IRS Claims Two Years Of Emails Were Destroyed In A ‘Computer Crash;’ Congressman Asks The NSA To Supply ‘Missing’ Email Metadata
By Tim Cushing | Techdirt | June 16, 2014
The IRS is currently being investigated by Congress for some possibly politically-motivated “attention” it directed towards “Tea Party” and other conservative groups that operated as tax-exempt entities. Along the way, IRS official Lois Lerner, who was the first to publicly disclose the inappropriate targeting, was also one of the first government officials to plead the Fifth (twice) in government hearings.
The Congressional investigation demanded copies of Lois Lerner’s emails from the IRS. Some were turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee, but not everything it sought. Now, the IRS is telling the committee that it’s not going to get everything it asked for.
The IRS has told Congress that it lost more than two years’ worth of emails involving former IRS official Lois Lerner, due to a computer crash.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on Friday said it was “unacceptable” that he was just learning of this problem now, after a lengthy investigation into Lerner’s involvement in the IRS targeting scandal.
Camp points out that the IRS withheld these emails for over a year before suddenly “discovering” they were unavailable. The IRS says it can find everything Lerner sent to and received from other IRS employees but nothing containing correspondence with those outside the agency.
Obviously, this convenient “computer crash” has generated a lot of skepticism. For one thing, a “computer crash” doesn’t really have the power to destroy electronic communications. Email is almost always stored somewhere else other than the local user’s computer. And even if the IRS meant a “server crash” instead of a “computer crash,” any decent server system contains multiple levels of redundancy.
The Blaze sought input from Norman Cillo, a former Microsoft project manager, who presented six reasons why he believes the IRS is lying about its inability to recover these emails. Number one on the list seems to be the most applicable.
I believe the government uses Microsoft Exchange for their email servers. They have built-in exchange mail database redundancy. So, unless they did not follow Microsoft’s recommendations they are telling a falsehood.
The IRS’s own policies on email state that its employees use both Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, which means it should have some form of backup available.
Secure Messaging enrollment is an automated process for all LAN accounts with an Exchange mailbox in IRS. You can find the instructions for configuring the Outlook client to use the certificates at the Secure Enterprise Messaging Systems (SEMS) web site: http://documentation.sems.enterprise.irs.gov/.
According to Cillo, the only other explanation for the IRS’s inability to recover these emails is that the agency is “totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever.” Unfortunately, the government seems to have a lot of mismanaged and terrible IT departments, so this may be closer to the truth than anyone would really like to admit. Perhaps the general ineptitude of large government agencies is behind the Treasury Department’s policy that all email sent to or from IRS employees be “archived” via hard copy printouts.
If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy.
There’s more information here, citing the IRS’s own internal guidelines on tape backups, etc., that suggest further levels of redundancy, as well as the commissioner of the IRS testifying that the agency stores its emails on servers.
Critics believe the IRS has simply “vanished” the crucial emails in order to cut Lerner adrift and make it appear she acted alone. Any evidence that would tie outside government agencies (including the administration itself) into this situation has been deemed unrecoverable. Supposedly, there should be paper copies of the missing emails, but no one in Congress has requested these and the IRS certainly isn’t offering to look.
But one Congressman thinks he has a solution to the missing email dilemma. Steve Stockman (last seen here threatening to bring a defamation lawsuit against someone who uttered true facts about his criminal past) knows some people who have a whole lot of email data just laying around.
“I have asked NSA Director Rogers to send me all metadata his agency has collected on Lois Lerner’s email accounts for the period which the House sought records,” said Stockman. “The metadata will establish who Lerner contacted and when, which helps investigators determine the extent of illegal activity by the IRS.”
Yeah, let me know how that works out for you, Steve. The NSA can’t even confirm or deny its monthly water usage at its Utah data site, much less that it has metadata pertaining to Americans’ communications.
[Sidebar: I do really love the fact that this sort of thing is becoming increasingly common — the use of the NSA as the backup-of-last-resort for phone/email/internet communications data. If anyone claims it can’t find email X or phone record Y, someone’s going to say, “Hey, I’ll bet the NSA has a copy!” Hilarious. The NSA will never again be allowed to pretend it doesn’t harvest data on American citizens.]
