Wednesday, March 12, 2014

DiFi Blows a Gasket

Much has been reported recently about the Senate Intelligence Committee looking into the CIA Torture report, and new accusations by the Committee that the CIA had been spying on the Committee.

Today Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein took to the Senate Floor condemning the CIA's actions.

Here is her speech posted at Roll Call---I think her personal website isn't working (feinstein.senate.gov) especially since other Senators I tried work fine---though it could easily be my crappy computer....


Rolling Stone highlighted 11 shocking statements from her speech, including one of my favorites, her criticism of Haystack, which she defends when talking about need for NSA collecting metadata on everyone, regardless of suspicion and without a warrant, another problem she has with CIA spying on Congress (correctly, due to Separation of Powers) but sees as fine for American citizens and innocents in other countries.

When the Intelligence Committee launched a full-fledged investigation into what Senator Feinstein describes as the "the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed," the CIA unleashed documents as if it were trying to bury needles in a haystack.
The number of pages ran quickly to the thousands, tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, and then into the millions. The documents that were provided came without any index, without organizational structure. It was a true "document dump" that our committee staff had to go through and make sense of. (emphasis NOT mine)

Several Statements from C-SPAN

and here is CIA Director John Brennan responding at CFR today


Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel always does great work on this, writing about the overlooked aspects of the story Robert Eatinger FOIA  Double Standards



Today's (3/11/14) reports from McClatchy and NYT

Feinstein defends Senate

March 4, Did CIA spy on Senate?

Feinstein Publicly Accusses CIA of Spying

Senator Udall statement

Feinstein statement

March 6 FBI probing Senate removing documents from CIA


Those following closely the intelligence community, and especially since Snowden leaked NSA documents, have been criticizing Feinstein for her defending NSA actions.

When the Verizon order first came out, Feinstein said that this was the normal 215 order renewed every 3 months, and legal under Patriot Act authorized by Congress for several years (I think it was since 2006 or 2007)

Many senators who defended the NSA said that "if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear since you have nothing to hide"

Obama and many others said that there is "Congressional, Judicial and Executive Branch Oversight"

Today Feinstein is making certain statements that fly in the face of her previous statements defending the NSA.

The Panetta review documents were no more highly classified than other information we had received for our investigation—in fact, the documents appeared to be based on the same information already provided to the committee.
What was unique and interesting about the internal documents was not their classification level, but rather their analysis and acknowledgement of significant CIA wrongdoing.
To be clear, the committee staff did not “hack” into CIA computers to obtain these documents as has been suggested in the press. The documents were identified using the search tool provided by the CIA to search the documents provided to the committee.
We have no way to determine who made the Internal Panetta Review documents available to the committee. Further, we don’t know whether the documents were provided intentionally by the CIA, unintentionally by the CIA, or intentionally by a whistle-blower.

Feinstein also mentioned
After a series of meetings, I learned that on two occasions, CIA personnel electronically removed committee access to CIA documents after providing them to the committee. This included roughly 870 documents or pages of documents that were removed in February 2010, and secondly roughly another 50 were removed in mid-May 2010.
This was done without the knowledge or approval
 and that she has asked for an apology.



With NSA, Feinstein and other defenders have said that

  • it's all legal
  • only metadata
  • nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide
  • there is congressional, judicial and executive branch oversight

So the hypocrisy when it is Her and her staff that is being spied on is laughable, even though this is a serious issue of constitutional protections and separation of powers, and she is right in this case. 

I have said in the past that the "3 equal branches" made it easy to blame each other, as GOP in Congress blame Obama and Obama blames GOP in Congress.

Now it appears they spy on each other as well.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

No Single Hour

I've been listening to NPR since 2005.  No one hour so changed my life, as the segment about Covering the Manning Trial in the March 15, 2013 episode of the weekly Media show On The Media.  The rest of the episode covered the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War, and other issues related to Manning and Wikileaks.

Actually looking for the podcast, this turned out to be a 6 minute segment in a longer hour on the 10th anniversary on the Iraq War here is the full hour

Here is the full leaked audio from the trial, Manning's full statement explaining motivation and how the leaks were made to Wikileaks link

A Brief Diversion on Laura Poitras
Laura Poitras on Democracy Now! in 2012
I didn't really notice Laura Poitras until Snowden revelations, where she was the one who filmed Snowden in Hong Kong. I didnt notice her name on the short film on Manning and I completely missed her NYT OpDoc called "The Program", about her profile of NSA insider Bill Binney from August 2012 until after Snowden either.  I call 2012 the "hidden year" of NSA warnings before Snowden, because of the election and Newtown, most of America was focused on other issues until Snowden----now I just say most still are ignoring it, or Media reports it with errors and focuses on wrong issues.


After this episode I learned more about Alexa O'Brien Archives, Kevin Gosztola website, and others reporting on the Trial, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Center for Constitutional Rights, learned more about Wikileaks, and other people and cases like Jeremy Hammond, PayPal14, Barrett Brown, Aaron Swartz, Obama's War on Whistleblowers, etc.  No other hour I have listened to lead to so many other issues, people, leading me to look back at the other side of the Obama Administration.


From December 3 2012-----which I saw later in 2013
Must See Event for Manning with Mike Ratner and David Coombs

I paid more attention to drones, GITMO, deportations, and what Obama was actually doing, as opposed to solely what the Administration and media said.  

The constant and outlandish attacks from the GOP and Fox News, and the constant praise from Democrats and MSNBC, only told part of the story.  Obama was not as the GOP said a "Kenyan Muslim Socialist who wanted to destroy America" nor as the Democrats said a "liberal moderate who is constantly blocked by GOP opposition in Congress" to the effect that he can't get anything done.

It turns out Obama is really a moderate who has continued or expanded many of Bush's policies, isn't really doing to much domestically, or what he is doing is almost the least he can do, with or without GOP opposition.  I have noticed and been critical of his double speak, hypocrisies and lies, all since looking into the Manning trial, and the people and issues surrounding it. 

