Author Archives: News Sources

Who reviews the U.S. ‘kill list’?

Doyle McManus writes: When it comes to national security, Michael V. Haydenis no shrinking violet. As CIA director, he ran the Bush administration’s program of warrantless wiretaps against suspected terrorists.

But the retired air force general admits to being a little squeamish about the Obama administration’s expanding use of pilotless drones to kill suspected terrorists around the world — including, occasionally, U.S. citizens.

“Right now, there isn’t a government on the planet that agrees with our legal rationale for these operations, except for Afghanistan and maybe Israel,” Hayden told me recently.

As an example of the problem, he cites the example of Anwar Awlaki, the New Mexico-born member of Al Qaeda who was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen last September. “We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him,” Hayden notes, “but we didn’t need a court order to kill him. Isn’t that something?”

Hayden isn’t the only one who has qualms about the “targeted killing” program. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), has been pressing the administration to explain its rules for months.

In a written statement, Feinstein said she thinks Awlaki was “a lawful target” but added that she still thinks the administration should explain its reasoning more openly “to maintain public support of secret operations.”

As Hayden puts it: “This program rests on the personal legitimacy of the president, and that’s dangerous.”

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Facebook is using you

Lori Andrews writes: Last week, Facebook filed documents with the government that will allow it to sell shares of stock to the public. It is estimated to be worth at least $75 billion. But unlike other big-ticket corporations, it doesn’t have an inventory of widgets or gadgets, cars or phones. Facebook’s inventory consists of personal data — yours and mine.

Facebook makes money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach us. Advertisers choose key words or details — like relationship status, location, activities, favorite books and employment — and then Facebook runs the ads for the targeted subset of its 845 million users. If you indicate that you like cupcakes, live in a certain neighborhood and have invited friends over, expect an ad from a nearby bakery to appear on your page. The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning. In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States.

Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85 percent of its total revenue. Yet Facebook’s inventory of data and its revenue from advertising are small potatoes compared to some others. Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads. Hundreds of other companies have also staked claims on people’s online data by depositing software called cookies or other tracking mechanisms on people’s computers and in their browsers. If you’ve mentioned anxiety in an e-mail, done a Google search for “stress” or started using an online medical diary that lets you monitor your mood, expect ads for medications and services to treat your anxiety.

Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down.

Material mined online has been used against people battling for child custody or defending themselves in criminal cases. LexisNexis has a product called Accurint for Law Enforcement, which gives government agents information about what people do on social networks. The Internal Revenue Service searches Facebook and MySpace for evidence of tax evaders’ income and whereabouts, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been known to scrutinize photos and posts to confirm family relationships or weed out sham marriages. Employers sometimes decide whether to hire people based on their online profiles, with one study indicating that 70 percent of recruiters and human resource professionals in the United States have rejected candidates based on data found online. A company called Spokeo gathers online data for employers, the public and anyone else who wants it. The company even posts ads urging “HR Recruiters — Click Here Now!” and asking women to submit their boyfriends’ e-mail addresses for an analysis of their online photos and activities to learn “Is He Cheating on You?”

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Why do dangerous financial criminals roam free?

Eric Schneiderman writes: American Public Media’s “Marketplace” had a recent segment focused on why it has taken so long to bring criminal prosecutions related to the financial crisis. Reporters observed that at the beginning of the crisis, the Obama administration wanted to calm the financial industry rather than impose accountability. They speculated, along with Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street participants, many of whom have been calling for prosecutions, that Obama’s creation of a new group to prosecute mortgage fraud led by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman was likely to be politically motivated. And they indicated that financial crimes are complex and prosecutors need time to develop their cases.

But here’s what they didn’t say: A major reason the prosecutions don’t exist is that President George W. Bush took the cops off the beat.

