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The Moshe Dayan Method of Intimidation

By Notsilvia Night | July 24, 2009

Have you ever gotten death-threats?

Well, I have… and so have a million or so other people.

It’s not unusual for political activists, writers or even humble bloggers, who even become a bit visible to be the target of threats, if they attack the interests of corrupt people.

But there is one area of political opposition, where you can be absolutely certain to be on the receiving end of all kinds of threats – from losing your job, your livelihood to being sued, physically harmed or even killed – and this area is everything connected to the state of Israel.

Human Rights activists in Palestine, either Palestinian or Internationals receive death-threats on a daily basis, of course, mainly by settlers: “Nazi, I’ll kill you.”

Threatening is part of the Moshe-Dayan-Method. The former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan once said: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

The Jewish settlers in the West-bank are one side of this “mad-dog” appearance, the Israeli army in Gaza is another side, the Israeli prison and torture system is the third and Mossad covered operations abroad the forth side of this “game”.

The settlers are not independent of the Israeli state. They act as the forefront in the land robbing operations. They are like the ugly war paint used in earlier ages by invading tribes to scare the native population to surrender or leave the area.

The recklessness of the soldiers in Gaza, who first commit horrible war crimes, and then make t-shirts portraying a pregnant Palestinian woman as a target, saying “one shot, two kills”, is another example.

Israelis are telling the world with this seemingly insane behavior, they do not have to care what others think about their country:

“International law does not apply to the state of Israel. And nobody can do anything about it. Since this nation is too dangerous for anybody else to bother.”

Fanatical supporters of the state of Israel and influential Zionists have been threatening people for a long time.

Edwin M.Wright, who had worked as an assistant and expert of the Middle East in the State Department for two decades, describes in an oral history of the Truman Library, how Washington’s career politicians from the early 1940′s on were brought under control on the subject of Israel, by using threats and intimidation:

One day I was sitting next to Mr. Henderson, he had his notes out and was dictating to me some letters when the telephone rang. It was Mr. Niles of the White House, and Mr. Niles told him (I got the story later on) that the night before some member of the State Department had been at a dinner party and had criticized President Truman’s statement on a Jewish state.

Mr. Niles said,
“We are not going to tolerate any criticism of the President on this issue, and you let your staff know that if this happens again they must be disciplined.”

Mr. Henderson called a meeting of the staff and told them of the message of Mr. Niles.

He said,
“None of you people are to speak in public about this issue, because if you do we’ll have to send you off to some Siberia if any of you, publicly express your private opinions, even to private groups, and it gets to the White House, you will be purged.”

There were a number of these people that were purged. I can mention them, Stuart Rockwell, Robert Munn. They tried to purge me in every way.

I can’t understand why I survived, and this is one of the strange things in my history, for they had me on their list as an anti-Semitic force operating in the State Department. The American Zionist, which is the paper of the American Zionist organization, came out with a full page attacking me, claiming that I was a source of anti-Semitism. I was called in frequently and told I must not speak on this subject because it was so controversial and I was too indiscrete.

One day George McGhee, who later on was Assistant Secretary of State, called me in. Jacob Blanstein, president of AMOCO had just come in to see him, and somehow or another had picked up the story I was anti-Semitic. He told George McGhee,

“Why do you keep this fellow here?”

There were influences to get rid of anyone who was called “pro-Arab.”

They were not pro-Arab, I must insist upon this, they were acting in accordance with America’s larger interests in the Middle East. The Zionists gave them the title “pro-Arab” and that was enough to destroy them. You had to be pro-Zionist or keep quiet in order to stay in the State Department, and the net result was a whole generation of officers who are simply “Uncle Toms.” They don’t dare to speak or publish things. They are afraid that they will be sent off to Africa, or who knows to some other part of the world, and will stay there the rest of their lives.

After the State-Department, the American Congress was “purged ” of everyone who tried to be fair-minded in regard to the Middle East, mainly through the influence of Israel-friends in campaign financing offices of the two major parties.

Paul Findley, while discussing the book “The Israel Lobby” by Havard Scholars Mearsheimer and Walt, describes it like this:

I know what it is like to be targeted in this way. In the last years of my long service in Congress, I spoke out, making many of the points now presented in the Mearsheimer-Walt book. In 1980, my opponent charged me with anti-Semitism, and money poured into his campaign fund from every state in the Union. I prevailed that year but two years later lost by a narrow margin. In 1984, Sen. Charles Percy, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and an occasional critic of Israel, was defeated. Leaders of the Israel lobby claimed credit for defeating both Percy and me, claims that strengthened lobby influence in the years that followed.

The latest victim of this kind of political influence are Democratic Representatives Earl Hilliard and, of course, Cynthia McKinney.

But the political realm isn’t the only one, where careers are threatened. John Pilger, an Australian, and Alan Heart, a British journalist, discuss how Zionist pressure works on the mainline media.

Journalists critical of Israel face a quite real threat for their careers. Only few will take the risk, and even fewer will survive with their journalistic career intact.

Politicians and journalists aren’t the only ones vulnerable to those threats. Everyone working in professional positions in corporations or in public services can be threatened by loss of job and reputation by being called an “Anti-Semite”.

As seen in the case of John Pilger in the above Alan-Hart-program, life, health and families can be threatened as well.

While threats against people’s livelihoods are often followed up by actions, are death threats also to be taken seriously?

Well, it depends.

