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AMAZEBALLS: Rachel Maddow’s Ignorance on Iran

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | June 13, 2013

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has a penchant for saying smug, self-satisfied and generally stupid things about Iran. She has claimed that the Iranian Revolution in 1979 marked the establishment of a dictatorship in that country, rather than end of one; one that just so happened to be a monarchic dynasty that was proudly supported for decades by the United States government. Just two months ago, she weirdly decided to mock Iranians for their national and religious holidays because, y’know, she’s progressive like that.

Maddow was back at it this week, ending her nightly program on Monday with some juvenile comments about Friday’s presidential vote, when Iranians will elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s successor. Here’s how she began:

The current president of Iran has had the job for the last eight years. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he’s known around the world for defending Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

It took her all of seven whole seconds to spit out that egregious falsehood.

First, Maddow’s premise is wrong. Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Despite being the single most spied on country on the planet, U.S. intelligence consistently affirms that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and its leadership has not made any decision to start one. Iran has never breached its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The vast majority of allegations about Iranian weaponization research and testing has been provided by the United States and Israel, has never been authenticated, and refers to long-debunked claims about supposed actions that took place over a decade ago.

Iran does have, however, a highly-developed nuclear energy program and enriches uranium to levels far below weapons-grade under strict supervision and routine inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The agency has continued to verify – up to four times a year over the past ten years – that Iran has never diverted any nuclear material for military purposes and has also affirmed “it has all the means it needs to make sure that does not happen with Iran’s enriched uranium, including cameras, physical inspections and seals on certain materials and components.”

Furthermore, despite the constant mainstream perception that Iran’s nuclear facilities are opaque and mysterious, the fact is that the IAEA has conducted more inspections in Iran than anywhere else.

Former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian, now a lecturer at Princeton University, has noted, “Since 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has implemented the most robust inspections in its history with more than 100 unannounced and over 4000 man-day inspections in Iran.”

Just last year alone, IAEA investigators spent 1,356 calendar days in Iran, conducting 215 on-site inspections of the country’s 16 declared nuclear facilities, and spending more than 12% of the agency’s entire $127.8 million budget on intrusively monitoring the Iranian program, which fields only a single functional nuclear reactor, which doesn’t even operate at full capacity.

By contrast, IAEA inspectors spent only “180 calendar days in France, Europe’s biggest nuclear power,” while “Russia and the U.S., which maintain the world’s biggest atomic-weapon arsenals and aren’t required under rules to allow inspections of all facilities, received 16 and 50 calendar-day visits respectively.”

But Maddow’s ignorance was even more pronounced when she claimed that Ahmadinejad is known for “defending” a program that doesn’t exist.

Never once, in the 34 years since the revolution, has a single government official stated Iran’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons – to the contrary, such a goal has always been explicitly denied on strategic, legal, moral, humanitarian and religious grounds.

Ahmadinejad himself has never strayed from this stance. In September 2005, shortly after his first inauguration, the Iranian president stood before the United Nations General Assembly and reaffirmed the Islamic Republic’s “previously and repeatedly declared position that, in accordance with our religious principles, pursuit of nuclear weapons is prohibited.”

The following year, he stated clearly, “Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s defense doctrine and Iran is not a threat to any country.” Indeed, over the past eight years, Ahmadinejad has lambasted the development and stockpiling of nuclear weapons as “inhuman,” “against the whole grain of humanity,” “obsolete,” “abhorrent,” “disgusting and shameful.” Ahmadinejad has said, “The nuclear bomb is the worst inhumane weapon,” described it as “evil,” and declared anyone who builds an atomic bomb as “crazy and insane,” as well as “politically…backward.”

Nevertheless, American officials and their ventriloquist media puppets like Rachel Maddow continue to claim that Iran is actively pursuing the development of nuclear arms. On June 9, the New York Times stated that one of the most pressing issues for Samantha Power, Obama’s nominee to replace Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, will be to confront “Iran’s apparent attempts to develop a nuclear weapon.”

The very same day, in an interview with the American overseas propaganda outfit, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman expressed, “from a U.S. perspective,” the belief that “Iran’s nuclear program… is headed towards having a nuclear weapon.”

Apparently, the “U.S. perspective,” noted by Sherman doesn’t rely on facts or evidence.

Some officials, however, choose their words more carefully than others. During testimony before Congress on June 11, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “Iran is a threat to US national security in many ways, not simply their move toward the potential to develop a nuclear weapon,” adding, “I choose my words carefully, because the intelligence community has not yet come to a conclusion that they intend to build a nuclear weapon.”

Yet Maddow’s own declaration was even more definitive, echoing, of all things, the words of George W. Bush. In March 2008, Bush, while speaking on RFE/RL’s Persian-language counterpart, Radio Farda, stated that the Iranian government have “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people — some in the Middle East.”

This statement was so devoid of truth that even former State Department Iran specialist Suzanne Maloney was moved to speak out. Maloney, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, noted at the time, “The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon,” adding that while, in her opinion, “there’s plenty of room for skepticism about these assertions…it’s troubling for the administration to indicate that Iran is explicitly embracing the program as a means of destroying another country.”

Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a non-proliferation group, also chimed in to correct the record. Calling Bush’s statement “uninformed,” he explained, “Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It’s just not true. It’s a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran.”

It is indisputable that Iranian officials have consistently denounced the acquisition, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons.

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski made this point in 2009, stating that Iran has been “publicly affirming for quite some time” three main points: “We don’t want nuclear weapons. We’re not seeking nuclear weapons. Our religion forbids us to have nuclear weapons.”

Brzeneski added, “Note, incidentally, that this stands in sharp, explicit contrast with the position of the North Koreans. The North Koreans have been saying the very opposite: ‘We want nuclear weapons. We’re seeking nuclear weapons. And, in your face, haha!, we have nuclear weapons.'” Brzenzinski also condemned the American penchant for “oversimplification and sloganeering rather than analysis” with regards to Iran.

Early this year, Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, similarly affirmed that the “leadership in Tehran continues to challenge the rationale and morality of nuclear weapons. Although such policy statements are hardly determinative of actual intentions, they do stand in stark contrast to the declaratory policies of other governments of proliferation concern, such as North Korea or Pakistan.”

Unsurprisingly, the rest of Maddow’s segment, solely designed to make fun of Iran for some reason, was rife with worn out stereotypes and mainstream talking points.  Even the minutiae of her snide derision were weird.  Referring to the current heated presidential race as “amazeballs” – because, y’know, she’s a professional journalist – Maddow found it ridiculous that the three presidential debates, broadcast live on Iranian television, each exceeded four hours. Four hours!, she scoffed. Of course, American debates between only two candidates last roughly two hours. Iran had eight candidates. Quadruple the contenders, double the time. How absolutely insane.