Think about street crime. Imagine, for example, a protection racket in which gangs extort payment from fearful shopkeepers. Prosecutors rarely initiate criminal prosecutions; indeed, they may not even know that the crime is occurring. The police pound the beats that keep them aware of the increase in crime, respond to complaints, investigate, determine that a crime may have occurred that warrants attention, create a file and send it to the prosecutor’s office. In routine cases, the prosecution proceeds on the basis of the police report alone. In more complex cases, the prosecutor may supplement the police investigation. But prosecutors rarely initiate cases. Even when a task force is appointed to target crime in a particular sector, it typically involves prosecutors working with the police. The prosecutors simply don’t have the skills or the manpower to detect crime, conduct investigations and make the record necessary to prosecute.

So where were the police in the current financial crisis? The FBI did investigate and warned in 2004 that an epidemic of mortgage fraud was underway. The Bush administration took the FBI’s white-collar experts, however, and reassigned them to terrorism cases. The inquiries under way in 2004 – and the public cries of alarms that accompanied them – largely disappeared. The cops were literally yanked off the beat.

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Agribusiness fights to allow children to work in manure pits

Matt Stoller writes: Most child labor was prohibited in 1938, but there are a few exceptions for certain industries where children are still allowed to work.

One of the biggest loopholes is the agricultural industry. The Department of Labor recently issued new proposed regulations restricting child labor on farms, regulations which are drawing intense opposition from politicians and agribusiness groups like the American Farm Bureau Federation. The rules have been held up by administration official Cass Sunstein, at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs which reviews most Federal regulations before they are finalized. These rules are complex, and the opposition to them is varied. Some politicians, such as Jon Tester, Debbie Stabenow, and Tom Harkin, want to ensure that children can work on farms in which their family’s own a stake. The Department of Labor has recently revised the rules to allow that.

But other politicians just seem to want children to be put to work.

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The coming civil war in Afghanistan

Arif Rafiq writes: By the end of this summer, the 30,000 U.S. troops “surged” into Afghanistan by President Barack Obama’s administration will have returned home. And according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the remaining 68,000 American soldiers could end their combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013, more than a year ahead of the White House’s deadline for leaving the country.

America’s war in Afghanistan is by no means over, but its end has already begun. That reality is clear to all Afghan factional chiefs and power brokers, who are preparing for the transition to a post-American Afghanistan. As Afghanistan’s alliances and power dynamics shift, the risk of cvil, ethnic conflict breaking out in the country rises — endangering not only Afghans, but their Pakistani neighbors as well. And ironically, talk of peace and a U.S. withdrawal is contributing to a widening gap between key Afghan factions, which, if not properly contained, could lead to a renewed civil war.

President Hamid Karzai’s intentions remain one potential source of instability looming in Afghanistan’s future. Karzai has said that he will retire from public office in 2014, but many Afghans believe he will remain in power through unconventional or extra-constitutional measures. The president reportedly supported U.S. plans to accelerate the withdrawal by a year, lending weight to the theory that he is looking for greater maneuverability to prolong his rule.

If Karzai steps down, his replacement — should one not come from his own family — is likely to adopt a more hostile approach toward the Taliban, increasing the odds that the insurgency will fester. Abdullah Abdullah, who came in second in the rigged 2009 elections and could throw his hat in the ring once again, is a major Taliban opponent. But if Karzai seeks to stick around, doing so will be no cakewalk. Karzai will face stiff resistance from both a parliament that increasingly demands an expansion of its oversight powers and a rejuvenated political opposition, the National Front for Afghanistan (NFA).

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Egypt football protests continue into fourth day

Reuters reports: Protesters demanding a swift presidential election and an early handover of power by the army threw stones at police guarding the Egyptian interior ministry on Sunday and were forced back with volleys of teargas.

It was the fourth day of clashes outside the ministry, during which seven people have died. Protesters accuse the ministry of failing to prevent the deaths last week of 74 people after a football match in Port Said. Five more people have died in Suez.