In Palestine people are getting killed on a daily basis. It is the risk people face for being a Palestinian living on his or her own land, and occasionally for being an international supporter for Palestinian human rights, like Rachel Corrie or Tom Hurndall.

Another group who has to take death-threats very seriously are Revisionists, people who question certain aspects of the “Holocaust”, people like Professor Faurisson and many others.

While Faurisson survived the attacks on his life by Zionist fanatics others did not.

And still, every attack on somebody’s life carries the risk of death. Thousands of people all over the world have been threatened, only few threats can actually be followed through.

Revisionists become easy targets, since they have already been maligned so badly, that some media outlet or other can say “he deserved it”, when a revisionist is being attacked and seriously hurt the reporter will get away with blaming the victim.

In most cases, however, a possible Israeli sponsored assassination is a difficult business, like when the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lind was killed.

She had attempted to get her European counterparts to cut European Union ties to Israel until it would finally agree to a just settlement with the Palestinian people.

Anna Lind also had stated publicly how frustrated she was about Israel’s crimes against Palestine:

“Sometimes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes me so angry that I kick the wastepaper bin in my office or throw things around,”

She had described Sharon as a “maniac” and said on Swedish television that she would not buy Israeli goods and fruits sold in Swedish markets.

Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian professor and negotiator, wrote after the murder:

“Sweden’s effect on the Middle East has been consistently constructive, positive, and human with a deep-seated tradition of fairness, justice, and peaceful intervention.

Unfortunately, three such Swedish champions had met with violent and untimely deaths, each a tragedy unto itself, but a national and global loss in the larger scheme of things.”

When Anna Lind was murdered in a Stockholm shopping-center, it would have been a well-planned assassination. The real assassin had to be given a good escape plan while a patsy was being prepared to take the fall.

The planners would have to gain close access to the police investigation, to have the patsies DNA transferred to the murder-weapon. They must have had insiders in the Swedish legal system to get the trial shortened and all the eye-witness testimonies, but a single one, to be dismissed. (All other eye-witnesses refuted the claim that the chosen patsy looked actually like the real assassin, and the he had been coming from the direction the prosecution claimed the murderer had come from.)

They must have had a very skilled defense councilor at hand, who was able to persuade the patsy to confess to the crime.

Although the suspect had refused to confess during many weeks of police interrogation, his own defense attorney got the confession out of him. How he did that, isn’t quite clear. He might have promised his client to get him off on an insanity plea, or might have planted even false memories.

Creating false memories is actually not very hard, when you know how memory is normally created and manipulated in the brain. It’s even easier, if you have a psychological vulnerable individual, who might even have been under the influence of mind-altering psychiatric drugs.

The defense attorney was working at the time for the law firm, which just had done the defended the defendant in a case of military espionage against Sweden. The espionage was done on behalf of the Russian Mafia.

In my opinion, Anna Lind was killed, because the Israeli power-elite saw her as a threat to Israeli interests, and because she was indeed an influential politician.

Her death surely scared other European politicians, the Moshe Dayan method worked…. temporarily.

The plotters got away with it in 2002 and in the subsequent trial.
I doubt, they would have such an easy time in 2009.

The fact, that a vast corruption scandal in New Jersey involving Jewish rabbis and an Israel link is being investigated and publicly revealed in the media means, that even in New York and New Jersey in the USA, Israel is losing it’s influence on law enforcement and the judiciary.

Intimidation works to a point on many people, but eventually the true “spirit of humanity” will break through in some of us. And this spirit is more catching than fear ever was.

Whenever I receive threats, I tell enough people about them, even on the risk of seeming paranoid to friends and acquaintances. In this way, it will become riskier for those who consider following up on their threats.

Apart from that, I tell myself to see it logically:

On my own I actually have no influence whatsoever, which means going after me would neither be worth the risk nor the effort. Threatening people, especially with veiled threats, is relatively risk-free, just another form of hasbara (Israeli propaganda).

But I have become part of an ever-growing movement of people in the hundreds of millions, who oppose Israel’s crimes against her neighbors. This is what will indeed threaten the criminal, warmongering project of Zionism.

And no matter how they try Moshe Dayan’s “mad-dog” game, they just can’t kill us all.

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November 11, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Shin Bet Arrests Palestinian Journalist Returning from Egypt

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | November 9, 2013

mohammed abu khdeir

Palestinian journalist, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, secretly arrested by Shabak

Israel’s security services arrested Palestinian journalist, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, after he returned from a reporting trip to Egypt two days ago. Abu Khdeir, who reports for the Palestinian Al Quds and the Kuwaiti Al-Rai, was arrested at Ben Gurion airport when he arrived on a flight from Egypt.

News of his arrest is under Israeli gag.  Abu Khdeir, as is common in security cases, has been denied any contact with his attorney. During this period, the Shabak commonly “works over” suspects for information, using abusive techniques like sleep deprivation and hours-long stress-inducing interrogation techniques. That is why it’s critical to spread word of his arrest.

The Israeli court system is complicit in this abuse and in this case a Beersheva court has granted the Shabak request for a gag and ordered him detained without charge until November 13th. It’s also usual in these cases for remand to be extended without any real oversight by the court. You can expect the suspect to be detained as long as the Shabak wants him there.

After examples of behavior like this, it should be no surprise that Israel’s rankings on world press freedom indexes are quite low. Unfortunately, one of the few ways to fight such outrageous violations of freedom of the press is to report them here.