Also, towards the end of her bit, Maddow claimed that Ahmadinejad was recently in a helicopter crash, when – based on the article her own staff shows onscreen – it was an emergency landing due to unspecified technical problems. The article itself states clearly that “the pilot managed to land the aircraft safely.”

Still, Maddow repeats the word “crash” four times in less than thirty seconds and speculates that the reason the helicopter landed hastily was due to foul play. Her evidence? The media put the word “accident” in between quotation marks when reporting on the story.  Here’s how she put it, using her most ironic voice:

“The media reports on the Ahmadinejad helicopter crash put air-quotes around the word accident, as in ‘President Ahmadinejad just survived a helicopter crash. It’s reported to have been an accident, nudge nudge, wink wink, yeah right’.”

Ok, first, print media can’t put “air-quotes” around anything, Rachel.  They’re actual quotes.

Second, the reason the media put the word accident in quotes is because… wait for it… the reports were quoting from the primary source of the news.  And what was that primary source that called the incident an accident?  Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s official website.

But, for Maddow and her inept interns, “The media apparently thinks he was set up.” No, the media stated the emergency landing was due to an “accident,” because that’s what the president’s press release said.

But when it comes to Iran, the liberal media darling Maddow is no different than the neoconservative editors of the Washington Post. Facts are irrelevant and propaganda prevails.

June 17, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK planned war on Syria before unrest began: French ex-foreign minister

Press TV – June 16, 2013

A former French foreign minister says Britain had been planning a war against Syria some two years before to the unrest broke out in the Arab country.

The statement by Roland Dumas came during a recent interview with French Parliamentary TV network, LCP.

“I’m going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria,” said Dumas.

He continued by saying, “This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate.”

Responding to a question on the motive behind inciting violence in Syria, Dumas said, “Very simple! With the very simple aim! To overthrow the Syrian government, because in the region, it’s important to understand, that the Syrian regime makes anti-Israeli talk,” said Dumas

The former foreign minister added that he had been told by an Israeli prime minister a long time ago that Tel Aviv would seek to “destroy” any country that did not “get along” with it in the region.

Turmoil has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

Damascus says the United States and its allies are seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad by supporting armed terrorist groups operating in Syria.

In May, under pressure from Britain and France, the European Union lifted an arms embargo on the militants in Syria, while maintaining other sanctions on the Syrian government.


ROLAND DUMAS BALANCE SUR L’INTERVENTION OCCIDENTALE EN SYRIE !

June 16, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leaked: NSA’s Talking Points Defending NSA Surveillance

By Mike Masnick | techdirt | June 14, 2013

The government has been passing around some “talking points” to politicians and the press trying to spin the NSA surveillance story. We’ve got the talking points about scooping up business records (i.e., all data on all phone calls) and on the internet program known as PRISM. Both are embedded below. Let’s dig in on a few of the points, starting with the business records/FISA issue:

The news articles have been discussing what purports to be a classified, lawfully-authorized order that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) issued under an Act of Congress – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under this Act, the FISA Court authorized a collection of business records. There is no secret program involved here – it is strictly authorized by a U.S. statute.

“There is no secret program here”? Bullshit. Why, then, have so many people, both in the Congress and the public been shocked at the extent to which the NSA is snarfing up data? This is a secret program, enabled by a secret interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act, by the FISA Court, which the DOJ and the NSA insist the public is not allowed to know. Yes, it’s a secret program. Saying otherwise is simply lying.

It authorizes only metadata collection, which includes barebones records – such as a telephone number or the length of a call.

“Barebones records” and “metadata” are terms being used to play down the extent of the collection of info, but it ignores multiple reports that note the amount of data actually collected — including phone numbers, call times, call location, among other things — is more than enough to identify who someone is and a variety of important characteristics about that person.

This legal tool, as enacted by Congress, has been critical in protecting America. It has been essential in thwarting at least one major terrorist attack to our country in the past few years.

“At least one” is a lot less than the “dozens” NSA boss Keith Alexander recently stated. But, so far the only “one” identified, involving an attempted NYC Subway bombing was shown not to have needed this data collection program to uncover and stop. So, nope.

Despite what appears to be a broad scope in the FISA Court’s order, the Intelligence Community uses only a small fraction of a percent of the business records collected to pursue terrorism subjects.

This is meaningless. That’s like saying, even though we search everyone’s house illegally, we only actually arrest a small number of people. No one would allow such house searches under the 4th Amendment, so why is it okay with phone records?

All three branches – Congress, the Courts, and the Executive Branch – review and sign off on FISA collection authorities. Congress passed FISA, and the Intelligence Committees are regularly and fully briefed on how it is used.

Except many in Congress have made it clear they did not review this kind of program, or were led to believe that the NSA did not collect this kind of information. And those who are being briefed now say the program goes way beyond what they were told. And, those who did know about it beforehand, tried to dig deeper into the program, but were blocked. As for “the Courts” reviewing it, we’re talking about the FISA Court which is a rubberstamp in black robes, having approved every single request of it for the past three years. It last rejected a request back in 2009, and that was only one out of 1320. In its entire history, since 1979, the court has rejected a grand total of 11 applications. 11. Out of 33,939 applications. That’s 0.03%. Not 3%. 0.03% with not a single rejection in over three years. That’s not careful review. That’s a rubber stamp. As for the executive branch signing off on it, what do you expect? They’re going to hold back their own ability to spy on people?

The FISA Court authorizes intelligence collection only after the Intelligence Community has proven its case, based on underlying facts and investigations.

Well, we already covered the rubber stamp issue above, but Section 215 of the Patriot Act requires that the government present a case that the data it is seeking “must be relevant to an authorized preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” I’d love to see the argument that all data is somehow relevant to the investigation. Of course, I can’t see it, because it’s secret.

This legal tool has been reauthorized only after ongoing 90-day renewal periods. That means that every 90 days, the Department of Justice and the FBI must prove to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that they have the facts and legal basis to renew this legal authority. It is not a rubber stamp.

Ha ha ha. So, we violate your privacy without any opposing view — but we do it every 90 days for seven straight years.

FISA-authorized collections are subject to strict controls and procedures under oversight of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FISA Court, to ensure that they comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.

What kind of “strict controls and procedures” allow for the collection of every single record of every single phone call, and then also make it accessible to the 29-year-old IT guy in Hawaii? Just wondering…

Moving on to the “NSA internet talking points.”

