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Obama Administration Says It Can Spy On Americans, But Can’t Tell You What Law Allows It

TechDirt | February 14, 2011

Remember how President Obama, while campaigning, promised to reject the questionable spying practices of the federal government of President Bush? Yeah, forget all that. Over the past two years, we’ve seen time and time again that he’s actually extended those abuses even further. The latest to come out is that the Justice Department is now claiming that the FBI has the right to get phone records on any call made from inside the US to an international number without any oversight. You may recall a few years back that there was a similar controversy, when it came out that the FBI would regularly just call up phone companies and ask for records — despite the fact that this violates certain laws designed to protect consumer privacy. Sometimes, they would just use post-it notes.

Apparently, a year ago, McClatchy newspapers put in a FOIA request, asking for the details of a particular Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that was mentioned in the (previously released, but highly redacted) report that showed how frequently the FBI abused the law in this manner. The OLC took its sweet time responding, but finally responded, and in the cover letter admitted that the Obama administration believes it is perfectly legal for the FBI to route around the in-place oversight for getting access to such records and claimed that the law said so.

Which law says so? Oh, see, that they can’t say. Yes, the part of the letter that explains which law lets the FBI get these records without oversight was redacted.

It’s a secret law! And here I thought, in the US, if the government was going to base actions on a particular law, at the very least, they were supposed to tell you what law. Apparently, the Justice Department under the Obama administration does not believe that to be the case.

Basically, what this means is that the federal government believes that it’s free to request information without first getting court approval — and without telling the public what law says they’re allowed to get this information. That’s not what the laws on the books seem to say at all. But, of course, big telcos such as AT&T, who are so closely tied to the government, are going to roll over and give the government such info (or, perhaps, give them direct access to the info), even if it violates other laws. Why do you think President Obama voted to support giving telcos retroactive immunity on this issue, while he was running for President despite having earlier said he was against it? Now that he’s in power, he apparently is perfectly happy to let the FBI twist the clear intentions of the law to spy on Americans without oversight, and then to refuse to reveal what law he’s relying on to make such spying on Americans without oversight legal.

McClatchy quotes Michael German, a former FBI agent, who now works for the ACLU pointing out the obvious:

“It’s wrong that they’re withholding a legal rationale that has to do with the authorities of the FBI to collect information that affects the rights of American citizens here and abroad…. The law should never be secret. We should all understand what rules we’re operating under and particularly when it comes to an agency that has a long history of abuse in its collection activities.”

And so far, it doesn’t seem like most people care. About the only politician who really seems concerned about this is Senator Wyden, who says this level of secrecy “is a serious problem” and he’s “continuing to press the executive branch to disclose more information to the public about what their government thinks the law means.” Once again, kudos to Senator Wyden for being one of a very small number of politicians who seems to consistently be concerned about the rights of individuals. But it’s sad that the rest of our elected officials aren’t up in arms about this. The government shouldn’t be spying on Americans, and if it is, it should at least have to tell Americans what law it’s basing that decision on.

February 15, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Israeli Students Cancel Speech by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “She is Anti-Semitic”

Alternative Information Center | 06 February 2011

Students at Israel’s Bar Ilan University cancelled a planned speech by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, claiming that she is “anti-Semitic.”

navi_pillay

Commissioner Pillay was invited by Bar Ilan University to speak at its Faculty of Law. University students affiliated with the right-wing “Forum for Eretz Israel” plastered the campus with posters against Pillay and sent a sharply worded letter of protest to the university’s administration.

“Ms. Pillay stands at the head of a commission…which is biased and tendentious in everything concerning the Israeli-Arab conflict,” the letter stated. “This commission explicitly promotes an anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist agenda, and a large number of her statements concerning Israel as like blood libels of the worst kind.”

Examples noted in the letter include Pillay’s statements that during Israel’s military attack on the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009 (Operation Cast Lead), Israel bombed hospitals for no reason and in several cases, soldiers killed Palestinians in cold blood. According to Israel’s daily Israel Hayom, the letter also contends that a report issued by Pillay concerning these military attacks repeat contentions of the Goldstone Commission that Israel committed war crimes.

“Just as the university would not allow a Holocaust denier to speak, there is no room to provide a platform for an anti-Semitic personality such as her.”

Bar Ilan University failed to respond to questions in this matter.

February 6, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

‘Egypt eliminates witnesses to violence’

Press TV – February 3, 2011

Egyptian plain-clothes policemen arrest Mohamed Abdul Quddus, rapporteur of the civil Liberties Committee and member of the Press Syndicate Council, outside the journalists syndicate in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011.

Supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have attacked journalists in Cairo in an effort to disrupt the coverage of the violence used against anti-government protesters.

A Belgian reporter was arrested and beaten after he was accused of espionage in Cairo while al-Arabiya correspondent Ahmed Abdullah and journalists from the BBC, ABC News and CNN were attacked, CNN reported.

“The Egyptian government is employing a strategy of eliminating witnesses to their actions,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The government has resorted to blanket censorship, intimidation, and today a series of deliberate attacks on journalists carried out by pro-government mobs,” he added.

Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders Jean-Francois Juillard has condemned the violence against media personnel and has called for an immediate reaction from the international community.

A number of European leaders have also called on Egypt to stop the violence against people and urged the government to take up political reforms without delay.

