Saturday, December 27, 2014
Casualties In The War On Drugs:
Andrew Emett: Mexican Police Helped Drug Cartel Massacre 314 Migrants
"After years of silence, the office of Mexico’s Attorney General declassified a document admitting police officers had participated in the kidnapping and massacre of hundreds of migrants throughout northern Mexico. While working for Los Zetas drug cartel, police provided illicit protection, assisted in kidnappings, and turned a blind eye to the investigation of numerous mass graves. Caught in a turf war between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, at least 314 migrants have died at the hands of the police and cartels. According to a recently declassified memo sent from the office of Mexico’s Attorney General to The National Security Archive, local police in the city of San Fernando in northern Mexico have been working for the Zetas for years. A DEA cable from 2009 noted many Zetas had been recruited from an elite Mexican Army unit known as the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE). No longer operating as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas expanded into new territory and asserted control through murder, intimidation, and corruption. In August 2010, San Fernando police officers set up roadblocks and pulled at least 72 mainly Central American migrants off intercity buses. Instead of detaining the migrants, police officials handed them over to the Zetas who extorted fees for safe passage across the border and forced them work as drug mules. The Zetas executed everyone who could not afford to pay or refused to smuggle drugs across the border. The bodies of 58 men and 14 women from Central and South America were later discovered at a remote ranch in San Fernando..."
Privatization of War:
Sarah Lazare: US to Spike Private Mercenaries in Iraq Amid Expanding War, Says Senior Official
"The U.S. government is preparing to hike the number of private mercenary forces in Iraq, as part of the expanding war in that country and neighboring Syria, an anonymous senior U.S. official told Reuters. There are currently at least 1,800 private contractors in Iraq, and the official said it is not immediately clear how many additional mercenaries will be sent, according to Reuters. Nonetheless, journalists Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart note, the plan to boost numbers "underscores Obama's growing commitment in Iraq. When U.S. troops and diplomats venture into war zones, contractors tend to follow, doing jobs once handled by the military itself." The mercenary forces will add to the approximately 1,750 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, a number that is slated to climb past 3,000 after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered more deployments last week. The push to increase U.S. military service members and private contractors comes at a time when little information is being released to the public about the wars in Iraq and Syria, including data on civilian deaths. Mercenaries are highly controversial in Iraq, due to the atrocities they have inflicted on civilian populations. In 2007, Blackwater guards under the employ of the U.S. State Department opened fire on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 people and wounding 20..."
On Torture:
Amy Goodman: Mark Udall Can Make History by Releasing the Torture Report
"Mark Udall, the outgoing Democratic senator from Colorado, may be a lame duck, leaving office in less than a week. But his most important work in the Senate may still be before him. For the week he remains in office, he still sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He worked on that committee’s epic, 6,700-page, still-secret report, the “Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” otherwise known as the torture report. The intelligence committee has recently released a heavily redacted declassified executive summary of the report, in which new, gory details of the torture conducted during the Bush/Cheney administration have been made public for the first time. Udall is angry about the U.S. torture program. He is angry about the heavy redaction of the executive summary, and the CIA and White House interference in the intelligence committee’s oversight work. He wants the full report made available to the public. While it is still secret, Udall could release the classified document in its entirety..."
Healthcare As A Business, Rather Than A Right:
Paul Kiel: In Alabama, A Public Hospital Serves the Poor — with Lawsuits
"Public hospitals can be among the most aggressive in collecting debts from poor patients, not only garnishing their wages, but cleaning out their bank accounts..."
Andrew Emett: Mexican Police Helped Drug Cartel Massacre 314 Migrants
"After years of silence, the office of Mexico’s Attorney General declassified a document admitting police officers had participated in the kidnapping and massacre of hundreds of migrants throughout northern Mexico. While working for Los Zetas drug cartel, police provided illicit protection, assisted in kidnappings, and turned a blind eye to the investigation of numerous mass graves. Caught in a turf war between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, at least 314 migrants have died at the hands of the police and cartels. According to a recently declassified memo sent from the office of Mexico’s Attorney General to The National Security Archive, local police in the city of San Fernando in northern Mexico have been working for the Zetas for years. A DEA cable from 2009 noted many Zetas had been recruited from an elite Mexican Army unit known as the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE). No longer operating as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas expanded into new territory and asserted control through murder, intimidation, and corruption. In August 2010, San Fernando police officers set up roadblocks and pulled at least 72 mainly Central American migrants off intercity buses. Instead of detaining the migrants, police officials handed them over to the Zetas who extorted fees for safe passage across the border and forced them work as drug mules. The Zetas executed everyone who could not afford to pay or refused to smuggle drugs across the border. The bodies of 58 men and 14 women from Central and South America were later discovered at a remote ranch in San Fernando..."
