Tulsi Gabbard vs Google Goliath
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | July 31, 2019
Introduction
The Tulsi Gabbard presidential campaign has filed a major law suit against Google. This article outlines the main points of the law suit and evidence the the social media giant Google has quietly acquired enormous influence on public perceptions and has been actively censoring alternative viewpoints.
Tulsi Now vs Google
Tulsi Now, Inc vs Google, LLC was filed on July 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The attorneys demand a jury trial and seek compensation and punitive damages of “no less than $50 million”. Major points and allegations in the 36 page complaint include:
* Google has monopolistic control of online searches and related advertising.
“Google creates, operates, and controls its platform and services, including but not limited to Google Search, Google Ads, and Gmail as a public forum or its functional equivalent by intentionally and openly dedicating its platform for public use and public benefit, inviting the public to utilize Google as a forum for free speech. Google serves as a state actor by performing an exclusively and traditionally public function by regulating free speech within a public forum and helping to run elections.” (p. 22)
“Google has used its control over online political speech to silence Tulsi Gabbard, a candidate millions of Americans want to hear from. With this lawsuit, Tulsi seeks to stop Google from further intermeddling in the 2020 United States Presidential Election….. Google plays favorites, with no warning, no transparency – and no accountability (until now).” (p. 2)
* At a critical moment Google undercut the Tulsi Gabbard campaign.
“On June 28, 2019 – at the height of Gabbard’s popularity among internet researchers in the immediate hours after the debate ended, and in the thick of the critical post-debate period… Google suspended Tulsi’s Google Ads account without warning.” (p. 3)
* Google has failed to provide a credible explanation.
The Tulsi campaign quickly sought to restore the account but “In response, the Campaign got opacity and an inconsistent series of answers from Google… To this day, Google has not provided a straight answer – let alone a credible one – as to why Tulsi’s political speech was silence right when millions of people wanted to hear from her.” (p. 4)
Google started by falsely claiming “problems with billing”. Later, as reported in the NY Times story a Google spokesperson claimed, “Google has automated systems that flag unusual activity on advertiser accounts – including large spending changes – to prevent fraud…. In this case, ‘our system triggered a suspension.’ ”
* Google has a corporate profit motive to oppose Tulsi Gabbard.
“Google has sought to silence Tulsi Gabbard, a presidential candidate who has vocally called for greater regulation and oversight of (you guessed it) Google.” (p. 5)
“During her career in Congress, Gabbard has moved to limit the powers of big tech companies like Google and has fought to keep the internet open and available to all. Gabbard has co-sponsored legislation that prohibits multi-tiered pricing agreements for the privileged few, and she has spoken in favor of reinstating and expanding net neutrality to apply to Internet firms like Google.” (p. 8)
* Google’s Actions have caused significant harm to the Gabbard campaign and violate the U.S. and California constitutions and California business law.
“Through its illegal actions targeting Tulsi Gabbard, Google has caused the Campaign significant harm, both monetary (including potentially millions of dollars in forgone donations) and nonmonetary (the ability to provide Tulsi’s important message with Americans looking to hear it).” (p. 6)
“Google engages in a pattern and practice of intentional discrimination in the provision of its services, including discriminating and censoring the Campaign’s speech based not on the content of the censored speech but on the Campaign’s political identity and viewpoint.” (p. 27)
* The public has an interest in this case.
“Unless the court issues an appropriate injunction, Google’s illegal and unconstitutional behavior will continue, harming both the Campaign and the general public, which has an overwhelming interest in a fair, unmanipulated 2020 United States Election cycle. (p. 34)
Google Explanation is Not Credible
The Tulsi Gabbard Google Ads account was abruptly suspended at a crucial time. The question is why. Was it the result of “unusual activity” triggering an “automatic suspension” as claimed by Google? Or was it because someone at Google changed the software or otherwise intervened to undermine the Tulsi campaign?
Google’s explanation of an “automatic suspension” from “unusual activity” is dubious. First, the timing does not make sense. The sudden rise in searches on “Tulsi Gabbard” began the day before the suspension. Gabbard participated in the first debate, on June 26. Her presence and performance sparked interest among many viewers. Next morning, June 27, media reported that, “Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched candidate on Google after the Democratic debate in Miami“. The second debate took place in the evening of June 27. With discussion of the Democratic candidates continuing, Tulsi Gabbard continued to attract much interest. Around 9:30 pm (ET) on June 27 the Google Ads account was suddenly suspended. If the cause was “unusual activity”, the “automatic trigger” should have occurred long before.
