Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Executive Drone Assassination Program:
It is shocking and sad that it takes a satirical program on a comedy cable network to actually thoroughly cover the Obama Administration's extra-legal, due process mocking, unconstitutional killing of U.S. citizens in countries where the U.S. has not declared war.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Drones (video)
Jeremy Scahill has done excellent reporting on the subject: Inside the US Dirty War in Yemen
It is shocking and sad that it takes a satirical program on a comedy cable network to actually thoroughly cover the Obama Administration's extra-legal, due process mocking, unconstitutional killing of U.S. citizens in countries where the U.S. has not declared war.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Drones (video)
Jeremy Scahill has done excellent reporting on the subject: Inside the US Dirty War in Yemen
Monday, February 24, 2014
Domestic Surveillance:
Bruce Schneier: It's time to break up the NSA
"The NSA has become too big and too powerful. What was supposed to be a single agency with a dual mission -- protecting the security of U.S. communications and eavesdropping on the communications of our enemies -- has become unbalanced in the post-Cold War, all-terrorism-all-the-time era. Putting the U.S. Cyber Command, the military's cyberwar wing, in the same location and under the same commander, expanded the NSA's power. The result is an agency that prioritizes intelligence gathering over security, and that's increasingly putting us all at risk. It's time we thought about breaking up the National Security Agency. Broadly speaking, three types of NSA surveillance programs were exposed by the documents released by Edward Snowden. And while the media tends to lump them together, understanding their differences is critical to understanding how to divide up the NSA's missions... ...Computer and network security is hard, and we need the NSA's expertise to secure our social networks, business systems, computers, phones and critical infrastructure. Just recall the recent incidents of hacked accounts -- from Target to Kickstarter. What once seemed occasional now seems routine. Any NSA work to secure our networks and infrastructure can be done openly -- no secrecy required..."
Economics:
Noam Chomsky: ‘How to ruin an economy’ in three simple steps
"In a February 14, 2014 lecture captured by progressive videographer Leigha Cohen, Noam Chomsky gave some 'simple' advice about 'how to ruin an economy and a society.' 'Let’s suppose,' Chomsky began, 'that for some perverse reason we’re interested in ruining an economy and a society…and to make it interesting, let’s select the richest and most powerful society in history, one with incomparable advantages, one that’s fortunately close at hand — namely, our own.' 'There are ample resources,' he continued, to provide employment to all who seek it, 'but they’re hidden away where they cannot be accessed, in the overflowing pockets of the super-rich and the corporate sector, particularly the big banks, which have been generously rewarded for having created a crisis serious enough to have almost brought down the domestic and even global economy.' 'The system is so dysfunctional, that it cannot put eager hands to needed work, using the resources that would be readily available if the economy were designed to serve human needs, rather than wealth beyond the dreams of avarice for a privileged few.' 'These things didn’t just happen like a tornado, they’re the results of quite deliberate policies over roughly the past generation, the period of the neoliberal assault on the population,' Chomsky said. 'These developments should not be confused with idealized workings of capitalism and free markets, [apologies for which] are designed to protect the Masters from market discipline.' Chomksy’s first suggestion as to how to ruin an economy would be to 'cut back' on the 'dynamic state-sponsored research and development' that brought about advances in information technology and medicine. A second way 'to undermine a healthy economy is to encourage the growth of financial institutions, giving them free rein via deregulation and using state power to under-price risk.' The third way would be to convince the public that behaviors encouraged by these institutions are 'rational,' and have no impact upon the future. Chomsky discussed the 'euphoria that surrounds the 'century of energy independence,' in which the United States becomes the new Saudi Arabia. Corporations are engaged in a major 'propaganda campaign' to convince the people that 'climate change, if it exists at all, does not result from human activity.' In the case of global climate collapse, however, 'it goes well beyond just ruining an economy.'"
Bruce Schneier: It's time to break up the NSA
"The NSA has become too big and too powerful. What was supposed to be a single agency with a dual mission -- protecting the security of U.S. communications and eavesdropping on the communications of our enemies -- has become unbalanced in the post-Cold War, all-terrorism-all-the-time era. Putting the U.S. Cyber Command, the military's cyberwar wing, in the same location and under the same commander, expanded the NSA's power. The result is an agency that prioritizes intelligence gathering over security, and that's increasingly putting us all at risk. It's time we thought about breaking up the National Security Agency. Broadly speaking, three types of NSA surveillance programs were exposed by the documents released by Edward Snowden. And while the media tends to lump them together, understanding their differences is critical to understanding how to divide up the NSA's missions... ...Computer and network security is hard, and we need the NSA's expertise to secure our social networks, business systems, computers, phones and critical infrastructure. Just recall the recent incidents of hacked accounts -- from Target to Kickstarter. What once seemed occasional now seems routine. Any NSA work to secure our networks and infrastructure can be done openly -- no secrecy required..."