Medical sources have reported that three people were killed and more than 1,500 injured in clashes that broke out between protesters and plain-clothes policemen in Cairo on Wednesday.

Cairo’s Tahrir Square has turned into a battleground as protesters defy a nighttime curfew and pledge to remain on the streets until Mubarak steps down.

February 2, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Burning Truth

By Linh Dinh – 1/31/11

Vietnam rarely makes the news these days, but there was a recent item about a journalist who died after being doused in his sleep with a chemical, then set on fire. The BBC implied that he may have been retaliated against for reporting on official misconduct.

Investigating corruption and abuse of power, Hoang Hung made plenty of enemies in high places. His best known article is about how officials in Long An, after receiving bribes from developers, kicked hundreds of farmers off their lands to make way for golf courses. After his death, a colleague quoted Hoang Hung, “We’re soldiers on the media battlefield. We must dare to speak the truth, dare to fight for social justice in spite of harassment from many quarters.” Fifty years old at his death, Hoang Hung was too young to participate in the Vietnam War. His father, however, was a Vietcong who died in battle.

The Vietnamese Communists won the war so they could eventually open the country to Capitalist sweat shops and golf courses. No wonder Hoang Hung was pissed. To make room for a rich man’s game, hundreds of Vietnamese became landless. Though Vietnam is smaller than California, it has more than twice the population. The deltas and coastline are packed with people. There, even a lawn is an alien concept, and as popular as soccer is, there are few grass fields. Vietnamese grow rice and vegetables, not grass. The last thing Vietnam needs is golf courses, but of course they aren’t built for the locals.

According to George Carlin, America doesn’t need these vast, high maintenance fields either. From a 1992 skit, “It is time to reclaim the golf courses from the wealthy and turn them over to the homeless […] Think of how big a golf course is. The ball is that fucking big! What do these pinheaded pricks need with all that land? There are over 17,000 golf courses in America. They average over 150 acres apiece. That’s 3 million plus acres, 4,820 square miles. You could build two Rhode Islands and a Delaware for the homeless on the land currently being wasted on this meaningless, mindless, arrogant, elitist, racist […] and a boring game.”

In any case, whoever killed Hoang Hung was a pro. The assassin knew that he tended to work late and often slept in his second floor home office. Waiting until the lights were out, the killer managed to climb onto the balcony without being detected just after midnight. He then entered the darkened room where his target was sound asleep inside the mosquito netting. After the attack, there were photos published in the Vietnamese press of the scorched bed and the near-naked victim lying in the hospital, where he suffered for ten days before dying. Make no mistake about this: Hoang Hung was killed as a warning to other journalists. Make too much noise and you will be roasted alive like this man.

In the 60’s, South Vietnamese monks immolated themselves to protest against the government. Their action was effective because it was a horrendous spectacle. It was visual. At the same time, South Vietnam’s best novelist, Nhat Linh, also committed suicide in protest, but he did it by ingesting poison in private. Whereas the image of a burning monk has become iconic, Nhat Linh’s death caused no international ripple whatsoever. It wasn’t visual. There is nothing to show.

Everywhere now, not least America, writers are becoming more invisible by the day, in any case. With so much mass media all the time, it would not matter if an American writer became a living torch in Times Square. They’d just hose his ashes into the gutter and point the camera at the naked cowboy. The Vietnamese Communists have also figured out that serious writers are mostly irrelevant in this cultural climate. They used to lock up poets—one, Nguyen Chi Thien, was imprisoned for a total of twenty-seven years—but now they pretty much leave poets alone. Though many are still blocked from publishing, poets are no longer jailed. To imprison a poet is to shine a spotlight on him. No one pays attention to poets anyway, no matter what they write. From the perspective of tyranny, it would be foolish to flesh out this nothingness.

Journalists, however, are a different story. They can still reach the masses. America has solved this problem by consolidating her media outlets. With countless newspapers and TV stations, there seems to be many voices speaking, but nearly all are manipulated by the same puppet master. As everyone sits in the dark, the spotlight is fixed on a tiny ring where there’s much flailing over next to nothing. Should anyone still manage to get out of line, however, America can always snuff him out, just like the Vietnamese did. Invading Iraq, we bombed the office of Al Jazeera and shelled the Palestine Hotel, killing three journalists. We also arrested Al Jazeerra’s al Sami al-Hajj and kept him in Guantanamo for six years without charge. In 2005, an American tank shot at a car carrying Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, injuring her and killing intel agent, Nicola Calipari.

On the American fringe, independent voices are free to write as they please, but even the best among them can only appear in little read webzines. Many write almost exclusively on their own blogs. Needless to say, they have almost no impact on the general public. In too late late capitalism, those who seek to tell the truth don’t need to be burnt. They are already being drown out by nonsense.

January 31, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

‘Within 24 hours of the assemblyman’s phone call, I was fired’ –Brooklyn College adjunct professor

By Zoe Zenowich | Mondoweiss | January 30, 2011

The controversy over the firing of a Brooklyn College adjunct professor allegedly for his solidarity with the Palestinian cause continues.  The college’s assertion that the teaching appointment of Kristofer Petersen-Overton, a doctoral student entering his fourth semester of studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, was canceled a week before classes start because of his “lack of qualifications” doesn’t add up.