The whole letter, which begins with some light ass-kissing of new NSA director Michael Rogers (“thank you for your 33 years of, and continued service to, our country...”) and closes with a bit of grandstanding, surreally asking “the Agency” to send all relevant metadata on the missing Lerner emails to “Donny@mail.house.gov.” All in all, probably one of the most incongruous demands the NSA has ever received, a letter which conjures up the image of a late-night meeting in an underground parking garage, with sunglassed NSA liaisons handing over a briefcase full of metadata to a 19-year-old intern dressed in his dad’s suit.
It’s pretty hard to shake the impression that this is a coverup. As always, the specter of pure ineptitude lurks in the background, as it often does when large bureaucracies tangle with technology. But until the IRS presents further evidence detailing how exactly these emails went missing, it’s safe to assume there’s been an active effort made to cover up government impropriety.
Egyptian security forces seize Brotherhood members’ assets
MEMO | June 16, 2014
Egyptian authorities yesterday seized two supermarket chains owned by two prominent Muslim Brotherhood members.
Judge Wadee Hanna, the secretary of a government committee charged with identifying and managing Brotherhood assets, said the committee had decided to seize the supermarket chain Zad, which is owned by the detained Deputy Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat Al-Shater. The committee also seized Seoudi, another chain owned by businessman Abdulrahman El-Seoudi.
The government formed this committee after a decree declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation and ordered the confiscation of its assets.
“The decision to seize [the two chains] came after it was proven that the two businessmen who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood are involved in funding the group’s activities,” Hanna said.
“We received an order from the committee to seize the chains, Zad and Seoudi, and we just went and took them,” a security source said.
Al-Shater’s daughter Aisha said a large number of security forces stormed all the branches of the chain that her father owns as well as the chain owned by the Seoudi family yesterday.
“They confiscated all contents of some of the stores and emptied other stores of their goods,” Aisha told Anadolu Agency.
Anadolu could not obtain an immediate response to these accusations from the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Members of the Seoudi family could not be reached for comment.
Ali Kamal, a member of the legal committee of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, told Anadolu that “confiscation should be done at a legal level, not by damaging the contents inside the stores”.
Kamal noted that the stores are owned by individuals, not by the Muslim Brotherhood as an organisation.
Al-Shater has been in jail since July 6, 2013, on various charges, including inciting violence.
Before the January 25 revolution erupted in 2011, Al-Shater had been detained for six months for a total of 12 years.
In September, an Egyptian court banned the Muslim Brotherhood and all affiliates in Egypt and ordered the confiscation of all of its assets.
EFF to Court: U.S. Warrants Don’t Apply to Overseas Emails
Microsoft Fights to Protect Data Held on Servers in Ireland
EFF | June 13, 2014
San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has urged a federal court to block a U.S. search warrant ordering Microsoft to turn over a customer’s emails held in an overseas server, arguing that the case has dangerous privacy implications for Internet users everywhere.
The case started in December of last year, when a magistrate judge in New York signed a search warrant seeking records and emails from a Microsoft account in connection with a criminal investigation. However, Microsoft determined that the emails the government sought were on a Microsoft server in Dublin, Ireland. Because a U.S. judge has no authority to issue warrants to search and seize property or data abroad, Microsoft refused to turn over the emails and asked the magistrate to quash the warrant. But the magistrate denied Microsoft’s request, ruling there was no foreign search because the data would be reviewed by law enforcement agents in the U.S.
Microsoft appealed the decision. In an amicus brief in support of Microsoft, EFF argues the magistrate’s rationale ignores the fact that copying the emails is a “seizure” that takes place in Ireland.
“The Fourth Amendment protects from unreasonable search and seizure. You can’t ignore the ‘seizure’ part just because the property is digital and not physical,” said EFF Staff Attorney Hanni Fakhoury. “Ignoring this basic point has dangerous implications – it could open the door to unfounded law enforcement access to and collection of data stored around the world.”
The government has argued that allowing a U.S. judge to order the collection of data stored abroad is necessary, because international storage would make it easy for U.S. Internet companies to avoid complying with search warrants. But Microsoft asserts that the government’s legal theory could hurt U.S. technology companies that are trying to do business internationally. Additionally, EFF argues in its amicus brief that the government’s approach hurts Internet users globally, as it would allow the U.S. to obtain electronic records stored abroad without complying with mutual assistance treaty obligations or other nations’ own laws.