I joined Twitter in October 2011, shortly after Occupy Wall Street became famous in the media, and my first tweet was simply "I'm supporting Occupy Wall Street."  It was only later that I began to see more clearly that Occupy was a critic of the Obama administration.  I began blogging in December 2012, mostly as a way to write more, since Twitter limits you to 140 characters.  Most of my tweets are comments or thoughts on issues, or often collections of articles on an issue, or I link issues together into a larger issue or comment.

Most of 2013 my blog posts and tweets were focused on the economy, guns after the Newtown shooting, how crazy the GOP is, and lately more issues on NSA, foreign policy. 

TWITTER Libdem2 Twitter and Libdemwasjailed Twitter

TWITTER SEARCH

BLOGS LibdemTweets Blog and A Liberal's View Blog


some older examples show what I was focusing on before March 2013, and even after Snowden in some cases

an outlier----from January 2013, http://lib2view.blogspot.com/2013/01/mad-at-obama-happy-with-bush.html


http://lib2view.blogspot.com/2013/05/gop-admissions-and-my-comments.html

http://lib2view.blogspot.com/2013/07/romney-and-bain-versus-obama-and.html


http://lib2view.blogspot.com/2013/06/congress-is-one-on-welfare.html


Versus newer posts that criticize Obama more openly

http://libdemtweets.blogspot.com/2014/01/mlk-2014.html

http://lib2view.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-letter-to-president-obama.html

http://lib2view.blogspot.com/2014/02/comments.html

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Debo Adegbile

Debo Adegbile

This post is about the Senate vote that failed to confirm Obama's nomination to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.  It failed mostly because of the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and more importantly a scare campaign by the GOP, and the defection of 7 Democrats who joined them in voting no.

I must point to Chris Hayes' great piece here and Democracy Now! here

Wikipedia on Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Support Website, FreeMumia.com

WaPo, How Mumia Abu-Jamal Doomed Dego Adegbile

WSJ Explaining Mumia Case

Myths and Facts


Here from the Washington Post, are some examples of the smear campaign
The New Hampshire GOP blasted out a statement this afternoon declaring: "SHAHEEN VOTES FOR RADICAL OBAMA NOMINEE WHO DEFENDED UNREPENTANT COP KILLER." The North Carolina Republican party issued a statement saying: "Kay Hagan Votes For Extremist DOJ Nominee Who Helped Get A Convicted Cop Killer Off The Hook."
and this I was not aware of until now, that
In 2009, Van Jones' support for a new trial for Abu-Jamal was one of the things Republicans seized on while pushing for his ouster from the White House.

Here from 2011 is an article on the Supreme Court ruling, posted on FreeMumia.com
Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the
Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional. The Court’s decision brings to an end nearly thirty years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s being condemned to death.

Here is John Robert's past history as a defense attorney
What kind of person would defend a butcher with the blood of eight people on his hands? It was Chief Justice John Roberts, who devoted 25 pro bono hours to Ferguson’s case when he was working in private practice.
continued
Not everyone is willing to extend that view to Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s nominee to head the civil rights division at the Department of Justice.  
 continued
The conservative campaign against Adegbile recalls an effort during Obama’s first term to attack Justice Department officials as terrorist sympathizers because they had successfully represented Gitmo detainees. That effort fizzled when a group of conservative attorneys signed a letter defending those officials as having done their part to ensure due process. 

Here is Senator Patrick Leahy's statement, who Adegbile worked for in the Senate, pointing out the hypocrisy of voting against Adegbile's nomination based on Mumia's case, but also voting against bulletproof vests for police officers.
Despite Debo’s expertise, some are opposing his nomination based on a single case:  Mumia Abu-Jamal’s appeal of his death sentence for the 1981 murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner.  It should go without saying that we all condemn the murder of Officer Faulkner.  That was a horrific tragedy, and my heart goes out to Mrs. Faulkner and all family members who have lost a loved one in the line of duty.  Officer Faulkner served bravely to protect our community and to defend our system of justice and our Constitution.  It is officers like Officer Faulkner that drive many of us to support programs like the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program.  I only wish that my proactive effort ignited as much passion from my friends on the other side of the aisle as their negative reaction to this nominee.  Unfortunately, not a single Senate Republican has joined me in this fight to protect the lives of police officers since 2008.

Someone solely watching Fox News might think this nominee himself was a criminal but of course he is not.  The attacks launched against this nominee demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a lawyer and the very constitutional system of justice that law enforcement officers all swear an oath to protect.  It is time to clear the record. (emphasis mine)

Here is Senator Tom Harkin, who I have mentioned a lot in previous blog posts, on the Senate Vote link
Earlier today a vote was taken in the United States Senate that, to this Senator, marked about the lowest point that I think this Senate has descended into in my 30 years here,” Harkin began.
If you are a young white person, and you go to work for a law firm … and that law firm assigns you to a pro-bono case to defend someone who killed eight people in cold blood … my advice from what happened today is you should do that. It’s part of your legal obligation, part of your procession. Because if you do that, who knows, you might wind up to be the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
However, if you are a young black person, and you go to work for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and they assign you under your obligations as an attorney in keeping with your oath of office, they assign you to appeal a case of someone who committed a heinous murder … the message sent today is don’t do it. Don’t do it. Because you know what, if you do that, in keeping with your legal obligations and your profession, you will be denied by the U.S. Senate from being an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice.

I will fully admit that those of us on the left have not been completely innocent, often making the same charges when we look at prosecutors and defense attorneys in cases we don't agree with.  Regardless, both roles are crucial, and while reforms are needed in the criminal justice system, nominations of qualified nominees should go through the Senate without smear campaigns based on false accusations, while those who are against it claim the moral high ground.