The dispute over Petersen-Overton’s course began after the class syllabus was circulated to prospective students. On January 12, a student worried about Petersen-Overton’s political affiliations emailed the department with the accusation that Petersen-Overton is an “active partisan of Palestinian in Gaza.” Bruce Kesler, who appears to have taken up the hobby of monitoring Brooklyn College’s assigned reading material and now teaching appointments, was quick to follow with a blog post condemning the hiring.

When the department requested that complaints be deferred until after the class had started, and after students could point to actual evidence of Petersen-Overton’s supposed “bias,” the unidentified student—who was interviewed on WPIX New York with her face blurred—contacted Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Hikind is a supporter of illegal settlements in the West Bank and an advocate for the ethnic profiling of Arabs and Muslims.  Hikind also played an influential role in the smear campaign that led to the removal of Debbie Almontaser from her position as the founding principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York City’s first Arab-English dual language school—a decision which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission later deemed unfair discrimination.

Hikind called CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, and wrote a letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould in which he claims that Petersen-Overton’s “personal biases should not be allowed to pollute the academic realm,” citing a paper Petersen-Overton is in the process of completing, Inventing the Martyr: Martyrdom as a Palestinian National Signifier.  In his letter, Hikind takes quotes out of context to back up his assertion that the paper “endeavors to justify and condone Palestinian suicide bombings as means of ‘struggle’ and ‘sacrifice.’”  Hikind either deliberately misconstrues the essay, has not read it, or does not understand it. Like most academic essays, Petersen-Overton’s cites research, not personal opinion, and is about how Palestinian national identity manifests politically— clearly not a “romanticization” of suicide bombers.

In a phone interview, Petersen-Overton recounted that, “within 24 hours of Hikind’s statement, I was fired,” adding that Hisseine Faradj, an adjunct professor who taught the same course before, is also a doctoral student.

Hikind said in a phone interview that he is “thrilled” that Brooklyn College decided to cancel Petersen-Overton’s appointment.  “Matthew Goldstein said to me on Tuesday that he was calling a meeting and they were going to look at everything this guy has ever written,” the assemblyman said. “The reading material on the syllabus “are written by Palestinian historians or Israeli revisionist historians, and basically blame Israel for everything.”

But according to Brooklyn College’s Media Relations Manager, Ernesto Mora, “Mr. Petersen-Overton was not fired because he had not been hired. This was an internal matter and the CUNY Chancellor had nothing to do with the provost’s decision, regardless of what Hikind’s releases argue.” However, Petersen-Overton says that he signed a contract with Brooklyn College on Monday. Mora also claims Hikind’s statements to the New York  Daily News contains factual errors, and that no meeting occurred between the Provost William A. Tra­mon­tano and the Chancellor, adding that Hikind announced the decision that Petersen-Overton’s appointment had been canceled before the college did.

The administration’s and Hikind’s narrative contradict both each other, Petersen-Overton’s own account, other faculty members, and that of Janet Elise Johnston, an Associate Professor in the Political Science department and a member of the Appointments Committee. Johnston says she was not present during the meetings on Petersen-Overton’s position, but claims that “the argument that it’s about qualifications doesn’t stand up to the evidence; we have other adjunct professors who teach for the Masters Program, but don’t have PhDs … he was not officially appointed by he had been asked to teach. He is qualified.” While Johnston cannot comment on the accusations that political motives propelled the decision to dismiss Petersen-Overton from his position, she maintains that “in reality CUNY and Brooklyn College are under funded, and under resourced, and have been so for decades,” which further explains the frequent appointments of doctoral students from CUNY programs.

Currently, opposition to Peterson-Overton’s politically motivated termination is mounting. The Political Science department released a statement denouncing the decision: “His decision [the Provost’s] to reject our appointment undermines academic freedom and departmental governance.”  The watchdog group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sent a letter to the President Karen Gould calling for the reinstatement of Petersen-Overton as adjunct professor. “As you know, BC is a public institution and thus is both legally and morally bound by the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of expression and Academic freedom, ” the letter reads.

Dr. Barbara Bowen, President of the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, a union representing CUNY faculty and profession staff, released a statement condemning the decision as a politically motivated violation of academic freedom.  And in an email circulated on a CUNY Hunter list serve, John Wallach, a Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and The CUNY Graduate Center, writes, “All of us who have taught him [Petersen-Overton] at the Graduate Center have written letters to the Provost, yesterday if not today, in addition to signing the petition. Uniformly, we find this action an abominable assault on academic freedom that must be reversed—immediately and without qualification.” The CUNY Graduate Center student newspaper, The Advocate, is also circulating a petition that has already received over 1,300 signatures, in addition to hosting a live blog which follows the case’s developments. Brooklyn College’s Political Science department will also be holding an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the current situation.

Despite the circumstances, Petersen-Overton remains surprisingly level. “To complain about Hikind and others is a waste of time. I am mainly concerned that the college administration caved so easily. I tried to amend my syllabus as recommended, but they never gave me the opportunity.”

Zoe Zenowich is a Senior in the Scholars Program at Brooklyn College, where she is the managing editor of the Excelsior, a student newspaper.

January 30, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

US ambassador’s bid to get Richard Falk sacked from UN opens a can of worms

By Stuart Littlewood | Redress | 30 January 2011

Mention  Richard Falk and you think of an honourable man who cares deeply about injustice, particularly the trampled rights of Palestinians under the evil jackboot.

Mention  Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, and what comes to mind?