“Microsoft is doing the right thing by pushing back here. It’s great to see a tech giant fighting for its customers,” said Fakhoury.
For the full brief in this case:
https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-support-microsoft
Contact:
Hanni Fakhoury
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
hanni@eff.org
Journalists lament PA silence as Israel bans Gaza papers
Ma’an – 13/06/2014
GAZA CITY – Palestinian journalists on Thursday urged the newly-formed national unity government to respond to Israel’s decision to prohibit the printing and distribution of Gaza-based newspapers in the West Bank.
“Do we need an Israeli presidential decree to be able to print newspapers in territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority?” editor-in-chief of al-Risalah newspaper wrote on Thursday in exasperation over the lack of PA response.
On May 28, Israeli soldiers raided the Ramallah offices of the PA-affiliated al-Ayyam newspaper, telling managers that Israel would not allow them to distribute the Hamas-affiliated Falastin, Al-Risalah, and Al-Istiqlal newspapers in the West Bank.
The Israeli raid undermined an inter-Palestinian deal that aimed to ensure freedom of press by facilitating the sale of Gaza newspapers in the West Bank and vice-versa.
Political analyst Wisam Afifa criticized the Palestinian national consensus government for its unwillingness to stand up to Israel’s attack on Palestinian free speech.
“We consider that by remaining silent, the government actually accepts the Israeli decision to ban the printing of Gaza newspapers,” he told Ma’an.
He highlighted that managers of the Gaza newspapers had contacted the Palestinian government spokesperson Eyhab Bseso over the issue, but nothing had been done.
“So far, there has been no comment on the prohibition, and we expect a serious and real response to these violations, especially from President Abbas,” added Afifa.
Similarly, the editor-in-chief of al-Istiqlal newspaper criticized the Palestinian Authority and the national consensus government for not taking any action against Israel’s decision to ban Gaza newspapers in the West Bank.
Tawfiq al-Sayyid Salim has said that he views the Israeli decision to ban Gaza newspapers as a humiliation to President Abbas himself, belittling his authority.
In December, the Foreign Press Association accused the Israeli army of “deliberately targeting” journalists after soldiers fired rubber bullets and threw stun grenades at photojournalists clearly identified as press.
The Tel Aviv-based group, which represents journalists of all foreign media, said troops had directly targeted a group of photographers covering clashes at the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
A 2013 report by Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms counted 151 violations of Palestinian freedom of speech by Israeli authorities, including incidents of “physical assault, detention, arrest, prevention from coverage, travel bans, interrogation, threat, raiding, closing and blocking, trial, and confiscation of equipment.”
The report also mentioned 78 violations by Palestinian authorities, primarily in the Gaza Strip, though these numbers are believed to be improving particularly since the the agreement to form a national unity government was made at the end of April.
School witch-hunt fuels UK Islamophobia
By Finian Cunningham | Press TV | June 10, 2014
An official British probe this week into alleged “Islamic extremism” in schools is replete with rumor, hearsay and sensationalist accusations.
But, as it turns out, the government report is based on scant factual evidence.
What this amounts to is a “witch-hunt” against British Muslims fuelled at the highest level of government.
This exercise in fear mongering not only denigrates Muslim communities; it recklessly adds to an already hostile climate of Islamophobia in British society, where ordinary citizens are being targeting by racism and hate crimes.
This week the British government’s regulatory body, Ofsted, released a report into more than 20 schools in the midlands city of Birmingham, where it has been alleged that there is a secret plot to infiltrate the education system with “Islamic extremism.”
Six of the schools investigated have been accused of promoting “intimidation” and “intolerance” of non-Muslims. The British government has now placed the schools on a watch-list, which will involve future no-warning snap inspections.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed “a robust response to protect children” with “an extremism taskforce” that will from now on promote “British values” in schools.
The Birmingham establishments in question may now see their governors and staff sacked, and replaced by government-vetted personnel.
The local education trust that runs the facilities in Birmingham has flatly rejected the Ofsted report and the “baseless allegations.”