Some protesters believe that remnants of the Mubarak regime were behind the violence, which was triggered by a pitch invasion after a football match between Al Ahly and Al Masri on Wednesday. They see it as part of a plot to create chaos in an attempt by the old guard to reassert its influence.

Political figures and a civilian advisory body to the military have suggested bringing the presidential vote forward to April or May, from the June date foreseen in the transition timetable of the army, which took power after former president Hosni Mubarak quit.

Police and protesters, some waving Al Ahly flags, threw stones at each other and police fired volleys of teargas to push the lines of mostly young protesters back from the ministry building on Sunday.

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Obama-appointed U.S. trade adviser linked to illegal deal in Congolese gold

The Guardian reports: A US trade adviser appointed by Barack Obama orchestrated a deal to buy gold worth millions of dollars from a wanted Congolese warlord, according to a UN report.

Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born US oil tycoon, transferred millions of dollars to the notorious rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda between December 2010 and February 2011 as part of the deal, the report by the UN’s Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) states.

If true, this would be a contravention of UN resolutions banning individuals or organisations from financing illegal armed groups in the wartorn eastern DRC.

The UN report says Lawal, the chairman and chief executive of the Houston-based oil firm Camac, was aware he was paying Ntaganda.

Obama put Lawal on the US advisory committee for trade and policy negotiations in September 2010, just months before the deal with Ntaganda.

All efforts to reach Lawal failed. Camac said it had no comment on the allegations, but said: “Camac is a law-abiding company and we disagree with the representations made in the report.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

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Syrians storm embassies after uprising’s worst violence

Reuters reports: Syrian demonstrators ransacked their country’s embassy in Cairo and broke into the missions in London and Kuwait, part of protests around the world against the worst bloodshed of the 11 month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Cairo crowd smashed furniture and equipment and set fire to parts of the embassy building overnight.

In London, about 150 people hurled stones at the Syrian embassy, smashing windows and shouting slogans. Five men were arrested after breaking into the building and another was held for assaulting police, London police said.

Syrian residents in Kuwait broke into the embassy there at dawn on Saturday, tearing down the flag and injuring several security guards, state news agency KUNA reported.

Rallies also broke out outside Syrian embassies in Germany, the United States and Greece after human rights activists reported more than 200 people were killed in shelling by government forces in the city of Homs.

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Equality for Palestinians? Israel won’t have it

Ben White writes: The presence of a few Palestinian members in the Knesset (MKs) is often touted as a sign of Israel’s robust democracy. Yet elected representatives of the Palestinian community inside Israel face growing harassment by the state, by fellow MKs and the media.

On Monday, the trial of MK Said Naffaa, from the Balad party, opened in Nazareth. Naffaa is charged with “travelling illegally to an enemy state, assisting in organising a visit to an enemy state, and being in contact with a foreign agent” – all relating to a trip he made to Syria as part of a Druze delegation in 2007.

Naffaa has denied the charges, insisting that “all his activities and meetings fall within the framework of his duties as an elected public official”.

Two years ago the Knesset house committee voted overwhelmingly to strip Naffaa of his parliamentary immunity. At the time, the committee chair declared: “Holding a Knesset seat is not a permit to visit enemy countries and hold meetings with terrorists.” MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) suggested that Naffaa and “his colleagues go to the Syrian parliament and work from there“.

An editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has called the prosecution of Naffaa “unwarranted, harmful and smack[ing] of political persecution based on nationality”. It is part of the state’s efforts to use criminal law against the Palestinian leadership in Israel. Another Arab MK, Mohammad Barakeh is still facing two charges (of an original four) relating to his participation in demonstrations in 2005 and 2007, and the allegation he assaulted or insulted police officers.

MK Haneen Zoabi, while not facing criminal charges, has been the target of the most vicious incitement and smears. Two weeks ago, a photograph was published in the Israeli media of her meeting with the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) speaker Aziz Dweik in the West Bank. That was followed by reports that two other Arab MKs had met with Dweik.