The BBC reported in December 2008: “During her stint in the Clinton White House, she was described as ‘brilliant’ but also ‘authoritarian’ and ‘brash’. According to the New York Times, she acknowledges ‘a certain impatience at times’.”

She is also said to be “unwilling to consider opinions that differ from her own”.

Fair comment

Ambassador Rice has just demanded that Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories, step down from his UN position. “In my view, Mr Falk’s latest commentary [an entry in his blog about the media and 9/11] is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the UN.”

Falk’s crime was saying that the US administration’s reluctance to address the awkward gaps and contradictions identified by several scholars in the official explanations of 9/11, only fuels suspicions of a conspiracy. And he suggested that “what may be more distressing than the apparent cover up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an Al-Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials”.

Fair comment, you might think. And carefully worded to cause no offence.

Enter the American Jewish Committee

But Reuters reported that UN Watch, an advocacy group affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, had written to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon similarly demanding that he “strongly condemn Mr Falk’s offensive remarks – and … immediately remove him from his post”.

The report added that UN Watch had targeted Falk in the past and frequently criticized the Human Rights Council for berating Israel while ignoring rights violations by developing countries.

The American Jewish Committee also called on the UN to immediately dismiss Falk for publicly endorsing “the slander of conspiracy theorists”. Executive Director David Harris said:

We agree wholeheartedly with the US Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Susan Rice, who stated that Mr Falk’s comments are ‘despicable and offensive’ and, like her, urge the UN to remove him from his position. Falk has long been a conspiracy-ridden and harmful figure who surely does not serve the best interests of the UN.

UN Watch claims to have won “global condemnation” of Falk. Its website trumpets: “After UN Watch exposes noxious remarks, UN official Richard Falk [is] roundly condemned by UN chief, US Gov’t, and media worldwide.”

“Noxious” – that’s Rice’s word. Could they be sharing the same scriptwriter?

UN Watch diligently sets down who said what:

Thursday, 20 January: UN Watch takes action and files complaint with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, demanding he condemn Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator on “Israel’s violations of the principles of international law”, for his latest remarks suggesting that the US government – and not Al-Qaeda terrorists – destroyed the World Trade Centre. The protest came as part of UN Watch’s three-year campaign to expose and combat Falk’s denial and justification of Hamas and Al-Qaeda terrorism, and his material support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. At the daily UN press briefing, when Matthew Lee of Inner City Press asks for a response, the secretary-general’s spokesman says they don’t comment on independent experts.

Friday, 21 January: The New York Daily News picks up the story and publishes editorial: “When will the lunacy reach such heights that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon realizes his so-called Human Rights Council is wrecking what little reputation the world body has left?… Ignore those jetliners crashing into the towers, is Falk’s advice. Who are you going to believe, your own eyes or him and his friends? Ban should ring down the curtain on this grotesque buffoonery. He should force out Falk forthwith…”

Monday, 24 January: The United Nations sends letter to UN Watch with unprecedented condemnation of a UN Human Rights Council official: “The secretary-general condemns [Falk’s] remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack”. UN Watch immediately releases the letter to the public, and calls for the UN to fire Falk.

Tuesday, 25 January: US Ambassador Susan Rice condemns Falk and echoes UN Watch’s call for him to be fired: “Mr Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms… The United States is deeply committed to the cause of human rights and believes that cause will be better advanced without Mr Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.” Ambassador Eileen C. Donahoe, the US envoy to the Human Rights Council, also speaks out.

On the same day, in a Geneva address to the member and observer states of the Human Rights Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeats his condemnation of Falk: “Recently, there was a special rapporteur who suggested there was an ‘apparent cover-up’ in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. I want to tell you, clearly and directly. I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous – an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.”

SUCCESS: UN Watch’s campaign led to the unprecedented international condemnation of Richard Falk, who exploits his UN position to justify and deny Hamas and Al-Qaeda terrorism. It sparked dozens of news stories worldwide, as shown in the sample below. All of this succeeded in finally puncturing Falk’s undeserved halo as a “human rights expert”. For the first time ever, the UN itself had condemned Falk, and in the strongest terms. As a result, Falk’s credibility in the international arena is now at zero.

What’s remarkable is how twitchy these people get at the slightest possibility that someone will lift the lid on 9/11, their hysterical protests serving only to deepen already serious suspicions.

Incidentally UN Watch’s founder, chairman and executive director are all Jewish, the latter having worked at Israel’s Supreme Court.

Ambassador Susan Rice “handmaiden to the Zionist cause”

Let’s go back to 14 July last year and remarks made by Ambassador Rice during a reception for Israeli ambassadors Gabriela Shalev and Daniel Carmon held by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Rice said:

Today, I mostly want to talk about my very dear friend, Ambassador Gabriela Shalev. She’s truly one of my favorite people…

Gabi and I had the opportunity to work closely together on a series of important issues, from dealing with the deeply flawed Goldstone Report to seeing through the passage by the Security Council of the toughest sanctions resolution to date against Iran. She has been a lioness in defence of Israel’s security and its legitimacy — working tirelessly to ensure that Israel has the same rights and enjoys the same responsibilities as any other UN member state.

We will continue to work together to seek a lasting and comprehensive peace that meets Israel’s security needs and creates a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. We will continue to strengthen Israel’s qualitative military advantage so that Israel can always defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats. And, as the president pledged, we will continue US efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel — including and especially at the United Nations.