This post can go by many themes, as do many GOP actions, especially since Obama has been President.
  • Ripples of Racism
  • Hurdles of Hatred
  • Hypocrisy of History
  • Radical Revisionism by Republicans
  • GOP "forgets" our Founder's real ideals

This post will focus on John Adams, William Kunstler, and Stanley Cohen as lawyers who live the Constitutional right that those accused of a crime have access to a defense lawyer.

The 6th Amendment 
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

America has built into its Constitution the right of the accused in a criminal case the right to a defense attorney.  This is repeated in Miranda Rights, and in the history of our country, including our Founding Fathers.

From NOLO on Miranda Warnings
Many people believe that if they are arrested and not "read their rights," they can escape punishment. Not true. But if the police fail to read a suspect his or her Miranda rights, the prosecutor can't use anything the suspect says as evidence against the suspect at trial. Of course, as with nearly all legal rules, there are exceptions. (To read about one such exception, see The Emergency Exception to the Miranda Rule.) 

The Emergency Exception to Miranda was used in the Boston Marathon Bombing case, and was widely discussed in the news at the time.

Justia.com 4/22/2013
While it is important that the media and the public understand that the public safety exception should guide courts, not law enforcement, it is equally important that law enforcement officers understand the same. The public safety exception is not a carte blanche for law enforcement officers to cite public safety in disregarding arrestees’ constitutional rights; rather, it is a means by which courts may acknowledge (and not penalize) that certain specific lines of questioning were done with the good-faith intent of preserving public safety.
While it is important that the media and the public understand that the public safety exception should guide courts, not law enforcement, it is equally important that law enforcement officers understand the same. The public safety exception is not a carte blanche for law enforcement officers to cite public safety in disregarding arrestees’ constitutional rights; rather, it is a means by which courts may acknowledge (and not penalize) that certain specific lines of questioning were done with the good-faith intent of preserving public safety. - See more at: http://verdict.justia.com/2013/04/22/mirandas-public-safety-exception#sthash.mICWZWo4.dpuf

New Yorker 4/21/2013
Tsarnaev might not be able to be Mirandized at the moment—it is not clear how bad his condition is. [Update: he was questioned Sunday, without a Miranda warning.] But there was a decision not to do so as soon as he was captured.
continued
The loose notion that there is a fixed forty-eight-hour waiver became so quickly entrenched that there seemed to be more worries about the clock ticking than about the timer on any bomb still out there; Lindsey Graham, on CNN, suggested that it constituted a sort of deadline for starting to treat him as an enemy combatant. (Graham did remind people that, being an American citizen, Tsarnaev couldn’t be tried before a military commission.

Before Glenn Greenwald started disclosing NSA documents leaked by Whistleblower Edward Snowden, Greenwald wrote about Lindsey Graham's comments about the Boston Bombing and about a precedent, Jose Padilla [emphasis mine]
But given how Graham's statements were treated like some sort of shocking aberration, it is worth noting that the US government previously did exactly what he advocated. In 2002, US citizen Jose Padilla was arrested on terrorism charges on US soil (at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport), and shortly before he was to be tried, the Bush administration declared him to be an "enemy combatant", transferred him to a military brig, and then imprisoned him (and tortured him) for the next 3 1/2 years without charges, a lawyer, or any contact with the outside world. That was the incident that most propelled me to start political writing, but it barely registered as a political controversy.

The brilliant blogger Marcy Wheeler also was discussing the Boston Marathon case before the Snowden documents were released.

April 20, 2013 link
Now, thus far, I’m actually not that worked up about Miranda rights (though I may get there soon). As Orin Kerr explains, the public safety exception is a legally recognized law, and Miranda itself only limits what can be admitted as testimony against Dzhokhar in his trial (I’m betting he’ll plead guilty in any case). The government appears to have so much evidence against him in any case, any confession he makes will likely not be necessary to convict him.
 Marcy writes that instead of Miranda, the bigger issue is not bringing a defendant before a judge fast enough
But the big issue, in my opinion, is presentment, whether he is brought before a judge within 48 hours. In addition to stretching Miranda, the government has also been holding and interrogating suspects for periods — up to two weeks for American citizens and far longer for non-citizens — before they see a judge.
 continued
In my opinion, two of the most troubling cases like this, both involving naturalized citizens accused of terrorism, are Faisal Shahzad and Manssor Arbabsiar.
Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, was held and questioned, reportedly with the help of the HIG, for two weeks before he first appeared before a judge. Each day during that period, he signed a waiver of his right to appear before a judge. Ultimately, he plead guilty, so no one every questioned whether his confessions were coerced or not.
 continued
There are a lot of reasons why delaying reading Dzhokar his Miranda rights are wrong, ethically. But I’m not as worried about that as the possibility they’ll stash Dzhokar away for a couple of weeks without a lawyer or any oversight. And in any case, the Administration seems intent on developing both means of curtailing rights.

The lawyer and blogger at Emptywheel known as Bmaz replies in a comment that
the presumption of Rule 5 I/A presentment within 48 hours still holds, absent exceptional circumstances. That said, the medical disabilities are likely such exceptional circumstances.

More on Miranda and Boston Bombing case:
New York Times 4/21/2013



The talk about treating an American citizen as an enemy combatant and stripping him of his rights flies in the face of another case in Boston, The Boston "Massacre" of 1770, when British soldiers, still in a British Colony at the time, fired on a group of protestors, killing 5 and injuring 6 others.  John Adams, who was later to become our President, defended the BRITISH soldiers, as an example of the equal rights of the accused to a defense when charged with a crime.

A great article on the Boston "Massacre" and John Adams's defense of the accused British Soldiers by John Tobin is available here

Here are some key points from the article


 

After his retirement, John Adams's reflections on the case brought up an earlier part of American history, the prosecution of the Quakers and "witches"----Adams saw a wrong verdict would have been a further stain on the country.


The Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson, and future President John Adams both believed in the rule of law, seeking justice for those killed and injured, and the inherint right to an effective defense for the accused.  THAT is what America was founded on, and this is what the GOP has used against Adegbile, the nominee for the Department of Justice Civil Rights division.


Source
Adams’ [sic] defense of these British soldiers was a reflection of his personal integrity and sense of justice, for by this time, he had certainly lost any sympathy or loyalty for a British government he believed was becoming increasingly tyrannical.


John Kennedy writing in Profiles in Courage writes about John Adams's
selfless risks he had taken in defending the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre source

writing (pg 200)

To close our stories of American political courage, we would do well to recall an act of courage which preceded the founding of this nation, and which set a standard for all to follow.  On the night of March 5, 1770, when an abusive and disorderly mob on State Street in Boston was rashly fired upon by British sentries, John Adams of Massachusetts was already a leader in the protests against British indifference to colonist grievances.  He was, moreover, a lawyer of standing in the community and a candidate for the General Court at the next election. Thus, even had he not joined in the sense of shocked outrage with which all of Boston greeted the "Boston Massacre," he would nevertheless have profited by remaining silent.
continued
But this militant foe of the Crown was asked to serve as counsel for the accused soldiers, and did not even hesitate to accept.  The case, he later noted in his autobiography, was one of the "most exhausting and fatiguing causes I ever tried, hazarding a popularity very hardly earned, and incurring popular suspicions and prejudices which are not yet worn out." Yet the man who would later be a bold President--not only remained as counsel, but acquited his clients of the murder charge, demonstrating to a packed courtroom that no evidence was at hand to show that the firing was malicious and without provocation:
quoting Adams

"Whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. The law will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imagination and wanton tempers of men...Gentlemen of the Jury--I am for the prisoners at the bar; and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Becaria: "If I can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessings and tears shall be sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of mankind!"

 20th Century "John Adams" William Kunstler and Stanley Cohen

Wikipedia on William Kuntsler
From 1983 until Kunstler's death in 1995, he employed future radio personality Ron Kuby as a junior partner. The two took on controversial civil rights and criminal cases, including cases where they represented Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, head of the Egyptian-based terrorist group Gama'a al-Islamiyah, responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (emphasis added)

for more on Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman see Mary Weaver's A Portrait of Egypt William Kuntsler is discussed on pages 78 and 224-225 and discussion of the Sheik takes up a large portion of the book, including Chapter 4

William Kuntsler from Daily News
If "Disturbing the Universe" makes only one larger point with which his critics might reluctantly agree, it's the idea the American system cannot function as the Founding Fathers intended without a William Kunstler. (emphasis mine)

Kuntsler defended among others
El Sayyid Nosair, who was accused of assassinating the militant Jewish leader Rabbi Meir Kahane, and the drug dealer Larry Davis. (Nosair and Davis, who was charged with shooting six cops, were both acquitted.) In 1993, while defending a terror suspect charged in the first bombing of the World Trade Center, Kunstler boasted to the Times, “I’m more loved and more hated than I ever was.”
In fact, page 290 of Unequal Justice points out that

Kuntsler was berated in the American Bar Association Journal for declaring that he was "not a lawyer for hire" but would "only defend those I love."
continued
The ABA, suddenly discovering the virtue of competent counsel for all observed: "We know from long collective experience that many will go without legal defense or representation if they must depend on finding a lawyer who 'loves' them." Still, that experience had never much impressed the ABA until Kuntsler and other activist lawyers engaged in their own form of amorous selectivity. 

Today, William's daughter Sarah Kuntsler is now a defense lawyer as well, recently representing Jeremy Hammond. Here is her statement in that trial link and Jeremy Hammond's own statement link as well as Alexa O'Brien's statement to the court link


Finally there is Stanley Cohen, currently representing Osama bin Laden's son-in-law in court in New York, charged with inciting violence against Americans after 9/11 by acting as Al Qaeda spokesman and propogandist.

Other cases

Kuntsler said he would only take defendants he "loves," but Cohen was chosen by Ghaith this time link


The Trial of Suleiman Abu Ghaith
Abu Ghaith is charged with conspiring to kill Americans and providing material support and resources to terrorists. He faces life in prison if convicted. link
continued
Abu Ghaith’s lawyer, Stanley Cohen, warned jurors that the government would try to overwhelm them with videos and questionable witnesses and said there was no evidence against his client.
continued
Specifically, the government contends Abu Ghaith spent time in Afghanistan with bin Laden soon after the attacks and recorded several statements threatening further attacks against Americans, including one that said "the storm of airplanes will not stop."  

 the GOP attacks again
Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican, spoke for many in his party when he criticised the Obama administration's decision to try Abu Ghaith in New York. "A foreign member of al-Qaeda should never be treated like a common criminal and should never hear the words, 'You have the right to remain silent,'" Graham said. link

 Cohen says the government's case is weak, saying
What you’re going to hear at the end of this is after 13 years, it comes down to words and association, and words and association,” Mr. Cohen said.

 This is America, could you imagine if we indicted Osama bin Laden himself and wanted to try him in New York after he had already attacked it? Oh wait....hypocrisy rises again folks.

1998 Osama bin Laden indictment in New York




As noted in recent months with Obama's escalation of drone strikes, including considering targeting another US citizen for death without due process or trial as shown above, many journalists have brought up the indictment of Osama bin Laden.

On Point
The White House debates a drone attack against a U.S. citizen and terror suspect in Pakistan. We’ll look at Washington’s kill list and American drone policy.

