly to cut funding for two of the NSA's invasive surveillance practices: the warrantless searching of Americans' international communications, and the practice of requiring companies to install vulnerabilities in communications products or services. We applaud the House for taking this important first step, and we look forward to other elected officials standing up for our right to privacy. Digital rights organizations, including EFF, strongly supported the amendment. We and other organizations—including Free Press, Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Taskforce.is—helped to organize a grassroots campaign to promote the amendment. The day before the vote, we urged friends and members to call their members of Congress through the website ShuttheBackDoor.net. Thousands responded to the call to action. We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who spoke out on this issue. This is a great day in the fight to rein in NSA surveillance abuses, and we hope Congress will work to ensure this amendment is in the final version of the appropriations bill that is enacted.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Jun 14
     
    Big majority in the House and it's in the Defense Spending act. That puts a lot of pressure on the Senate and if sustained in the Senate, makes it all but veto-proof.  
Paul Merrell

U.S. deployed amphibious transport dock ship to Persian Gulf in response to Iraq crisis - UPI.com - 0 views

www.upi.com/...8311403021116

war & peace Iraq U.S.-foreign-policy naval-deployment

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • (UPI) --U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has deployed an additional warship to the Persian Gulf in response to the lightning offensive launched by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq.The USS Mesa Verde, an amphibious transport dock ship, joins USS George H.W. Bush, USS Philippine Sea, USS Truxtun, USS Arleigh Burke and USS Okane in the Persian Gulf.Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby announced Mesa Verde's repositioning on Monday."Its presence in the Gulf adds to that of other U.S. naval ships already there -- including the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush -- and provides the commander in chief additional options to protect American citizens and interests in Iraq, should he choose to use them."The USS Mesa Verde is "capable of conducting a variety of quick-reaction and crisis response operations," Kirby noted. The amphibious transport dock ship is transporting an unspecified number of MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
Paul Merrell

Own Your Own Devices You Will, Under Rep. Farenthold's YODA Bill | Bloomberg BNA - 0 views

www.bna.com/own-own-devices-n17179895381

U.S. copyright software first-sale-doctrine legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • A bill introduced Sept. 18 would make clear that consumers actually owned the electronic devices, and any accompanying software on that device, that they purchased, according to sponsor Rep. Blake Farenthold's (R-Texas). The You Own Devices Act (H.R. 5586) would amend the Copyright Act “to provide that the first sale doctrine applies to any computer program that enables a machine or other product to operate.” The bill, which is unlikely to receive attention during Congress's lame-duck legislative session, was well-received by consumer's rights groups.
  • Section 109(a) of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §109(a), serves as the foundation for the first sale doctrine. H.R. 5586 would amend Section 109(a) by adding a provision covering “transfer of computer programs.” That provision would state:if a computer program enables any part of a machine or other product to operate, the owner of the machine or other product is entitled to transfer an authorized copy of the computer pro gram, or the right to obtain such copy, when the owner sells, leases, or otherwise transfers the machine or other product to another person. The right to transfer provided under this subsection may not be waived by any agreement.
  • ‘Things' Versus SoftwareFarenthold had expressed concern during a Sept. 17 hearing on Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act over what he perceived was a muddling between patents and copyrights when it comes to consumer products. “Traditionally patent law has protected things and copyright law has protected artistic-type works,” he said. “But now more and more things have software in them and you are licensing that software when you purchase a thing.” Farenthold asked the witnesses if there was a way to draw a distinction in copyright “between software that is an integral part of a thing as opposed to an add-on app that you would put on your telephone.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • H.R. 5586 seeks to draw that distinction. “YODA would simply state that if you want to sell, lease, or give away your device, the software that enables it to work is transferred along with it, and that any right you have to security and bug fixing of that software is transferred as well,” Farenthold said in a statement issued Sept. 19.
Paul Merrell

Tomgram: Nick Turse, How "Benghazi" Birthed the New Normal in Africa | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...rthed_the_new_normal_in_africa