It’s entirely possible that this arrest is based on sheer spite, and is certainly entirely arbitrary. A year ago, the Palestinian journalist embarrassed the Shabak by refusing to cover a Hillary Clinton press conference to which he’d been invited. The Shabak agents who provide “security” for such events, demanded only Palestinian journalists pull down their pants before entering the press venue. Abu Khdeir refused along with several others.

An unnamed Israeli official told FoxNews, apparently with a straight face:

…Israel is trying to provide the best possible security for Clinton and that similar procedures are used at Western airports and in secure facilities in Western capitals.

Last I checked, no Israeli reporters were forced to disrobe before entering the White House to cover Bibi’s press conferences. This is a clear case of Reporting While Palestinian.  His recent arrest seems like a good example of payback.

The other possibility is that Abu Khdeir may’ve annoyed the Egyptian military junta during his visit by contacting figures from the Muslim Brotherhood. If he did so, Israel too would want to warn him that such contact with Islamists is considered an offense against Israeli state interests. Not that this is, or should be against the law.  But when you’re Palestinian there doesn’t have to be a law. Shabak is the law. You may’ve done something wrong, you may’ve gazed a moment too long into the eyes of the security official at Ben Gurion. There doesn’t have to be a reason.

The only thing we can be thankful for is that Shabak didn’t kidnap him inside Egypt as they did recently in the case of a Gazan who disappeared there and turned up in an Israeli jail, where he presumably still sits. But they knew they didn’t need to since he was returning via Ben Gurion, where they could nab him.

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November 9, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Data retention means you are on the record, like it or not

By Fiona de Londras, Durham University | November 6, 2013

Next month the advocate general of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), Yves Bot, will publish an opinion on the extent to which the Data Retention Directive, one of the most controversial security measures introduced by the EU in the past decade, is compatible with human rights law. Although not a binding judgement (this will come later), the CJEU’s opinion is a significant intervention in the ongoing debate over how to balance human rights with states’ perceived surveillance needs.

The security-related retention of communications by telecoms firms was on the European agenda well before 9/11, but privacy concerns had led to a limited approach. Telecoms companies in the EU were obliged to delete communications data as soon as all business needs had been met; the data could not be retained for security or criminal investigation purposes. Some states had attempted to adjust this and introduce a retention system in 2000, but this failed – again, largely because of privacy concerns. All this changed, however, after 9/11.

As early as May 2002, a “data retention amendment” had been made to existing EU privacy laws to allow for security-related data retention, and drafts of a provision that would require retention began to circulate. Those proposals attracted so much rights-based criticism that they were apparently abandoned; however, they quickly reappeared in the wake of the London and Madrid bombings, and in 2006, the Data Retention Directive was adopted.

It obliges all member states to introduce national data retention regimes, even where -— as in the UK —- there had already been significant resistance to such regimes when they were previously proposed at national level. The directive requires telecommunications providers to retain data on the source, destination, time, date, duration and type of all communications by fixed and mobile telephone, fax and internet, and on the location and type of equipment used.

The data is to be retained for between six month and two years, with national law deciding on the duration, and can be accessed by state agencies investigating “serious crime” —- a term that has different definitions across the member states.

Blanket surveillance

The volume and extent of information retained under the directive is stunning; in effect, it has introduced a system of blanket surveillance across the entire EU. Although access to the information is regulated by law, state agencies can nonetheless access an enormous amount of information about our communications patterns and activities. This naturally raises serious human rights concerns, especially about privacy.

Security services insist that data retention is an indispensable tool for investigating serious crimes, such as terrorism and the production and distribution of child pornography. Yet different states make use of the Directive to wildly varying extents: in 2012, for example, Cyprus made 22 requests for access to data, while the UK made 725,467.

The question for the advocate general, the CJEU and the EU more broadly is whether or not the approach taken by the directive privileges perceived security needs over human rights. Data retention unquestionably constitutes a prima facie infringement on privacy; the real issue is whether this infringement is justified because it is necessary, effective, and limited. This question is at the core of all debates about “balance” in the security context: how far are we prepared to allow state power into our individual, family, social and democratic lives in order to “secure” us?

Answering this question requires us to decide on what we think “effectiveness” means in the context of security. If the directive helps to resolve a handful of serious crimes per year, or to prevent one terrorist attack, is it effective? Could a more limited approach -— such as requiring telecoms companies to collect data related to certain investigations but not to retain all data -— achieve the same security objectives while better protecting rights?

These are difficult questions, but they are ones we must resolve if we are to have a balanced security system. The advocate general’s opinion will be an important contribution to the debate, but it will not be the final word. Achieving a balanced approach to security requires critical scrutiny at practical, political, social and legal levels. This is all the more true given that, as the Data Retention Directive illustrates, security measures operate upon and have implications for the rights of all of us, all of the time.

Fiona de Londras is the Project Co-Ordinator of SECILE (Securing Europe through Counter-Terrorism: Impact, Legitimacy and Effectiveness), a project that has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 313195.

The Conversation

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

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November 8, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iranian channels targeted 66 times in 3 years: IRIB

Press TV – November 7, 2013

The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) says Iranian channels have been taken off air from 27 satellites 66 times over the past three years by those claiming to be the advocates of freedom of speech.

Ezzatollah Zarghami made the remarks in an interview with Iran’s Young Journalists’ Club (YJC) on Thursday.

Zarghami noted that in addition to this, the channels have been repeatedly blocked or distorted through jamming of their transponders.