A senior member of Parkview Trust, which governs three of the schools investigated, said the government probe has found no evidence to support its claims. Trust chairman David Hughes said:
“This report has been conducted in a climate of suspicion… Ofsted inspectors came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot. The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of this because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools.”
So, what is going on here? The whole affair into alleged extremism in the Birmingham schools, both secondary and primary, began some four years ago when an anonymous teacher supposedly wrote a letter to the British government claiming that there was a “Trojan Horse” plot operating in schools in majority Muslim communities across Birmingham.
That plot was said to involve the takeover of teaching staff at the schools and the infiltration of students with extremist ideology.
The letter has since been widely seen as a hoax. Even right-wing British newspapers, such as The Daily Mail, have acknowledged that the document and its accusations therein are fabrications.
Nevertheless, the allegations have taken on a life of their own and have gained credibility, largely due to incessant media vilification of the schools and Muslim communities in general.
Reprehensibly, senior British government ministers have heightened this climate of fear and the ensuing Islamophobia by giving these groundless claims of extremism credence.
Last week, the interior minister Theresa May and education minister Michael Gove engaged in a bizarre public row, accusing each other of “being soft on Islamic fundamentalism.” Then Conservative party leader David Cameron stepped in to the war of words – not to dismiss the damaging allegations against Muslim majority schools, but to merely discipline his ministers for their public bickering.
There is more than a suspicion that the Conservative ministers, May and Gove, are each exploiting the issue as a way of garnering personal publicity and to further their ambitions for taking over the party leadership from the hapless Cameron. For his part, Cameron seems to be reacting in a heavy-handed way to shore up his image as a “tough leader” instead of being seen as the lame duck premier that he is increasingly appearing to be.
With the release of the Ofsted report this week, Cameron has not challenged the dubious premise of the probe, but has instead promised a “robust response,” thus giving its claims a veneer of veracity.
Teachers, parents and community leaders in Birmingham have roundly condemned the “political agenda” of the government’s so-called probe into Islamic extremism.
Lee Donaghey, a principal at the now black-listed Parkview Academy, said the accusations were “absolutely untrue,” adding: “This is a normal state school, like thousands of others across Britain – 98 percent of our pupils just happen to be Muslims. British Muslims.”
As several local people also pointed out, the schools being targeted by the British government report have staff of different religious faiths, including Muslim and Christian. Some are agnostic.
One parent, Arshad Malik, said the conclusions of the Ofsted report claiming the existence of extremism were “completely alien” to him.
“The only thing extreme about our school is the excellence of student achievement in exams,” he added, saying that Park View had been turned around from an academically failed school into an award-winning one in recent years, thanks to the resilient efforts of the teaching staff.
What forms the basis of the British government probe is nothing but a litany of hearsay and unfounded rumor, which has been pursued with prejudice among the government school-regulators. That is a symptom of the worrying trend of increasing Islamophobia in British society at large, not the existence of “hard-line Islamic” influence in schools.
This very real and unconscionable Islamophobia is now being further whipped up at senior government level for self-serving political reasons that bear no relation to alleged problems.
Furthermore, what is even more deplorable is that the government fuelled anti-Muslim attitude in Britain is placing the lives of ordinary Muslims, including young students, at grave risk. Already, there is disturbing evidence of a soaring number of physical attacks, some of them lethal, on Muslim citizens across Britain. In the mindset of racist street thugs, all Muslims are dehumanized as “terrorists.”
What the British government is doing with its scaremongering reports of “extremist plots” at schools in Muslim communities is setting the stage for even more hate crimes.
Ironically, the one entity that can be most associated with so-called Islamic extremism is the British government itself, with its covert support for terrorists in Syria and Libya, as well as its long-held cozy relationship with the Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia.
Tragically, Muslim communities across Britain are at risk of paying an even bigger price of human suffering for the reckless policies of the British government and its so-called “British values.”
‘US a warzone’: Police deploy heavy armor in America
RT | June 9, 2014
From the streets of Fallujah to Franklin, Indiana, heavily armored military vehicles have been rolled out for one and the same reason: many police officers in the US believe there’s a war going on.
Franklin, Indiana is by all accounts the idyllic Midwestern American town. Eponymously named after one of the founding fathers and “the first American,” Franklin’s small town bona fides provided Life Magazine with a Norman Rockwell-esque scene for a bit of village life utopia in the heart of the Great Depression.