Second, Google was fully aware of the “unusual activity”. In fact, Google was the source of the news reports on the morning of June 27. Reports said:
According to Google Trends, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the most searched candidate heading into the debate… After the debate, Gabbard vaulted into first.
Third, it is hard to believe that Google does not have any human or more sophisticated review before suspending a major Ads account on a politically intense night. It should have been obvious that the cause of increased interest in Gabbard was the nationally televised Democratic candidates debate and media coverage.
Fourth, the changing explanation for the sudden suspension, starting with a false claim that there were “problems with billing”, raises questions about the integrity of Google’s response.
Google Secretly Manipulates Public Opinion
Unknown to most of the public, there is compelling evidence that Google has been secretly manipulating search results to steer public perception and election voting for years.
Dr. Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, has been studying and reporting on this for the past six years. Recently, on June 16, 2019 he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Constitution. His testimony is titled “Why Google Poses a Serious Threat to Democracy, and How to End That Threat”.
Epstein has published 15 books and over 300 scientific and mainstream media articles on artificial intelligence and related topics. “Since 2012, some of my research and writings have focused on Google LLC, specifically on the company’s power to suppress content – the censorship problem, if you will – as well as on the massive surveillance the company conducts, and also on the company’s unprecedented ability to manipulate the thoughts and behavior of more than 2.5 billion people worldwide.”
As shown by Dr. Epstein, Google uses several techniques to manipulate public opinion. The results of an online search are biased. Search “suggestions” are skewed. Messages such as “Go Vote” are sent to some people but not to others.
Epstein’s written testimony to Congress includes links to over sixty articles documenting his research published in sites ranging from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to Huffington Post. Epstein’s testimony describes “disturbing findings” including:
“In 2016, biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton”. (Epstein notes that he supported Clinton.)
“On Election Day in 2018, the ‘Go Vote’ reminder Google displayed on its home page gave one political party between 800,000 and 4.6 million more votes than it gave the other party.”
“My recent research demonstrates that Google’s ‘autocomplete’ search suggestions can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into a 90/10 split without people’s awareness.”
“Google has likely been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25 percent of the national elections worldwide since at least 2015. This is because many races are very close and because Google’s persuasive technologies are very powerful.”
Google is Censoring Alternative Media
In August 2017 TruePublica reported their experience and predictions in an article titled “The Truth War is Being Lost to a Global Censorship Apparatus Called Google“. The article says:
60 percent of people now get their news from search engines, not traditional human editors in the media. It is here where the new information war takes place – the algorithm. Google now takes 81.2 percent of all search engine market share globally…. Google has the ability to drive demand and set the narrative, create bias and swing opinion.
In 2017, the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) reported that:
In April, under the guise of combating ‘fake news’, Google introduced new procedures that give extraordinary powers to unnamed ‘evaluators’ to demote web pages and websites. These procedures have been used to exclude the WSWS and other anti-war and oppositional sites. Over the past three months, traffic originating from Google to the WSWS has fallen by approximately 70%…. In key searches relevant to a wide range of topics the WSWS regularly covers – including the U.S. military operations and the threat of war, social conditions, inequality and even socialism – the number of search impressions … has fallen dramatically.
In essence, Google has “de-ranked” and is screening searchers from seeing alternative and progressive websites such as truepublica, globalresearch, consortiumnews, commondreams, Wikileaks, truth-out and many more. WSWS reported numerous specific examples such as this one: “Searches for the term ‘Korean war’ produced 20,932 impressions in May. In July, searches using the same words produced zero WSWS impressions.”
“The policy guiding these actions is made absolutely clear in the April 25, 2017 blog post by Google’s Vice President for Engineering, Ben Gomes, and the updated ‘Search Quality Rater Guidelines’ published at the same time. The post refers to the need to flag and demote ‘unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and conspiracy theories’ – broad and amorphous language used to exclude any oppositional content…. “The ‘lowest’ rating is also to be given to a website that ‘presents unsubstantiated conspiracy theories or hoaxes as if the information were factual.’”