Economics:
Noam Chomsky: ‘How to ruin an economy’ in three simple steps
"In a February 14, 2014 lecture captured by progressive videographer Leigha Cohen, Noam Chomsky gave some 'simple' advice about 'how to ruin an economy and a society.' 'Let’s suppose,' Chomsky began, 'that for some perverse reason we’re interested in ruining an economy and a society…and to make it interesting, let’s select the richest and most powerful society in history, one with incomparable advantages, one that’s fortunately close at hand — namely, our own.' 'There are ample resources,' he continued, to provide employment to all who seek it, 'but they’re hidden away where they cannot be accessed, in the overflowing pockets of the super-rich and the corporate sector, particularly the big banks, which have been generously rewarded for having created a crisis serious enough to have almost brought down the domestic and even global economy.' 'The system is so dysfunctional, that it cannot put eager hands to needed work, using the resources that would be readily available if the economy were designed to serve human needs, rather than wealth beyond the dreams of avarice for a privileged few.' 'These things didn’t just happen like a tornado, they’re the results of quite deliberate policies over roughly the past generation, the period of the neoliberal assault on the population,' Chomsky said. 'These developments should not be confused with idealized workings of capitalism and free markets, [apologies for which] are designed to protect the Masters from market discipline.' Chomksy’s first suggestion as to how to ruin an economy would be to 'cut back' on the 'dynamic state-sponsored research and development' that brought about advances in information technology and medicine. A second way 'to undermine a healthy economy is to encourage the growth of financial institutions, giving them free rein via deregulation and using state power to under-price risk.' The third way would be to convince the public that behaviors encouraged by these institutions are 'rational,' and have no impact upon the future. Chomsky discussed the 'euphoria that surrounds the 'century of energy independence,' in which the United States becomes the new Saudi Arabia. Corporations are engaged in a major 'propaganda campaign' to convince the people that 'climate change, if it exists at all, does not result from human activity.' In the case of global climate collapse, however, 'it goes well beyond just ruining an economy.'"
Sunday, February 09, 2014
Prohibition = Failure
Russell Brand: Philip Seymour Hoffman is another victim of extremely stupid drug laws
"...Addiction is a mental illness around which there is a great deal of confusion, which is hugely exacerbated by the laws that criminalise drug addicts. If drugs are illegal people who use drugs are criminals. We have set our moral compass on this erroneous premise, and we have strayed so far off course that the landscape we now inhabit provides us with no solutions and greatly increases the problem. This is an important moment in history; we know that prohibition does not work. We know that the people who devise drug laws are out of touch and have no idea how to reach a solution. Do they even have the inclination? The fact is their methods are so gallingly ineffective that it is difficult not to deduce that they are deliberately creating the worst imaginable circumstances to maximise the harm caused by substance misuse. People are going to use drugs; no self-respecting drug addict is even remotely deterred by prohibition. What prohibition achieves is an unregulated, criminal-controlled, sprawling, global mob-economy, where drug users, their families and society at large are all exposed to the worst conceivable version of this regrettably unavoidable problem. Countries like Portugal and Switzerland that have introduced progressive and tolerant drug laws have seen crime plummet and drug-related deaths significantly reduced. We know this. We know this system doesn’t work – and yet we prop it up with ignorance and indifference. Why? Wisdom is acting on knowledge. Now we are aware that our drug laws aren’t working and that alternatives are yielding positive results, why are we not acting? Tradition? Prejudice? Extreme stupidity? The answer is all three..."
So, why does prohibition persist as a social strategy?
Serious profits are to be made in criminalizing behavior, as Sabrina Fendrick tells us in The Prohibition Industrial Complex
Drug enforcement funding that depends on property forfeiture, the private prison industry and the drug testing industry all create an obstacle to a more humane drug policy that primarily focuses on education & treatment, i.e. treating the problem as a public health issue, rather than a criminal matter.
Moyers & Co. with Joshua Holland call our attention to the private prison industry, specifically: Higher profits explain why there are more people of color in private prisons
"...The private prison industry has come under criticism for spending millions lobbying for harsh sentences that would put more people in jail. Contracts that require minimum occupancy rates — and force states to pay for unused beds — have also come under fire. Privatization is sold to the public as a way to save money, but various studies have found that they either end up costing more, or save states just a few dollars per prisoner. According to an American Friends Service Committee study of private prisons in Arizona — a state that’s led the privatization trend — they turn a profit by paying corrections officers less and cutting corners when it comes to security and health care.
Chris Petrella’s study shows that they also pick and choose their prisoners in order to maximize their bottom lines. But somebody has to pay the price..."