But if you were to talk to local law enforcement, a battle is raging in the streets of Mayberry.
Franklin is the county seat of Johnson Country, Indiana. Speaking with Mark Alesia from The Indianapolis Star, Sheriff Doug Cox described the 139,000-strong administrative district as a place where officers’ old-time policing just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Leading Alesia to a pole barn in Franklin, Cox shows him a MRAP – a 55,000 pound, six-wheeled Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored-fighting vehicle with the word “SHERIFF” emblazoned on its flank.
“We don’t have a lot of mines in Johnson County,” confessed Sheriff Doug Cox, who acquired the vehicle. “My job is to make sure my employees go home safe.”
Cox isn’t alone in believing his deputies have something to fear. Johnson County is one of eight Indiana law enforcement agencies to acquire MRAPs from military surplus since 2010, according to public records obtained by The Indianapolis Star.
All across the state, and the country, the trend is similar. From picking up military surplus to using to $35 billion in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to acquire the most advanced weapons, police forces across America are armed to the teeth.
And as Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer puts it, the effects are not only tactical, but psychological.
To put it bluntly: “It’s a lot more intimidating than a Dodge.”
Pulaski, mind you, is a county of roughly 13,000 people. The question of whether civilians need to be intimidated like that depends on your perspective, and as far as Gayer sees things, America is a battlefield and the police are akin to an occupying force.
“The United States of America has become a war zone,” he said. “There’s violence in the workplace, there’s violence in schools and there’s violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
‘What if it were your kid’
The militarization of America was covered in a recent Vice.com documentary, entitled: ‘Here’s What Happens When Hackers Send a SWAT Team to Your House.’
Danny Gold heads to Somerset County, New Jersey, what he describes as “one of the wealthiest counties in the US.”
Sgt. Edward Ciempola, commander of the county SWAT team, boasts of a Lenco BearCat Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck, which he says they use on “every call out.”
With infrared cameras in stock and other military grade hardware, Gold asks Ciempola one simple question: in a quiet, relatively crime-free area, is all of this hardware really necessary?
“I would ask somebody that maybe suffered a loss because of not having this service and I would ask them the answer to that question,” Ciempola said.
“I would say, well, the SWAT team wasn’t available when you really needed it or a police officer wasn’t available when you really needed it, or an ambulance didn’t get there when you really needed it. How does that make you feel? And if your child’s school was suddenly under attack by some random actors, do you want them coming (points to SWAT team) to help your kid or do you want no one to show up?”
Despite the fears of Ciempola and Gayer, in a 2012 Department of Justice report, violent crime had declined by 72 percent from 79.8 to 22.5 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older since 1993. And yet, what’s happening in places like Franklin and Somerset County are the exception rather than the rule.
Writing for the Huffington Post, Radley Balko noted the disturbing trend in SWAT team growth across the country.
He argues that SWAT teams in municipalities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 have “increased by more than 300 percent between 1984 and 1995.”
By 1995, nearly 90 percent of cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team. In 2000, 75 percent of towns with 25,000 to 50,000 people had their own SWAT teams as well. And those paramilitary units are not sitting idly by.
Citing Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University, Balko says the total number of SWAT raids in America has increased exponentially, from just a few hundred per year in the 1970s, to a few thousand by the early 1980s, to around 50,000 by the mid-2000s.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “disproportionately those in poor communities and communities of color – have become targets for violent SWAT raids, often because the police suspect they have small amounts of drugs in their homes.”
And with the SWAT teams comes the military hardware. In Keene, New Hampshire, a town with two murders since 2009, officials accepted a $285,933 grant from the Department of Defense in 2012 to purchase a BearCat. In Columbia, South Carolina, a MRAP which can be equipped with a 50-caliber machine gun was picked up in 2013. In the sleepy town of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina – a town of 16,000 people, police got their hands on their own Humvees and MRAPs, which they went on to display at a car show.
According to March report in USA Today co-written by US Representative Hank Johnson, the following counties “have acquired free MRAPs from US war zones”:
McLennan and Dallas Counties in Texas; Boise and Nampa Counties in Idaho; Indiana’s West Lafayette, Merrillville, and Madison Counties in Indiana (not to mention Johnson); Minnesota’s St. Cloud and Dakota Counties in Minnesota; Warren and Jefferson Counties in New York; North Augusta and Columbia in South Carolina; Murfreesboro in Tennessee; Yuma in Arizona; Kankakee County in Illinois; and Calhoun County in Alabama.