Jeremy Scahill says
Obama has declared the world a battlefield and reserves the right to drone bomb countries in pursuit of people against whom we have no direct evidence or who we’re not seeking any indictment against.”  (emphasis mine)
















Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Shedding Light on DHS and CBP

Why I write this blog piece....http://www.onthemedia.org/story/shed-light-dhs/

NPR's weekly Media Show "On The Media" producer Sarah Abdurrahman, who yes is Muslim, wears a headscarf, is married to a Muslim and is an American citizen, tells her story of detention at the border coming into the US, on no suspicion, and without explaination.
producer Sarah Abdurrahman, her family, and her friends were detained for hours by US Customs and Border Protection on their way home from Canada. Everyone being held was a US citizen, and no one received an explanation. Sarah tells the story of their detainment, and her difficulty getting any answers from one of the least transparent agencies in the country.

Here is the initial detention story from September 2013 and here are some follow ups on getting answers from DHS and other agencies.

Bob Garfeild speaks with Lee Hamilton

Reporters talk about reporting on DHS and lack of transparency


I am writing this blog post to tell the story of Sarah's detention, and to write my own questions on the topic, to contribute to getting some answers from DHS and CBP and Congress.


These are the questions as supplied by On The Media through their tool

1. When constituents call your office with issues they are concerned about, what is the process for getting those concerns to the Congressman/Congresswoman and ultimately to Washington?

2. The Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agencies have been unwilling to go on the record with journalists about the policies for treatment of US citizens at US borders and while traveling domestically. Can you request those policies be made public and can you provide them to me?

3. Journalists and civil rights groups have reported mistreatment of US citizens by agents of the Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agencies at our borders and while traveling within the US. What are you, as a member of Congress, doing to ensure that agents on the ground are respecting the rights of US citizens?

4. Would you support a call for a public hearing with officials from the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the treatment of citizens at our borders and those traveling domestically, and to hold those officials accountable if the policies and practices of DHS and its sub-agencies violate the rights of US citizens?



My questions are
  • why is CBP stopping American Citizens at the border in the first place?? 

  • holding them in cold rooms like a mini Guantanamo Bay? 

  • not responding to American Citizen's questions even after they have been released?

  • more steps should be taken to prevent multiple searches like the story of Jane Doe---there should be a limit of searches when nothing is found











 Government resources on Border Patrol and Homeland Security

June 2012 Northern Border Fact Sheet

2011 US-Canada "Action Plan"  ---is this in effect??

2011 FAQ on US-Canada "Action Plan"

Examples of US-Canada shared law enforcement

Pre-Clearance options

Contact DHS

Online and Email for DHS

Border Security section of DHS

Civil Rights and Liberties at DHS

March 2013 GAO report on DHS Progress/Challenges in Securing US Borders

August 2013 GAO report on training Border Agents




News on Border and DHS

Nov 2013 HuffPo piece on Congressional pressure over killings by agents at Border


Border Patrol insists on secrecy for agents who kill people on Mexican side of border












Thoughts on Tweeting Activism

So Andy Downs was talking to me on Twitter and asked my thoughts on tweeting, "Liking" and online petitions as activism

Here is the link to the larger conversation

Conrete Results - Working On The End Game

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Andy Downs, Wednesday at 5:09 PM.

Andy Downs Member

I was talking to an online friend of mine the other night. They were disheartened by being involved with the activists who do nothing but post and repost, tweet and retweet, "LIKE" etc etc

Their point was nothing changes so why do it.

While I get the frustration, this is exactly what the US Government would love along with big corporations. It is why real terrorists can win, they don;t own many wrist watches (let's not get too literal here, I am sure many terrorists have watches somewhere)

However my point is those who stay the course and disregard how long something is taking will lose.

In my humble opinion we need to set concrete goals for change. Not a "Grand Bargain" of sorts, but start breaking this down into smaller battles that could add up to winning the war.

It is why I thought of, and posted: How Detroit Could Be A Game Changer
https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/how-detroit-could-become-a-game-changer.115585/

We all want corporate corruption to end and the NSA to give back the internet along with our right to privacy. The question them becomes, how do we specifically get there?

SOPA was a win. The USA Freedom Act is less sure.

We need a series of wins to build momentum and keep the believers in the fray and add to them as we go along.

When you read the Gene Sharp Books it talks a great deal about small things to do that add up to a win. But most importantly it talks about what you need to have in place, at least some plan, of what to do after you accomplish your goal.

The example in from Dictatorship to Democracy is you don;t want to destroy your government, you want to change it. To do that you have to have a plan so that chaos doesn't ensue and all that was fought for is lost to the next jackass (not a direct quote)

So I would like to discuss what specific goals do we have, and come up with a series of battles we can undertake to achieve those goals (in a legal and peaceful means)

Thoughts...or do you think I am out of my mind?


 I wrote this in response

My thoughts on social media activism and online petitions are this---twitter and facebook are great forums for learning about topics and meeting other people, and for being globally active while staying in front of a computer screen, but as I saw on twitter, "if petitons actually worked they would be illegal" ---now Rachel Maddow has pointed out a petitioner from Asia that actually got a result from the White House, but policy issues are rarely acutal responses from public outcry.....we may think that we stopped SOPA, PIPA, or the bombing of Syrian but really it was the tech giants and their lobbyists that have more influence in DC, and it was most likely the White House itself that used the threat of strikes against Syria that forced a deal on chemical weapons, not us on twitter or even Tea Party in congress, who were BEGGING Obama to get involved in Syria before he said he would, that made the decision to strike or not----so while I would like to think that we matter, I have yet to see concrete evidence so far, though I'm sure NSA thinks we're all terrorists anyway......LibDem

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Leakers are ignored whistleblowers

Those who leak are ignored whistleblowers, who have followed legal regulations for reporting illegal activity.

Edward Snowden leaked documents to Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian, who shared them with New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegal as well as Barton Gellman at the Washington Post.

The New York Times published a story in December 2005 that the Bush Administration was wiretapping Americans without warrants.

Chelsea Manning gave documents to Wikileaks, who shared them with New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegal.

Daniel Ellsberg gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times.


These are all famous leakers, people with inside access to national security secrets, who when they saw abuse, shared it with the public through the press.