The response was an outpouring of invective. MKs from prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud urged the state to “immediately remove the fifth column from the Knesset”, while the chair of the house committee, MK Levin described Arab MKs as “competing [to be] the greatest traitor and terrorist sponsor”. Another Likud MK, Miri Regev, said that “the time has come for Arab Knesset members to realise their place“.

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Syria: over 200 dead after ‘massacre’ in Homs

The Guardian reports: More than 200 people were reported to have been killed yesterday in the Syrian city of Homs as security forces continued their efforts to take back opposition-held areas on the eve of a vote by the UN security council on a much-disputed resolution on the country.

Hundreds more were killed in shelling of the city, according to the the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which cited witnesses.

Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the campaign group, said that women and children were among 217 people killed, many of them in the Khalidya district of the city.

“Syrian forces are shelling the district with mortars from several locations, some buildings are on fire. There are also buildings which got destroyed,” Abdulrahman told Reuters.

The UN Security Council is expected to meet on Saturday morning to vote on a European-Arab draft resolution endorsing an Arab League plan calling for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to give up power, council members announced.

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Israel’s military leaders warn against Iran attack

The Independent reports: Almost the entire senior hierarchy of Israel’s military and security establishment is worried about a premature attack on Iran and apprehensive about the possible repercussions, a former chief of the country’s defence forces told The Independent yesterday.

Lt-Gen Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who is close to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, said there had been little analysis of what happens the “day after” when the Tehran regime and its paramilitary allies retaliate. He warned that an assault may lead to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad benefiting from popular anger against foreign aggression.

General Lipkin-Shahak stressed that Iran with a nuclear arsenal would be a hugely destabilising factor in the region. But, he said: “It is quite clear that much if not all of the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] leadership do not support military action at this point.”

The risks of military action underlined by the highly decorated former commander show the apparent divisions within the establishment over the best way to combat Iran’s nuclear programme. The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mr Barak are reported to be veering towards military action while fellow ministers as well as the defence and intelligence communities have reservations about this path.

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For the U.S., sanctions have become an alternative to policy on Iran

M.J. Rosenberg writes: News on the Iran front is getting more and more complicated. I am not referring to the situation at Iran’s nuclear facilities but to the one here in Washington, where Congress, deep into election-year fundraising and thinking about the March AIPAC policy conference, is crafting yet another sanctions bill. There is no reason to go into the details. But suffice it to say, this new set of sanctions, like the rest, will primarily hurt ordinary Iranians, not the government. As one Iranian citizen, writing under a pseudonym, described the situation this week in the New York Daily News:

These days, ordinary Iranians like my mother are becoming increasingly aware of a new economic reality in their lives. Sanctions already in place have plunged the country’s economy into a crisis; more robust sanctions that will be enacted come spring on our financial system and oil trade will cause even more pain for an already-suffering populace.

Isn’t life in Iran difficult enough under the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? Why punish ordinary people more?

Did we punish the Poles or the Bulgarians for living under communism? Did we punish the people of the Soviet Union because their government had a nuclear arsenal primed to destroy us? No. In fact, we gave the people of those countries food. As President Richard Nixon (like President Ronald Reagan later) liked to remind us, our adversary was the leadership of the Soviet Union, not the average citizens in the different Soviet republics.

But that is not how we have been approaching the Iran. Not by a long shot.

In A Single Roll of the Dice, a comprehensive new book about U.S.-Iran relations since President Obama came to office, Iran expert Trita Parsi examines the effect that the purely punitive approach (i.e., sanctions) can have on changing the Iranian government’s behavior.

Specifically, Parsi points out that “sanctions have become an alternative to policy” rather than an instrument of policy. He explains that “if diplomacy is pursued again” it must be “for the sake of resolving the conflict, not for the sake of creating an impetus for more sanctions.”

Abandoning a sole reliance on sanctions is Parsi’s first of six recommendations for establishing a diplomacy track with Iran that will succeed. [Continue reading…]

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