war & peace Africa AFRICOM Benghazi

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 May 14 - No Cached
  • Amid the horrific headlines about the fanatical Islamist sect Boko Haram that should make Nigerians cringe, here’s a line from a recent Guardian article that should make Americans do the same, as the U.S. military continues its “pivot” to Africa: “[U.S.] defense officials are looking to Washington’s alliance with Yemen, with its close intelligence cooperation and CIA drone strikes, as an example for dealing with Boko Haram.” In fact, as the latest news reports indicate, that “close” relationship is proving something less than a raging success.  An escalating drone campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has resulted in numerous dead “militants,” but also numerous dead Yemeni civilians -- and a rising tide of resentment against Washington and possibly support for AQAP.  As the Washington-Sana relationship ratchets up, meaning more U.S. boots on the ground, more CIA drones in the skies, and more attacks on AQAP, the results have been dismal indeed: only recently, the U.S. embassy in the country’s capital was temporarily closed to the public (for fear of attack), the insurgents launched a successful assault on soldiers guarding the presidential palace in the heart of that city, oil pipelines were bombed, electricity in various cities intermittently blacked out, and an incident, a claimed attempt to kidnap a CIA agent and a U.S. Special Operations commando from a Sana barbershop, resulted in two Yemeni deaths (and possibly rising local anger).  In the meantime, AQAP seems ever more audacious and the country ever less stable.  In other words, Washington’s vaunted Yemeni model has been effective so far -- if you happen to belong to AQAP.
  • One of the poorer, less resource rich countries on the planet, Yemen is at least a global backwater.  Nigeria is another matter.  With the largest economy in Africa, much oil, and much wealth sloshing around, it has a corrupt leadership, a brutal and incompetent military, and an Islamist insurgency in its poverty-stricken north that, for simple bestiality, makes AQAP look like a paragon of virtue.  The U.S. has aided and trained Nigerian “counterterrorism” forces for years with little to show.  Add in the Yemeni model with drones overhead and who knows how the situation may spin further out of control.  In response to Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 young women, the Obama administration has already sent in a small military team (with FBI, State Department, and Justice Department representatives included) and launched drone and "manned surveillance flights," which may prove to be just the first steps in what one day could become a larger operation.  Under the circumstances, it’s worth remembering that the U.S. has already played a curious role in Nigeria’s destabilization, thanks to its 2011 intervention in Libya.  In the chaos surrounding the fall of Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, his immense arsenals of weapons were looted and soon enough AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and other light weaponry, as well as the requisite pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns or anti-aircraft guns made their way across an increasingly destabilized region, including into the hands of Boko Haram.  Its militants are far better armed and trained today thanks to post-Libyan developments.
  • All of this, writes Nick Turse, is but part of what the U.S. military has started to call the “new normal” in Africa.  The only U.S. reporter to consistently follow the U.S. pivot to that region in recent years, Turse makes clear that every new African nightmare turns out to be another opening for U.S. military involvement.  Each further step by that military leads to yet more regional destabilization, and so to a greater urge to bring the Yemeni model (and its siblings) to bear with... well, you know what effect.  Why doesn’t Washington?
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The U.S. Military’s New Normal in Africa A Secret African Mission and an African Mission that’s No Secret By Nick Turse What is Operation New Normal? 
  • Paul Merrell on 16 May 14
     
    With the kidnaped girls in Nigeria, the lid is beginning to come off the U.S. military's pivot to Africa, with violence exacerbated by the flood of weapons flowing from Libya and lately, funding from Qatar. The Washington Post has finally noticed that blowback from our military intervention throughout Africa is occurring. But TomDispatch's Nick Turse is the only western journalist who has been nipping at AFRICOM's heels, for more than a year, with a steady flow of leaked documents and hard-hitting reporting. If you are interested in backtracking this emerging regional war the U.S. has instigated in resource-rich Africa to send the Chinese government's investments in Africa packing, do a TomDispatch site search for "nick turse".      
Paul Merrell

400 Blackwater Mercs Deployed In Ukraine Against Separatists, German Press Reports | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...paratists-german-press-reports

war & peace Ukraine mercenaries Academi Germany U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 14 - No Cached
  • In what is becoming a weekly ritual, the German press continues to demolish the US case of "idealistic humaniatrian" Ukraine intervention. Recall, that it was a week ago that German tabloid Bild am Sonntag, hardly the most reputable source but certainly one which reaches the broadest audience, reported that dozens of CIA and FBI agents were "advising the Ukraine government." This conclusion is hardly a stretch and certainly based on facts considering the recent semi-secret jaunt by CIA head Brennan to Kiev. Fast forward one week when overnight the same Bild reported that about 400 elite mercenary commandos of the private US security firm, Academi, f/k/a Xe Services, f/k/a Blackwater "are involved in a punitive operation mounted by Ukraine's new government" against east Ukraine separatists.
  • Bild cites sources who report that on April 29, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) informed the Angela Merkel government about Academi commandos' involvement in Kiev's military operations in eastern Ukraine. Spiegel adds that "the information originates from U.S. intelligence services and was presented during a meeting chaired by the Chancellor's Office chief Peter Altmaier (CDU). At the meeting were present the president of the intelligence agencies and the Federal Criminal Office, as well as the intelligence coordinator of the Chancellor's Office and senior Ministry officials." Bild am Sontag did not have information about who was paying the Blackwater commandos: it is well-known they do not come cheap.
  • Of course, since no western entity, and certainly not the company itself, would ever admit its involvement in the Ukraine as it would promptly crash the official US foreign policy track claiming US non-involvement in Ukraine, none of this is surprising.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Finally, in this proxy war between west and east, to believe that the US won't throw everything it can at Putin is naive, and as such the involvement of trained US mercenaries in Ukraine is beyond debate. However what is certainly surprising and far more interesting, is the persistent attempts by the German press to discredit none other than their biggest "Developed world" ally, the US. It is almost as if someone (a quite wealthy and powerful someone) has material interests that diverge with those of the Obama administration, and hence converge with those of Putin. Alongside the emerging China-Russia axis, keeping tabs on just how close to Russia Germany is willing to get, is easily the most notable story in the entire Ukraine conflict.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 14
     