Tulsi Gabbard has not only called for much stricter regulations on high tech and social media giants. She has also challenged the Democratic Party and foreign policy establishment. In late February 2016 she resigned as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee to support candidate Bernie Sanders against the establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton. Gabbard has issued sharp criticisms of US foreign policy. Recently she said:
We hear a lot of politicians say the same argument that we’ve got to stay engaged in the world otherwise we’ll be isolationists as though the only way the United States can engage with other countries is by blowing them up or strangling them with economic sanctions by smashing them and trying to overthrow their governments. This is exactly what’s wrong with this whole premise and the whole view in which too many politicians, too many leaders in this country are viewing the United States role in the world.
Conclusion
Did Google take the next step from silently censoring websites the corporation does not like to undercutting a presidential candidate the corporation does not like?
This is a David vs Goliath story. Google/Alphabet is the 37th largest corporation in the world with enormous political influence in Washington. Whether or not the law suit succeeds, it may serve the public interest by exposing Google’s immense monopolistic power and illustrate the need for much more regulation, transparency and accountability. It may also generate more interest in Gabbard’s message and campaign in the face of efforts to silence her.
Investigative Journalist Rick Sterling can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com.
Human Sacrifice: A Grand Old American Political Tradition
By Thomas L. Knapp – Garrison Center – July 31, 2019
On July 25, US Attorney General William Barr ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to update its execution protocol and schedule five executions starting this December.
Whether you support the death penalty or not — I don’t because I prefer limited government and the power to kill disarmed prisoners in cold blood and with premeditation is by definition unlimited government — it’s worthwhile to ask: Why? More to the point, why now?
Politics, that’s why.
There’s a presidential election next year. US president Donald Trump’s re-election strategy, for lack of ability to grow his electoral “base,” is to keep that base energized and enthused so that they’ll turn out to vote instead of sitting at home catching up on re-runs of their favorite TV shows. And that base overwhelmingly supports capital punishment.
With this move Trump is quite literally throwing his supporters some red meat.
There’s nothing new about the idea. Indeed, the history of public human sacrifice for political purposes runs all the way back to ancient history in the Americas.
The last large-scale pre-Columbian example of the practice, that of the Aztecs, involved removing the beating heart of the victim atop a pyramid temple before flinging his or her corpse down the steps to the approval of a roaring crowd.
In this way, Aztec kings not only maintained support from their own populace through religious appeals, but kept smaller tribes too busy raiding each other (for sacrificial captives to be given to the Aztecs in tribute) to ally with each other against the Aztecs themselves.
If these five executions occur, they will be the first federal executions since 2003. There have only been three since 1963.
So, again, why? And why now?
Deterrence isn’t an answer that fits. Overall, violent crime (including murder) in the US has trended downward, not upward in recent decades (from 758 per 100,000 population in 1992 to 383 per 100,000 in 2017).
Neither is reducing the costs of incarceration. Of the more than 200,000 federal prisoners, only 61 are on “death row.” It’s unlikely that killing every last one of them would make a big dent in the Bureau of Prisons’ $7.3 billion annual budget.
Speaking which, if money was the problem, all five of the prisoners to be killed could as easily have been left to the justice systems of the states in which their crimes were committed and would have likely been sentenced to either death or life imprisonment without involving federal tax dollars in the first place.
The same is true regarding any moral “eye for an eye” imperative. Handling this kind of crime, and this kind of criminal, was never supposed to be the federal government’s job.
That leaves politics. Trump is playing Montezuma in hopes of holding on to his adoring crowd.
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org).
Facebook Continues Censorship Crackdown by Purging Police Accountability Pages
Sputnik – July 30, 2019
In October 2018, Facebook conducted a mass purge of pages connected to alternative and independent news platforms and journalists without warning or explanation, some of which had hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers.
Among those affected were a host of pages promoting police accountability and documenting brutality, criminality and corruption on the part of law enforcement officials, such as Cop Block, Filming Cops and Police the Police, the latter boasting over five million followers. The individuals running these pages were undeterred, and quickly established ‘2.0’ successors, which gradually began regaining the footprint their fallen forebears boasted.
However, Facebook has now struck anew, deleting the replacements on the basis “it looks” like the pages’ activities don’t follow the social media giant’s internal policies.
“The implications of such a move to censor those who expose the police state are horrifying. Before it was deleted last year, Police the Police was the largest police accountability group on the internet and now, despite making back a lot of that ground, it is no longer. For years, we have exposed criminal cops and shined light into the darkness where other media outlets were scared to go. Police the Police and these other pages taught people how to flex their rights, film the police, and to not be afraid to stand up to the police state,” Free Thought Project, the online news outlet behind ‘Police the Police’, said in a statement.