Many of the vehicles were acquired through the 1033 program, a 1997 law which facilitated the transfer of military hardware to local police forces. But what appears to be free federal handouts could result in fundamentally changing the face of the United States.
“Americans should therefore be concerned, unless they want their main streets patrolled in ways that mirror a war zone,” Johnson lamented.
“We recognized that we’re not in Kansas anymore, but are MRAPs really needed in small-town America? Are improvised explosive devices, grenade attacks, mines, shelling and other war-typical attacks really happening in Roanoke Rapids, a town of 16,000 people? No.”
Johnson, a member of the House Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, announced he was introducing legislation to reform the 1033 program “before America’s main streets and civilian police militarize further.” The ACLU, meanwhile, has launched an investigation into the militarization of US police.
“The police officers on our streets and in our neighborhoods are not soldiers fighting a war. Yet many have been armed with tactics and weapons designed for battle overseas,” it said.
In 2013, ACLU affiliates in 25 states filed over 260 public records requests with law enforcement agencies to document the impact of excessively militarized policing on people, families, and communities.
But as Balko warns, vested interests are likely to keep pushing the police-industrial complex until America is on lockdown.
“A new industry appears to be emerging just to convert those grants into battle-grade gear,” he said.
“That means we’ll soon have powerful private interests, funded by government grants, who will lobby for more government grants to pay for further militarization — a police industrial complex.”
Over 100,000 form human chain demanding Basque independence vote
RT | June 9, 2014
At least 100,000 people have formed a 123-kilometer-long human chain in support of a regional referendum on the Basque Country’s independence from Spain.
People began to link up at noon to form a continuous line along a road that connects the northern cities of Durango and Pamplona in the neighboring Navarra region, considered part of Basque cultural heritage.
The organizers of ‘Gure Esku Dago’ (It’s in our hands) initially said that around 50,000 people would be just enough to cover the distance of 123 km. But the turnout went beyond expectations with some reports indicating that 150,000 people eventually took part in the campaign.
Demonstrators draped in red-white-and-green Basque flags raised their linked hands as media crews flew over their heads.
Organizers of the solidarity movement say it was aimed to echo a similar demonstration last year in Catalonia where more than 1 million people formed a human chain stretching 400 kilometers.
Basque, a region of 2.2 million people, held its first elections in October 2012 after separatist group ETA ended its violent campaigns of bombings in 2011, the struggle claimed at least 850 lives from 1968-2010.
In late May, Basque lawmakers adopted a declaration of self-determination to follow on the footsteps of Catalonia, which made its own sovereignty claim last year.
In March, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled the Catalan declaration was “null and unconstitutional” but the Catalan government is still committed on holding a referendum on secession in November.
The Basque already proposed a similar declaration back in 1990 in an attempt to hold a vote of self-determination but it was blocked by the Constitutional Court in 2008.