“This is while the Islamic Republic of Iran has been falsely accused of jamming [foreign radio and TV broadcasts] and sometimes it is claimed that the source [of the jamming] is outside Iran,” he stated.

The head of the IRIB said that in the modern world the free flow of information and enlightenment by independent media cannot be blocked.

He noted that the move against the Iranian channels by those who claim to be the advocates of freedom of speech and free flow of information comes as thousands of TV and satellite channels are currently broadcasting their programs onto the Iranian territory.

Iranian channels have come under an unprecedented wave of attacks by European governments and satellite companies since January 2012.

They have been taken off the air in several Western countries, including Britain, France, Germany and Spain.

European companies say they are abiding by the US-engineered sanctions against Iran. However, Michael Mann, the EU foreign policy chief’s spokesman, has told Press TV that sanctions do not apply to media.

In June, in another illegal act against Iranian alternative channels, Intelsat said that it will no longer provide services to Iranian channels, including Press TV.

Press TV later learned that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) — an agency of the US Treasury Department — was behind the pressure on Intelsat.

Media activists call the attacks on Iranian channels a campaign against free speech launched by the same European governments that preach freedom of expression.

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November 8, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Senate committee approves funding for NSA, witch-hunt on leakers

RT | November 6, 2013

Congress has taken the first step towards expanding the abilities of the United States intelligence community by advancing a draft bill that will ensure the government’s spy budget stays intact into next year.

A Senate commitee approved the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act during a closed door session on Tuesday, a bill that if signed into law will allow the US National Security Agency and other departments to keep receiving funding amid an international scandal that has caused calls for reform and even abolishment of the NSA both in the US and abroad in recent months.

Notwithstanding the backlash brought on by an array of secret NSA documents disclosed to the media by contractor-turned-leaked Edward Snowden since June, the Senate Intelligence Committee passed the draft bill by a 13-2 vote. Next, the full chamber will weigh in on the matter before it is reconciled with a sister act by way of the House of Representatives and sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

If approved with all of its current provisions in place, the law will let the government continue to fund programs operated for purposes of counterterrorism and nuclear weapon proliferation prevention, authorizing initiatives within more than a dozen federal departments, including the NSA and others that deal in covert, intelligence-gathering operations.

In a press release issued Tuesday by the committee, however, its members also acknowledged that the bill expands certain intelligence community operations, including in particular the very programs enacted to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

The bill, the committee wrote, “includes important provisions to enhance the conduct, accountability and oversight of the intelligence activities of the United States,” such as one intended “to protect against insider threats by adding necessary funds to deploy information technology detection systems across the intelligence community.”

The bill would also empower the Director of National Intelligence to “improve the government’s process to investigate . . . individuals with security clearances to access classified information,” while at same time “Instituting new statutory protections that protect the ability of legitimate whistleblowers to bring concerns directly to the attention of lawmakers, inspectors general and intelligence community leaders.”

Since the identity of the NSA leaker was revealed to be 30-year-old Edward Snowden, opponents of his actions have suggested that alternative, legal routes to questions the intelligence community’s tactics could have been taken, such as appealing to an inspector general. History, however, suggests that recent whistleblowers before him had a nearly impossible time doing as much, including Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA executive who was charged under the Espionage Act after he attempted to draw attention to waste, fraud and abuse within his agency years earlier. Speaking at an anti-NSA rally in Washington last month, Drake told a crowd of a couple thousand, “Any domestic surveillance legislation must include whistleblower protection for the credibility and enforcement of any reform effort, otherwise secrecy enforced by repression will turn into a faux reform passed into simply an honor system” for the NSA.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia said, “This year’s intelligence authorization bill achieves both objectives by providing clear guidance and appropriate resources to the intelligence community, while enhancing the committee’s oversight of vital intelligence activities.”

If signed into law, the act will allow for funding to continue with regards to a number of intelligence-gathering operations conducted not just by the likes of the NSA, but also the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Energy and Justice, among others.

November 7, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In Bed with the Bully—Consensual U.S. Surveillance in Mexico

By Peter Watt | NACLA | November 7, 2013

The revelations leaked by Edward Snowden that the NSA committed acts of espionage against top Mexican officials and the president himself have so far provoked only mild indignation from the Mexican political class. Secretary of Foreign Affairs José Antonio Meade appeared to be reassured by President Obama’s ‘word’ that he would launch an investigation into the workings of the U.S. government. Notwithstanding the incongruity that any government investigating its own internal wrongdoing would have any interest in publicizing conclusive evidence of its own criminal activity, President Peña Nieto has been reluctant to push the Obama administration further on the issue, presumably for fear of undermining Mexico’s position as a staunch U.S. economic and political ally.

Ex-president Vicente Fox, meanwhile, enthusiastically endorsed U.S. spying on Mexican politicians, claiming he knew the U.S. spied on him while he was president. Indeed, Fox took comfort in the fact that the world’s superpower monitored his every move and his phone calls, evoking the ominous adage reminiscent of all authoritarian political institutions: one has nothing to be concerned about so long as one has nothing to hide and done nothing wrong. “Everyone will do better if they think they’re being spied on,” he noted, at once reinforcing the dubious entitlement of the U.S. government to act as the world’s police force while simultaneously apologizing for the illegal activities of the NSA. Mr. Fox seems unable to comprehend the basic moral and legal truism that merely because many are involved in committing criminal activities, the moral and legal implications do not simply vanish into thin air. A reasonable observer might instead conclude that the greater the number of international government institutions that are involved in criminal activity, the more serious the problem, not the reverse. “It’s nothing new that there’s espionage in every government in the world, including Mexico’s,” Fox observed. Flummoxed as to why Snowden’s revelations have provoked outrage among the Mexican populace and investigative journalists (if not in government itself), he declared, “I don’t understand the scandal.”