The publication suggests the latest censorship blitz is related to the institution of ‘Blue Lives Matter Laws’ in US states, which elevate former and serving police officers to a protected status under ‘hate crime’ legislation, meaning authorities are now lumped in with “historically persecuted categories” like race, gender, creed, religion, and sexual orientation have been. As a result, criticism of police, even if constructive, could potentially be considered a hate crime, with significant penalties for offenders.
“Simply reporting on police crimes has apparently become a violation in the eyes of Facebook. Unless we fight back in the form of sharing information deemed ‘wrong think’ by the censors, this problem will only continue to get worse. We must continue to alert our fellow humans to this censorship before it becomes the norm. We must use this recent purge as our Streisand moment and turn this massive and blatant act of censorship around as a tool to expose the tyrants behind it,” Free Thought Project concluded.
Atlantic Censors
An alternative explanation for Facebook’s resistance to establishment-critical content could be the organisation’s intimate ties with ‘think tank’ Atlantic Council, an offshoot of NATO with a board of directors that’s a veritable ‘who’s who’ of contentious political figures old and new, including Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Robert Gates, Michael Hayden and David Petraeus, among others, funded by a number of Western governments and Ukrainian oligarchs such as Victor Pinchuk.
The pair launched an initiative to combat ‘fake news’ on Facebook in May 2018, although critics have suggested far from battling false information and propaganda, the alliance in fact simply blocks dissenting views from the social network. It has also seen a number of real people – including popular anti-interventionist Maram Susli (‘SyrianGirl’), Ukrainian concert pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and British pensioner Ian Shilling – labelled bots and banned from the platform, albeit temporarily.
The leak in December 2018 of a 1,400-page rulebook outlining Facebook’s internal censorship policies amply validates the view the social media monopoly isn’t concerned with battling ‘disinformation’, and cares far more about silencing views elite individuals and organisations simply don’t like. One section of the file outlines every group and individual the company has deemed a “hate figure” – algorithms and paid human moderators are required to remove any post praising, supporting or representing any of the entities listed.
FCO Fails to Condemn Bahrain Embassy Incident
Press TV – July 30, 2019
Four days after Bahraini embassy staff in London allegedly tried to throw a protester off the embassy roof, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has yet to comment on the incident.
There were angry protests outside the Bahraini embassy in London on July 26, prompted by the imminent execution of two activists.
The event climaxed after a protester, one Moosa Abd-Ali, climbed onto the roof of the embassy and was intercepted there by embassy staff who allegedly tried to throw him off the roof.
The event was live streamed and prominently tweeted by British-Iranian journalist, Nargess Moballeghi.
Wider media coverage, notably by the online Independent, identified the protester as “Moosa Mohamed”, and reported that he had unfurled a banner reading: “I am risking my life to save two men about to be executed in the next few hours. Boris Johnson act now!”
Whilst the police eventually stormed the building to save Abd-Ali’s life, however instead of taking action against embassy staff they ended up arresting Abd-Ali for alleged trespass.
Abd-Ali’s dramatic protest proved fruitless as the two activists, Ali al-Arab and Ahmed al-Malali, were executed by the Bahraini authorities the following morning.
Hitherto, the dramatic events at the Bahraini embassy and the alleged attempted murder by embassy staff, has not elicited any reaction from the British government, let alone a condemnation.
This is not the first time that Bahraini embassy staff in London have tried to harm protesters and got away with it. In 2017, Bahraini embassy employees were accused of throwing hot water on demonstrators from a balcony.
The FCO’s failure to admonish Bahrain for this potentially criminal behavior on British soil is entirely in keeping with the British government’s policy of supporting the ruling Al-Khalifa dynasty.
The British government admits to training Bahraini security forces on “command and control” techniques designed to suppress demonstrations.
A 2017 report by the human rights organization “Reprieve” revealed that the FCO had paid for six Bahraini police officers to visit Belfast in August 2015 for “public order” training.
The Guardian reported in August 2016 that the UK’s College of Policing had a contract with Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior to train Bahrain’s police forces.
Vancouver City Council Won’t Set Precedent in Endorsing IHRA Definition
By Marion Kawas | Palestine Chronicle | July 28, 2019
The City of Vancouver, Canada might seem to be an odd place for a battle over the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Anti-Semitism. But that is exactly what happened in the last week, and it all concluded with at least a temporary victory for free speech, human rights and common sense.