Privatization of War:
Sarah Lazare: US to Spike Private Mercenaries in Iraq Amid Expanding War, Says Senior Official
"The U.S. government is preparing to hike the number of private mercenary forces in Iraq, as part of the expanding war in that country and neighboring Syria, an anonymous senior U.S. official told Reuters. There are currently at least 1,800 private contractors in Iraq, and the official said it is not immediately clear how many additional mercenaries will be sent, according to Reuters. Nonetheless, journalists Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart note, the plan to boost numbers "underscores Obama's growing commitment in Iraq. When U.S. troops and diplomats venture into war zones, contractors tend to follow, doing jobs once handled by the military itself." The mercenary forces will add to the approximately 1,750 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, a number that is slated to climb past 3,000 after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered more deployments last week. The push to increase U.S. military service members and private contractors comes at a time when little information is being released to the public about the wars in Iraq and Syria, including data on civilian deaths. Mercenaries are highly controversial in Iraq, due to the atrocities they have inflicted on civilian populations. In 2007, Blackwater guards under the employ of the U.S. State Department opened fire on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 people and wounding 20..."
On Torture:
Amy Goodman: Mark Udall Can Make History by Releasing the Torture Report
"Mark Udall, the outgoing Democratic senator from Colorado, may be a lame duck, leaving office in less than a week. But his most important work in the Senate may still be before him. For the week he remains in office, he still sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He worked on that committee’s epic, 6,700-page, still-secret report, the “Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” otherwise known as the torture report. The intelligence committee has recently released a heavily redacted declassified executive summary of the report, in which new, gory details of the torture conducted during the Bush/Cheney administration have been made public for the first time. Udall is angry about the U.S. torture program. He is angry about the heavy redaction of the executive summary, and the CIA and White House interference in the intelligence committee’s oversight work. He wants the full report made available to the public. While it is still secret, Udall could release the classified document in its entirety..."
Healthcare As A Business, Rather Than A Right:
Paul Kiel: In Alabama, A Public Hospital Serves the Poor — with Lawsuits
"Public hospitals can be among the most aggressive in collecting debts from poor patients, not only garnishing their wages, but cleaning out their bank accounts..."
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Energy vs The Environment:
The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio): Families flee out-of-control natural-gas leak at eastern Ohio fracking well
"About 25 families in eastern Ohio have been unable to live in their houses for the past three days because of a natural-gas leak at a fracking well that crews cannot stop. Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the state agency that regulates oil and gas, said crews lost control of the Monroe County well on Saturday. Families were evacuated from about 25 houses within a 1.5-mile radius of the well, located near the Ohio River about 160 miles east of Columbus. The well is not on fire, but the gas could be explosive. 'There’s still a steady stream of natural gas coming from the wellhead,' McCorkle said yesterday. The well is operated by Triad Hunter, a Texas company that also has offices in Marietta in southeastern Ohio. The company did not return a call yesterday but said in a statement that the well had been temporarily plugged about a year ago while the company drilled and fracked three more wells on that site..."
Domestic Surveillance:
Don Reisinger: NSA's Auroragold spies on carriers to breach cell networks, report says
"A newly discovered program, dug out of the leaked Snowden documents, could even let the spy agency introduce vulnerabilities in the networks to help it listen in... ...Dubbed Auroragold, the previously undiscovered NSA program allows the clandestine agency to exploit security vulnerabilities -- and even to introduce new ones -- in cell networks to help it eavesdrop on calls and text messages. Information on the program was amid the copious files leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden files and obtained by reporter Glenn Greenwald, who co-founded The Intercept. According to the report, the Auroragold program has been in full swing for the last few years and continuously monitors communications by more than 1,200 e-mail accounts associated with major cell phone network companies. Chief among the targets, the Intercept claims, is the UK-based GSM Association. which counts among its members some of the largest tech and telephony companies in the world, including AT&T, Cisco, Microsoft, Samsung and Vodafone. The group provides guidance on new technologies and techniques related to all things mobile and plays a crucial role in enhancing the security of cellular networks around the world. Of particular interest to the NSA has been the GSMA's technical documents connected to roaming arrangements that let mobile phone owners use their devices when they travel abroad. Those so-called IR.21 documents highlight new technologies as well as encryption methods being used by carriers..."