Section 702 is a vital legal tool that Congress reauthorized in December 2012, as part of the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act, after extensive hearings and debate. Under Section 702, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) certifies foreign intelligence collection. There is no secret program involved – it is strictly authorized by a U.S. statute.

Again, “no secret program,” merely a secret interpretation of the law, in a secret ruling by a secret court. What’s everyone complaining about?

Section 702 cannot be used to target any U.S. person. Section 702 also cannot be used to target any person located in the United States, whether that person is an American or a foreigner.

Note the careful choice of words: it cannot be used to target a person in the US. It can, however, be used to collect info on a person in the US if they’re not “the target” of the investigation. Fun with words!

The unauthorized disclosure of information about this critical legal tool puts our national security in grave danger, puts Americans at risk of terrorist and cyber attacks, and puts our military intelligence resources in danger of being revealed to our adversaries.

Right. So this is not a new program, it’s no surprise, people shouldn’t be concerned… and now that you know about it we’re all going to die!

How does anyone take these jokers seriously?

June 15, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama to Press Putin to Back Assad’s Removal in Syria

RIA Novosti | June 14, 2013

WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama will attempt to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin in their planned meeting Monday that it is in Moscow’s interest to support the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, a White House official said Friday in the wake of fresh US claims that Syria has used chemical weapons.

“It’s in Russia’s interest to join us in applying pressure on [Assad] to come to the table in a way that relinquishes his power and his standing in Syria,” Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told reporters Friday.

The United States and Russia remain at loggerheads over the ongoing civil war in Syria as Obama and Putin prepare to meet on the sidelines of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on Monday.

The meeting comes a day after Rhodes told reporters Thursday that US intelligence had concluded with “high confidence” that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons multiple times over the past year – an assessment that has prompted Obama’s decision to boost military aid to the Syrian rebels.

The chemical weapons claim was met with skepticism and derision by Russian officials.

“The Americans have tried to provide us with information on the use by the [Syrian] regime of chemical weapons, but I will be frank: The report does not seem convincing to us,” Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters in Moscow on Friday.

Alexei Pushkov, the head of Russia’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, dismissed the US assessment outright Friday, calling its conclusions “fabricated.”

Rhodes told reporters Friday that Obama would offer an “interest-based” argument to Putin on the Syria issue during Monday’s meeting in an effort to persuade “the Russians that they can best protect their interests by being a part of a political settlement that is real and that enables a transition away from Assad’s rule.”

He added that “there are no illusions” that the talks between Obama and Putin about the Syria conflict would be easy.

“What Russia has articulated to us, and publicly, is that they don’t want to see a downward spiral, they don’t want to see a chaotic and unstable situation in the region, they don’t want to see extremist elements gaining a foothold in Syria,” Rhodes said.

Ushakov told reporters in Moscow that the United States and Russia “are not competing on Syria.”

“On the contrary, we are seeking a constructive solution to this issue which is vital for the situation in the region and the world,” he said.

Both the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) expressed concern Friday about the US claims of multiple chemical weapons attacks in Syria over the past year, which the White House said have resulted in 100 to 150 deaths.

“These developments can only reinforce the importance of a political solution and should accelerate the efforts of the international community to find a definitive political solution to the conflict,” Catherin Ashton, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a statement.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday called the US assessment “a matter of great concern,” Reuters reported.

“The international community has made clear that any use of chemical weapons is completely unacceptable and a clear breach of international law,” Rasmussen said in Brussels, Reuters said.

Meanwhile, US Sen. John McCain repeated his call Thursday for the Washington to establish a no-fly zone “to create a safe area” within Syria.

“You can’t do it with half measures. You can’t do it with just supplying weapons,” McCain told CNN.

In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Rhodes said the White House believed boosting assistance to the Syrian rebels is the most effective strategy at this point, saying a no-fly zone “would carry with it great and open-ended costs for the United States and the international community.”

“It’s far more complex to undertake the type of effort, for instance, in Syria than it was in Libya,” Rhodes said.

The Syrian government on Friday called White House claims about the use of chemical weapons in Syria “a statement full of lies based on fabricated information.”

Both sides in the ongoing Syrian civil war have traded allegations of chemical weapons use, with government officials accusing opposition forces of using chemical weapons against Assad’s military in a March attack outside of the northern city of Aleppo.

Some 93,000 people are believed to have died since fighting broke out between Syrian government forces and rebels in March 2011, according to the latest UN figures.

June 15, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Why Obama is Declaring War on Syria

By Franklin Lamb | Al-Manar | June 15, 2013

The short answer is Iran and Hezbollah according to Congressional sources. “The Syrian army’s victory at al-Qusayr was more than the administration could accept given the town’s strategic position in the region. Its capture by the Assad forces has essentially added Syria to Iran’s list of victories starting with Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, as well as its growing influence in the Gulf.”

Other sources are asserting that Obama actually did not want to invoke direct military aid. The rebels fighting to topple the Assad government or even to make use of American military power in Syria for several reasons. Among these are the lack of American public support for yet another American war in the Middle East, the fact that there appears to be no acceptable alternative to the Assad government on the horizon, the position of the US intelligence community and the State Department and Pentagon that intervention in Syria would potentially turn out very badly for the US and gut what’s left of its influence in the region. In short, that the US getting involved in Syria could turn out even worse than Iraq, by intensifying a regional sectarian war without any positive outcome in sight.

Obama was apparently serious earlier about a negotiated diplomatic settlement pre-Qusayr, and there were even some positive signs coming from Damascus, Moscow, and even Tehran, John Kerry claimed. But that has changed partly because Russia and the US have both hardened their demands. Consequently, the Obama administration has now essentially thrown in the towel on the diplomatic track. This observer was advised by more than one Congressional staffer that Obama’s team has concluded that the Assad government was not getting their message or taking them seriously and that Assad’s recent military gains and rising popular support meant that a serious Geneva II initiative was not going to happen.

In addition, Obama has been weakened recently by domestic politics and a number of distractions and potential scandals not least of which is the disclosures regarding the massive NSA privacy invasion. In addition, the war lobby led by Senators McClain and Lindsay Graham is still pounding its drums and claiming that Obama would be in violation of his oath of office and by jeopardizing the national security interest of the United States by allowing Iran to essentially own Syria once Assad quells the uprising. Both Senators welcomed the chemical weapons assessment. For months they have been saying that Obama has not been doing enough to help the rebels. “U.S. credibility is on the line,” they said in a joint statement this week. “Now is not the time to merely take the next incremental step. Now is the time for more decisive actions,” they said, such as using long-range missiles to degrade Assad’s air power and missile capabilities. Another neo-con, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) said the opposition forces risk defeat without heavier weapons, but he also warned that may not be enough. “The U.S. should move swiftly to shift the balance on the ground in Syria by considering grounding the Syrian air force with stand-off weapons and protecting a safe zone in northern Syria with Patriot missiles in Turkey,” Casey said.