But it is not that simple. There was a long process that lead to their decisions to go to the press in order to get the story out.

I have pointed out many times that those who leak to the press are ignored whistleblowers.

Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg had worked in defense and at RAND for many years
consulting with Air Force generals during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (Brothers, pg 172)

he was writing intelligence reports on Vietnam for the Department of Defense in the summer of 1965 (Young pg 168)

Ellsberg was knowledgable about the Vietnamese countryside, working with Robert Komer at CORDS in 1966 (Young pg 212)

Ellsberg was once an advisor to Henry Kissinger (Young 259)

Robert McNamara tasked Leslie Gelb with coordinating the Pentagon Papers report. (Young pg 211)

HERE.... In mid 1969 Ellsberg and 5 RAND colleagues wrote a letter to Nixon protesting the President's war policy. (Young 259)

Ellsberg first gave the Pentagon Papers to Senator Fullbright in November 1969, but Congress was unsure what to do with them, especially after the Secretary of Defense refused to declassify them. (Young 259)

In 1964 Ellsberg had served as government spokesman at the very first anti war teach-in. (Young, 259)

Ellsberg told Seymour Hersh that he had served 15 years, a system that lies automatically from top to bottom to protect a cover-up murder. (Young 259)


For the long story of how the Pentagon Papers made their way slowly to the New York Times, listen to the Democracy Now! program here. It was a long process to get the story out to the public in the New York Times.

And there is also the effort by the government to discredit whistleblowers:

Nixon called the Pentagon Papers the "Kennedy/Johnson Papers" as a way to link the war politically to Democrats (Young 260)

Ellsberg was to be prosecuted for releasing the actual documents, while E Howard Hunt, one of the Watergate Burglars, was tasked with forging cables that would tie President John F Kennedy to the murder of [South Vietnam prime minister] Diem. (Young pg 261) see more on Diem here

Erlichman said Ellsberg "was a fanatic, known to be a drug abuser" (quoted in Young, 261 but Brothers pg 370 corroborates Ellsberg's LSD use day RFK was killed)
but of course I will add that there was no problem with Ellsberg for 15 years, until he broke with govt policy, as is always the case with insiders who turn against wrong policies.


Ellsberg has done many interviews and debates since the Snowden revelations came out.



EDWARD SNOWDEN

Going through official channels achieved nothing Boing Boing quoting NYT interview 
he discovered flaws in the software of the C.I.A.’s personnel Web applications that would make them vulnerable to hacking. He warned his supervisor, he said, but his boss advised him to drop the matter and not rock the boat. After a technical team also brushed him off, he said, his boss finally agreed to allow him to test the system to prove that it was flawed.

 Daily Tech

Reportedly his supervisor found strong evidence that he had been trying to break into systems and files that he did not have access to (top-secret security access, after all, is relatively limited as at most agencies you only have access to the data you're working directly with).  Combined with his increasingly standoffish behavior, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file (called a "derog" in federal government jargon) and convinced CIA officials to relieve him from his post and ship him back home to the U.S.

Former NSA top executive and Whistleblower Thomas Drake, who was prosecuted as a spy for his whistleblowing activies, agrees with Snowden, writing (bold is my emphasis)
The NSA programs that Snowden has revealed are nothing new: they date back to the days and weeks after 9/11. I had direct exposure to similar programs, such as Stellar Wind, in 2001. In the first week of October, I had an extraordinary conversation with NSA's lead attorney. When I pressed hard about the unconstitutionality of Stellar Wind, he said:
"The White House has approved the program; it's all legal. NSA is the executive agent."
It was made clear to me that the original intent of government was to gain access to all the information it could without regard for constitutional safeguards. "You don't understand," I was told. "We just need the data."
continued
Stellar Wind was a highly secret program that, without warrant or any approval from the Fisa court, gave the NSA access to all phone records from the major telephone companies, including US-to-US calls. It correlates precisely with the Verizon order revealed by Snowden; and based on what we know, you have to assume that there are standing orders for the other major telephone companies.
 continued
I took my concerns up within the chain of command, to the very highest levels at the NSA, and then to Congress and the Department of Defense. I understand why Snowden has taken his course of action, because he's been following this for years: he's seen what's happened to other whistleblowers like me.By following protocol, you get flagged – just for raising issues. You're identified as someone they don't like, someone not to be trusted.

AND AFTER TRYING TO TELL NSA IG AND CONGRESS ABOUT ABUSE FOR YEARS, Thomas Drake was ignored for too long.
I reached a point in early 2006 when I decided I would contact a reporter.

 NYT writes Edward Snowden is a WhistleBlower NYT


Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) 

Wikileaks source for Afghan War Logs, Iraq War Logs, Diplomatic Cables, Collateral Murder Video

For extensive coverage of Manning and Wikileaks and the Trial against them by the US Government, see Alexa O'brien at her Website


Here is the Manning Chat with convicted hacker Adrian Lamo, who turned Manning in after Manning admitted to leaking documents to Wikileaks published by WIRED
(12:15:11 PM) bradass87: hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time… say, 8-9 months… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?
(12:16:38 PM) bradass87: or Guantanamo, Bagram, Bucca, Taji, VBC for that matter…
(12:17:47 PM) bradass87: things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people
(12:21:24 PM) bradass87: say… a database of half a million events during the iraq war… from 2004 to 2009… with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures… ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?