    Don't miss the last paragraph. Tyler has a whiff of big money driving Germany toward maintenance of the Russo-Germanic energy alliance. The U.S. has no natural gas to deliver to Europe in the next few years and even when it does, it will be very spendy to liquify and transport it by ship. It's the U.S. government that wants to block emergence of a unified Eurasian market, not the E.U. And the U.S. is a declining market, as China's economy eclipses that of the U.S. I'm not predicting that Germany will defect from NATO in the foreseeable future, but Obama is definitely riding roughshod over the E.U. in his Ukraine strategy during the Great Recession with no resurrection of the dollar's value in sight. The ties that bind NATO together are mightily stretched at this point.   
Paul Merrell

The best way to read Glenn Greenwald's 'No Place to Hide' - 0 views

www.dailydot.com/...enn-greenwald-no-place-to-hide

surveillance state NSA Obama Greenwald book doc-download book-citations

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 May 14 - No Cached
  • Journalist Glenn Greenwald just dropped a pile of new secret National Security Agency documents onto the Internet. But this isn’t just some haphazard WikiLeaks-style dump. These documents, leaked to Greenwald last year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, are key supplemental reading material for his new book, No Place to Hide, which went on sale Tuesday. Now, you could just go buy the book in hardcover and read it like you would any other nonfiction tome. Thanks to all the additional source material, however, if any work should be read on an e-reader or computer, this is it. Here are all the links and instructions for getting the most out of No Place to Hide.
  • Greenwald has released two versions of the accompanying NSA docs: a compressed version and an uncompressed version. The only difference between these two is the quality of the PDFs. The uncompressed version clocks in at over 91MB, while the compressed version is just under 13MB. For simple reading purposes, just go with the compressed version and save yourself some storage space. Greenwald also released additional “notes” for the book, which are just citations. Unless you’re doing some scholarly research, you can skip this download.
  • No Place to Hide is, of course, available on a wide variety of ebook formats—all of which are a few dollars cheaper than the hardcover version, I might add. Pick your e-poison: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks. Flipping back and forth Each page of the documents includes a corresponding page number for the book, to allow readers to easily flip between the book text and the supporting documents. If you use the Amazon Kindle version, you also have the option of reading Greenwald’s book directly on your computer using the Kindle for PC app or directly in your browser. Yes, that may be the worst way to read a book. In this case, however, it may be the easiest way to flip back and forth between the book text and the notes and supporting documents. Of course, you can do the same on your e-reader—though it can be a bit of a pain. Those of you who own a tablet are in luck, as they provide the best way to read both ebooks and PDF files. Simply download the book using the e-reader app of your choice, download the PDFs from Greenwald’s website, and dig in. If you own a Kindle, Nook, or other ereader, you may have to convert the PDFs into a format that works well with your device. The Internet is full of tools and how-to guides for how to do this. Here’s one:
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  • Kindle users also have the option of using Amazon’s Whispernet service, which converts PDFs into a format that functions best on the company’s e-reader. That will cost you a small fee, however—$0.15 per megabyte, which means the compressed Greenwald docs will cost you a whopping $1.95.
Paul Merrell

European ISPs Can Stop Logging User Data, Court Rules | TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/ata-retention-directive-140408

surveillance state EU litigation data-retention

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 May 14 - No Cached
  • The European Court of Justice has overturned Europe's data retention directive, arguing that it's disproportionate and a violation of people's privacy. The decision has far-reaching consequences for the collection of data from European internet users, including their IP-addresses.
  • In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Justice has declared Europe’s Data Retention directive to be a violation of Internet users’ privacy. Under the Directive Internet providers and other telecom companies were required to log and store vast amounts of information, including who their subscribers communicate with, and what IP-addresses they use. The local authorities could then use this information to fight serious crimes, but it was also been frequently used by third parties, in online piracy cases for example. Today the Court ruled that the data collection requirements are disproportionate. In a case started by Digital Rights Ireland the Court effectively annulled the directive, and it’s now up to the individual member states to change local laws accordingly.
  • “The Court is of the opinion that, by adopting the Data Retention Directive, the EU legislature has exceeded the limits imposed by compliance with the principle of proportionality,” the Court states. “By requiring the retention of those data and by allowing the competent national authorities to access those data, the directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data,” it adds. The judgement has far-reaching implications for large telecom companies, but also for smaller businesses including many VPN providers. With the new ruling these companies are no longer required to log extensive amount of user data as was required under the EU Directive.
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  • The European Court of Justice judgement is a clear victory for privacy activists, but mostly for the public who will regain some of their online privacy. While the ruling specified that some data retention may be needed, broad and mandatory retention laws and NSA-style data dragnets are no longer the standard.
Paul Merrell

EU to bug every car in UK with tracker chips - and Ministers admit they are powerless to stop the Big Brother technology | Mail Online - 0 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...op-Big-Brother-technology.html

surveillance state EU vehicle-location-tracking

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 May 14 - No Cached
  • Every new car sold in Britain will have to have a ‘black box’ device fitted to track drivers’ movements from next year, under plans being imposed by the European Union.  Despite serious concerns about privacy and cost, UK ministers admit they are powerless to stop the Big Brother technology being forced on motorists and car makers. The Government believes the gadget, designed to help emergency services find crashed vehicles, will add at least £100 to the cost of vehicles without providing significant safety improvements.
  • Officials also fear the scheme, known as eCall, could be used by police or insurance companies to monitor motorists’ every move.   The European Commission has ruled that by October next year, all new cars and vans sold across Europe must be fitted with the technology, which contains a mobile phone-like SIM card designed to transmit the vehicle’s location to emergency services in the event of a crash.
Paul Merrell