At the end of June, the federal government of Canada endorsed the IHRA definition as part of its new official “Anti-Racism Strategy” announced by minister Pablo Rodriguez. This was a unilateral move by the government which did not involve a vote in the House of Commons. The Israeli lobby, however, in their ecstatic gloating over the endorsement, made it clear they would be pushing to have the IHRA definition adopted at all levels of government, including provincial and municipal.
Which brings us to the Vancouver City Council, where one Non-Partisan Association (NPA) councilor introduced a motion to be heard at the last meeting before summer break. The motion contained the standard reasoning that one has come to expect from the Israeli lobby promoting the IHRA definition and concluded with adoption of the definition and its examples; it also explicitly instructed staff to share the definition with various city departments including the Police Department, School Board, Parks Board and the Public Library for “review and consideration as an additional practical tool.”
What the outcome would be of this “additional practical tool”, especially by the Police Department, one could only speculate. The history of what has transpired so far in other countries regarding the IHRA definition is extremely troubling and was called out a year ago by over 40 Jewish groups in an open letter. They noted that the definition is “intentionally worded such that it equates legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.”
The IHRA definition includes several parts, two vaguely worded sentences that are accompanied by 11 illustrative examples; it is the examples and the way they have been applied that are the focus of most of the critique, including from one of the original authors of the document. As noted by Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the initial sentences fail to even clearly “identify antisemitism as a form of prejudice or racism, instead calling antisemitism ‘a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews’.” They add that “7 of the 11 examples refer not just to Jewish people, but to the state of Israel, a deliberate rhetorical strategy to label criticism of Israel and of Zionism antisemitic.”
In fact, some of these examples have been included almost verbatim in the justification for the anti-BDS bills that have been passed or are winding their way through several U.S. states, including Florida.
Passing this motion would have set a dangerous precedent as being the first municipal council in Canada to endorse the IHRA definition. Vancouver, however, has a long and proud tradition of being both anti-racist and defending free speech and Palestinian rights. A popular campaign was immediately launched to tell Vancouver City Council why this motion should not be adopted – letter writing, social media and articles in local papers all happened.
People from both within the Jewish community and other sectors were adamant in stating that this definition had more to do with squashing criticism of Israel than it did with contributing to the fight against racism.
The Palestinian community also pointed out that the definition actually promotes anti-Palestinian racism, as it severely limits and defines what the Palestinian narrative can be. The Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC), the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and civic parties like the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) all took the position that adopting the IHRA definition would be divisive and harmful.
It seems City Council heard the message. In a vote of 6-5 (the 5 were all NPA councilors), the Council decided to not proceed with the motion and instead referred it to committee for recommendations on how to combat ALL forms of racism.
“THAT Council refer this motion to the Racial and Ethno-Cultural Equity Advisory Committee to provide recommendations to Council on how the City of Vancouver can increase action to combat all forms of racism and hatred, including Antisemitism.”
Although referral to committee is often the bureaucratic tactic to not deal with issues, in this case, the instructions in the referral made it more meaningful. And most importantly, Vancouver City Council refused to set a precedent as the first Canadian city to endorse the IHRA definition.
Activists know that the struggle will continue at the committee level but the small amount of time they had to prepare for the council vote allowed them to educate many people on the dangers of the IHRA definition; they feel confident that more time is only to their advantage.
Canada’s main Israel lobby group, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), was not happy with the outcome. They had invested heavily in promoting the motion and one of their officials stated he would be at City Hall when it was introduced.
They issued a statement expressing their “disappointment”, claiming that this was a “setback in the struggle against racism and bigotry”.
They went on to allege that,
“By delaying the initiative to protect Jewish community members at a time of rising antisemitism, those councilors who voted against the motion are on the wrong side of history.”
Vancouver residents do not need these lectures by a lobby group that is more interested in punishing critics of Israel than it is in fighting racism. Members of the Jewish community in Vancouver made this exact point in their submissions to Council.
The active involvement of many progressive Jews against this motion endorsing the IHRA definition was one of the more uplifting aspects of this campaign, along with the support from broader sections of Vancouver society. This was also reflective of the majority of Canadians who support Palestinian human and national rights.
Palestinian activists have not had many occasions lately to be optimistic, especially in the Canadian political arena. Hopefully, what happened at Vancouver City Council is just the first step in pushing back against the censoring of free speech and the bullying of activists who support Palestinian rights.
– Marion Kawas is a member of the Canada Palestine Association and co-host of Voice of Palestine. Visit: www.cpavancouver.org.