Food & Your Right To Now:
Kate Cox: Food Industry Volunteers To Self-Regulate GMO Labeling By Doing It If They Feel Like It
"Do you have any idea if the ingredients in that sandwich you just made for lunch were genetically modified? Probably not: there’s no federal rule requiring labeling of GMO ingredients one way or the other. Now, a group of food industry organizations is calling on Congress to take action about GMO labeling… but the request isn’t quite what it seems. NPR reports that a new coalition of nearly 30 organizations representing farmers, grocers, seed companies, and other food producers has banded together to advocate for action. The Coalition for Safe Affordable Foods, as the organization is known, released a statement saying that the current patchwork of non-regulations is confusing to consumers, and asked Congress to act. The caveat? That call for consistency is actually a call for Congress to avoid requiring labeling at all. The Coalition’s goals, from their own website, are (emphasis added):
Dangerous Household Chemicals:
Kate Cox: EPA Sued In Effort To Remove Potentially Toxic Chemicals From Fido’s Flea Collar
"...The Natural Resource Defense Council has filed a lawsuit against the EPA related to two chemicals found in flea collars, propoxur and tetrachlorvinphos (TCVP), that the NRDC wants the EPA to ban. Specifically, the suit 'seeks to force EPA to respond to NRDC’s petitions to cancel all pet uses and manufacturer registrations of these two chemicals.' Flea collars work by intentionally leaving pesticides on a pet’s fur. As the NRDC’s health attorney explained in a blog post, according to federal law 'a pesticide cannot be sold that may cause adverse impacts to human health or the environment.' If a pesticide hurts something other than bugs (like, say, people), its supposed to be pulled from the market. These particular two chemicals can be very harmful when children ingest them, the NRDC says, likening the effects on kids to the effects of lead poisoning. The advocacy group has been petitioning the EPA to discontinue allowing the use of one chemical since 2007 and the other since 2009. In 2010, the EPA issued an assessment finding that the risks to children from toxin levels were 'of concern' but the agency has not taken any further action regarding their use..."
Russell Brand: Philip Seymour Hoffman is another victim of extremely stupid drug laws
"...Addiction is a mental illness around which there is a great deal of confusion, which is hugely exacerbated by the laws that criminalise drug addicts. If drugs are illegal people who use drugs are criminals. We have set our moral compass on this erroneous premise, and we have strayed so far off course that the landscape we now inhabit provides us with no solutions and greatly increases the problem. This is an important moment in history; we know that prohibition does not work. We know that the people who devise drug laws are out of touch and have no idea how to reach a solution. Do they even have the inclination? The fact is their methods are so gallingly ineffective that it is difficult not to deduce that they are deliberately creating the worst imaginable circumstances to maximise the harm caused by substance misuse. People are going to use drugs; no self-respecting drug addict is even remotely deterred by prohibition. What prohibition achieves is an unregulated, criminal-controlled, sprawling, global mob-economy, where drug users, their families and society at large are all exposed to the worst conceivable version of this regrettably unavoidable problem. Countries like Portugal and Switzerland that have introduced progressive and tolerant drug laws have seen crime plummet and drug-related deaths significantly reduced. We know this. We know this system doesn’t work – and yet we prop it up with ignorance and indifference. Why? Wisdom is acting on knowledge. Now we are aware that our drug laws aren’t working and that alternatives are yielding positive results, why are we not acting? Tradition? Prejudice? Extreme stupidity? The answer is all three..."
So, why does prohibition persist as a social strategy?
Serious profits are to be made in criminalizing behavior, as Sabrina Fendrick tells us in The Prohibition Industrial Complex
Drug enforcement funding that depends on property forfeiture, the private prison industry and the drug testing industry all create an obstacle to a more humane drug policy that primarily focuses on education & treatment, i.e. treating the problem as a public health issue, rather than a criminal matter.
Moyers & Co. with Joshua Holland call our attention to the private prison industry, specifically: Higher profits explain why there are more people of color in private prisons
"...The private prison industry has come under criticism for spending millions lobbying for harsh sentences that would put more people in jail. Contracts that require minimum occupancy rates — and force states to pay for unused beds — have also come under fire. Privatization is sold to the public as a way to save money, but various studies have found that they either end up costing more, or save states just a few dollars per prisoner. According to an American Friends Service Committee study of private prisons in Arizona — a state that’s led the privatization trend — they turn a profit by paying corrections officers less and cutting corners when it comes to security and health care.
Chris Petrella’s study shows that they also pick and choose their prisoners in order to maximize their bottom lines. But somebody has to pay the price..."