Bill Clinton and the Bogus Iranian Threat The Future of Freedom Foundation - 0 views

fff.org/...n-and-the-bogus-iranian-threat

war & peace Israel U.S.-foreign-policy Iranian-nukes-myth Bush-II Clinton Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 May 14 - No Cached
  • Tragically, President George H.W. Bush passed up a chance for a rapprochement with Iran because, after the Soviet Union imploded, the national-security apparatus needed a new threat to stave off budget cutters in Congress. Iran became the “manufactured crisis,” according to author Gareth Porter’s new book by that title. Doubly tragic, Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, compounded the dangerous folly by hyping the bogus threat. Why? That might be a good question for progressives to ask possible presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who enjoys basking in her husband’s supposed presidential successes. Porter writes, That ramping up of pressure on Iran by the Clinton administration was still driven by the same bureaucratic incentives that had appeared at the end of the Cold War, but it shifted into overdrive because it was linked to support of the Israeli government’s drive to portray Iran as the great threat to peace in the world. Clinton’s advisers saw the threat of nuclear proliferation as the path to beefing up the national-security apparatus. It was perfect for justifying new weapons systems and a continuing role as world policeman.
  • Moreover, the military focus on Iran, Porter adds, “dovetailed with the Clinton administration’s move to align its Iran policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.” Before assuming power, Clinton signaled his intention to be “more explicitly pro-Israel than the Bush administration had been.” To that end, he selected Martin Indyk as his campaign’s Middle East adviser. Indyk had been an adviser to former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir; a researcher at the chief pro-Israel lobbying organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; and cofounder of AIPAC’s spinoff think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Today, Indyk is President Obama’s chief envoy to the failed U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian talks.) The Clinton administration implemented the “dual containment” policy against Iraq and Iran. But Porter reports that Robert Pelletreau, the Middle East policymaker in the State Department, acknowledges “that it was ‘pretty much accepted in Washington’ that the policy had originated in Israel.”
Paul Merrell

Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...sh-spies-seek-control-internet

surveillance state GCHQ dirty-tricks

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.
  • he “tools” have been assigned boastful code names. They include invasive methods for online surveillance, as well as some of the very techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly prosecuted young online activists for employing, including “distributed denial of service” attacks and “call bombing.” But they also describe previously unknown tactics for manipulating and distorting online political discourse and disseminating state propaganda, as well as the apparent ability to actively monitor Skype users in real-time—raising further questions about the extent of Microsoft’s cooperation with spy agencies or potential vulnerabilities in its Skype’s encryption. Here’s a list of how JTRIG describes its capabilities: • “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS) • “Mass delivery of email messaging to support an Information Operations campaign” (BADGER) and “mass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign” (WARPARTH) • “Disruption of video-based websites hosting extremist content through concerted target discovery and content removal.” (SILVERLORD)
  • • “Active skype capability. Provision of real time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.” (MINIATURE HERO) • “Find private photographs of targets on Facebook” (SPRING BISHOP) • “A tool that will permanently disable a target’s account on their computer” (ANGRY PIRATE) • “Ability to artificially increase traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to inflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM) • “Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)” (GESTATOR) • “Targeted Denial Of Service against Web Servers” (PREDATORS FACE) and “Distributed denial of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG” (ROLLING THUNDER)
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  • • “A suite of tools for monitoring target use of the UK auction site eBay (www.ebay.co.uk)” (ELATE) • “Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING) • “For connecting two target phone together in a call” (IMPERIAL BARGE) While some of the tactics are described as “in development,” JTRIG touts “most” of them as “fully operational, tested and reliable.” It adds: “We only advertise tools here that are either ready to fire or very close to being ready.”
Paul Merrell

Resurrecting the Dubious State Secrets Privilege | John Dean | Verdict | Legal Analysis and Commentary from Justia - 0 views