Anti-War Democratic Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Sues Google For Campaign “Interference”
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 07/25/2019
Progressive Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who has long been under fire from mainstream media and establishment voices in her own party for her vehemently anti-war and anti-interventionist stance, is suing Google, The New York Times reports, in what is said to be the first time in history a presidential candidate has sued a major technology firm.
It must be remembered that though considered a “long shot” by party insiders based on her outlier stances (for which she’s been called a popular Ron Paul type unorthodox figure among the Dems), from criticizing the Democrats’ ‘Russiagate’ fixation to calling for an end to “regime change wars” abroad to being willing to meet with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Google searches for her named surged across the US during last month’s first round of presidential nominee debates. And now, as the Times reports, she says Google infringed on her free speech by suspending her campaign’s ability to get its message out:
Tulsi Now Inc., the campaign committee for Ms. Gabbard, said Google suspended the campaign’s advertising account for six hours on June 27 and June 28, obstructing its ability to raise money and spread her message to potential voters.
Google and other major US tech companies like Facebook have faced an avalanche of scrutiny and criticism of late for censoring and/or manipulating the visibility of those with unorthodox political views.
The new lawsuit claims Google took steps to “interfere” with Gabbard’s chances in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
“Google’s arbitrary and capricious treatment of Gabbard’s campaign should raise concerns for policymakers everywhere about the company’s ability to use its dominance to impact political discourse, in a way that interferes with the upcoming 2020 presidential election,” the lawsuit stated.
Specifically the lawsuit suggests Google diverted Gabbard campaign emails to be sent to spam folders on Gmail at “a disproportionately high rate” compared to her Democratic rival candidates.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday an a Los Angeles federal court, the Times reports, and “seeks an injunction against Google from further meddling in the election and damages of at least $50 million.”
Previously the Hawaii congresswoman pointed out there was a “clear bias” against her as she was given the least amount of speaking time during the first 2020 Democratic primary debate.
“Look, it shows that there is a clear bias in place. I made the most of every minute that I had — wish I had the opportunity to have more time to address these important issues,” Gabbard told Tucker Carlson during a June 27th Fox interview.
Google did not initially respond to reports of the lawsuit, which comes after having long been under fire and suspicions from Republican and conservative groups for downgrading their content on the world’s most popular and visible search engine.
‘Progressives’ Vote AGAINST BDS
If Americans Knew | July 24, 2019
Notable votes against BDS/Pro-Israel: Gabbard, Khanna, Lewis
Notable votes supporting BDS: Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar
Produced by Chris Smiley: https://www.twitter.com/chrissmileyla
More news and headlines: https://israelpalestinenews.org/
No Accountability in Washington. The CIA Wants to Hide All Its Employees
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 25, 2019
Government that actually serves the interests of the people who are governed has two essential characteristics: first, it must be transparent in terms of how it debates and develops policies and second, it has to be accountable when it fails in its mandate and ceases to be responsive to the needs of the electorate. Over the past twenty years one might reasonably argue that Washington has become less a “of the people, by the people and for the people” and increasingly a model of how special interests can use money to corrupt government. The recent story about how serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein avoided any serious punishment by virtue of his wealth and his political connections, including to both ex-president Bill Clinton and to current chief executive Donald Trump, demonstrates how even the most despicable criminals can avoid being brought to justice.
This erosion of what one might describe as republican virtue has been exacerbated by a simultaneous weakening of the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which was intended to serve as a guarantee of individual liberties while also serving as a bulwark against government overreach. In recent cases in the United States, a young man had his admission to Harvard revoked over comments posted online when he was fifteen that were considered racist, while a young woman was stripped of a beauty contest title because she refused to don a hijab at a college event and then wrote online about her experience. In both cases, freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment was ruled to be inadmissible by the relevant authorities.
Be that as it may, governmental lack of transparency and accountability is a more serious matter when the government itself becomes a serial manipulator of the truth as it seeks to protect itself from criticism. Reports that the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) is seeking legislation that will expand government ability to declare it a crime to reveal the identities of undercover intelligence agents will inevitably lead to major abuse when some clever bureaucrat realizes that the new rule can also be used to hide people and cover up malfeasance.
A law to protect intelligence officers already exists. It was passed in 1982 and is referred to as the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (I.I.P.A.). It criminalizes the naming of any C.I.A. officer under cover who has served overseas in the past five years. The new legislation would make the ban on exposure perpetual and would also include Agency sources or agents whose work is classified as well as actual C.I.A. staff employees who exclusively or predominantly work in the United States rather than overseas.
