Government Says Secret Court Opinion on Law Underlying PRISM Program Needs to Stay Secret
By Mark Rumold and David Sobel | EFF | June 7, 2013
In a rare public filing in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Justice Department today urged continued secrecy for a 2011 FISC opinion that found the National Security Agency’s surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional. Significantly, the surveillance at issue was carried out under the same controversial legal authority that underlies the NSA’s recently-revealed PRISM program.
EFF filed a suit under the Freedom of Information Act in August 2012, seeking disclosure of the FISC ruling. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall revealed the existence of the opinion, which found that collection activities under FISA Section 702 “circumvented the spirit of the law” and violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. But, at the time, the Senators were not permitted to discuss the details publicly. Section 702 has taken on new importance this week, as it appears to form the basis for the extensive PRISM surveillance program reported recently in the Guardian and the Washington Post.
The government has seeked to block EFF’s FOIA suit by arguing that only the FISC, itself, can release the opinion. In an effort to remove that roadblock, EFF filed a motion with the FISC on April 22 seeking the surveillance court’s consent to disclosure, should the document be found to be otherwise subject to release under FOIA. In its response filed with the FISC today, the government offers a circular argument, asserting that only the Executive Branch can de-classify the opinion, but that it is somehow prohibited by the FISC rules from doing so.
The government’s argument is guaranteed to make heads spin. DOJ earlier argued that it lacks discretion to release the FISC opinion without the FISC’s consent, but DOJ now argues that if the FISC were to agree with EFF, “the consequence would be that the Government could release the opinion or any portion of it in its discretion.” But FISC material is classified solely because the Executive Branch demands that it be, so release of the opinion has always been a matter of Executive discretion.
Frankly, it’s difficult to understand what DOJ is saying. The Government seems to have a knee-jerk inclination towards secrecy, one that often – as in this case – simply defies logic. The government’s bottom line is this: their rules trump the public’s statutory rights. But it’s not the province of the Executive branch to determine which rights citizens get to assert.
The events of the past week have demonstrated that the public is angry about the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. EFF hoped the public outcry might lead the government to rethink it’s position in this case (and, notably, DOJ has in two other EFF cases). But, for now, the government is digging in its heels and refusing to budge. But a democracy demands more. When the government acts unconstitutionally, the public has a fundamental right to review, understand, and correct that government action. Despite the DOJ’s filing today, EFF intends to keep fighting against the government’s secret surveillance practices.
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UK drone strikes violate international law: legal opinion piece
Press TV – June 8, 2013
Britain’s operating of killer drones in Afghanistan may be violating the international law, a legal firm representing peace campaigners has argued in an opinion piece.
The legal opinion by Public Interest Lawyers argues that the use of killer drones in Afghanistan is a breach of the international law under the European Convention for Human Rights (ECHR).
The document says that the ECHR’s article 2 requires the governments to use “no more [force] than absolutely necessary” during conflicts.
“Only when it is absolutely necessary to kill someone rather than arrest/disable them will the use of drones be lawful. And even then, drones may only be used for … self defence under 2(2)(c),” it says.
According to the Public Interest Lawyers, this means that the ECHR obliges Britain to the use of killer drones only in “situations in which there is an immediate threat to life” that “prevents the carrying out of ‘targeted killings’ and narrowly circumscribes their use even on ‘the battlefield'”.
“There is therefore a strong presumption that the UK’s drones programme is in breach of international law,” it adds.
The British Ministry of Defense announced back in April that they are operating killer drones in Afghanistan by remote-pilots from RAF Waddington base in Lincolnshire.
The ministry claims its operations are in accordance with applicable international humanitarian law.
This comes as drone attacks normally come with extreme “collateral damage” to the civilian population even when taking the American and British claims that they are targeting terrorists by terror drones as true.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed the remote-controlled killer drones strikes on various parts of Afghanistan over the past years.
Civilians’ casualties have triggered widespread protests against killer drone attacks in the Asian country with the Afghan government repeatedly calling for an end to the deadly assaults.