verdict.justia.com/...ubious-state-secrets-privilege

Dark-State state-secrets government secrecy Restis DoJ Holder

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion to make a private lawsuit simply disappear. While the U.S. Government is not a party to this defamation lawsuit—Victor Restis et al. v. American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc.—filed July 19, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Eric Holder is concerned that the discovery being undertaken might jeopardize our national security.
  • The government’s argument for intervening in this lawsuit is technical and thin.
  • The strongest precedent in the government’s brief in the current case is the 1985 case of Fitzgerald v. Penthouse Intern., Ltd. Fitzgerald had sued Penthouse Magazine for an allegedly libelous article, but the U.S. Navy moved to intervene on the ground that the government had a national security interest which would not be adequately protected by the parties, so the government requested the action be dismissed, after invoking the state secrets privilege. The federal district court granted the motions and dismissed the case, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for Fourth Circuit affirmed. So there is precedent for this unusual action by the government in a private lawsuit, but the legitimacy of the state secrets privilege remains subject to question.
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  • In February 2000, Judith Loether, a daughter of one of the three civilians killed in the 1948 B-29 explosion, discovered the government’s once-secret accident report for the incident on the Internet. Loether had been seven weeks old when her father died but been told by her mother what was known of her father’s death and the unsuccessful efforts to find out what had truly happened. When Loether read the accident report she was stunned. There were no national security secrets whatsoever, rather there was glaringly clear evidence of the government’s negligence resulting in her father’s death. Loether shared this information with the families of the other civilian engineers who had been killed in the incident and they joined together in a legal action to overturn Reynolds, raising the fact that the executive branch of the government had misled the Supreme Court, not to mention the parties to the earlier lawsuit.
  • Lou Fisher looked closely at the state secrets privilege in his book In The Name of National Security, as well as in follow-up articles when the Reynolds case was litigated after it was discovered, decades after the fact, that the government had literally defrauded the Supreme Court in Reynolds, e.g., “The State Secrets Privilege: Relying on Reynolds.” The Reynolds ruling emerged from litigation initiated by the widows of three civilian engineers who died in a midair explosion of a B-29 bomber on October 6, 1948. The government refused to provide the widows with the government’s accident report. On March 9, 1953, the Supreme Court created the state secrets privilege when agreeing the accident report did not have to be produced since the government claimed it contained national security secrets. In fact, none of the federal judges in the lower courts, nor the justices on the Supreme Court, were allowed to read the report.
  • Lowell states in his letter: “By relying solely upon ex parte submissions to justify its invocation of the state secrets privilege, especially in the unprecedented circumstance of private party litigation without an obvious government interest, the Government has improperly invoked the state secrets privilege, deprived Plaintiffs of the opportunity to test the Government’s claims through the adversarial process, and limited the Court’s opportunity to make an informed judgment. “ Lowell further claims that in “the typical state secrets case, the Government will simultaneously file both a sealed declaration and a detailed public declaration.” (Emphasis in Lowell’s letter.) To bolster this contention, he provided the court with an example, and offered to provide additional examples if so requested.
  • The Justice Department’s memorandum of law accompanying its motion to intervene states that once the state secrets privilege has been asserted “by the head of the department with control over the matter in question . . . the scope of judicial review is quite narrow.” Quoting from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling establishing this privilege in 1953, U.S. v. Reynolds, the brief adds: “the sole determination for the court is whether, ‘from all the circumstances of the case . . . there is a reasonable danger that compulsion of the evidence will expose military [or other] matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged.’”In short, all the Justice Department need claim is the magic phrase—”state secrets”—after assuring the court that the head of department or agency involved has personally decided it is information that cannot be released. That ends the matter. This is what has made this privilege so controversial, not to mention dubious. Indeed, invocation by the executive branch effectively removes the question from judicial determination, and the information underlying the decision is not even provided to the court.
  • As Fisher and other scholars note, there is much more room under the Reynolds ruling for the court to take a hard look at the evidence when the government claims state secrets than has been common practice. Fisher reminds: “The state secrets privilege is qualified, not absolute. Otherwise there is no adversary process in court, no exercise of judicial independence over what evidence is needed, and no fairness accorded to private litigants who challenge the government . . . . There is no justification in law or history for a court to acquiesce to the accuracy of affidavits, statements, and declarations submitted by the executive branch.” Indeed, he noted to do so is contrary to our constitutional system of checks and balances.
  • Time to Reexamine Blind Adherence to the State Secrets PrivilegeIn responding to the government’s move to intervene, invoke state secrets, and dismiss the Restis lawsuit, plaintiffs’ attorney Abbe Lowell sent a letter to Judge Edgardo Ramos, the presiding judge on the case on September 17, 2014, contesting the Department of Justice’s ex parte filings, and requesting that Judge Ramos “order the Government to file a public declaration in support of its filing that will enable Plaintiffs to meaningfully respond.” Lowell also suggested as an alternative that he “presently holds more than sufficient security clearances to be given access to the ex parte submission,” and the court could do here as in other national security cases, and issue a protective order that the information not be shared with anyone. While Lowell does not so state, he is in effect taking on the existing state secrets privilege procedure where only the government knows what is being withheld and why, and he is taking on Reynolds.
  • To make a long story short, the Supreme Court was more interested in the finality of their decisions than the fraud that had been perpetrated upon them. They rejected the direct appeal, and efforts to relegate the case through the lower courts failed. As Fisher notes, the Court ruled in Reynolds based on “vapors and allusions,” rather than facts and evidence, and today it is clear that when it uncritically accepted the government’s word, the Court abdicated its duty to protect the ability of each party to present its case fairly, not to mention it left the matter under the control of a “self-interested executive” branch.
  • Lowell explains it is not clear—and suggests the government is similarly unclear in having earlier suggested a “law enforcement privilege”—as to why the state secrets privilege is being invoked, and argues this case can be tried without exposing government secrets. Citing the Fitzgerald ruling, Lowell points out dismissal is appropriate “[o]nly when no amount of effort and care on the part of the court and the parties will safeguard privileged material is dismissal warranted.”
  • No telling how Judge Ramos will rule, and the government has a remarkable record of prevailing with the deeply flawed state secrets privilege. But Lowell’s letter appears to say, between the lines, that he has a client who is prepared to test this dubious privilege and the government’s use of it in this case if Judge Ramos dismisses this lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where that ruling would be reviewed, sees itself every bit the intellectual equal of the U.S. Supreme Court and it is uniquely qualified to give this dubious privilege and the Reynolds holding a reexamination. It is long past time this be done.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 14
     