One document obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University details Janet Napolitano’s (then Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) official meeting with President Peña Nieto in July 2013. According to Napolitano’s briefing, avoiding discussion of NSA spying on the upper echelons appears to be a Mexican, not solely U.S., initiative. The Mexicans, the document claims, wanted to ‘put to bed’ the issue of NSA intrusions. Indeed, nowhere in the summary of their meeting does the issue arise. Instead, discussions focus on maintaining and increasing border security in order to protect commercial interests and on reducing the number of undocumented migrants entering the United States.

The listless and at times surreal reaction to NSA surveillance by Mexico’s political class demonstrates their level of craven subordination to their U.S. counterparts. One can only begin to imagine the response of the U.S. political class and media pundits were they to discover that Mexican intelligence had repeatedly intercepted the electronic communications and tapped the phones of the Commander in Chief himself.

The Mexican reaction to NSA snooping on the inner circle of government stands in stark contrast to that of Brazil’s. Snowden’s leaks provoked fury within the government of President Dilma Rousseff. She blasted the NSA tapping of her phone and interception of government communications in a fiery speech clearly aimed at President Obama at the UN General Assembly. She lambasted the NSA for spying on millions of Brazilian citizens, tapping the phones of Brazilian embassies, and spying on the country’s partly state-owned petroleum giant, Petrobras. Interestingly, she remarked that the bulk of NSA spying in Brazil was not designed to thwart potential terrorists or to undermine the activities of transnational criminal organizations, but instead, to further U.S. business interests through both international economic and commercial spying. As a result, Rousseff cancelled her planned diplomatic visit to Washington, called for an international conference on data security, began setting up a protected governmental electronic communications system, and proposed changing underwater cables so that international Brazilian internet traffic would no longer pass through U.S. territory.

Brazil’s position, of course, is a reflection of the changing nature of U.S.-Latin American relations more generally. Brazil, the emerging regional power and now less of a fixture of Uncle Sam’s backyard, can afford to take an increasingly independent stance from Washington. Several countries in the region are integrating with each other politically and economically and establishing firm trade links with China, India, and South Africa—an unprecedented dynamic which has had the effect of undermining U.S. hegemony in the region.

Mexico, however, dependent on the U.S. market for 80% of its exports, is much less able to stand up to the superpower. Indeed, Mexico’s traditional position as a subordinate and reliable ally of its northern neighbor is becoming all the more crucial in maintaining the waning U.S. empire, increasingly defensive and militaristic as it reasserts its influence over the region. With a myriad of uncertainties lying ahead for U.S. power in a region that has witnessed the birth of new left-wing social movements that have had considerable success at the ballot box, it is becoming imperative for the United States to uphold and preserve its political, economic, and military alliances as per Mexico and Colombia. In Mexico, U.S. funding for the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ has provided a convenient pretext for heavy militarization throughout the country and a clamping down on political dissent and organized popular movements. Spying and surveillance programs are key to achieving the U.S. objective of continuing and reinforcing a status quo that now sees well over half the population in Mexico living in poverty and unparalleled levels of economic inequality.

As in Brazil, U.S. spying in Mexico seems less to do with the ‘War on Terror’ and the ‘War on Drugs’—two key rhetorical tenets of U.S. interventionism—and more to do with the realpolitik of ensuring that a pliant and subservient political class, personified by Fox, Calderón, and Peña Nieto, guard the current transnational dynamics—a socio-economic system that rewards the powerful moneyed neoliberal elites on both sides of the border and keeps the poor and marginalized in their place.

There is a further aspect to the Mexican response to NSA spying which warrants scrutiny. Throughout the Cold War, the CIA and its Mexican counterpart, the DFS, shared all manner of material and intelligence on dissidents (Marxists, communists, students, guerrillas, trade unionists, peasant activists, feminists, etc.) who were often incarcerated or liquidated because, as the authoritarian and paternalistic President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz claimed, they were a threat to ‘national security.’

The current partnership between the U.S. and Mexican governments allows for a level of surveillance of which Mexico’s Cold Warriors could only dream. In collaboration with telecommunications giants, the U.S. and Mexican governments provide the wherewithal and funding for large-scale spying on the Mexican citizenry. Indeed, Mexico’s Federal Ministerial Police (PFM) has recently designed a system of total surveillance and increased storage of electronic communications. In a climate in which there exist widening socio-economic disparities, a grave security crisis, and a growing disillusionment with the status quo, both the U.S. and Mexican governments have a shared interest in forestalling the development of a widespread popular political revolt and a potential ‘Mexican Spring.’ Were there any mystery as to why the Mexican response to Snowden’s revelations was so moderate, one would only need to recall Vicente Fox’s unintentionally shrewd observation that all governments have an interest in spying on one another and on their own citizens. The lackluster reaction from Los Pinos to the NSA revelations is reflective of the extent to which Mexican elite politicians acquiesce in the intrusions, largely because they themselves use domestic spying to further their own sectional interests in a country in which, little more than a decade after the ‘transition to democracy,’ the majority of the population are excluded from meaningful political participation.