Having revealed herself as another handmaiden to the Zionist cause, Rice’s attack on Falk for breaking the ridiculous taboo and questioning the US administration’s refusal to hold a proper independent inquiry into 9/11 only raises questions about her own suitability for an important position at the UN.

Meanwhile, there are millions of us out here who are right behind Richard Falk because he stands for justice. We are not amused by growing indications that the official story of 9/11 doesn’t add up. Nor are we too pleased by the realization that it was used to prod our own governments into sacrificing troops and treasure to a couple of unlawful, unwinnable wars that have caused mega-deaths and endless suffering to innocent civilians, trashed our good name abroad and made us vulnerable to reprisals at home – just to advance the crazed ambitions of the US-Israeli axis.

In short, if there’s the slightest doubt we want to know the truth.

January 29, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Another Professor Fired for Views on Middle East

An Interview with Kristofer Petersen-Overton

By JOSHUA SPERBER | January 28, 2011

Brooklyn College fired PhD student Kristofer Petersen-Overton yesterday, one day after New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) sent a letter to BC president Karen Gould accusing Petersen-Overton of being an “overt supporter of terrorism.” Hikind has complained in interviews that Petersen-Overton’s academic work is anti-Israel, and that his attempt to “understand” suicide bombing is unfathomable. Petersen-Overton and I are colleagues at the CUNY Graduate Center.

JS: You were preparing to instruct a course on the Middle East and were fired. What happened?

KPO: I was hired by Mark Ungar at Brooklyn College’s political science department on the recommendation of Dov Waxman at the Graduate Center. I went in for an interview, and he was impressed with my credentials. I have an MA and I’ve published on the situation [in the Middle East], and he said “I would be honored to have you.” And this was for a grad level seminar, which is not lecture-based, meaning that our classes would be discussion-oriented and not some sort of alleged platform.

JS: What was the official explanation for your firing, and why doesn’t it make sense?

KPO: I have not once been contacted by the department itself, but I was told that the official reason I have been fired is that I don’t have a PhD, which is untrue, because no student teaching this course has a PhD, and there are of course many student teachers at BC who do not have their PhD’s. And I’ll point out that I am somewhat more qualified than many student teachers because I came into the program with a Master’s degree, which many students who are teaching for CUNY don’t have.

I was fired immediately after Dov Hikind contacted the school. He is an especially radical assemblyman who goes after people who he perceives as being anti-Israel. He’s actually made a career out of targeting people for alleged anti-Israel bias.

JS: And the charge of bias is doubly problematic. Because, one, it’s inaccurate. But, two, even if it were accurate, what does it imply?

KPO: We all come to the table with our personal political views; there’s not a single professor who doesn’t have their own views. So it all comes down to how one approaches those views, and I devoted an entire class in the syllabus to the subject of objectivity and humanism, meaning I wanted to put this issue of bias on the table to facilitate open and productive discussions.

JS: What does your firing suggest about contemporary politics and higher education?

KPO: They’ve targeted professors up for tenure for so long and have been relatively unsuccessful except for several cases, like with Norman Finkelstein (JS: and, among others, Nicholas De Genova and Thaddeus Russell, at Columbia University and Barnard College, respectively), now I think they’re going after graduate students before their careers even begin. One of the most direct implications of this which is deeply troubling is not the fact that people take issue with one particular class, which is inevitable, but the way in which the college administration caved so quickly – for it to occur within 24 hours is incredible to me, and the school never even consulted me. For this to be decided by a state official poking his nose in a college syllabus is Orwellian. I’ve received tremendous support, which I’m very grateful for. Norman Finkelstein wrote me, and after I contacted Neve Gordon he (Gordon) contacted BC’s provost, writing that he reviewed my syllabus and that it was excellent and reflected a number of different perspectives, noting that the textbook was mainstream and “emphasizes the Zionist narrative.” He also read a scholarly paper I had written, and wrote that he was “struck by (my) academic rigor.”

JS: What can people do to lend support?

I would be greatly appreciative if people can send an email to the provost, even better a letter, and tomorrow it would be great if people could call, and more importantly if people could disseminate this story. It’s especially disgusting that they would go after a grad student, because they have not only impacted my career but also my income and health insurance.

Office of the Provost (William A. Tramontano)
Brooklyn College
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11210
718.951.5000
tramontano@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Kristofer Petersen-Overton can be reached at kpetersen-overton@GC.CUNY.EDU. His website is http://www.petersen-overton.com/_/home.html

Joshua Sperber can be reached at jsperber4@yahoo.com

Source

January 29, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

MSM self-censorship on the Israel issue

By Philip Weiss on January 20, 2011

Tonight Chris Matthews used the retirement of Joe Lieberman as an opportunity to bash the “neocons” for the Iraq war. Matthews landed on Lieberman’s disgraceful answer to Pat Buchanan’s question on Morning Joe today, saying the Iraq war was worth it because of WMD and Al Qaeda and Saddam’s threat to the region. Matthews said this was all BS. He said that Saddam posed no threat apart from his support for “Hamas.”

Obviously Matthews thinks that Lieberman was thinking about Israel’s security, not the U.S.’s security. But you still can’t say this in the MSM. You can bash the NRA over the Tucson shootings, but you can’t talk about the role of the Israel lobby in our foreign policy. You can just think about it. Like Chris Matthews.