The revised legislation is attached to defense and intelligence bills currently being considered by Congress. If it is passed into law, its expanded range of criminal penalties could be employed to silence whistle blowers inside the Agency who become aware of illegal activity and it might also be directed against journalists that the whistleblowers might contact to tell their story.
The Agency has justified the legislation by claiming in a document obtained by The New York Times that “hundreds of covert officers [serving in the United States] have had their identity and covert affiliation disclosed without authorization… C.I.A. officers place themselves in harm’s way in order to carry out C.I.A.’s mission regardless of where they are based. Protecting officers’ identities from foreign adversaries is critical.”
Some Congressmen are disturbed by the perpetual nature of the identification ban while also believing that the proposed legislation is too broad in general. Senator Ron Wyden expressed reservations over how the C.I.A. provision would apply indefinitely. “I am not yet convinced this expansion is necessary and am concerned that it will be employed to avoid accountability,” he wrote.
Agency insiders have suggested that the new law is in part a response to increasing leaks of classified information by government employees. It is also a warning shot fired at journalists in the wake of the impending prosecution of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks under the seldom used Espionage Act of 1918. Covert identities legislation is less broad than the Espionage Act, which is precisely why it is attractive. It permits prosecution and punishment solely because someone either has revealed a “covert” name or is suspected of having done so.
But up until now, government prosecutors have only used the 1982 identities law twice. The first time was a 1985 case involving a C.I.A. clerk in Ghana and the second time was the 2012 case of John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who pleaded guilty to providing a reporter with the name of an under-cover case officer who participated in the agency’s illegal overseas interrogations. Kiriakou has always claimed that he had not in fact named anyone, in spite of his plea, which was agreed to as a plea bargain. The covert officer in question had already been identified in the media.
John Kiriakou also observes how the I.I.P.A. has been inevitably applied selectively. He describes how “These two minor prosecutions aside, very few revelations of C.I.A. identities have ever led to court cases. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage famously leaked Valerie Plame’s name to two syndicated columnists. He was never charged with a crime. Former C.I.A. Director David Petraeus leaked the names of 10 covert C.I.A. operatives to his adulterous girlfriend, apparently in an attempt to impress her, and was never charged. Former C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta revealed the name of the covert SEAL Team member who killed Osama bin Laden. He apologized and was not prosecuted.”
Kiriakou also explains how the “… implementation of this law is a joke. The C.I.A. doesn’t care when an operative’s identity is revealed — unless they don’t like the politics of the person making the revelation. If they cared, half of the C.I.A. leadership would be in prison. What they do care about, though, is protecting those employees who commit crimes at the behest of the White House or the C.I.A. leadership.” He goes on to describe how some of those involved in the Agency torture program were placed under cover precisely for that reason, to protect them from prosecution for war crimes.
Even team player Joe Biden, when a Senator, voted against the I.I.P.A., explaining in an op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor in 1982 that, “The language (the I.I.P.A.) employs is so broadly drawn that it would subject to prosecution not only the malicious publicizing of agents’ names, but also the efforts of legitimate journalists to expose any corruption, malfeasance, or ineptitude occurring in American intelligence agencies.” And that was with the much weaker 1982 version of the bill.
The new legislation is an intelligence agency dream, a get out of jail card that has no expiry date. And if one wants to know how dangerous it is, consider for a moment that if it turns out that serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was indeed a C.I.A. covert source, which is quite possible, he would be covered and would be able to walk away free on procedural grounds.
US passes bills against BDS and Hamas
MEMO | July 24, 2019
The US House of Representatives passed a resolution yesterday to sanction Hamas and another to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
House Resolution 1850 entitled “Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act of 2019” would impose sanctions upon individuals or agencies identified as supporting Hamas or its affiliates. Sponsored by Florida Republican Brian Mast, the bill requires the US President to submit a yearly report to Congress that identifies “each foreign or agency or instrumentality of a foreign state” that supports Hamas financially.
Mast, who volunteered for the Israeli army after his US army service, said in a statement, “Hamas is single-handedly responsible for the deaths of numerous Americans and Israelis. These sanctions send a strong message to anybody who supports these radicals preaching the destruction of Israel and death to everything we hold dear in the United States.”
