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CCTV doesn’t keep us safe, yet the cameras are everywhere

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By Bruce Schneier | Pervasive security cameras don’t substantially reduce crime. There are exceptions, of course, and that’s what gets the press. Most famously, CCTV cameras helped catch James Bulger’s murderers in 1993. And earlier this year, they helped convict Steve Wright of murdering five women in the Ipswich area. But these are the well-publicised exceptions. Overall, CCTV cameras aren’t very effective.

This fact has been demonstrated again and again: by a comprehensive study for the Home Office in 2005, by several studies in the US, and again with new data announced last month by New Scotland Yard. They actually solve very few crimes, and their deterrent effect is minimal.

Conventional wisdom predicts the opposite. But if that were true, then camera-happy London, with something like 500,000, would be the safest city on the planet. It isn’t, of course, because of technological limitations of cameras, organisational limitations of police and the adaptive abilities of criminals.

To some, it’s comforting to imagine vigilant police monitoring every camera, but the truth is very different. Most CCTV footage is never looked at until well after a crime is committed. When it is examined, it’s very common for the viewers not to identify suspects. Lighting is bad and images are grainy, and criminals tend not to stare helpfully at the lens. Cameras break far too often. The best camera systems can still be thwarted by sunglasses or hats. Even when they afford quick identification — think of the 2005 London transport bombers and the 9/11 terrorists — police are often able to identify suspects without the cameras. Cameras afford a false sense of security, encouraging laziness when we need police to be vigilant.

The solution isn’t for police to watch the cameras. Unlike an officer walking the street, cameras only look in particular directions at particular locations. Criminals know this, and can easily adapt by moving their crimes to someplace not watched by a camera — and there will always be such places. Additionally, while a police officer on the street can respond to a crime in progress, the same officer in front of a CCTV screen can only dispatch another officer to arrive much later. By their very nature, cameras result in underused and misallocated police resources.

Cameras aren’t completely ineffective, of course. In certain circumstances, they’re effective in reducing crime in enclosed areas with minimal foot traffic. Combined with adequate lighting, they substantially reduce both personal attacks and auto-related crime in car parks. And from some perspectives, simply moving crime around is good enough. If a local Tesco installs cameras in its store, and a robber targets the store next door as a result, that’s money well spent by Tesco. But it doesn’t reduce the overall crime rate, so is a waste of money to the township.

But the question really isn’t whether cameras reduce crime; the question is whether they’re worth it. And given their cost (£500 m in the past 10 years), their limited effectiveness, the potential for abuse (spying on naked women in their own homes, sharing nude images, selling best-of videos, and even spying on national politicians) and their Orwellian effects on privacy and civil liberties, most of the time they’re not. The funds spent on CCTV cameras would be far better spent on hiring experienced police officers.

We live in a unique time in our society: the cameras are everywhere, and we can still see them. Ten years ago, cameras were much rarer than they are today. And in 10 years, they’ll be so small you won’t even notice them. Already, companies like L-1 Security Solutions are developing police-state CCTV surveillance technologies like facial recognition for China, technology that will find their way into countries like the UK. The time to address appropriate limits on this technology is before the cameras fade from notice.

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We can strike back

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Socialist Worker | Gordon Brown says we must all take a wage cut – but up to 800,000 local government workers are set to walk out over pay. Gordon Brown, chancellor Alistair Darling, and Bank of England governor Mervyn King lined up last week to deliver pious lectures on why workers must accept wage cuts to help stop inflation.

But it is not wages that are pushing up prices. The cost of food has risen by 8 percent in a year and utility bills are up 10 percent. The energy companies are threatening rises of up to 40 percent this autumn.

The only way for us to keep food on the table is to fight back against the government’s pay limits.

Shell tanker drivers struck this month and won a 14 percent pay rise over two years. They showed that workers have the power to beat both bosses and Brown.

This week local government workers also voted for strikes. That means in the weeks to come hundreds of thousands of workers could strike a blow for all those struggling to get by.

The battle lines are being drawn and striking back is the best defence we have against the attacks on our living standards.

The following should be read alongside this article:
» Unison result boosts fightback over pay
» Health workers reject ‘shoddy’ below-inflation deal
» Inflation: the poor pay more
» Do wage rises push up prices?
» Case studies: how does inflation affect you?

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EU Constitution author says referendums can be ignored

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Future referendums will be ignored whether they are held in Ireland or elsewhere, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the architect of the European Union Constitution said.

The former President of France drafted the old Constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters three years ago before being resurrected as the Lisbon EU Treaty, itself shunned by the Irish two weeks ago.