On this note, orthodoxy and self-censorship, I’d point out that Michelle Goldberg, who interviewed me for Tablet this week (the piece is here, I hear it’s mixed, still haven’t read it, I’m weird that way) asked me if I’d been worried for my career when I started being as critical of Israel as I am. I said Yes, and it had hurt my career. Goldberg made the same point a couple years back at the 92d Street Y: “Everybody knows that if you write certain things [about Israel] you put yourself beyond the pale of certain publications. And not just the obvious ones like the New Republic. I mean you take a certain stance and you consign yourself to the loony left. I think that is maybe becoming less and less true.” Goldberg said she has been told on some occasions, “You can’t write something,” and there “is a degree of self-censorship as well.”

The other day a friend told me of his conversation with a financial journalist in the MSM who had expressed sympathy for the Palestinians. He asked her why she didn’t write about it. She said, a, I figure I’m not going to be able to help them so they’re not losing anything by my silence, and b, even though I write financial journalism, if I take a strong stand on this issue, I might be blacklisted or brown-listed by publications for any work at all… (Consigned to looniness, to quote Goldberg.)

When Walt and Mearsheimer’s book came out, they said the same thing. Many journalists came up to them privately to express agreement, but said that it was career-cyanide to speak out about it.

January 22, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

The Feds Go Fishing

By RON JACOBS | CounterPunch | January 21, 2011

Back in September 2010, a series of FBI raids were conducted in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and North Carolina.  These raids were conducted under laws pertaining to US citizens providing “material aid to terrorists” and targeted members of antiwar, leftist, and solidarity organizations.  Since the raids, various activists that were targeted have been subpoenaed to appear at a grand jury and have refused to do so.  By refusing, those subpoenaed are risking arrest for contempt.  However, as of this writing, none have been taken to jail yet.  As I wrote in an article first published in CounterPunch on September 27, 2010: “These raids are a clear and vicious attempt to intimidate the antiwar movement.” and the grand jury “is a fishing expedition, as evidenced (for example) by the warrant asking for papers from no determined time.”

The reaction of those whose homes were raided and their supporters was quick and determined.  The targeted activists, their attorneys, and local supporters held a couple of press conferences within days of the raids and original subpoenas and a national network organized protests at Federal Buildings in a number of US cities and towns.  Resolutions attacking the raids and subpoenas and pledging support for the activists and the right to organize were introduced and passed by a number of city councils and antiwar and labor organizations.  The office of the US Attorney for the Northern Illinois District under the direction of US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald temporarily withdrew the subpoenas.  However, they were reinstated in December, leading to the aforementioned refusal of those subpoenaed to appear in front of the grand jury.  Several more subpoenas were served on other activists.  In fact, nine more activists have been ordered to testify before the grand jury on January 25, 2011 in Chicago.

A sidebar regarding Patrick Fitzgerald might be beneficial here. If that name seems familiar, it is because he is associated with many high profile cases. He helped prosecute Scooter Libby in the case known as the Valerie Plame affair.  For those who don’t remember this case, it involved members of the George Bush White House releasing the name of a CIA agent to the media–a federal offense.  Although Libby was convicted of the crime, it has always been believed that others in the White House, including Vice President Cheney, were involved in its commission.  This demands the question as to why no one else was prosecuted and how much the prosecutor (Fitzpatrick) was involved in limiting the prosecution to one individual, thereby sparing the White House from a criminal investigation.  Patrick has also been involved in many other high profile cases, including the prosecution off Illinois governors Ryan and Blagojevich in separate corruption cases and a case involving torture by the Chicago police that resulted in the conviction of Chicago detective Jon Burge.

In another investigation targeting leftist, anarchist and antiwar political activists in the Twin Cities, several homes and offices were raided before and during the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.  If one recalls, that convention also saw the arrest of media members including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, brutal attacks on protestors by police and private “contractors” working with police, and a lockdown against free speech activities in certain areas of the city.  Several hundred people were arrested  and many were beaten.  Nine organizers were eventually charged with acts of terrorism.  During their trial it became clear that the organizations these individuals were affiliated with had been infiltrated by government informers.

Similarly, last week the AntiWar Committee (one of the organizations targeted in the September raids) of the Twin Cities discovered that they too had had an informer in their midst since 2008.  Going by the name Karen Sullivan, this woman claimed to be a single parent and a lesbian who did not get along with her child’s father.  According to statements from members of the AntiWar Committee that appeared in the press, the group’s members were sympathetic to her cover story and, despite an initial concern by some members, accepted and befriended the woman.  Also, since the AntiWar Committee (AWC) believed their meetings and activities to be covered by the first amendment and were always open to the public, there was little concern for secrecy.

“Ms. Sullivan” involved herself in AWC activities and meetings, even chairing some of them.  She was also one of three AWC members that traveled to Palestine.  As soon as they reached Israel, the members were told they would be detained unless they turned back.  Two chose to stay and were detained while “Sullivan” went back to the US.  It turns out that the Israeli authorities had prior knowledge of the visit and the intention of the group to meet with Palestinian women.  While no one in the group could figure out how this was so, it seems apparent now that the “Ms. Sullivan” had provided this information to her handler who had in turn provided it to US officials, who then passed it on to the Israeli government.