Secretary of State Kerry held meetings with more than two dozen military specialists on 5/13/13. The Washington Post is reporting that Kerry believes supplying the rebels with weapons might be too little and too late to actually flip the balance on the Syrian ground and this calls “for a military strike to paralyze Al-Assad’s military capacities.” A Pentagon source reported that the USA, France, and Britain are considering a decisive decision to reverse the current Assad momentum and quickly construct one in favor of the rebels” within a time period not exceeding the end of this summer.

Shortly after the meetings began, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia quickly returned to Saudi Arabia from his palace at Casa Blanca, Morocco after receiving a call from his intelligence chief, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. Bandar reportedly had a representative at the White House during the meetings with President Obama’s team. King Abdullah was reportedly advised by Kerry to be prepared for a rapid expansion of the growing regional conflict.

What happens between now and the end of summer is likely to be catastrophic for the Syrian public and perhaps Lebanon. The “chemical weapons-red line” is not taken seriously on Capitol Hill for the reason that the same “inconclusive evidence” of months ago is the same that is suddenly being cited to justify what may become essentially an all-out war against the Syrian government and anyone who gets in the way. Hand wringing over the loss of 125 lives due to chemical weapons, whoever did use them, pales in comparison to the more 50,000 additional lives that will be lost in the coming months, a figure that Pentagon planners and the White House have “budgeted” as the price of toppling the Assad government.

“We are going to see a rapid escalation of the conflict”, a staffer on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee emailed this observer: “The president has made a decision to give whatever humanitarian aid, as well as political and diplomatic support to the opposition that is necessary. Additionally direct support to the (Supreme Military Council), will be provided and that includes military support.” The staffer quoted the words of Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to the media on 5/13/13 to the same effect.

A part of this “humanitarian assistance” the US is going to establish in the coming weeks a “limited, humanitarian no-fly zone, that will begin along several miles of the Jordanian and Turkish borders in certain military areas into Syrian territory, and would be set up and presented as a limited bid to train and equip rebel forces and protect refugees. But in reality, as we saw in Libya a Syrian no fly zone would very likely include all of Syria.

Libya’s no-fly zones made plain that there is no such thing as a “limited zone”. Put briefly, a “no-fly zone” means essentially a declaration of all-out war. Once the US and its allies start a no fly zone they will expand it and intensify it as they take countless other military actions to protect its zones until the Syrian government falls. “It’s breathtaking to contemplate how this in going to end and how Iran and Russia will respond,” one source concluded.

The White House is trying to assuage the few in Congress as well as a majority of the American public that it can be a limited American involved and that the no-fly zone would not require the destruction of Syrian antiaircraft batteries. This is more nonsense. During the no-fly zone I witnessed from Libya in the summer of 2011 the US backed it up with all manner of refueling, electronic jamming, special-ops on the ground and by mid-July a kid peddling his bike was not safe. Over the 192 days of patrolling the Libyan no-fly zones, NATO countries flew 24,682 sorties including 9,204 bomb strike sorties. NATO claimed it never missed its target but that was also not true. Hundreds of civilians were killed in Libya by no-fly zone attack aircraft that either missed their targets or emptied their bomb bays before returning to base while conducting approximately 48 bombing strikes per day using a variety of bombs and missiles, including more than 350 cruise Tomahawks.

At a Congressional hearing in 2011, then US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates got it right when he explained while discussing Libya “a no-fly zone begins with an attack to destroy all the air defenses … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. But that’s the way it starts.”

According to the accounts published in American media, Obama could alternatively authorize the arming and training of the Syrian opposition in Jordan without a no-fly zone. That appears unlikely because the Pentagon wants to end the Syrian crisis by summer’s end, the observer was advised “rather than working long term with a motley bunch of jihadists who we could never trust or rely on. The administration has come to the conclusion apparently that if they are in for a penny they are in for a pound.”

In response to a question from this observer about how he thought events might unfold in this region over the coming months, a very insightful long-term congressional aid replied: “Well Franklin, maybe someone will pull a rabbit out of the hat to stop the push for war. But frankly I doubt it. From where I sit I’d wager that Syria as we have known it may soon be no more. And perhaps some other countries in the region also.”

Franklin Lamb can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

June 15, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US firms in bed with intelligence agencies in info swap – report

RT | June 14, 2013

Thousands of US tech, finance, and manufacturing firms have secret agreements with national security agencies to trade sensitive information in return for classified intelligence, Bloomberg’s sources revealed.

The firms involved are referred to as ‘trusted partners’ by US intelligence organizations such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and branches of US military.

In fact, thousands of US companies voluntarily provide US agencies with data (i.e. equipment specifications), Bloomberg’s four sources, who either worked for the government or in companies that have these agreements, said. And the information received can be used to gain access to computers of America’s rivals.

Cooperation between companies and intelligence agencies is legal, reported Bloomberg. And the fact that the companies provide information voluntarily means there is no need for US agencies to get court orders and no oversight is required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, one out of four sources said.

Also, some of the companies’ executives are guaranteed immunity from civil actions related to transfer of information.

For example, Microsoft passes on information about bugs in its software before it publicly releases a fix to the problem, two sources confirmed. This kind of information can protect US government computers, as well as help to infiltrate those used by foreign governments by exploiting vulnerabilities in the Microsoft’s system.

Microsoft is reportedly not told how the US government uses the information passed on down to it, according to one official. Spokesman for Microsoft Frank Shaw confirmed such releases and stated that they give the government a chance to get “an early start: on risk assessment and mitigation.”

McAfee, America’s global computer security software company, is another ‘trusted partner’ and is known for its cooperation with the NSA, CIA, and FBI. It can share valuable data including malicious internet traffic, one of the sources said.

The company’s worldwide chief technology officer, Michael Fey, rebuffed the claim that the company does not share any personal information with the government.

“McAfee’s function is to provide security technology, education, and threat intelligence to governments … [including] emerging new threats, cyber-attack patterns and hacker group activity,” he stated.

Due to the sensitivity of information being traded, these kinds of agreements are usually made strictly between companies’ chief executive officers and heads of the US agencies. At times the chief executives could clear a few trusted people to work directly with the agencies.

Sharing info: Out of ‘patriotism’ or for ‘classified’ info?

In return for their cooperation, companies are showered with attention and gratitude.