The bill was passed by a motion to suspend the rules, a procedure generally used to pass resolutions quickly, and not by a roll call vote in which each representative gives their individual vote.
On the same day, the House passed a resolution opposing BDS in a roll call vote of 398 to 17. House Resolution 246 “opposes the BDS movement targeting Israel, including efforts to target US companies that are engaged in commercial activities that are legal under US law, and all efforts to delegitimise the State of Israel.”
This bill was met with strong opposition from some progressive members of the Democratic Party, including Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib and Somali-American Ilhan Omar. Tlaib gave an impassioned speech on the House floor arguing that the resolution would infringe upon freedom of speech: “I can’t stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government in the state of Israel.” She referred to historic boycotts in American history, such as the Boston Tea Party, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the United Farm Workers Grape Boycott, as examples of how “the right to boycott is deeply rooted in the fabric of our country.”
Though the House voted overwhelmingly to pass the anti-BDS resolution, notable representatives who voted “nay” include three quarters of the “squad”: Tlaib, Omar and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The other member of the “squad”, Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley, voted “yea” on the resolution.
The passing of this resolution drew much criticism on social media, with the BDS movement calling it a “McCarthyite, anti-Palestinian measure” and anti-occupation group IfNotNow criticising the Democratic Leadership for allowing this vote to happen only a day after Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem.
Last week, Omar introduced House Resolution 496 affirming the American right to boycott. The resolution doesn’t specifically refer to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is heralded by the BDS movement as a “ground-breaking resolution” that defends “freedom of expression and the right of oppressed communities… to peacefully fight for their rights.”
Omar’s bill is co-sponsored by nine other Democratic representatives, including Pressley, civil rights activist John Lewis and New Jersey Representative Donald Payne. However, these three voted for the anti-BDS bill yesterday, raising questions about their positions on the issue.
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Eliot Engel (D-NY) chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Photo from December 2013 when Engel was named chair of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians.
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | July 22, 2019
The U.S. House of Representatives is reportedly scheduled to fast track three measures on behalf of Israel tomorrow: a law to give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next 10 years, a law to sanction foreign groups and individuals who support the Palestinian resistance, and a resolution expressing opposition to the global boycott of Israel (BDS).
The measures are expected to be voted on Tuesday afternoon under the House’s suspension of the rules procedure.
The aid bill is H.R.1837 – United States-Israel Cooperation Enhancement and Regional Security Act. Versions of the legislation were passed in 2018, but Congress ran out of time before passing a final version to be signed into law, thus requiring the legislation to be re-introduced this year. The bill has 279 cosponsors.
The aid would amount to $7,230 per minute to Israel, about $23,000 per every Jewish Israeli family of four.
The bill codifies into law – and expands – a non-binding agreement signed by Obama with Netanyahu in 2014. The law would increase the amount of aid given to Israel beyond the amount in the Obama MOU, and also contains some additional pro-Israel perks (see this).
A Senate version was passed in February after several failed attempts due to the controversy over the government shutdown.The media have largely failed to report on the legislation.
Two other items on behalf of Israel are also scheduled to be pushed through tomorrow:
• H.R. 1850: a law that would financially sanction any foreign organization or individual who provides “support” to an organization deemed to be part of the Palestinian resistance. Groups such as Hamas are termed “terrorists” although Palestinian resistance groups have killed vastly fewer civilians than have Israeli forces – see a timeline of deaths here. The bill has 41 cosponsors. (It is unclear whether this bill could also be applied to American citizens.)
• H.Res. 246: a resolution expressing opposition to “BDS,” the international boycott of Israel over its human rights abuses. Surveys show that a large majority of Americans oppose anti-boycott legislation. It has 346 cosponsors.
(An opposing resolution was introduced July 16th, H.R.Res.496, which affirms Americans’ First Amendment right to boycott, but has not been placed on the House calendar. The resolution has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a life-long supporter of Israel. Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper reports that Nadler’s district is “said to be the most Jewish congressional district in the country.”)
The House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Eliot Engel, passed the items last week, clearing the way for tomorrow’s vote. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) said AIPAC was “elated,” and called the legislation “manna for AIPAC” (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Engel is co-chair of the Israel Allies Caucus.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who scheduled the vote for tomorrow, is known for pressuring Congress members to participate in AIPAC trips to Israel. (See information on next month’s trip here.)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has appointed Israel partisans to chair committees particularly relevant to Israel, as she describes in the video below.
Go here to contact Congress about the legislation
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew , president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
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Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
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