On Torture:
Lisa Hajjar: The CIA Didn’t Just Torture, It Experimented on Human Beings
"Reframing the CIA’s interrogation techniques as a violation of scientific and medical ethics may be the best way to achieve accountability..."
The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio): Families flee out-of-control natural-gas leak at eastern Ohio fracking well
"About 25 families in eastern Ohio have been unable to live in their houses for the past three days because of a natural-gas leak at a fracking well that crews cannot stop. Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the state agency that regulates oil and gas, said crews lost control of the Monroe County well on Saturday. Families were evacuated from about 25 houses within a 1.5-mile radius of the well, located near the Ohio River about 160 miles east of Columbus. The well is not on fire, but the gas could be explosive. 'There’s still a steady stream of natural gas coming from the wellhead,' McCorkle said yesterday. The well is operated by Triad Hunter, a Texas company that also has offices in Marietta in southeastern Ohio. The company did not return a call yesterday but said in a statement that the well had been temporarily plugged about a year ago while the company drilled and fracked three more wells on that site..."
Domestic Surveillance:
Don Reisinger: NSA's Auroragold spies on carriers to breach cell networks, report says
"A newly discovered program, dug out of the leaked Snowden documents, could even let the spy agency introduce vulnerabilities in the networks to help it listen in... ...Dubbed Auroragold, the previously undiscovered NSA program allows the clandestine agency to exploit security vulnerabilities -- and even to introduce new ones -- in cell networks to help it eavesdrop on calls and text messages. Information on the program was amid the copious files leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden files and obtained by reporter Glenn Greenwald, who co-founded The Intercept. According to the report, the Auroragold program has been in full swing for the last few years and continuously monitors communications by more than 1,200 e-mail accounts associated with major cell phone network companies. Chief among the targets, the Intercept claims, is the UK-based GSM Association. which counts among its members some of the largest tech and telephony companies in the world, including AT&T, Cisco, Microsoft, Samsung and Vodafone. The group provides guidance on new technologies and techniques related to all things mobile and plays a crucial role in enhancing the security of cellular networks around the world. Of particular interest to the NSA has been the GSMA's technical documents connected to roaming arrangements that let mobile phone owners use their devices when they travel abroad. Those so-called IR.21 documents highlight new technologies as well as encryption methods being used by carriers..."
On Torture:
Lisa Hajjar: The CIA Didn’t Just Torture, It Experimented on Human Beings
"Reframing the CIA’s interrogation techniques as a violation of scientific and medical ethics may be the best way to achieve accountability..."
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Journalism:
Mat Honan: The Guerrilla Tactics of The Racket, and How It Almost Upended Journalism
"In September, when it wasn’t quite autumn in New York but after the long hot summer had ended, I rode up an elevator in New York’s Flat Iron district to the offices of First Look Media to meet with the guerrilla editors of The Racket. The Racket has since folded, without ever launching. Which is a shame, not only because it had built a great team full of interesting writers, but also because it was going to be a lot of fun. The Racket was to be a showcase for Matt Taibbi,the Rolling Stone reporter who made a name for himself running a newspaper in Russia before becoming one of the financial industry’s harshest critics. Taibbi hired great, voicey, no-bullshit editors like Alex Pareene and Edith Zimmerman. The plan was to make an Internet magazine that mixed hard-hitting reporting and in-depth features with wicked, Spy magazine-style satire..."
Transportation:
AutoBlog: Milan paying residents not to drive
"Some European struggle to accommodate their current traffic volumes. Often narrow, bumpy streets are downright ancient, and not exactly laid out with efficiency in mind. We've seen cities across the Old World take different approaches to addressing this issue – London instituted congestion charging, while Hamburg is actively working to ban cars by the mid 2030s. Milan, meanwhile, is taking an all-together different approach. Rather than charging car owners every time they drive into the city, the Milanese government is teaming up with the public transport department, insurance agency Unipol and Octo Telematics, a manufacturer of "black boxes" and onboard telematics systems for a new campaign called 'Park Your Car and Go Public!' With the telematics systems installed in the cars of Unipol customers, city officials know how often a car is left at home and will reward customers if the car remains parked from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM. It's not a huge reward – only 1.50 euros per day or $1.84 – but it covers the cost of a ticket on public transport and is easily delivered via text message. The new campaign, according to Octo Telematics, proves the appeal of connected car systems..."