    Interesting take on the Restis case by former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. Where the State Secrets Privilege is at its very nastiest, in my opinion, is in criminal prosecutions where the government withholds potentially exculpatory evidence on grounds of state secrecy. I think the courts have been far too lenient in allowing people to be tried without production of such evidence. The work-around in the Guantanamo Bay inmate cases has been to appoint counsel who have security clearances, but in those cases the lawyer is forbidden from discussing the classified information with the client, who could have valuable input if advised what the evidence is. It's also incredibly unfair in the extraordinary rendition cases, where the courts have let the government get away with having the cases dismissed on state secrecy grounds, even though the tortures have been the victim of criminal official misconduct.  It forces the victims to appeal clear to the Supreme Court before they can start over in an international court with jurisdiction over human rights violations, where the government loses because of its refusal to produce the evidence.  (Under the relevant treaties that the U.S. is a party to, the U.S. is required to provide a judicial remedy without resort to claims of national security secrecy.) Then the U.S. refuses to pay the judgments of the International courts, placing the U.S. in double breach of its treaty obligations. We see the same kinds of outrageous secrecy playing out in the Senate Intellience Committee's report on CIA torture, where the Obama Administration is using state secrecy claims to delay release of the report summary and minimize what is in it. It's highly unlikely that I will live long enough to read the full report. And that just is not democracy in action. Down with the Dark State!   
Paul Merrell

APNewsBreak: Turkey, Saudi in pact to help anti-Assad rebels - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-bca5-21b51bbdf93e_story.html

war & peace Syria Iraq Iran Turkey Saudis U.S.-foreign-policy Al-Nusrah

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 May 15 - No Cached
  • Casting aside U.S. concerns about aiding extremist groups, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have converged on an aggressive new strategy to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad. The two countries — one a democracy, the other a conservative kingdom — have for years been at odds over how to deal with Assad, their common enemy. But mutual frustration with what they consider American indecision has brought the two together in a strategic alliance that is driving recent rebel gains in northern Syria, and has helped strengthen a new coalition of anti-Assad insurgents, Turkish officials say. That is provoking concern in the United States, which does not want rebel groups, including the al-Qaida linked Nusra Front, uniting to topple Assad. The Obama administration worries that the revived rebel alliance could potentially put a more dangerous radical Islamist regime in Assad’s place, just as the U.S. is focused on bringing down the Islamic State group. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues, said the administration is concerned that the new alliance is helping Nusra gain territory in Syria.
  • The coordination between Turkey and Saudi Arabia reflects renewed urgency and impatience with the Obama administration’s policy in the region. Saudi Arabia previously kept its distance and funding from some anti-Assad Islamist groups at Washington’s urging, according to Turkish officials. Saudi Arabia and Turkey also differed about the role of the international Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Syrian opposition. Turkey supports the group, while the Saudi monarchy considers it a threat to its rule at home; that has translated into differences on the ground — until recently. “The key is that the Saudis are no longer working against the opposition,” a Turkish official said. He and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Turkish officials say the Obama administration has disengaged from Syria as it focuses on rapprochement with Iran. While the U.S. administration is focused on degrading the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, they say it has no coherent strategy for ending the rule of Assad, Iran’s key ally in the region.
  • The new Turkish and Saudi push suggests that they view Assad as a bigger threat to the region than groups like Nusra. Turkish officials discount the possibility that Nusra will ever be in a position to hold sway over much of Syria. Under Turkish and Saudi patronage, the rebel advance has undermined a sense that the Assad government is winning the civil war — and demonstrated how the new alliance can yield immediate results. The pact was sealed in early March when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Riyadh to meet Saudi’s recently crowned King Salman. Relations had been tense between Erdogan and the late King Abdullah, in great part over Erdogan’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Saudi shift appears to be part of broader proxy war against Iran that includes Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The new partnership adds Saudi money to Turkey’s logistical support.
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  • “It’s a different world now in Syria, because the Saudi pocketbook has opened and the Americans can’t tell them not to do it,” said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “It’s quite clear that Salman has prioritized efforts against Iran over those against the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Turkish-Saudi agreement has led to a new joint command center in the northeastern Syrian province of Idlib. There, a coalition of groups — including Nusra and other Islamist brigades such as Ahrar al-Sham that Washington views as extremist — are progressively eroding Assad’s front. The rebel coalition also includes more moderate elements of the Free Syrian Army that have received U.S. support in the past. At the end of March, the alliance — calling itself “Conquest Army” — took the city of Idlib, followed by the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour and then a government military base.
  • Turkish officials say that Turkey provides logistical and intelligence support to some members of the coalition, but has no interaction with Nusra — which it considers a terrorist group. But the difference with IS, the officials say, is that Turkey does not view Nusra as a security threat and therefore does not impede it.
  • Turkish officials say that the U.S. has no strategy for stabilizing Syria. One Turkish official said that the CIA has even lately halted its support for anti-Assad groups in northern Iraq. U.S. trainers are now in Turkey on a train-and-equip program aimed at adding fighters to counter the Islamic State group and bolster moderate forces in Syria, but Turkish officials are skeptical that it will amount to much. Usama Abu Zeid, a legal adviser to the Free Syrian Army, confirmed that the new coordination between Turkey and Saudi Arabia — as well as Qatar — had facilitated the rebel advance, but said that it not yet led to a new flow of arms. He said rather that the fighters had seized large caches of arms from Syrian government facilities. So far, Abu Zeid said, the new understanding between the militia groups and their international partners has led to quick success. “We were able to cause a lot of damage and capture more territory from the regime,” he said. But Landis said that it is a dangerous game — especially for Turkey.
  • “The cautionary tale is that every power in the Middle East has tried to harness the power of Islamists to their own ends,” he said, noting that Assad’s government also backed Islamists in Iraq who later turned their guns on him. “It always seems to blow back.”
Gary Edwards