Peter Watt teaches Latin American Studies at the University of Sheffield. He is co-author of the book, Drug War Mexico. Politics, Violence and Neoliberalism in the New Narcoeconomy (Zed Books 2012).

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November 7, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rousseff slams US failure to apologise over spying

BRICS POST | November 7, 2013

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said Wednesday that Washington’s refusal to tender an apology for the spying led to her cancelling her crucial state visit to the United States.

“I was going to travel. We said there was only one way to solve the problem, and it was an apology for what happened and a promise that it would not happen again,” she said in a local radio interview.

The trip was initially scheduled to begin on October 23.

The lack of apology from Washington created an impasse, she said, adding that she did not want to run the risk of having a new spying scandal break during her visit, which would be an embarrassment for both sides.

Rousseff also reiterated her charges against the US, saying the NSA surveillance program is economic espionage borne out of commercial and strategic interests.

She said reports of the NSA intercepting communication of state-oil giant Petrobras have belied US claims of the PRISM program being directed to thwart terrorism.

In Wednesday’s interview, Rousseff also responded to a recent story in the Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo, accusing Brazil’s intelligence agency of spying on diplomats from Russia, Iran and Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

She said the agency’s operations did not involve privacy violations as no phone calls or emails were tapped.

Rousseff had attacked the United States in her opening speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September.

“Brazil, Mr President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbour terrorist groups,” she said.

“As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country,” she added.

Earlier on Tuesday Brazil made public a draft bill that will allow the government to prevent internet companies like Google and Facebook from storing data about Brazilian citizens outside the country.

Simultaneous revelations regarding the UK embassy housing a secret listening post in Berlin made Germany summon the British Ambassador to respond to the allegations.

With inputs from Agencies

Related article

November 7, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Rest Of The World Considers Cutting Back Aggressive Surveillance, New Zealand Legalizes Massive Spying

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | November 6, 2013

The ongoing release of various leaks from Ed Snowden have drawn lots of attention and criticism of the activities of various parties in the intelligence community — especially those who partner closely with the NSA, the so-called “Five Eyes” countries: US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And while there appears to be real momentum in the US behind limiting this surveillance, apparently New Zealand has decided to go in the other direction, and has passed a very broad new snooping law that will force telcos to basically hand over everything to various intelligence agencies.

The technical Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security Bill will compel telecommunication firms to assist intelligence agencies in intercepting and decrypting phone calls, texts and emails.

Critics say the bill is authoritarian, limits internet freedom and impinges on privacy and civil rights. The Government says it is necessary to replace a decade-old law to keep pace with technology.

We had mentioned this bill back when it was proposed earlier this year (before all the Snowden stuff went down). Given just how much outrage there is around the world about this kind of activity, it’s fairly incredible that the New Zealand government just pushed ahead with it, as if there wasn’t a giant public discussion going on. Oh, and the new legislation also lets New Zealand’s GCSB spy on New Zealanders as well. Until now, its surveillance had been technically limited to foreigners, though they did spy on New Zealanders many times. Rather than push back on the GCSB for this illegal spying, it appears that the New Zealand Parliament just decided to legalize the practice. Shameful stuff.

November 6, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Bahraini court sentences four activists to life

Press TV – November 3, 2013

A court in Bahrain has sentenced four anti-regime activists to life in prison and six others to 15-year jail terms, as the country’s prosecutors begin interrogation of opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman.

Bahraini opposition sources said on Sunday that the activists were handed prison sentences for taking part in anti-regime protests.

Earlier this week, ten protesters were also imprisoned over similar charges.

The court rulings are issued at a time when Bahraini regime forces have intensified their crackdown on opposition leaders.

Reports say the Manama regime has begun the interrogation of Sheikh Ali Salman, the secretary-general of the main opposition group, al-Wefaq.

The Saturday summoning of Sheikh Salman sparked protests across Bahrain.

The demonstrators expressed solidarity with the al-Wefaq leader.

The Bahraini opposition group believes the summoning of Salman “to be part of the political blackmail and revenge against the peaceful opposition that is asking for democracy.”

The Manama regime is under fire for its heavy-handed crackdown on protests.

On October 30, Bahraini regime forces stormed and shut down an exhibition, dubbed the revolution museum, which was opened by al-Wefaq.

The party says it will lodge a complaint with the United Nations over the raid on the exhibition, which had been organized in an effort to portray the brutal regime clampdown on peaceful protests.

In September, Wefaq’s deputy leader, Khalil al-Marzouq, was arrested on charges of “inciting protests” against the ruling Al Khalifa family. The opposition party said the detention was “a clear attack on political activism in Bahrain.”

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising began in Bahrain in early 2011.

November 3, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-DHS Director Michael Chertoff: The Public Spying On Famous People With Their Smartphones Is A Bigger Issue Than NSA Spying

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | November 1, 2013

Former director of Homeland Security (and current profiteer off of any “security” scare) Michael Chertoff has penned quite an incredible op-ed for the Washington Post, in which he argues that the real threat to privacy today is not the NSA spying on everyone, but rather all you people out there in the public with your smartphones, taking photos and videos, and going to Twitter to post things you overheard more important people say. Seriously. It starts out by claiming this is a “less-debated threat”:

So it is striking that two recent news stories illustrate a less-debated threat to privacy that we as a society are inflicting on ourselves. Last week, a passenger on an Acela train decided to tweet in real time his summary of an overheard phone conversation by Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA (and my current business partner). The same day, a photo was published of Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler at a summer party where he was surrounded by underage youths who apparently were drinking.