Jordan Golson: Cheap American Chicken Gave Us This Weird Subaru Pickup
"One of the funkiest, coolest little trucks ever made was the result of us having cheap chicken. Way back in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated a series of tariff increases on brandy, dextrin, potato starch and, weirdly, light trucks valued at more than $1,000. He did this in response to a trade war with the Europeans, who were in a snit because inexpensive American chicken that was flooding the market over there, hurting continental chicken farmers. Most of the tariffs, which came to be known as the 'Chicken Tax,' eventually were repealed. Yet the one on light trucks remains. The 25 percent tax on the importation of light trucks (LBJ was specifically targeting German-built Volkswagen vans), utterly failed at protecting the US chicken market, yet remains in place more than 50 years later..."
Mat Honan: The Guerrilla Tactics of The Racket, and How It Almost Upended Journalism
"In September, when it wasn’t quite autumn in New York but after the long hot summer had ended, I rode up an elevator in New York’s Flat Iron district to the offices of First Look Media to meet with the guerrilla editors of The Racket. The Racket has since folded, without ever launching. Which is a shame, not only because it had built a great team full of interesting writers, but also because it was going to be a lot of fun. The Racket was to be a showcase for Matt Taibbi,the Rolling Stone reporter who made a name for himself running a newspaper in Russia before becoming one of the financial industry’s harshest critics. Taibbi hired great, voicey, no-bullshit editors like Alex Pareene and Edith Zimmerman. The plan was to make an Internet magazine that mixed hard-hitting reporting and in-depth features with wicked, Spy magazine-style satire..."
Transportation:
AutoBlog: Milan paying residents not to drive
"Some European struggle to accommodate their current traffic volumes. Often narrow, bumpy streets are downright ancient, and not exactly laid out with efficiency in mind. We've seen cities across the Old World take different approaches to addressing this issue – London instituted congestion charging, while Hamburg is actively working to ban cars by the mid 2030s. Milan, meanwhile, is taking an all-together different approach. Rather than charging car owners every time they drive into the city, the Milanese government is teaming up with the public transport department, insurance agency Unipol and Octo Telematics, a manufacturer of "black boxes" and onboard telematics systems for a new campaign called 'Park Your Car and Go Public!' With the telematics systems installed in the cars of Unipol customers, city officials know how often a car is left at home and will reward customers if the car remains parked from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM. It's not a huge reward – only 1.50 euros per day or $1.84 – but it covers the cost of a ticket on public transport and is easily delivered via text message. The new campaign, according to Octo Telematics, proves the appeal of connected car systems..."
Jordan Golson: Cheap American Chicken Gave Us This Weird Subaru Pickup
"One of the funkiest, coolest little trucks ever made was the result of us having cheap chicken. Way back in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated a series of tariff increases on brandy, dextrin, potato starch and, weirdly, light trucks valued at more than $1,000. He did this in response to a trade war with the Europeans, who were in a snit because inexpensive American chicken that was flooding the market over there, hurting continental chicken farmers. Most of the tariffs, which came to be known as the 'Chicken Tax,' eventually were repealed. Yet the one on light trucks remains. The 25 percent tax on the importation of light trucks (LBJ was specifically targeting German-built Volkswagen vans), utterly failed at protecting the US chicken market, yet remains in place more than 50 years later..."
Friday, December 12, 2014
Fox Being Invited to Help Watch Over The Hen-house?
David Heath: Scientist with Deep Industry Ties Being Considered for Key EPA Job
"A scientist with deep ties to the chemical industry is one of two finalists to lead the office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that determines which chemicals can make people sick, and in what doses. Michael Dourson is being considered to direct the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), whose scientific reports are used by the EPA and states to draft regulations to rid air, water or soil of toxic chemicals. Dourson runs his own nonprofit consulting group, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, or TERA, which does substantial work for chemical and drug companies. TERA maintains a database of chemicals as an alternative to IRIS. It includes data typically showing the chemicals at low doses are safer than the EPA says..."