“If I were the director and had a relationship with a company who was doing things that were not just directed by law, but were also valuable to the defense of the Republic, I would go out of my way to thank them and give them a sense as to why this is necessary and useful”, Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA said.

One of the sources said that public would be surprised how much help the government is seeking in terms of collecting information. Reportedly, it is currently implementing a new expensive program called Einstein 3. The program was developed by the NSA to protect the government from hackers by analyzing billions of emails being sent to the government computers.

Five of America’s major internet companies, including AT&T and Verizon, have agreed to install the program on their servers and have received immunity guarantees, which specify that they would not be held liable under US wiretap laws, one of the sources revealed.

In the past companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth were already reportedly involved for eavesdropping on behalf of the NSA. In 2006 sources revealed that the companies collected call records of tens of millions of Americans and shared them with NSA.

US companies are willing to participate in these kinds of agreements because they either believe they are helping to protect the nation and/or helping to advance their own interests by receiving classified information in return, sources said.

Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin, for example, was given sensitive government information a year into its data sharing agreement with NSA. The info provided linked the 2010 attack on Google to a specific unit within the Chinese military – the People’s Liberation Army – one of the sources confirmed. Brin was even given a classified clearance to attend a secret briefing on the subject.

Google was reportedly one of the participants in the secret NSA PRISM program that was revealed by ex-CIA staffer and whistleblower Edward Snowden. The program uses data mining surveillance to access emails, videos, chats, photos and search queries from nine worldwide tech giants.

Snowden also disclosed a secret NSA program called Blarney, which gathers metadata on computers and devices that send emails or browse the Internet through principal data routes, known as a backbone.

The whistleblower was last seen Monday, checking out of his hotel in Hong Kong, where he stayed for three weeks after leaving the US.

Snowden is hoping that staying in Hong Kong would help him avoid any extradition attempts on behalf of the US. In terms of the US-Hong Kong Extradition Treaty, both Hong Kong and Beijing have the power to stymie Snowden’s extradition. China for its part has no extradition treaty with the United States.

China has thus far refrained from making statements on the Snowden case. But a popular Chinese Communist Party-backed newspaper has printed an article demonstrating the benefits of not sending Snowden back to US, arguing that his knowledge of US surveillance programs are key to China’s national interest.

The article comes after Snowden resurfaced and gave an exclusive interview to the South China Morning Post, revealing top-secret US government records that show dates and IP addresses of computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland that were hacked by the NSA over a four-year period.

In the meantime, the FBI has launched an investigation into Snowden leaking US top secret surveillance tactics and has promised to hold the whistleblower accountable.

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June 14, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Secrecy’s Tangled Web of Deceit

By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | June 13, 2013

The name card at the Senate hearing read, “Hon. General Keith B. Alexander,” but layering on the extra honorific title was not enough to change the sad reality that the National Security Agency’s director – a proven prevaricator – was not “honorable.”

You might have thought that some impish congressional staffer was trying to inject a touch of irony into the proceedings by prefacing “General” with “Hon.” – like Mark Antony mocking Julius Caesar’s murderers as “honorable men” in Shakespeare’s play. But that didn’t seem to be the case.

Likely, the extra title was just a mistake by the person printing out the name cards or someone who thought it would do no harm to tack on one more flattering title like a court herald might do in announcing the arrival of royalty. But – whatever the case – the image of Alexander, with his history of lying to Congress (see below), sitting behind the assurance that he was “honorable” might have elicited from the Bard a comment like, “Methinks they doth protest too much.”

The Wednesday hearing was led by Senate Appropriations Committee chair Barbara Mikulski, Democrat from Maryland, the state which hosts the gargantuan multi-billion-dollar-spending National Security Agency. To her credit, she let her Senate colleagues focus on the revelations by Edward Snowden regarding highly intrusive NSA monitoring of the communications of virtually every living soul, even though cyber-security spending was to be the main agenda item.

The public hearing, however, did allow the “honorable” Alexander to do a snow job on Edward Snowden, with the eager help of some of the senators. But when a few senators dared to ask probing questions, those were deferred to the Senate Intelligence Committee, where chair Dianne Feinstein can more easily protect Alexander and his Fourth-Amendment-shredding accomplices – including herself – especially in executive session.

Oversight Is ‘Nonsense’

Wednesday’s hearing proved Daniel Ellsberg right in saying earlier this week: “to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads – they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor.”

Given what we now know, thanks to whistleblower Snowden, it is clear that Alexander made a host of untruthful statements to the media as well as Congress in recent years. Not to worry. Unconstitutional eavesdropping advocates/defenders in Congress and the media know quite well how to play all this. Exhibit A: Lead headline in Thursday’s Washington Post, “Dozens of attacks foiled, NSA says.”

Here’s the lede: “The head of the National Security Agency defended his agency’s broad electronic surveillance programs Wednesday, saying that they have helped thwart dozens of terrorist attacks and that their recent public disclosure has done ‘great harm’ to the nation’s security.” The Post adds that Alexander went on to claim: “Our agency takes great pride in protecting this nation and our civil liberties and privacy.”

The front-pager by Ellen Nakashima and Jerry Markon recounted – with no apparent attempt to solicit background, much less confirmation – specific cases where Alexander claimed that the intrusive eavesdropping programs “helped thwart” terrorist attacks. It took the London Guardian virtually no time to challenge Alexander on two of the main cases he adduced: the arrests and convictions of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi in 2009 and David Headley, now serving a 35-year prison sentence for his role in the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington and Nicholas Watt, no doubt anticipating the tales Alexander would weave, wrote: “But court documents lodged in the US and UK, as well as interviews with involved parties, suggest that data-mining through Prism and other NSA programmes played a relatively minor role in the interception of the two plots. Conventional surveillance techniques, in both cases including old-fashioned tip-offs from intelligence services in Britain, appear to have initiated the investigations.”

Previous Prevarication

My apologies, but it’s just too contrived for me to defer to the convention, prevailing in the Washington Establishment, of not calling a lie a lie. For those few who may not have noticed, lying to the obsequious note-takers and speedy stenographers who pose as journalists is part of the woodwork in the nation’s capital these days.

But lying to Congress? Isn’t that still a felony or at least grounds for getting summarily fired? There is proof that Alexander lied to Congress – well before Wednesday’s disingenuous performance. He did so almost eight years ago. And he seems to have paid no price. Indeed, it has served him well, career-wise.

For almost a dozen years now we have been hearing, “After 9/11 everything changed!” Include NSA under that rubric. After the attacks of 9/11, then-Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden saluted smartly when ordered by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to trash what had been known throughout the intelligence community as NSA’s “First Commandment – Thou shalt not eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.”