Birth of an Internet independence movement | CIO - 0 views

www.cio.com/...net-independence-movement.html

internet

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 May 15 - No Cached
  • The arrogance and utter incongruity of declaring Internet and telephone networks equivalent has led a group of friends, all of them reluctant activists, to convene an effort to restore Internet independence. So far, the group of “Tech Innovators” includes John Perry Barlow, Mark Cuban, Tim Draper, Tom Evslin, Dave Farber, Charlie Giancarlo, George Gilder, John Gilmore, Brian Martin, Bob Metcalfe, Ray Ozzie, Jeff Pulver, Michael Robertson, Scott McNealy and Les Vadasz. Through this civic initiative, we hope to defend the remarkable success of the Internet and lead a conversation toward the future — not the past, where laws enacted under FDR must inevitably lead us. The open Internet rules from the FCC end the “permissionless innovation” they purport to protect by inviting the commission to regulate computer networks for the first time. The uncertain benefits and certain unintended consequences of the policy reversal expose the communicating public to unnecessary risk and threaten to upend the success of the past 20 years. The Tech Innovators believe that by recognizing “Internet Independence Day,” Congress can help initiate and advance bipartisan legislation to restore the private-sector framework responsible for of the success of the Internet.
  • Americans today enjoy a thousand-fold improvement from the 56Kbps dial-up modems that 15 million Internet early adopters relied on in the ’90s. The Internet now reaches 3 billion people, and a proliferation of services push communication options far beyond the long-distance phone call of 1995. The FCC plan to impose public utility Title II provisions ends the policies responsible for these accomplishments. Domains subject to telephone-style regulations suffer stagnation without exception. A routine 10Mbps connection available as a nonregulated information service prior to the Open Internet Order would have cost $10,000 per month as a Title II data service in 1995. The insertion of fiat regulatory powers will prove fatal to the entrepreneurial energies responsible for building what FCC Chairman Wheeler calls “the most powerful network in the history of mankind” — a network built beyond the reach of FCC regulatory jurisdiction.
  • The Open Internet Order invents artificial distinctions between content companies, Internet providers and end users for the purposes of regulation. This will lead to the same types of regulatory arbitrage and innovation-deadening consequences as prior distinctions such as “long distance” or “intra-lata.” History demonstrates that asserting artificial market distinctions for purposes of regulation always invites arbitrage and unintended consequences. Resources White Paper 802.11ac: Wireless The Easy Way White Paper Web Application Acceleration: Practical Implementations See All Go The commission obtains jurisdiction by changing the definition of “public switched network” to include networks with IP addresses. The complete transformation of a policy landscape represents a decision the Constitution grants exclusively to Congress.
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  • The coming litigation leaves the Internet ecosystem in jeopardy without regard to the outcome. The preference for a congressional action addressing current conditions and issues relative to the prospects of an 80-year-old regulatory framework should not be controversial. The privatization of the Internet represented an experiment. Restoring Internet independence merely recognizes the remarkable success of the commercial Internet.
  • Gary Edwards on 04 May 15
     
    "The 20th anniversary of the privatization of the Internet deserves recognition by the U.S. Congress and celebration by all Americans as "Internet Independence Day." Two decades ago, on April 30, 1995, the Internet was privatized with the decommissioning of the NSFNET backbone. State of the CIO 2015 More than 500 top IT leaders responded to our online survey to help us gauge the state of the READ NOW The past two decades of Internet-driven success were set in motion with the passage of the High Performance Computing Act of 1991, championed by Sen. Al Gore and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. That decision of the U.S. government to step back and privatize the Internet led to a thriving and open Internet that provides a remarkable platform for innovation. Ironically, the Federal Communication Commission's recently announced Open Internet Order reasserts government control over the Internet by the means of repurposing Depression-era industrial policy meant to address a monopoly in voice-transmission technology. The FCC went down the dangerous and uncertain legal path of reverting to traditional, utility-style regulation under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934."
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu's Coalition of the Unwilling « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/hus-coalition-of-the-unwilling