Here are excerpts from Manning's statement to the court explaining her actions

I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the [Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan. 
 Manning speaks about trying to give documents to several newspapers
At my aunt’s house I debated what I should do with the SigActs, in particular whether I should hold on to them or disclose them to a press agency. At this point I decided that it made sense to expose the SigAct tables to an American newspaper. I first called my local newspaper, The Washington Post, and spoke with a woman saying that she was a reporter. I asked her if the Washington Post would be interested in receiving information that would have enormous value to the American public. Although we spoke for about five minutes concerning the general nature of what I possessed, I do not believe she took me seriously. She informed me that the Washington Post would possibly be interested, but that such decisions were made only after seeing the information I was referring to and after consideration by the senior editors.
I then decided to contact the largest and most popular newspaper, The New York Times. I called the public editor number on the New York Times website. The phone rang and was answered by a machine. I went through the menu section for news tips. I was routed to an answering machine. I left a message stating I had access to information about Iraq and Afghanistan that I believed was very important. However, despite leaving my Skype phone number and personal email address, I never received a reply from The New York Times.
I also briefly considered dropping into the office for the political commentary blog Politico, however the weather conditions during my leave hampered my efforts to travel. After these failed efforts I ultimately decided to submit the materials to the WLO [WikiLeaks Organization]. I was not sure if the WLO would even actually publish the SigAct tables. I was concerned that they might not be noticed by the American media. However, based upon what I had read about the WLO through my research described above, this seemed to be the best medium for publishing this information to the world within my reach.

Chelsea Manning writes to TIME Magazine for Thanskgiving, what she is thankful for here



So those who go to the press, which is legally protected to publish government secrets under the 1st Amendment, and does so all the time,  only do so after either going through the legal internal chains to report abuse, as Jeffrey Toobin and NSA defenders in Congress and the Intelligence Community say Snowden should have done, or after being ignored over a long period of time, usually several years, or waiting for policies to change.

Senator Ron Wyden considered for a long time leaking NSA abuse on the Senate Floor, and is legally allowed to do so under the Senate Rules

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/317319-wyden-considered-disclosing-nsa-secrets-on-senate-floor

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of the National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance programs, told Rolling Stone that he considered disclosing classified information on the Senate floor prior to the leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden.
The Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution shields members of Congress from prosecution for statements that they enter into the Congressional Record.
And then there are "official leaks" by Administration officials, which makes the govt look good--I guess since no documents are released to the press, this is OK, as it happens all the time with no consequences WaPo story
“Shihata is among the few remaining members of al-Qaeda’s old guard,” said a U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of not having authorization to talk publicly about the movements of the al-Qaeda figures.

CSM story
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was taken alive overnight in the beach resort town. The official was not authorized to discuss the arrest and spoke on condition of anonymity.


Iowa Senator Tom Harkin is retiring now after 40 years in Congress. Before he was elected himself, he served another US Congressman.  Harkin was fired when he saw abuse in Vietnam and went to Life Magazine with the pictures.  He was told at the time that "he would never work in DC again."

Here he talks about "not always trusting what your government tells you about 'the enemy'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3GrKX1jATXA

https://www.harkin.senate.gov/issue/protection/
Senator Harkin's commitment to human rights came into focus in 1970, when he went to Vietnam as a young Congressional staffer on a "fact finding" mission. Unfortunately, when Harkin stumbled on some horrifying cases of abuse, many delegation members did not want to face the facts. Harkin went to Con Son Island, where the South Vietnamese government was keeping hundreds of political prisoners in "tiger cages" in the ground, shackled and living in unspeakable squalor. When he returned to the States, despite the objections of his superiors, Harkin spoke out. His photographs of the tiger cages were published in Life magazine, and for his courage, he was fired.
 http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/resources/torture/luce.html

The Tiger Cages
In 1970, President Nixon sent a delegation of ten Congressmen to Viet Nam to investigate pacification. A part of their mandate included a visit to a prison in South Viet Nam as a way to be allowed to visit a prison where U.S. POWs were held in the North.
Tom Harkin, then an aide to the congressional group, convinced two of the Congressmen to investigate stories of torture in the Tiger Cages off the coast of Viet Nam (the French built them in 1939 to hold political opponents; similar ones in French Guinea became famous in the movie Papillion, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman). The congressman requisitioned a plane for the 200-mile trip to Con Son Island. I was asked to go as an interpreter and specialist in Vietnamese prisons. At that time I was working for the World Council of Churches.
On the way out Frank Walton, the U.S. prison advisor, described Con Son as being like "a Boy Scout Recreational Camp." It was, he said, "the largest prison in the Free World."
We saw a very different scene when we got to the prison. Using maps drawn by a former Tiger Cage prisoner, we diverted from the planned tour and hurried down an alleyway between two prison buildings. We found the tiny door that led to the cages between the prison walls. A guard inside heard the commotion outside and opened the door. We walked in.
The faces of the prisoners in the cages below are still etched indelibly in my mind: the man with three fingers cut off; the man (soon to die) from Quang Tri province whose skull was split open; and the Buddhist monk form Hue who spoke intensely about the repression of the Buddhists. I remember clearly the terrible stench from diarrhea and the open sores where shackles cut into the prisoners' ankles. "Donnez-moi de l'eau" (Give me water), they begged. They sent us scurrying between cells to check on other prisoners' health and continued to ask for water.
The photos that Harkin, today a U.S. Senator from Iowa, took were printed in Life Magazine (July 17, 1970). The international protest which resulted brought about the transfer of the 180 men and 300 women from the Cages. Some were sent to other prisons. Some were sent to mental institutions.

Harkin we will miss you and your courage
He wrote about the experience in a cover story for The Progressive in October 1970 called “Vietnam Whitewash: The Congressional Jury That Convicted Itself.” He said he couldn’t ignore the voices of the prisoners in the tiger cages begging him to tell their stories. And he also said: “One man can stand up and make a difference.”

If only Snowden, Manning, were senators at the time they spoke out........



NSA/Huawei/Apple

There has been a lot written about Apple's invlolvement with NSA spying revealed by Edward Snowden, including PRISM, DROPOUTJEEP, and bugs in IOS and OS operating systems, as well as stories about Angry Birds, leaky apps such as Google Maps and many other revelations in the Snowden documents.