In the wake of the January 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona there have been calls by a number of politicians, media commentators and others suggesting the need for new laws limiting political speech in the United States.  Meanwhile, efforts are underway in Congress to renew sections of the PATRIOT Act that are due to expire soon.  History tells us that when laws designed to curb political speech are enacted  in the US, they are used primarily against groups and individuals on the left side of the political spectrum.  There is no need for more laws.  Instead, there is a need for more free speech.  Laws like the PATRIOT Act and The Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and the subsequent interpretation of those laws by the courts have criminalized political activities that were previously legal.  The investigation that led to the raids and grand juries discussed here are an example of this.

The intention of the government in this and other similar investigations is to intimidate people into keeping silent so they can carry on their business with a minimum amount of attention from the public.  As the discovery of an informer in the AWC shows, they will stop at nothing in their attempt to silence protest against their imperial designs.  It doesn’t matter if they get any convictions or even an indictment out of their fishing expedition.  If they have intimidated those who oppose imperial war and support people around the world in their struggle against military occupation, they will have accomplished their goal.  This is reason enough to support those currently targeted by the FBI in the investigations discussed here.  It is more than enough reason to attend the protests against the grand jury on January 25, 2011 around the US.

Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. His most recent book, titled Tripping Through the American Night is published as an ebook.  Fomite (Burlington, VT.) is publishing his new novel, titled The Co-Conspirator’s Tale in Spring 2011 He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net

January 21, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Iran to file complaint against Israel

Press TV – January 17, 2011

Iran’s Foreign Ministry caretaker Ali Akbar Salehi says the country will lodge a complaint with international bodies against Israel in connection with the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist.

In July 2010, Iranian nuclear physics scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was killed when a remote-controlled bomb detonated near his house in the north of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

“Iran’s complaint against the Zionist regime (Israel) will be submitted to international bodies soon,” IRNA quoted Salehi as saying on Monday as he pointed to the role of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, in the assassination of Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at the University of Tehran.

Salehi added that Iran’s Foreign Ministry has collected all documents on Israel’s role in the killing of the Iranian scientist.

On January 11, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said the Islamic Republic has succeeded in overcoming the so-called strong Mossad supported by the US and Western states by managing to penetrate into the depth of the Mossad information system and dismantling its different networks.

His comments came a day after Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it had dismantled an Israeli spy network and arrested the main perpetrators in connection with the assassination of Ali-Mohammadi.

One of the detained terrorists, Majid Jamali-Fash, confessed that he had received training in a military base outside Tel Aviv.

January 17, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Watch the Watchers

Hallmarks of Spook Behavior

By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN | CounterPunch | January 14, 2011

This was not the first time I was approached by a spook, or the first time I have pegged one in my midst, but it was the first time I was approached by a man claiming to be an Iraqi-American. In the rush that usually occurs after one speaks publicly with several people waiting to chat, I tried to listen politely as I offered Nabil my attention. After five minutes, though, I found myself feeling bad for getting a little annoyed at him. He carried on about loving America and loving Iraq and seemed to be trying to hint at something beyond this — making vague references to what the U.S. was doing to Iraq. Finally I said to him, “Why are you telling me this?” After all, I speak publicly about these things, why did he feel he needed to tell me what I was already speaking about?

Unfortunately, I rarely recall specifics of what people say to me after I make a speech – or perhaps Nabil was being purposefully vague, because it seemed to me that he really wasn’t saying anything. Yet, he wouldn’t let me go. I told him several times that I needed to leave, as I had a long drive ahead of me. Several other people wanted to speak to me, yet Nabil continued to follow me around and try to talk to me — about what, I could not discern. Finally, I said that if things continued as they were in this country, it would eventually collapse. This seemed to deeply satisfy him. He said that people here didn’t care what happened in Iraq. They would care only if it happened to them.

I left him then and only the next morning did it occur to me that what Nabil was trying to do was to goad me into making a declaration of some unlawful or violent intent. That was when it occurred to me that Nabil was a spook: a paid informant or an undercover operative.

My first thought was that the FBI must not keep very good records or train their operatives very well because they had sent numerous others on the same or similar missions. They had to know that I am a staunch believer in nonviolence and in the rule of law — not to mention the United States Constitution. Anyone reading my multitude of articles must know this.

But more importantly, Nabil’s activities reveal a government policy that post-9/11 activists have long suspected exists: the FBI is not only monitoring peace activists but is working to entrap such people. Several recent cases offer further proof of this conclusion: the outing of paid FBI informant, “Anna,” in the West Coast “Green Scare” cases and the arrests of the Miami “Liberty City Seven” on the basis of an affidavit by an FBI operative.

In both of these cases, the FBI clearly did more than infiltrate and monitor groups that they believed might pose a threat to national security. In each case, the FBI goaded, provoked, provided funding and materials, and in the Liberty Seven case, even demanded the individuals sign a loyalty oath to al-Qaeda. In fact, so desperate was the FBI to capture the Miami miscreants that arrests were made despite the fact that the seven had all already walked away from the alleged conspiracy, which makes the case almost a sure loser for the government.

The FBI has monitored me at least since I first spoke out (post-9/11) at a town meeting in front of a panel of Muslim community members and overt FBI agents. A few weeks after this, a markedly taciturn and unfriendly man showed up at a Unitarian Universalist church meeting at which I was asked to speak about the PATRIOT Act. This was a congregation of mostly senior citizens who all knew each other, yet nobody knew the man, who avoided looking at or speaking to anyone, but sat and listened intently to my every word – leaning forward in his chair, all his antennae up — and then rapidly disappeared thereafter.