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The NYT and Chemical Weapons in Syria
By Michael McGehee | NYTX | June 7, 2013
Last month when UN investigator Carla Del Ponte came out publicly to say, “There are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” and, “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” it was quickly met with suspicion and denial, from the UN and the White House.
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said as much to reporters.
“We are highly skeptical of the suggestion that the opposition could have or did use chemical weapons,” Mr. Carney said. “We find it highly likely that any chemical weapon use that has taken place in Syria was done by the Assad regime. And that remains our position.” (NYT, 05/07/2013)
In the previous month both the US and Israel came out with the claim that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons.
On Tuesday the UN issued a report on the war-torn country, and The New York Times reported that, “There are reasonable grounds to believe limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used.”
However, the “paper of record” conveniently failed to note that the report immediately goes on to say that “It has not been possible, on the evidence available, to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator.”
But there are two very important developments to this story which have been met with total silence.
The first is the hacking of Britam, a British defense company. Four months ago it was reported by Yahoo! that:
The Obama administration gave green signal to a chemical weapons attack plan in Syria that could be blamed on President Bashar al Assad’s regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country, leaked documents have shown.
One of the leaked documents was an email. The email:
Phil
We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington.
We’ll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have.
They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record.
Frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?
Kind regards
David
One of the parties who continues to feed the UN information about the use of chemical weapons in Syria is the United Kingdom. The NYT reported on Wednesday, Britain “repeated an earlier assessment that ‘a growing body of limited but persuasive information’ pointed to the use of the same toxin.”
After the email was leaked, claims of chemical weapons usage were made and then President Obama was hounded to act swiftly. Syria’s President Assad allegedly crossed Washington’s “red line.”
The June 4th UN panel report claims that, “It is possible that anti-Government armed groups may access and use chemical weapons. This includes nerve agents, though there is no compelling evidence that these groups possess such weapons or their requisite delivery systems.”
The Turkish news agency, Zaman, reported on May 28, 2013—that is, a week before the UN report was published—that Syrian rebels were arrested in Turkey and had Sarin gas in their possession.
While Russia Today covered the development, as well as Voice of Russia and Iran’s PressTV, no Western source published the development.
In all the coverage provided on Syria and chemical weapons—in the last year the NYT has provided more than 1,100 news items—we should suppose that a hacked email showing Washington supports a plan to use chemical weapons in Syria and blame it on the regime, and that rebels have been caught with Sarin nerve gas in Turkey, simply is not “all the news fit to print.”
Syria’s Fake Sectarian War
By Shamus Cooke | Worker’s Action | June 7, 2013
The fate of Syria and the broader Middle East balances on a razor’s edge. The western media is giving dire warnings of an impending sectarian war between Sunni and Shia Muslims, a war that could drown the Middle East in a flood of blood.
Such a war would be completely artificial, and is being manufactured for geo-political reasons. When the most influential Sunni figures in Saudi Arabia and Qatar — both U.S. allies — recently called for Jihad against the Syrian government and Hezbollah, their obvious intentions were to boost the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia and its closest ally, the United States, by destroying Iran’s key ally in the region.
Will Sunni Muslims in Syria — who are the majority — suddenly begin attacking their Shia countrymen and the Syrian government? Unlikely. A compilation of data from humanitarian workers in and around Syria compiled by NATO suggests that:
…70 percent of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.”
The pro-Assad 70 percent is mostly Sunni. This data flies in the face of the constant barrage of western media distortion about what’s happening in Syria. Previous polling compiled last year by Qatar had similar results, and was likewise ignored by the western media.
The above article quoted a source familiar with the data:
The Sunnis have no love for Assad, but the great majority of the community is withdrawing from the revolt… what is left is the foreign fighters who are sponsored by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They are seen by the Sunnis as far worse than Assad.
Syrian Sunnis are likely disgusted by the behavior of the foreign extremists, which include a laundry list of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, as well as the terrorist bombing of a Sunni Mosque that killed the top Sunni cleric in Syria — along with 41 worshipers and 84 others injured. The Sunni cleric was killed because he was pro-Assad.