But he then goes on to argue that this kind of thing is more troubling than the NSA revelations, which Chertoff suggests is no big deal:

Of course, the delicious irony is obvious: In one case, the former NSA chief becomes a victim of eavesdropping. In the other, a politician critical of teen drinking fails to intervene when he is surrounded by it. But both stories carry a more troubling implication. The ubiquitousness of recording devices — coupled with the ability everyone has to broadcast indiscriminately through Twitter, YouTube and other online platforms — means that virtually every act or utterance outside one’s own home (or, in Gansler’s case, inside a private home) is subject to being massively publicized. And because these outlets bypass any editorial review, there is no assurance that what is disseminated has context or news value.

It would appear that Chertoff seems to believe that there should be no expectation of privacy for the things you actually do in private — generating metadata about who you call, where you go, what websites you visit, etc. But, stuff that you actually do in public should never be “broadcast” because it might embarrass famous people.

And, yes, it’s the famous people being embarrassed that seems to most concern Chertoff:

If a well-known person has an argument with a spouse or child at a restaurant, should it be broadcast? If a business personality expresses a political opinion at a private party, should that opinion (or a distortion of it) be passed on to the rest of the world? If a politician buys a book or a magazine at an airport, should a passerby inform everyone?

See? Think of those poor well-known people, having people telling others about what they do. What a shame! Incredibly, he argues that it’s this exposing of the public actions of famous people that creates real chilling effects — and not the NSA’s spying, which he calls “exaggerated.”

Are we creating an informant society, in which every overheard conversation, cellphone photograph or other record of personal behavior is transmitted not to police but to the world at large? Do we want to chill behavior and speech with the fear that an unpopular comment or embarrassing slip will call forth vituperative criticism and perhaps even adversely affect careers or reputations? Do we need to constantly monitor what we say or do in restaurants, at sporting events, on public sidewalks or even private parties?

I don’t know what clueless PR flack thought this was a good strategy, but the clear connotation is hard to miss: Look, we the powerful people get to spy on everyone, but the second you turn the tables and spy on us and the things we do in public, what a horrible shame! Something must be done!

November 2, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s GCHQ shepherding mass surveillance operations throughout Europe

RT | November 2, 2013

British intelligence agency GCHQ has helped counterpart entities in France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden develop methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic in the last five years, a new report reveals.

Documents supplied by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to the Guardian show the UK Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) enormous influence throughout Europe. The documents detail how the agency developed and promoted spying processes, built relationships with telecommunication companies, and evaded national laws that constrain the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies.

In the wake of outrage expressed over the past week across Europe regarding newly exposed NSA surveillance of European countries – including intercepted communications and the monitoring of phones belonging to officials such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel – documents released Friday by the Guardian show major European countries’ culpability in mass surveillance efforts shepherded by the GCHQ.

The GCHQ is part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing partnership between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

US intelligence officials said the monitoring that received so much indignation from powers like Germany and France was carried out by those countries’ own intelligence agencies and later shared with the US.

In June, the Guardian revealed the GCHQ’s Tempora program, in which the agency tapped into transatlantic fiber-optic cables to execute bulk surveillance. Germany’s justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said at the time that the program sounded “like a Hollywood nightmare” and warned that free societies and actions hidden under “a veil of secrecy” are not compatible.

A nation-by-nation scorecard

In a 2008 survey of European partners, the GCHQ marveled at Germany’s capabilities to produce Tempora-like surveillance. The British service said the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) had “huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the internet – they are already seeing some bearers running at 40Gbps and 100Gbps.” The term ‘bearers’ refers to the fiber-optic cables. Gigabits per second (Gbps) measures the speed at which data runs through them.

The documents also show the British were advising German counterparts on how to change or evade laws that restricted advanced surveillance efforts. “We have been assisting the BND (along with SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] and Security Service) in making the case for reform or reinterpretation of the very restrictive interception legislation in Germany,” the survey says.

The report also lauds the GCHQ’s French partner, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), especially for its cozy relationship with an unnamed telecommunications company.

“DGSE are a highly motivated, technically competent partner, who have shown great willingness to engage on IP [internet protocol] issues, and to work with GCHQ on a ‘cooperate and share’ basis.”

The GCHQ expressed desire to benefit from the DGSE’s relationship with the company.

“We have made contact with the DGSE’s main industry partner, who has some innovative approaches to some internet challenges, raising the potential for GCHQ to make use of this company in the protocol development arena.”

The GCHQ’s work with its French counterpart led to improved capabilities to carry out bulk surveillance, despite growing commercial emphasis on encryption.

“Very friendly crypt meeting with DGSE in July,” British officials said. French intelligence officials were “clearly very keen to provide presentations on their work which included cipher detection in high-speed bearers. [GCHQ’s] challenge is to ensure that we have enough UK capability to support a longer term crypt relationship.”

New opportunities in future partnerships

GCHQ ties to Spain’s intelligence service, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), were bolstered by Spain’s connections to an unnamed British telecom company, giving them “fresh opportunities and uncovering some surprising results.

“GCHQ has not yet engaged with CNI formally on IP exploitation, but the CNI have been making great strides through their relationship with a UK commercial partner. GCHQ and the commercial partner have been able to coordinate their approach. The commercial partner has provided the CNI some equipment whilst keeping us informed, enabling us to invite the CNI across for IP-focused discussions this autumn,” the survey said. It reported that the GCHQ “have found a very capable counterpart in CNI, particularly in the field of Covert Internet Ops.”