Here is computer security expert and journalist Jacob Appelbaum talking NSA revelations including DROPOUTJEEP used for APPLE products.
So DROPOUTJEEP, so you can see right there. So, SMS, contact list retrieval, voicemail, hot microphone, camera capture, cell tower location. Cool. Do you think Apple helped them with that? I don’t know. I hope Apple will clarify that. I think it’s really important that Apple doesn’t.
Here’s a problem. I don’t really believe that Apple didn’t help them. I can’t prove it yet, but they literally claim that any time they target an iOS device, that it will succeed for implantation. Either they have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves. I’m not sure which one it is. I’d like to believe that since Apple didn’t join the PRISM program until after Steve Jobs died that maybe it’s just that they write shitty software. We know that’s true.


Marcy Wheeler is daily required reading by the way.......
Here is Marcy Wheeler (Blog, Twitter) writing about Apple's latest revelations on their security flaws

Marcy writes (emphasis is mine)
Now, if I were a leading device/consumer products company with an incentive to get consumers deeper into the cloud and living further and further online, particularly if I were a leading device/consumer products company sitting on mountains and mountains of cash, upon reading the report last September, I would throw bodies at my code to make sure I really was providing the security my customers needed to sustain trust. And given that this is a key part of the security on which that trust relies, I would think the mountains of cash device/consumer products company might have found this bug.
According to rumors, at least, this bug was not found by Apple with all its mountains and mountains of cash; it was found by a researcher.



But before Snowden's revelations, Congress was warning Americans about ANOTHER issue with a government spying on Americans through computer hardware and software, China's Huawei and ZTE companies, accused of being linked with Chinese intelligence and worries that the Chinese government could put in malware or other spying technology in their products that were sold in America.

So MY question is with all of these concerns about Huawei, why didn't Congress work as hard to protect Americans from other companies that had spying operations that could have targeted Americans??


Huawei is security threat says Mike Rogers
The panel’s probe coincides with increased U.S. warnings about digital spying by China. U.S. counterintelligence officials called China the world’s biggest perpetrator of economic espionage in a report last November, saying the theft of sensitive data in cyberspace is accelerating and jeopardizing an estimated $398 billion in U.S. research spending.
Oddly enough, this "update" on Huawei came at the end of the 60 Minutes piece on NSA, criticized as propoganda by many journalists covering the NSA and Snowden revelations Mike Rogers on 60 Minnutes

Here is the full CBS 60 Minutes NSA piece

And the criticism
"Don't be fooled by 60 Minutes NSA piece"

60 Minutes checks Journalistic skepticism at the door

60 Minutes does NSA PR

and of course don't forget Twitter, where many live tweeted the problems with the coverage NSA report outrage   NSA report


This could have been done by Apple itself, as in the past it has very publicly blocked some developers from bringing apps to the store that were deemed politically sensitive

10 Apps Blocked

From Democracy Now!

 Drone strikes info on your iPhone
A new iPhone app has been released that tracks every reported U.S. drone strike overseas. Over the course of two years, Apple rejected different versions no less than five times....Apple stalled the app’s approval for political reasons before Begley found a workaround....They said that it was excessively crude or objectionable content.


 Or in other cases there are apps simply not available in the store you use in your country, and you get the message
The item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store link

 If Congress and Mike Rogers really cared about American's privacy, computer security, and America's intellectual property, as well as military hardware, we should

A) stop dragent surveillance
B) block Huawei and other hardware and software where there are security concerns because of foreign governments
C) prevent American's access to potentially harmful hardware and software

Otherwise it is just more hypocrisy and double talk from Congress and NSA about protecting Americans security and privacy.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Comments

Some comments I wanted to share about recent stories

FAIR Media Watch Counterspin http://fair.org/     

http://fair.org/counterspin-radio/


A Domestic terrorism case in upstate NY gets little national attention when the victims are Muslims.

The Jan 17th show discussed Ariel Sharon's REAL legacy, and NPR's dissappointing move to accept ad money from the Natural Gas industry, but not from groups opposed to gas fracking.  NPR's factual errors in reporting about gas drilling hazards, and highlighting the "economic benefits" of fracking while not covering the downsides including EPA killing a report about environmental effects in Pennsylvania drinking water. 

From the Jan 31st  show

The host, Steve Rendall in discussing "Mitt"--the documentary about Mitt Romney, tells us what the role of news media should be versus what most Mainstream Media is today
Journalism is meant to be an effort to interrogate politicians' constructed images, not celebrate them.  The public needs reporters to explain what candidates propose to do in office, whether their record suggests that they are likely to do those things, and what will happen if they did.

In examining Obama's State of The Union speech, Steve lists a few instances where Obama has paid lip service to a cause, while also asking for adverse policies, and I add a few as well.

Steve mentions that Obama:
  • warns about climate change but calls for more drilling
  • wants to end "cycle of wars" but was just stopped from starting a new war in Syria
  • calls for equality, raise minimum wage but calls for more free trade pacts 

I would add 
  • calls for ending war in Afghanistan, but not really since he wants to keep drone bases in the country for 10 more years in order to attack Pakistan NY Times
  • said he ended the Iraq War, when he tried to keep troops there but couldnt get legal immunity for them, and the AUMF is still active 2 years later Senator Wyden
  • calls on Congress to pass immigration reform, while deporting nearly 2 million people, ignoring his own administration's Morgan Memos calling for an end to deporting those whose only crime was coming here illegally. This American Life American Prospect Mother Jones Think Progress
  • and of course there are whistleblowers and dissenters who he praises as keeping government honest, but prosecutes them as spies and jails them, while "welcoming debates" they bring to the public. Change.gov

http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process. 

John Schmitt, the guest on the show, said that
we have to make sure that he does what we want him to do, and to bring political pressure to make that happen

instead of waiting for what Obama wants to do and not pushing him further to the left or keeping him to his own words or what policies actually work.