After 9/11 the prevailing attitude – in Congress as well as the Executive – was that there was no need to pay much attention to the rule of law, or to abide by solemn oaths to support and defend the Constitution. But there were still some Americans who believed that the law was the law and who sought some accountability from telecommunication companies that had cooperated with warrantless wiretapping.

However, by an artful change in the law, Hayden, Cheney, Bush and the telecoms were held harmless. The authors of the bill and the mainstream media even lauded those who collaborated in the warrantless wiretaps for their patriotism.

So, Hayden’s successor, Keith Alexander, knew which side his bread was buttered on and followed Hayden’s example. But Alexander was caught in a lie when he misled Rep. Rush Holt, D-New Jersey, who had the NSA portfolio on the House Intelligence Committee. It is a felony to lie to Congress; yet, that is precisely what Alexander did on Dec. 6, 2005, as Congressman Holt paid a call on NSA.

Alexander told Holt that NSA was not violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act strictures against eavesdropping on Americans without a court order, which then was one of the Bush administration’s most sensitive secrets, albeit one that was about to be spilled.

Unfortunately for Alexander, the White House had neglected to tell him that a day earlier — on Dec. 5, 2005 – President Bush tried and failed to keep the New York Times sitting on the story (which it had politely done for more than a year). However, the Times editors had learned that their reporter James Risen was prepared to disclose the secret in a book scheduled for publication in early 2006. So the Times editors decided that they couldn’t afford to be scooped on their own story – and finally rebuffed Bush’s entreaties.

However, the unlucky Alexander was left out of the loop on these discussions so he continued to use the shopworn, dishonest NSA talking points when he spoke with Holt. On Dec. 16, 2005, the Times finally front-paged the exclusive by Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts.”

It seems almost necessary to remind readers at this point that there was a “before 9/11” when a quaint notion prevailed that it was not quite right to lie to Congress. Even after 9/11, Holt was appropriately outraged. Holt said he would see to it that Alexander did not get a fourth star.

However, impunity seems to prevail in these circles of signals intelligence. Less than five years later, in May 2010, the Senate confirmed Alexander for appointment to the rank of four-star general at a ceremony at which he also assumed the key post of U.S. Cyber Commander.

Smoother than Clapper

Fortunately for the senators now bent on covering up NSA’s violation of Fourth Amendment rights – the sweeping up of “metadata” on apparently every phone call made by Americans so it can be mined for information about “terrorists” – the “honorable” Alexander is a smooth talker skilled in the art of deception. You might apply to Alexander the addendum to the old saying about “once you practice to deceive”: “But once you’ve practiced for a while; You markedly improve your style.”

National Intelligence Director James Clapper was much less polished when he tried to deflect questions about the collection of the phone data during a Senate hearing. What an embarrassment it was to watch him entangle himself when asked by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

In answering, Clapper appeared in some distress – “more than somewhat not comfortable,” as author Damon Runyon would put it. Clapper, who was under oath, tried to hide his face behind his hand, tugged on his pate though it hosted no hair, and responded: “No, sir.”

Wyden, who knew different, followed up, “It does not?”Clapper: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly.” Clapper later tried to excuse his lie as the “least untruthful” response he could come up with in an open hearing.

Clapper’s sad performance was particularly painful because he has been, for the most part, a stand-up guy even when facing pressure from lawmakers to retreat on controversial intelligence assessments. For example, he stood up to members of Congress when some pressed him to change the intelligence community’s considered judgment that Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon almost ten years ago.

On Wednesday, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, openly accused Clapper of criminal perjury and called for him to resign, saying, “It now appears clear that the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied under oath to Congress and the American people.” Amash added that “Perjury is a serious crime … [and] Clapper should resign immediately.”

But Clapper too is an “honorable man” – someone deeply enmeshed in the machinations of America’s “secrecy/surveillance state.” It will be interesting to see if he decides to fall on his sword and demonstrate that at least someone has a sense of honor – or he could take lessons from Alexander on the finer arts of dissembling.

O Tempora; O Mores.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, part of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army officer and CIA intelligence analyst for 30 years, and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

June 14, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | Leave a comment

US claims of Assad’s chemical weapons are lies – Pushkov

RT | June 14, 2013

A senior Russian MP holds that the recent White House statement of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government is as false as the notorious reports about Iraqi WMDs.

“The data about Assad’s use of chemical weapons is fabricated by the same facility that made up the lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Obama is walking George W. Bush’s path,” the head of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee Aleksey Pushkov tweeted.

The Russian MP was referring to the 2003 invasion in Iraq prompted by the US and UK claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that threatened neighboring nations. The UN probe into the matter was underway as the invasion started and no traces of WMD have been discovered on Iraqi territory since the war ended, prompting accusations that the US administration and special services fabricated the data to get an excuse to start the conflict.

In comments to Russian news agencies Pushkov noted that the supplies of arms from the US to the Syrian rebels would hardly lead to the overthrow of President Bashar Assad’s regime. He added that the government in Syria is supported by “a significant, if not the larger, part of the population” and the Syrian military “show a high degree of resistance.”

Pushkov also forecast that the United States would now attempt to further escalate the situation.

“Now they are arming the rebels but then they will come to some form of direct military involvement. We cannot exclude the possibility of cruise missile strikes and if this measure brings no result – of direct military intervention,” he said.

The statement was made shortly after US authorities publicly announced that they had proof that pro-government forces used chemical weapons, like the nerve agent sarin in the Syrian conflict, killing at least 150 people. At the same time, the US side claimed that there was no proof about similar actions from the rebels’ side.

US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has told the press that President Barack Obama has decided to boost the US support to the Syrian opposition forces and that this would now include military support. The detailed orders will be issued within the nearest weeks after Obama consults with the Congress, the official added.

Earlier last week UK and France said that their probes into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria showed that the pro-government forces did it at least once causing casualties among rebels and called the international community for immediate action. Many officials, including top Russian politicians, noted that the impartiality of British and French researchers is under question and urged an independent probe.

The UN is currently preparing its own independent investigation, but it might take a long time. Syrian government has said it was ready to accept the UN delegation and help with the investigation.

In late March one of the conflicting parties in Syria allegedly used a sarin-charged missile near the city of Aleppo. The government and rebels now accuse each other of the attack that killed at least 25 people.

While the UK, France and now the United states accuse pro-Assad forces, Turkish media said in early June that the country’s security forces had found sarin gas in the homes of members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front – one of the main groups opposing the Syrian government.

Russian officials have repeatedly condemned the use of chemical weapons and urged an all-sided and unbiased research into all incidents connected with the issue.