Spooks have infiltrated groups I’ve chaired. One handsome man of uncertain ethnic origins showed up at a start-up meeting for the Bill of Rights Defense Coalition in South Florida. I was facilitating the meeting and caught this young man staring at me in rapt fascination more than once. Why would he be so interested in me? My youthful beauty? Sorry. My charming and electric personality? Right.

Well, when he saw me see him looking at me, he stopped his appreciative stares. Although he said he was from Pittsburgh, another member of the group who hailed from there found he knew nothing about the city. He never returned to our group. But he did start showing up at another group allied with ours and he continued to monitor that group for quite a while, until he showed up in new all-black duds (imitating the Black Block anarchists, we supposed) at the 2003 FTAA protests in Miami and thereafter was never seen again.

These are hallmarks of spook behavior. Mark them.

Another young man joined the volunteers for a large Forum on Dissent Since 9/11 we had planned. He professed no interest in politics, was completely ignorant of most of the issues which concerned us, and disappeared shortly before the event, claiming he had decided to relocate and start a new life. Meantime, he had access to lists of speakers and volunteers.

Both of these men had never been seen before and were never seen thereafter.

You know what my reaction to all this is? I wonder why my government is spending my tax dollars to monitor me, an upright, loyal citizen who believes more deeply in the Constitution and laws of this country than do most U.S. officials sworn to uphold them. I was a patriot before it was popular to say so. I will defend free speech more strongly and at greater personal risk than most members of the ACLU (and I have proof of that). (I actually take the time to answer hate mail!)

If there really are so many horrible, dangerous terrorists out to get us, why, then, is the FBI wasting time and resources trying to provoke me into making some unlawful statement? Why are our intelligence agencies infiltrating meetings of peace groups, like the one in Lake Worth, Florida that NBC News discovered was attended by the DOD?

I attended that meeting and was one of its organizers and presenters. The subject was counter-recruitment. Is that a national security threat? Am I? The only threat I or these other peaceful persons could possibly pose would be to government officials themselves engaged in violent or unlawful activities, in lying to the public, in engaging in wars of aggression, in unlawfully detaining and torturing people, many of whom have been shown to be completely innocent, and in evading and intentionally violating federal laws. Why is the FBI not banging on their doors? Why is not the DOJ bringing charges against them?

This piece was originally published in the 9/21/2006 print edition of CounterPunch.

Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D., M.S.I.E., is the founder of the 12th Generation Institute, and author of THE TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY: THE BUSH PLAN FOR AMERICA (Common Courage Press, 2004) and Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious (Michael Weise Productions, 2007). She is currently working under contract with Bucknell University Press on a biography of Leonora Sansay, an early American novelist who was involved in the Aaron Burr Conspiracy, and on a screenplay about the conspiracy. She can be reached at jennifer.vanbergen@gmail.com.

January 16, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

New Report Reveals 19 Violations Committed Against Journalists in December

By Ramona M. – IMEMC and Agencies – January 11, 2011

Today, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) issued its monthly report documenting violations against journalists in the Palestinian territories.

According to the report there were 17 violations against journalists and two against their property. The offenses were committed by both the Israeli army and the Palestinian security services in the West Bank and Gaza. These attacks are all in clear violation of the right to freedom of expression under both Palestinian Basic Law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Compared with figures from last year, violations have more than doubled this winter: just 7 violations were reported in December 2009.

Israeli Occupation Forces Violations

• A’lam radio presenter Samer Rweishid was summoned for interrogation about his new job by the Israeli Intelligence Service.
• Alhayat Aljadedah newspaper photographer Muheeb Barghouti and Palestine Public TV cameraman Najeeb Sharawneh were prevented from covering the events of the weekly Nabi Saleh march near Ramallah by Israeli forces.
• Al-Quds newspaper photographer Mahmud A’lian was beaten by Israeli forces during his coverage of a solidarity march to Qalandia checkpoint.
• Israeli settlers damaged the tires of vehicles belonging to Reuters, Pal Media agency, and the photographer of a French agency Nasser Al-Shoukhi in Hebron.

Palestinian Security Service Violations

• The Al-Jazeera English crew were detained by government police in the Gaza Strip.
• Palestine Public TV’s Fouád Jaradeh was summoned for investigation by the Internal Security Service and questioned while blindfolded for 7 hours.
• A’lam radio presenter Samer Ruweishid was arrested by the Palestinian Intelligence Services in Hebron city; he remains in custody.
• Quds TV program coordinator Nawaf Al-Amer was repeatedly summoned for investigation by the Palestinian Preventative Service in Nablus city.
• Quds TV correspondent Mamdouh Hamamreh and cameraman Akram Alnatshe were arrested following a raid on The Pal Media agency’s headquarters in Hebron.
• Quds TV correspondent Mamdouh Hamamreh and Pal Media cameraman Abdul Ghane Natshe were followed and apprehended by the Palestinian Preventative Service following a report on Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem.
• Columnist Ala’ Rimawi was released by the Palestinian Security Service on the 12th of December after 42 days of detention.
• Freelance journalist Sami Alási was released by the Palestinian Security Service on the 21st of December after 23 days of detention.

January 11, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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