Mere Existence of Palestine Deemed a “Threatening Racial Slur”
Free Press Houston | June 4, 2014
![Mere Existence of Palestine Deemed a “Threatening Racial Slur” by the [parent corporation of the] Houston Dynamo Organization](https://i0.wp.com/www.freepresshouston.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/10383509_10154201754125023_3501788515572494232_n-720x550.jpg "Mere Existence of Palestine Deemed a “Threatening Racial Slur” by the [parent corporation of the] Houston Dynamo Organization")
Apparently, soccer fans are very nationalistic. It is not uncommon for soccer fans to bring their national flag to a game where their national team is not even playing. In this spirit, a Palestinian-American woman named Buthayna Hammad brought her Palestinian flag to last Sunday’s Honduras vs Israel match at BBVA Compass Stadium. Fifteen minutes into the game, Nathan Buchanan, head of security at the stadium, removed her from her seat, surrounded her with four Houston Police officers and three additional stadium security personnel, and prohibited her from returning to her seat until she surrendered the “racist” flag. What makes the flag “racist?” We’ll get to that, but first let’s hear the lady’s side of the story:
On June 1st, BBVA Compass stadium was host to a “friendly” soccer match between Honduras and Israel. Both countries have the same national colors and a similar look to their flags. I am a big fan of futbol and I went eagerly to the match with my alt family from Honduras. I wore a Honduras jersey and was eager to cheer on this team, dressed to represent Honduras. To represent my own heritage as a Palestinian-American, I also brought my Palestinian flag. I made sure my flag was allowed (based on the size, etc.) and I was all ready to go. For the first 15 minutes of the match I stood up and cheered and stomped my feet with the rest of the crowd chanting “HON-DU-RAS” and waving my Palestinian flag, my colors vibrant and loud against a sea of blue and white…and apparently also racist. I was told I had to sit down, which I did, only to be told to get back up again and follow the manager of security away from the stadium seats and into the concession area. I followed, and there waiting for me were three more BBVA security personnel and four police officers. When I asked them what was wrong, the manager of security, Nathan Buchanan, told me I am not allowed to carry this flag because it implies a “racial slur” and it is in BBVA Compass Stadium violation. I asked him to show me evidence of his accusations and asked him how my flag, a part of my identity as a Palestinian-American, implies a racial slur. He could not answer whether he did not know or could not articulate why he was ordered to remove my flag and me from my seat. I was getting very emotional at this point, I had my flag wrapped around my neck like a scarf, and he said he would take my flag and “check it in” for me, that I was not permitted to return to my seat until I surrendered my flag. The Israeli government has banned Palestinians from hanging their flags outside their home, and arrests the occupants of the home for having it on display on their own land. Every day, in Occupied Palestine, Palestinians are denied entry to neighboring villages, to schools or their family’s home and in many cases to hospitals thanks to Israel’s apartheid state. Yes “apartheid,” that word implies racism, yet my flag implies a racial slur? I asked him several times if I could go back to my seat and he would spread his arms out to create a blockade with his body and his arms so I could not pass. “This is private property,” he said. I told him I paid for a ticket to enter. I could not keep my eyes from gathering tears, but forced myself from letting them fall. “What country are we in again?” I asked. “Just because Israel is playing a match, does that mean you should treat me this way? Because of my Palestinian identity? I am a U.S. Citizen!” I have attended many soccer matches, many of which at the Dynamo stadium, and I have worn a different national jersey every time. Why was I pulled away that day? Who ordered this singling-out and on what grounds? When I asked him if he would feel comfortable with his actions once my treatment became public, he offered a compromise which was that I could keep my flag as long as I did not wave it. The first half was nearly over; they were extended three minutes when I was finally able to return to my seat. I had spent over 15 minutes defending myself from being bullied. I missed the first half because I waved a Palestinian flag at an international match in my hometown. I am proud and honored to be an American, to be able to enjoy the civil liberties that people in many countries are not afforded, but I would have never thought that the influence of an Israeli soccer team on U.S. soil would compromise our most basic liberties.
I asked BBVA Compass Stadium to clarify their flag policy, to explain how a flag could be “racist.” (I suppose you could say that all flags are “racist,” but still, why single out this one?) This is what Houston Dynamo [parent corporation] spokesperson Gina Rotolo had to say:
The decision to not allow the Palestinian flag to be displayed during the game was based on the sole intention of maintaining the safety of those in attendance. The flag bearer was instigating the crowd, and we felt it was important to diffuse a potentially volatile situation as emotions began to escalate.
Of course safety comes first, so I asked Ms. Rotolo how exactly was Hammad “instigating the crowd?” Did she threaten anybody or called for violence? Rotolo replied:
This patron instigated the crowd by waving the Palestinian flag in front of Israeli supporters. Given that her actions caused emotions to escalate, the appropriate course of action, in our eyes, was to ask her to please refrain from waving the flag.
So…there you have it. “This patron instigated the crowd by waving the Palestinian flag in front of Israeli supporters.” It is now considered “racist” for an American of Palestinian descent to wave her flag at fans of the Israeli soccer team. The First Amendment can be suspended in a stadium built with taxpayer money because some Israeli soccer fans might be moved to violence by the mere sight of the Palestinian flag. The good people of the Houston Dynamo Organization think that it is “racist” to merely remind Israeli soccer fans that Palestine exists. I am trying to imagine what the complaint sounded like. “Excuse me, Mr. Buchanan, that flag over there is really pissing me off–causing emotional distress–and I might have to hurt the lady holding it so you better get four cops to impound that flag or else I’m going to beat her up and it will be all her fault.”