Food & Your Right To Now:
Kate Cox: Food Industry Volunteers To Self-Regulate GMO Labeling By Doing It If They Feel Like It
"Do you have any idea if the ingredients in that sandwich you just made for lunch were genetically modified? Probably not: there’s no federal rule requiring labeling of GMO ingredients one way or the other. Now, a group of food industry organizations is calling on Congress to take action about GMO labeling… but the request isn’t quite what it seems. NPR reports that a new coalition of nearly 30 organizations representing farmers, grocers, seed companies, and other food producers has banded together to advocate for action. The Coalition for Safe Affordable Foods, as the organization is known, released a statement saying that the current patchwork of non-regulations is confusing to consumers, and asked Congress to act. The caveat? That call for consistency is actually a call for Congress to avoid requiring labeling at all. The Coalition’s goals, from their own website, are (emphasis added):
Eliminate Confusion: Remove the confusion and uncertainty of a 50 state patchwork of GMO safety and labeling laws and affirm the FDA as the nation’s authority for the use and labeling of genetically modified food ingredients.
Advance Food Safety: Require the FDA to conduct a safety review of all new GMO traits before they are introduced into commerce.
FDA will be empowered to mandate the labeling of GMO food ingredients if the agency determines there is a health, safety or nutrition issue with an ingredient derived from a GMO.
Inform Consumers: The FDA will establish federal standards for companies that want to voluntarily label their product for the absence-of or presence-of GMO food ingredients so that consumers clearly understand their choices in the marketplace.
Provide Consistency: The FDA will define the term 'natural' for its use on food and beverage products so that food and beverage companies and consumers have a consistent legal framework that will guide food labels and inform consumer choice..."
Dangerous Household Chemicals:
Kate Cox: EPA Sued In Effort To Remove Potentially Toxic Chemicals From Fido’s Flea Collar
"...The Natural Resource Defense Council has filed a lawsuit against the EPA related to two chemicals found in flea collars, propoxur and tetrachlorvinphos (TCVP), that the NRDC wants the EPA to ban. Specifically, the suit 'seeks to force EPA to respond to NRDC’s petitions to cancel all pet uses and manufacturer registrations of these two chemicals.' Flea collars work by intentionally leaving pesticides on a pet’s fur. As the NRDC’s health attorney explained in a blog post, according to federal law 'a pesticide cannot be sold that may cause adverse impacts to human health or the environment.' If a pesticide hurts something other than bugs (like, say, people), its supposed to be pulled from the market. These particular two chemicals can be very harmful when children ingest them, the NRDC says, likening the effects on kids to the effects of lead poisoning. The advocacy group has been petitioning the EPA to discontinue allowing the use of one chemical since 2007 and the other since 2009. In 2010, the EPA issued an assessment finding that the risks to children from toxin levels were 'of concern' but the agency has not taken any further action regarding their use..."
Saturday, February 01, 2014
CEOs vs Workers:
Mark Ames: The Techtopus: How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages
"In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt 'got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple.' Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information 'verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?' These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied attempts by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the lawsuit tossed, and gave final approval for the class action suit to go forward. A jury trial date has been set for May 27 in San Jose, before US District Court judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the Samsung-Apple patent suit. In a related but separate investigation and ongoing suit, eBay and its former CEO Meg Whitman, now CEO of HP, are being sued by both the federal government and the state of California for arranging a similar, secret wage-theft agreement with Intuit (and possibly Google as well) during the same period. The secret wage-theft agreements between Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar (now owned by Disney) are described in court papers obtained by PandoDaily as 'an overarching conspiracy' in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, and at times it reads like something lifted straight out of the robber baron era that produced those laws..."
The Executive Makes Excuses for Lying:
DailyKos: Obama: Clapper Excused Because 'Between Rock & A Hard Place'
"President Obama, whose administration promised a new era of transparency, has now officially come out in regards to the lies told to congress by James Clapper, providing excuses..."
Mark Ames: The Techtopus: How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages
"In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt 'got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple.' Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information 'verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?' These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied attempts by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the lawsuit tossed, and gave final approval for the class action suit to go forward. A jury trial date has been set for May 27 in San Jose, before US District Court judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the Samsung-Apple patent suit. In a related but separate investigation and ongoing suit, eBay and its former CEO Meg Whitman, now CEO of HP, are being sued by both the federal government and the state of California for arranging a similar, secret wage-theft agreement with Intuit (and possibly Google as well) during the same period. The secret wage-theft agreements between Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar (now owned by Disney) are described in court papers obtained by PandoDaily as 'an overarching conspiracy' in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, and at times it reads like something lifted straight out of the robber baron era that produced those laws..."
The Executive Makes Excuses for Lying:
DailyKos: Obama: Clapper Excused Because 'Between Rock & A Hard Place'
"President Obama, whose administration promised a new era of transparency, has now officially come out in regards to the lies told to congress by James Clapper, providing excuses..."