June 14, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Egypt denies purchasing military equipment from Israel

MEMO | June 12, 2013

The spokesman of the Egyptian Army, Staff Colonel Ahmed Mohamed Ali, on Wednesday denied that his country had bought military wares from Israel.

An Israeli newspaper reported early this week that Israel had sold military wares to Pakistan and another four Arab countries, including Egypt. Harretz report was based on data issued by the British Government’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), which oversees security exports.

The report said that these countries had purchased amounts of developed military equipment between 2008 and 2012.

According to the BIS report, this equipment included unmanned aircraft vehicles, radar systems, electronic warfare systems, head-up display (HUD) cockpit parts for fighter jets and aircraft engines, optical target acquisition systems, components of training aircraft and military electronic systems.

Ali wrote on his Facebook page that the militarisation of Egypt’s Armed Forces follows strict guidelines which guarantee what is called “product security.” These are obligatory rules that all military branches are committed to.

Similarly, Pakistan also denied that it bought military equipment from Israel based on information published by Haaretz in the same report.

The Islamabad spokesman for the Directorate of Inter-Services Public Relations denied the report. “The report is misleading and not based on facts,” The Hindu reported him as saying.

The Egyptian military official affirmed that his country is following credible measures regarding weapon purchases. However he said that the policy had “high costs in light of the new global system.”

He also called for the need to ensure that information reported about the Egyptian Armed Forces was reliable and accused the mass media of attempting to shake the credibility of the Egyptian Armed Forces with their people.

June 13, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US cuts plans for Guantanamo prosecutions

RT |June 11, 2013

The US is scaling back its Guantanamo prosecutions from 36 to 20 or less, admitting that it lacks the evidence to convict many of the detainees of international war crimes.

Of the 166 detainees held at the prison camps, few have viable charges to face war crimes tribunal. Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor for the tribunals, told Reuters that the 36 detainees the US initially sought to prosecute was an “ambitious” number.

The Guantanamo Review Task Force completed a review in 2010 that made this determination, but Martins said no more than 20 detainees have viable charges that prosecutors could realistically pursue. Seven of these have already undergone their trials, and six are facing pretrial hearings this week and next.

The drastic reduction of prosecutions comes in light of the dismissal of Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden whose conviction was overturned by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit last October. Hamdan had been convicted by a US military commission of providing material support to al-Qaeda terrorists, but the appeals court decided that this was not a crime under international rule of law at the time that Hamdan worked for bin Laden.

The US Congress in 2006 passed the Military Commissions Act, which defines an “unlawful enemy combatant” as someone “who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant”. The appeals court concluded that this law could not be applied retroactively, and Hamdan’s charges were dismissed.

Hamdan had already finished his sentence and returned to Yemen when his charges were thrown out, but the court ruling caused Guantanamo prosecutors to give up on many of the other cases they initially sought to pursue, Martins told Reuters.

Although some of the detainees facing war crimes tribunal are already known, Martins did not identify them all by name.

On Monday, US military prosecutors filed charges against Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi for a war crime coined “perfidy”, claiming that he coordinated a series of suicide attacks on US and allied troops and civilians in Afghanistan. Army Lt. Col. Chris Callen, a lawyer appointed to defend al-Hadi, told AP that he would go over the charges with the detainee on Tuesday.

Pretrial hearings will also begin next week for five prisoners accused of being involved in the planning of the September 11, 2011 terrorist attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Pretrial hearings are currently underway for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian man accused of directing a number of suicide attacks, including the bombing of the USS Cole, which resulted in the deaths of 17 American sailors.

Both Nashiri and Mohammed are facing the death penalty, but of the 166 detainees still held at Guantanamo, only 20 may ever be prosecuted.

June 12, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Speaks with Forked Tongue on Surveillance

By Sheldon Richman | FFF | June 11, 2013

It’s bad enough the federal government spies on us. Must it insult our intelligence too?

The government’s response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency’s secret monitoring of the Internet and collection of our telephone logs is a mass of contradictions. Officials have said the disclosures are (1) old news, (2) grossly inaccurate, and (3) a blow to national security. It’s hard to see how any two of these can be true, much less all three.

Can’t they at least get their story straight? If they can’t do better than that, why should we have confidence in anything else that they do?

Snowden exposed the government’s indiscriminate snooping because, among other things, it violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and he had no other recourse.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says Snowden should have used established channels to raise his concerns, but there are no effective channels. Members of the congressional intelligence committees are prohibited from telling the public what they learn from their briefings. Two members of the Senate committee, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, for years have warned — without disclosing secrets — that the Obama administration is interpreting the Patriot Act and related laws far more broadly than was ever intended by those who voted for those pieces of legislation. Their warnings have made no difference.

A court challenge wasn’t open to Snowden either. Glenn Greenwald, who published Snowden’s leaks in the Guardian, notes that for years the ACLU has tried to challenge the surveillance programs in court on Fourth Amendment grounds, but the Obama administration has blocked the effort by arguing that the ACLU has no standing to bring the suit. It’s a classic Catch-22. Since the surveillance is secret, no one can know if he has been spied on. But if no one knows, no one can go into court claiming to be a victim, and the government will argue that therefore the plaintiff has no standing to challenge the surveillance. Well played, Obama administration.

The administration should not be allowed to get away with the specious claim that telling its secrets to a few privileged members of Congress is equivalent to informing the people. It is not. It’s merely one branch of government telling some people in another branch. Calling those politicians “our representatives” is highly misleading. In what sense do they actually represent us?

Equally specious is the assertion that the NSA can’t monitor particular people without court authorization. The secret FISA court is a rubber stamp.

When Obama ran for president in 2008, he said Americans shouldn’t have to choose between privacy and security. Now he says that “one of the things that we’re going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy? Because there are some tradeoffs involved.”

What do you take us for, Mr. President? Do you say whatever serves your momentary interest?

It’s outrageous for Obama to say he welcomes this debate — when his regime is plotting to capture and prosecute the heroic whistleblower who made it possible.

The debate would be bogus anyway. No one has a right to make a security/privacy tradeoff for you. Our rights should not be subject to vote, particularly when a ruling elite ultimately will make the decision — out of public view!

Americans have learned nothing from the last 40 years if they have not learned that the executive branch — regardless of party — will interpret any power as broadly as it wishes. Congressional oversight is worse than useless; it’s a myth, especially when one chamber is controlled by the president’s party and the other chamber’s majority embraces big government as long as it carries a “national security” label.

Obama says, “If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”

That’s wrong. If the politicians’ only response to revelations that they’re violating our privacy is to ask for trust, then we already have problems.

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June 12, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Should the Director of National Intelligence Be Impeached for Lying to Congress About PRISM?