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Rotolo did not answer my questions about who complained, nor would she clarify the stadium policy on flags or how this flag violates that policy. She did not answer questions about which other flags are banned. According to Hammad, Honduras fans were shouting “faggots” and “motherfuckers” at Israel fans, and a fight between an Israel fan and a Honduras fan was going on just a few rows behind her, at the very time that she was removed from her seat…yet she was the one singled out for “instigating violence.” Go figure.
Germany To Begin Formal Investigation Into NSA Surveillance — But Only Of Angela Merkel
By Glyn Moody | Techdirt | June 6, 2014
The German government has been trying to avoid upsetting either the US by denouncing the large-scale surveillance being carried out by the NSA in its country, or the German people by not denouncing it. It finds itself in the same quandary as regards opening a formal investigation into the spying, which is probably why it has held off for so long. But now, the German authorities have come up with a sort of compromise, as GigaOM reports:
Germany’s federal prosecutor has launched the country’s first formal investigation into the activities of the NSA in Germany, specifically the U.S. intelligence agency’s reported bugging of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
Harald Range said on Wednesday that the other potential avenue of investigation — that of the surveillance of the German people — remained open, though no investigation was being launched yet due to a lack of evidence.
Leaving aside the question just how much evidence the federal prosecutor needs before he investigates whether the German people have been subjected to US surveillance — a signed confession from President Obama perhaps? — the other issue here is the astonishing lack of sensitivity this move displays. The German government seems to be saying that spying is outrageous and must be investigated immediately if it’s directed against the powerful; but if it’s against the little people, then, well, sorry: we need more evidence before we could possibly risk upsetting the US.
Thought better of it: NSA can get rid of evidence, judge says
RT | June 7, 2014
A federal judge who ordered the National Security Agency to retain all records of its secret telephone surveillance related to an ongoing case has reversed the order – just a day after it was issued.
“In order to protect national security programs, I cannot issue a ruling at this time. The Court rescinds the June 5 order,” US District Judge Jeffrey White said from the bench on Friday.
The NSA had been prohibited from destroying any of its records of communications surveillance on Thursday – specifically under the government’s Section 702 program.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has been used by the NSA to justify widespread collection of phone calls and emails.
White first ordered that the agency retain records in March, to which the NSA responded that it was legally obliged to destroy all documents after a five year period.
White issued the temporary restraining order (TRO) in March to prevent the destruction of evidence. However, on Thursday, EFF filed an emergency motion, stating that in the past week interactions with government lawyers demonstrated that the destruction of records had continued.
Records could form a basis of evidence for two pending lawsuits posing a challenge to the surveillance program. One was filed by AT&T customers and the other by 23 Californian organizations.
The case – Jewel v. NSA the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the NSA and other government agencies on behalf of AT&T customers.
The Friday hearing saw lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) going up against lawyers from the Department of Justice.
The case has stagnated in the court system for several years. In 2008, the original complaint was filed against AT&T and the government, which it was alleged, was involved in “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency and other Defendants in concert with major telecommunications companies.”
Evidence pre-dated Snowden’s revelations in June 2013, and was based on evidence from former San Francisco AT&T technician Mark Klein in 2006.
“I don’t want the preservation effects to get in the way of national security, but I don’t want national security to checkmate our case,” Cindy Cohn, an EFF attorney, told the court, reported arstechnica.
Justice department lawyers sought a stay. They argued that phone records and internet programs were separate. Section 702 allows the government access to emails and Facebook messages. The lawyers said that their compliance would put the program at risk.
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From the Archives
Israel: Strategic Ally or Liability?
By Stephen Sniegoski | My Catbird Seat | June 12, 2010
The claim that Israel serves as a valuable ally for the United States is made by both pro-Zionists and much of the anti-war and anti-Zionist Left that is influenced by Noam Chomsky. As a result of the Gaza flotilla massacre, which has caused a world-wide uproar against Israel, the value of Israel to the United States is being publicly questioned in more mainstream foreign policy forums. … continue
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