The recent calls for Jihad by the Saudi and Qatari Sunni leaders are likely in response to the Syrian government scoring major victories against the rebels. The rebels are now badly losing the war, in large part because they’ve completely lost their base of community support.
There are other key rebel supporters now taking urgent action to bolster the flagging rebel war effort. The leader of al-Qaeda, for example, made a recent plea for Sunnis to support the rebels against the Syrian government, while U.S. politician John McCain journeyed into Syria to meet with rebels — later identified as terrorists — to further commit the U.S. to the rebel side.
Meanwhile, The New York Times confirmed that the CIA had increased its already-massive arms trafficking program into Syria, while the European union agreed to drop the Syrian arms embargo, so that even more arms could be funneled to the rebels.
And to top it off, France now says it has proof that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against the rebels — a UN representative has suggested that just the opposite is the case — while the rebels are desperately trying to incite war between Syria and Israel by attacking the Syrian government on the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Also relevant is that the pro-Jihad religious leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are taking a giant gamble in their recent anti-Hezbollah proclamations, and risk triggering political instability to these already-shaky regimes, which are hugely dependent on the religious leaders for support.
Hezbollah is still revered throughout the Muslim world for its military defeat of Israel in 2006; and most Muslims will likely be uninterested in waging Jihad in Muslim majority Syria. Also, attacking the Syrian government and Hezbollah would mean allying with Israel and the United States, not an ideal situation for most jihadists.
It’s very possible that the Syrian tinderbox could drag the surrounding Middle Eastern countries into a massive regional war, with Russia and the United States easily within the gravitational pull.
The Syrian conflict could end very quickly if President Obama rejected U.S. support for the rebels and demanded his U.S. allies in the region do the same. Obama should acknowledge the situation in Syria as it exists, and respect the wishes of the Syrian people, who do not want their country destroyed.
Instead, the U.S. is considering arming the rebels even more.
U.S. Senator John McCain revealed the unofficial U.S. government policy for Syria when he said that he would tolerate an extremist takeover of Syria if it weakened Iran.
At this point an extremist takeover of Syria will cost tens of thousands of more lives, millions more refugees, while exploding the region into a multi-country orgy of violence.
The media will blame such genocide on Islamic sectarian violence, and ignore the obvious political motives.
Hopefully, the social movement in Turkey will force the Turkish government out of the western-controlled anti-Syrian alliance, while empowering other Middle Eastern countries to do the same.
UN calls for record $5.2 billion aid package for Syria
Al-Akhbar | June 7, 2013
The United Nations on Friday launched a record $5.2-billion aid appeal to fund operations in Syria and neighboring nations, saying the number of people affected by the country’s brutal conflict was set to spiral.
The call for donations comes as the UN expects that 10.25 million Syrians – half the country’s population – will need humanitarian aid by the end of 2013.
The sum of aid being requested overshadows by far the $2.2 billion the UN sought in 2003 to help cope with the crisis sparked by the war in Iraq.
The $5.2 billion represents money needed across this year to pay for operations that have already been undertaken, are ongoing, or are due to be carried out until the end of December.
“The figure for the new appeal is both an expression of the alarm about the situation facing Syrians and an absence of a political solution,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR.
It also marked a more than threefold increase on the $1.5 billion which the UN previously had said that it needed to cover operations this year.
The UN has so far received $1.0 billion of that sum, after launching an appeal last December.
In the latest appeal, the world body said that a total of $3.8 billion was needed to help Syrian refugees who have spilled across the country’s borders to escape fighting in their homeland.
The figure for operations inside Syria meanwhile was $1.4 billion.
According to UN estimates, more than 80,000 people have been killed and some 1.6 million Syrians have fled the country since the civil war began in March 2011 after a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
“The numbers represented in this plan are staggering,” said Amir Abdulla, deputy executive director of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). “They’re not sustainable over the very long term.”
“They represent a tragedy for Syria and a burden on the region,” he told reporters.