When Sweden passed a 2008 law allowing its National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to execute Tempora-like surveillance via fiber-optic cables, the GCHQ said in the report that “FRA have obtained a…probe to use as a test-bed and we expect them to make rapid progress in IP exploitation following the law change.” The GCHQ went on to express delight in future partnerships with FRA after the law passed.

The survey found strong ties between the GCHQ and Dutch external and internal intelligence services MIVD and AIVD, respectively.

“Both agencies are small, by UK standards, but are technically competent and highly motivated,” British officials said.

The GCHQ also helped AIVD in handling legal constraints to spying.

“The Dutch have some legislative issues that they need to work through before their legal environment would allow them to operate in the way that GCHQ does. We are providing legal advice on how we have tackled some of these issues to Dutch lawyers.”

Contrary to the other nations’ positive marks, the GCHQ country-by-country scorecard shows Italy’s intelligence agencies to be riddled with internal strife.

“GCHQ has had some CT [counter-terrorism] and internet-focused discussions with both the foreign intelligence agency (AISE) and the security service (AISI), but has found the Italian intelligence community to be fractured and unable/unwilling to cooperate with one another,” the report said.

A follow-up six months later noted the GCHQ still saw legal constraints in Italy as hampering AISI’s ability to cooperate.

This latest disclosure calls into question how involved the countries were in the overall surveillance of global citizens and world leaders led by the NSA and GCHQ.

November 2, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The NSA Killed the Radio Star and American High Tech

By Richard Silverstein · Tikun Olam · November 2, 2013

While I don’t pretend to be a technical expert, it seems clear to me that one of the major pieces of collateral damage regarding the NSA spying scandal is the savaging that the American technology industry has taken. Though they initially denied it, it became apparent that companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others essentially rolled over and played dead in the face of Justice Department and NSA directives that they essentially unlock their data for inspection. Later it became clear that the government didn’t really need these data dumps, it could invade the company servers and sift through data at will.

Now these same companies are telling us that they’ll regain our trust by encrypting their data so that it can’t be hacked by NSA snoops. Such encryption is not going to be an effective tool if the NSA retains the same privileges it’s had to subpoena any data at any time for any person it wishes. In such cases, the only thing standing in the way of wholesale exposure of virtually every secret is a toothless FISA court which never questions a subpoena or prevents any spying.

The only benefit to encryption is that it will make it harder for the NSA to collect the reams of data which it sifts through in order to decide which individuals’ records it wants to subpoena. But given the creativity and ingenuity of NSA spooks, you can be sure they’ll discover a way to circumvent even this obstacle.

There is a certain attraction for the average NSA hacker to et everything they can; to open all possible doors; to pry into every possibly nook and cranny. That’s what spooks do. You can’t blame them for that. But you can blame the executive branch and legislators who were supposed to exercise oversight and, with a few exceptions like Marc Udall and Ron Wyden, abdicated their constitutional responsibility. 9/11 made them all go soft in the head.

Now even Rep. James Sensenbrenner, one of the chief architects of that foul piece of legislation called the USA Patriot Act, seems to have second thoughts. He’s gone so far as to call the actions of the NSA “criminal.” But is it too late? Once the NSA let the horse out of the barn, how will the U.S. technology industry get it back in?

These companies, the backbone of the U.S. economy, have shown themselves to be at the beck and call of the government. The trust we customers placed in them to protect our security has been savaged. Does anyone believe anything Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page or Sergey Brin say on this subject?  Frankly, I think they can’t regain that trust no matter what they do.

The NSA has torn a hole in the high tech industry big enough to drive a super computer or Mack truck through. Countries like Brazil and others are already developing competing systems that will not be subject to the intrusive scrutiny of the NSA. Will any American want to maintain telecommunications accounts with U.S. companies?

If we lose the edge we’ve had in such technological development over the past 60 years, we will lose a huge sector of U.S. commercial innovation. We will hurt our economy, lose jobs, and slow the pace of development in our own country. In a strange and ironic way, NSA spying may ultimately hurt the U.S. and our national security.

An equally damaged victim of NSA spying has been our formerly warm relations with allies like Berlin, France, German, Mexico and Brazil.  One must ask: was the benefit of whatever was learned by hacking the phones of their leaders worth the years of damage and mistrust that will ensue from this mess? Further, one has to marvel at the hubris of U.S. spymasters who believed that their massive House of Spies would never be exposed. As a result of Edward Snowden’s revelations the House of Spies has become a House of Cards.

In addition to all the nations with whom we’ve had tense of even hostile nations over the last decade or so, now we have to add allies who have lost trust in us.

I am delighted to learn that attitudes in the international community toward Snowden are gradually changing. With every new insult to the national pride of these countries with further NSA spying charges, more people find Snowden’s work admirable. German legislators met with him over the past few days to determine whether he can travel to German to testify before the Bundestag about the hacking of Prime Minister Merkel’s cell phone. If they find a way to bring him to Germany, I fear the cat will be out of the bag.  As long as the U.S. could confine him to countries like China or Russia, with whom we have tense or hostile relations, Obama could dismiss Snowden as a crank.  But once he begins spilling his guts before national legislatures of U.S. allies, he becomes a technological Robin Hood.

November 2, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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