There Is Always Money For War:
Sarah Lazare: Buried Within Omnibus Bill, a 'Long-Term Blank Check for War Spending'
"The government funding bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives on Thursday has been widely criticized, including from within Congress, as a give-away to Wall Street. However, its 1,600 pages raise numerous other red flags for activists and analysts, including a bloated military budget and what journalist Julia Harte calls 'a long-term blank check for 'war' spending.' The bill approves $554 billion overall in Pentagon spending—in keeping with the trajectory of a country that spends more on the military than the next 11 countries combined. As Dave Gilson points out in Mother Jones, this sum means that total Pentagon funding during 2015 is 'close to what it got during the height of the Iraq War' and 'close to its highest level since World War II.' When this sum is broken down, its sources raise further concerns, say analysts. Buried within the budget is $64 billion in military funding from what is called the Overseas Contingency Operations. Established in 2001 under a different title, the OCO was supposed to be for 'temporary' emergencies relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it has become a permanent, and seemingly bottomless, source of funding for war. Even President Obama noticed this in 2008, when he issued the campaign promise to reign in abuse of emergency war spending. As Harte writes for the Center for Public Integrity, 'The OCO budget isn't subject to spending limits that cap the rest of the defense budget for the next seven years; it's often omitted altogether from tallies of how much the military spends each year; and as an 'emergency' fund, it's subject to much less scrutiny than other military spending requests,'..."
David Heath: Scientist with Deep Industry Ties Being Considered for Key EPA Job
"A scientist with deep ties to the chemical industry is one of two finalists to lead the office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that determines which chemicals can make people sick, and in what doses. Michael Dourson is being considered to direct the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), whose scientific reports are used by the EPA and states to draft regulations to rid air, water or soil of toxic chemicals. Dourson runs his own nonprofit consulting group, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, or TERA, which does substantial work for chemical and drug companies. TERA maintains a database of chemicals as an alternative to IRIS. It includes data typically showing the chemicals at low doses are safer than the EPA says..."
There Is Always Money For War:
Sarah Lazare: Buried Within Omnibus Bill, a 'Long-Term Blank Check for War Spending'
"The government funding bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives on Thursday has been widely criticized, including from within Congress, as a give-away to Wall Street. However, its 1,600 pages raise numerous other red flags for activists and analysts, including a bloated military budget and what journalist Julia Harte calls 'a long-term blank check for 'war' spending.' The bill approves $554 billion overall in Pentagon spending—in keeping with the trajectory of a country that spends more on the military than the next 11 countries combined. As Dave Gilson points out in Mother Jones, this sum means that total Pentagon funding during 2015 is 'close to what it got during the height of the Iraq War' and 'close to its highest level since World War II.' When this sum is broken down, its sources raise further concerns, say analysts. Buried within the budget is $64 billion in military funding from what is called the Overseas Contingency Operations. Established in 2001 under a different title, the OCO was supposed to be for 'temporary' emergencies relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it has become a permanent, and seemingly bottomless, source of funding for war. Even President Obama noticed this in 2008, when he issued the campaign promise to reign in abuse of emergency war spending. As Harte writes for the Center for Public Integrity, 'The OCO budget isn't subject to spending limits that cap the rest of the defense budget for the next seven years; it's often omitted altogether from tallies of how much the military spends each year; and as an 'emergency' fund, it's subject to much less scrutiny than other military spending requests,'..."
Sunday, December 07, 2014
Privacy:
Steve Dent: New bill aims to curb US government backdoor spying
"While the FBI thinks that all communication tools in the US should have backdoors for law enforcement, a new Senate bill has proposed the exact opposite. The Secure Data Act, introduced by Senator Ron Wyden, would prohibit the government from forcing companies like Google and Apple to grant access to encrypted data. A different bill to curb the NSA and other agencies (the USA Freedom Act) was denuded by the House of Representatives, while a recent vote allowed the Feds to carry on with massive surveillance. However, the Secure Data Act would specifically bar US agencies from forcing private companies to 'design or alter their commercial information technology products for the purpose of facilitating government surveillance.' Wyden's bill cites some familiar problems with backdoors that emerged with the mass of documents revealed by Edward Snowden. The main point is that such measures have the effect of weakening security overall. For instance, it cites a backdoor placed by law enforcement in Greece to monitor cellphone calls, that was later exploited by third parties to listen in on government officials. It also contends that such security exploits hurt innovation, since companies have no incentive to create new security tech if they're forced to deliberately open holes. Finally, it cited the loss of trust by the public, both stateside and abroad, in US products and services..."