The WFP, which has delivered 500 million meals in Syria so far this year, expects its weekly costs to rise from almost $20 million now to $36 million after September. It says it has a funding shortfall of about $725 million.
The WFP’s Syria Regional Emergency Coordinator Muhannad Hadi said: “We have reached a stage in Syria where some of the people, if they don’t get food from the World Food Programme, they simply do not eat.”
The overwhelming majority of the refugees have fled to neighboring Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, which are struggling to cope.
In Jordan, for example, one refugee camp is now the equivalent of the nation’s fifth-largest town.
With the revolt against Assad having morphed into a vicious, drawn-out conflict, the total number of refugees is expected to swell to at least 3.45 million by the end of this year, according to the UN appeal.
Within the country, a total of 6.8 million people are forecast to need aid this year, the majority of them people who have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting.
“These are huge numbers. They are not sustainable over the very long term, which is why we hope that there will be a solution to the situation inside Syria,” said Abdulla.
“We hope that the world will respond, as millions of Syrians displaced in their home country, and refugees in neighboring countries, basically have little else to rely on at this time,” he added.
Syria’s pre-war population was 20.8 million.
“By the end of the year, half of the population of Syria will be in need of aid,” underlined Edwards.
The nature of the Syrian conflict has affected aid efforts, with convoys often having to clear dozens of checkpoints manned by different militias from both sides.
“In other operations, there’s often a front line when you’re dealing with two opposing forces. In this instance you’ve a very complex situation where there are pockets. There is no clear line. You’re dealing with a fragmented opposition who don’t follow a monolithic command and control structure,” said Abdulla.
(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
Palestinian activist detained in Israeli raid
Ma’an – 08/06/2013
HEBRON – Israeli forces on Friday raided the al-Sumoud (“steadfastness”) center in Hebron and detained Jawad Abu Aisheh, 39, from the Old City, an official said.
The director of the center, Ahmad Amro, said six soldiers and two policemen stormed the center, causing damage. They also assaulted some of the activists there and threatened them.
Forces detained Jawad Abu Aished who lives near the center.
The coordinator of Youth Against Settlements, Badi Dweik, said that “detaining Abu Aisheh is proof that the Israeli authority helps and supports settlers in their attempts to control … the Old City.”
Dweik called on President Mahmoud Abbas and his new Prime Minister Rami Hamdullah to respond to Israel’s “continuous crimes” in the West Bank in general and Hebron in particular.
An Israeli army spokeswoman referred inquiries to the police. A police spokesman did not immediately return calls.
Hebron man arrested for filing complaint about settler attack
International Solidarity Movement | June 8, 2013
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Human rights activist Jawad Abu Eysheh, 39, was arrested Friday 7th June following a complaint he made four months ago about a settler attack.
At 4:20 pm on 7th June, Israeli Police arrived at the house of the Hebron organisation Youth Against Settlements and demanded to see the ID’s of Jawad and three other men present. The police then told Jawad that they wanted to take him away ‘for investigation’, and called the Israeli military to escort Jawad away in handcuffs.
Jawad was then paraded through the adjacent illegal Tel Rumeida settlement and taken to the nearby checkpoint 56, before being transferred to the police station in the settlement of Givat Ha’avot outside the city centre.
The line of questioning from the police made clear that Jawad was being detained as a result of events that happened back in February, when Jawad and other activists were attacked by American-born extremist Baruch Marzel and other settlers.
Despite being a victim of that violent assault in February, it was Jawad who was subjected to arrest today, not the perpetrators. During his detention, Jawad was also forced to submit a DNA sample against his will, and to sign conditions that he will not speak with Baruch Marzel for the next 30 days. Jawad stated his is happy to comply with this stipulation at least. Jawad was released at around 9pm.As well as today’s arrest, Jawad has faced other harassment recently, including not being allowed to walk on the street where his factory space and uncle’s house are located.
The Israeli army and police in Hebron have a long history of harassing human rights defenders such as Jawad and his colleague Issa Amro, and of following the wishes of extremist settlers when deciding who to harass.
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