By Derek Khanna | Politix | June, 2013

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper being grilled by Sen. Ron Wyden

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper being grilled by Sen. Ron Wyden • Screenshot

In March 2013, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) put the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the spot on NSA’s dragnet style surveillance of American citizens.

Wyden had been briefed (according to his comments here) on the ongoing program that is now known as PRISM. At the hearing on March 12 before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wyden appeared to be trying to expose this program to Congress and the general public.

The senator was likely taken by surprise when Director Clapper appeared to directly deny the existence of the program Wyden was aware of, which is probably why he asked Clapper to repeat himself. The following is from the hearing:

Wyden: And this is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer because I know Senator Feinstein wants to move on. Last summer the NSA director was at a conference and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, ‘…the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false.’ The reason I’m asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozen years, I don’t really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Clapper: “No, sir.”

Wyden: “It does not.”

Clapper: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly.”

Wyden: “All right. Thank you. I’ll have additional questions to give you in writing on that point, but I thank you for the answer.”

Wyden is on the Intelligence Committee and knew what he was asking about. He was not phishing with this question; rather, he was specifically asking about what we now know as PRISM and trying to get Clapper to discuss this issue with Congress. And Clapper, who could clearly have said something along the lines of “any program of that nature would be classified…” instead chose to answer the question, which he likely knew was referring to PRISM, in a way that he knew, or should have known, would mislead Congress.

Wyden seems to have done everything he could to shed light on this information for the American people without violating American law. He previously asked the NSA for a “ballpark estimate” on how many Americans are being spied upon under FISA. The NSA responded that they could not answer the question: “Obtaining such an estimate was beyond the capacity of his office…An IG review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons.”

Wyden’s question to Clapper was quite explicit: he asked, does the NSA collect “any type of data.” And Clapper said no. If the reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere on PRISM are accurate, then this statement appears to be a lie.

Clapper was asked to clarify his remarks on Thursday and told the National Journal, “What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails. I stand by that.”

This is an interesting “update” to his comment and logical damage control. But this is not necessarily clear either. Wittingly means “with full knowledge and deliberation.” The Powerpoint released last week, if facts substantiate what has already been reported, appears to show that in the PRISM program the NSA is wittingly and deliberately collecting information on millions of Americans.

Clapper’s statement appears to be untrue; however, legal experts may be able to parse it in a different way. If it wasn’t a lie it appears to be clearly misleading.

Lying to Congress is an extremely serious offense, although few have been found guilty. Roger Clemens was indicted for lying to Congress (but ultimately found innocent of perjury). Many of the cases of individuals convicted of lying to Congress arose from Watergate, including President Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, and Nixon’s Chief of staff, H.R Haldeman.

Executive officials can be impeached for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” As a non-criminal matter, there are serious grounds to argue that lying to Congress is among the most severe potential “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Lying to a Grand Jury was the grounds for President Clinton’s impeachment; and that was lying to a grand jury, not lying to Congress when Congress is the relevant oversight branch. Furthermore, lying to Congress while Congress is performing oversight impedes a Congressional inquiry and investigation; Clinton’s lying to a Grand Jury did not impede Congressional functioning. This may be a poor example, because many disagreed with Clinton’s impeachment. The point is only that Clapper’s statement rises to or even exceeds previous standards for impeachment. (Impeachment is the House essentially “indicting” an Executive official which would require the Senate to convict for ultimate removal.)

Under the Constitution, Congress has a few major roles: to pass legislation and to oversee the Executive branch. The Intelligence Committee was specifically created to oversee the Intelligence Community in the wake of systemic abuses from the 1960s and 1970s. This oversight of intelligence organizations is critical to protecting average citizens from abuses that were well documented, including the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr. But this oversight process can only work if members of the Executive branch are honest with Congress. Members of the Executive branch know this, and these high stakes are precisely why in confrontations between the Executive and the Legislative branch, sometimes Executive branch officials try to refuse to appear before Congress – citing executive privilege.

Clapper’s statement appears to have misled the relevant Congressional Committee, and more importantly, misled Members of Congress who don’t receive the information that the Intelligence Committee receives. Ultimately these statements misled the general public. This obfuscation of the truth inhibited the Intelligence Committee from performing proper oversight, which is the primary role of the Intelligence Committee. There is little point in having an oversight committee for intelligence if members of the intelligence community can simply lie when asked questions before a hearing.

Misspeaking at a hearing may be a mistake. Misspeaking before the Intelligence Committee is an extremely grievous mistake. But even more egregious here is that Clapper had ample time to correct the record and apparently failed to do so. Statements made at hearings are not coffee shop like discussions; rather, they are carefully prepared in advance. If Clapper did not have a prepared answer for this question, it’s extremely likely that the NSA counsel would have reviewed his statement after the hearing – putting him on notice that if his statement was incorrect he had the obligation to correct it. In fact, if the NSA’s counsel knew that Clapper was lying or misspeaking, he may have had a legal obligation to tell Clapper to inform the Committee of his misstatement. And, under a similar procedure for lying at court, if Clapper refused to correct the record then the Counsel may have had an obligation to tell the Committee anyway. This gives some perspective on the legal severity of lying to a congressional committee.

President Obama has claimed that Congress was aware of all ongoing programs of this nature. The Administration can’t have it both ways. It can’t claim that Congress was in the loop and signed off when the Director of National Intelligence appears to have at best misled and at worst lied to the relevant oversight branch.

Our entire national security infrastructure was restructured because of the major scandals in the 1960s and 70s which ultimately culminated in the Church and Pike Committees. The Congressional Intelligence Committees were created to oversee the intelligence community and protect against abuses. The Committees were designed particularly to ensure protection of American citizens’ civil liberties. If the PRISM program represents the most significant and controversial ongoing intelligence operations impacting civil liberties in the past forty years (so we hope), then shouldn’t misleading the relevant committee be treated as among the most serious offenses that an executive official can commit? If not, how can Congress have any ability to oversee intelligence operations at all? If being in charge of the intelligence community, as Clapper is, and misleading the relevant committee overseeing your operations when they are trying to investigate is not a “high crime and misdemeanor,” then what other forms of misbehavior would meet that threshold? What message would it send to other governmental officials when asked to speak to Congress?

Twitter: #ImpeachClapper

Check out my testimony on cell phone unlocking at the House Judiciary Committee hearing last week.

Derek Khanna (@DerekKhanna and Facebook.com/derekkhanna) is the maverick former Republican staffer and civil liberties advocate whose op-eds on cell phone unlocking went viral in January. He is now a Yale Law

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June 12, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

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