Politicians and Their Human Constituents:
William Greider: How the Democratic Party Lost Its Soul
"The blowout election of 2014 demonstrates that the Democratic Party is utterly out of touch with ordinary people and their adverse circumstances. Working people have known this for some time now, but this year, the president made the disconnection more obvious. Barack Obama kept telling folks to brighten up: the economy is coming back, he said, and prosperity is just around the corner. A party truly connected to the people would never have dared to make such a claim. In the real world of voters, human experience trumps macroeconomics and the slowly declining official unemployment rate. An official at the AFL-CIO culled the following insights from what voters said about themselves on Election Day: 54 percent suffered a decline in household income during the past year. Sixty-three percent feel the economy is fundamentally unfair. Fifty-five percent agree strongly (and another 25 percent agree somewhat) that both political parties are too focused on helping Wall Street and not enough on helping ordinary people. Instead of addressing this reality and proposing remedies, the Democrats ran on a cowardly, uninspiring platform: the Republicans are worse than we are. Undoubtedly, that’s true—but so what? The president and his party have no credible solutions to offer. To get serious about inequality and the deteriorating middle class, Democrats would have to undo a lot of the damage their own party has done to the economy over the past thirty years. Postelection diagnosis on the left found lots of reasons to rationalize the dismal results and to cheer small victories. Critical analysis focused mainly on the mechanics of this failed election cycle, but the trouble with Democrats goes much deeper than one botched election. It’s systemic, and it started in the Reagan era. Long ago, the party abandoned its working-class base (of all colors) and steadily distanced itself from the unglamorous conditions that matter most in people’s lives. Traditional party bulwarks like organized labor and racial minorities became second-string players in the hierarchy that influences party policy. But the Dems didn’t just lose touch with the people they claimed to speak for; they betrayed core constituencies and adopted pro-business, pro-finance policies that actively injure working people..."
Steve Dent: New bill aims to curb US government backdoor spying
"While the FBI thinks that all communication tools in the US should have backdoors for law enforcement, a new Senate bill has proposed the exact opposite. The Secure Data Act, introduced by Senator Ron Wyden, would prohibit the government from forcing companies like Google and Apple to grant access to encrypted data. A different bill to curb the NSA and other agencies (the USA Freedom Act) was denuded by the House of Representatives, while a recent vote allowed the Feds to carry on with massive surveillance. However, the Secure Data Act would specifically bar US agencies from forcing private companies to 'design or alter their commercial information technology products for the purpose of facilitating government surveillance.' Wyden's bill cites some familiar problems with backdoors that emerged with the mass of documents revealed by Edward Snowden. The main point is that such measures have the effect of weakening security overall. For instance, it cites a backdoor placed by law enforcement in Greece to monitor cellphone calls, that was later exploited by third parties to listen in on government officials. It also contends that such security exploits hurt innovation, since companies have no incentive to create new security tech if they're forced to deliberately open holes. Finally, it cited the loss of trust by the public, both stateside and abroad, in US products and services..."
Politicians and Their Human Constituents:
William Greider: How the Democratic Party Lost Its Soul
"The blowout election of 2014 demonstrates that the Democratic Party is utterly out of touch with ordinary people and their adverse circumstances. Working people have known this for some time now, but this year, the president made the disconnection more obvious. Barack Obama kept telling folks to brighten up: the economy is coming back, he said, and prosperity is just around the corner. A party truly connected to the people would never have dared to make such a claim. In the real world of voters, human experience trumps macroeconomics and the slowly declining official unemployment rate. An official at the AFL-CIO culled the following insights from what voters said about themselves on Election Day: 54 percent suffered a decline in household income during the past year. Sixty-three percent feel the economy is fundamentally unfair. Fifty-five percent agree strongly (and another 25 percent agree somewhat) that both political parties are too focused on helping Wall Street and not enough on helping ordinary people. Instead of addressing this reality and proposing remedies, the Democrats ran on a cowardly, uninspiring platform: the Republicans are worse than we are. Undoubtedly, that’s true—but so what? The president and his party have no credible solutions to offer. To get serious about inequality and the deteriorating middle class, Democrats would have to undo a lot of the damage their own party has done to the economy over the past thirty years. Postelection diagnosis on the left found lots of reasons to rationalize the dismal results and to cheer small victories. Critical analysis focused mainly on the mechanics of this failed election cycle, but the trouble with Democrats goes much deeper than one botched election. It’s systemic, and it started in the Reagan era. Long ago, the party abandoned its working-class base (of all colors) and steadily distanced itself from the unglamorous conditions that matter most in people’s lives. Traditional party bulwarks like organized labor and racial minorities became second-string players in the hierarchy that influences party policy. But the Dems didn’t just lose touch with the people they claimed to speak for; they betrayed core constituencies and adopted pro-business, pro-finance policies that actively injure working people..."