Israel coalition Netanyahu Obama Palestine U.S.-foreign-policy EU

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 May 15 - No Cached
  • After Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprising victory in Israel’s national elections in March, he took until the last possible minute to complete the process of forming the government for his fourth term as Israel’s prime minister. For all the time he invested, despite making it just under the wire, Netanyahu ended up with a fragile, ultra-right-wing coalition and more work ahead of him to bring in at least one more party. The government Netanyahu presented to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was a bare majority of 61 seats out of the 120-seat Knesset. There are no fig leafs in this coalition, no Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak for Netanyahu to send to talk fruitlessly with the Palestinians. One might think this would make the coalition more stable, since it consists entirely of the right wing. In this, one would be wrong.
  • Netanyahu is, in fact, desperate to add another party to the coalition because there is so much tension in the current majority, most visibly between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Naftali Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi. Likud leaders, including Netanyahu, feel that Bennett essentially held the coalition hostage to his demands. They are quite right about that, but the gambit paid off handsomely for Bennett. HaBayit HaYehudi holds a mere eight seats in the Knesset. Yet Bennett and his party will get four ministries, the deputy defense minister post, as well as the chairs of two key Knesset committees dealing with Israel’s legal system. That is what you get when you play hardball with Netanyahu, a man who likes to talk tough but who is a political creature first and foremost and quickly backs off from a high-stakes fight he is not sure he can win. As things stand, this coalition might not last the year. That is why, after Avigdor Lieberman quit his post as foreign minister and took his greatly diminished party into the opposition, Netanyahu left the post open by keeping that portfolio for himself. In reality, Netanyahu has been the foreign minister all along, so it is not an added burden for him.
  • On the day that Netanyahu was supposed to present his government, he was still eight seats short of a majority. Luckily for Bennett, that was the exact number of seats he controlled and he let Netanyahu know just how lucky he was. Bennett played a game of chicken with Netanyahu, pushing for more and more power within the government and knowing that Bibi was going to have a hard time saying no to anything. Bennett won, and the spoils were vast. The far-right HaBayit HaYehudi party now controls the ministries of education, agriculture, justice, and diaspora affairs. The position of deputy defense minister will also be theirs. It is even worse than it sounds. With the ministry of agriculture comes control over the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, which funds the expansion of settlements. Uri Ariel, perhaps the most extreme pro-settler member of the Knesset, will have that portfolio.
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  • Shaked is certain to work hard to undermine Israel’s fragile legal system. She will also be heading the powerful Ministerial Committee for Legislation and the Judicial Appointments Committee, giving her even more leverage to eliminate a legal system that she sees as a bastion of the left. Moreover, she is very likely to be minister of justice when the next attorney general is appointed. Uri Ariel can be equally certain to press hard for as much settlement expansion—all over the West Bank and, especially, in East Jerusalem—as the available shekels and the defense minister, who will still be Moshe Ya’alon, will allow. I would rather not even think about what Bennett, the new minister of education, is going to do to the minds of Israeli students. Academia is also thought of as a bastion of the left in Israel, and the climate for free thought in Israeli institutions is certainly threatened now.
  • A Question of Longevity The real question about all of this is how long it will last. An ultra-right government like this one is not going to get along well with the Obama administration or most of Europe, although the Republican-led Congress is likely to fall in love with it. Some may hope that this will be a case of things getting so bad that political pressure for improvement must come. Sadly, such is not the history of Israel or of this conflict. Netanyahu will be spending the next few months trying to woo Isaac Herzog into the government, and this is what the whole game comes down to. If Herzog joins and creates a national unity government of 85 seats, this government will survive. The Labor Party, which makes up most of the Zionist Union, is unlikely to provide much of a counter to the right-wing majority. Much more likely is that, as has happened in the past, many of Labor’s Knesset members and other leaders will bolt the party rather than serve as a fig leaf for such a far-right government.
  • If Herzog does not join the government, this fourth Netanyahu government will not outlast Barack Obama’s presidency, and might not even come close. The right wing does not play well together, and it will take nothing more than a few well-timed votes of no-confidence to take down this government even if none of the parties bolts. Even that scenario, however, offers little hope. The last elections were hailed as a comeback for Labor, but the center and left still cannot form a coalition without the Joint List (a coalition of mostly Arab parties), and that remains anathema in Israeli politics. In fact, little changed in the left-right balance in the last elections, and that is showing no signs of turning around. It has never been clearer that positive change in Israel is going to require some sort of meaningful action by the United States and/or Europe. If that does not come, and it does not seem to be on the horizon, disaster looms.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 May 15
     
    The dust settles quickly in Israel. Already -- -- A bill is moving through the Knesset and is expected to pass, permanently annexing the entire Jordan Valley and the Syrian Golan Heights.   --  The Israeli military is conducting large-scale maneuvers in the West Bank. Palestinians are seeing it as prelude to a mass eviction of Palestinians from the Jordan Valley.   -- A large section of East Jerusalem has been walled off with an iron gate, prelude to annexation and expulsion of its Palestinian residents. -- Netanyahu is so desperate for posts to offer another party in the national government that he has introduced legislation in the Knesset which would suspend, until the next government is formed, the limit on the number of cabinet ministers and deputy ministers and to allow ministers without portfolio. The centrist Yesh Atid party has served notice of intent to sue to block the legislation.  
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