Mr Giscard d’Estaing told the Irish Times that Ireland’s referendum rejection would not kill the Treaty, despite a legal requirement of unanimity from all the EU’s 27 member states.

“We are evolving towards majority voting because if we stay with unanimity, we will do nothing,” he said.

“It is impossible to function by unanimity with 27 members. This time it’s Ireland; the next time it will be somebody else.”

“Ireland is one per cent of the EU”.

Mr Giscard d’Estaing also admitted that, unlike his original Constitutional Treaty, the Lisbon EU Treaty had been carefully crafted to confuse the public.

“What was done in the [Lisbon] Treaty, and deliberately, was to mix everything up. If you look for the passages on institutions, they’re in different places, on different pages,” he said.

“Someone who wanted to understand how the thing worked could with the Constitutional Treaty, but not with this one.”

France and Germany are putting pressure on Ireland to hold a second referendum which would allow the Lisbon Treaty to come into force before European elections on June 4 2009.

Mr Giscard d’Estaing believes “there is no alternative” to a second Irish vote, a view shared by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President.

Mr Sarkozy, who takes over the EU’s rotating presidency next week, will use a Brussels summit on October 15 to force Ireland to find a way out of Europe’s Treaty difficulties.

“Everyone agrees it has to be sorted out by the time of European elections,” he said at the weekend.

Václav Klaus, the Czech President has continued to insist that the Lisbon Treaty “cannot come into force” after the Irish vote.

“The EU cannot ignore its own rules. The Lisbon Treaty has been roundly and democratically rejected by Ireland, and it therefore cannot come into force,” he told El Pais newspaper.

“Any attempt to ignore this fact and make recourse to pressure and political manipulation to move the treaty forward would have disastrous consequences.”

Mark François, Conservative spokesman on Europe, also insisted that it was time that European politicians started to respect the Irish No vote.

“The Irish people gave an emphatic No to the Treaty of Lisbon on a record turnout and it would be good for politicians of all countries to respect this democratic decision,” he said.

“The point is particularly clear to us here in Britain as the Irish were fortunate to be given a referendum which we were denied by our Government.”

An opinion poll for the newspaper Libération has shown 44 per cent of the French want Ireland to vote again and 26 per cent want the ratification process to continue without Ireland.

But a quarter of those polled want to abandon the Treaty and 52 per cent think the Irish No vote is going to dominate Mr Sarkozy’s EU presidency.

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Agents seize Blackwater firearms

Friday, June 27th, 2008

RALEIGH, North Carolina: Federal agents raided Blackwater Worldwide this week as part of an investigation into whether the private security company sidestepped federal laws prohibiting the private purchase of automatic assault rifles, the company said Thursday.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Blackwater’s armory at its corporate headquarters in Moyock on Tuesday as part of the investigation. Court documents show that agents seized 22 guns as evidence from a vault reserved for county authorities.

The company signed agreements in 2005 in which Blackwater financed the purchase of 34 automatic weapons for the Camden County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Tony Perry became the official owner of the weapons, but Blackwater was allowed to keep most of the guns at its armory.

Federal laws prohibit private parties from buying fully automatic weapons, unless they were manufactured and registered before May 1986, but allows law enforcement agencies to have them.

One of the 2005 agreements says the weapons will be kept under “lock and key” and doesn’t describe whether Blackwater would use the guns.

“We believe all aspects of our contracts with the sheriff’s office are lawful and proper,” Tyrrell said, adding that the ATF has known about the arrangement for a long time.

Tyrrell also said federal authorities have known about the weapons for years and that investigators got a complete look at the company’s cache in 2005 after two employees were fired.

Kenneth Wayne Cashwell and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux were sentenced this year on gunrunning charges, but they were spared prison time after federal prosecutors asked a judge to approve a lighter sentence because of their ongoing cooperation in a weapons investigation.

Blackwater said it fired the men after finding they had been stealing from the company. Cashwell operated Blackwater’s armory in 2005, Tyrrell said.

“When these guys were fired, we invited (ATF) in to do a full search of everything we possessed,” Tyrrell said. “They did a full audit, and those weapons were there at that time.”

She said it is not unusual for Blackwater to store automatic weapons because the company is licensed to sell, provide training on, or even manufacture firearms.

Both ATF and U.S. Attorney George Holding declined to comment.

The 2005 agreements give the sheriff’s office unlimited access to the weapons, including 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmasters. But Perry has said his department has only used the AK-47s in shooting practice at Blackwater and that none of his 19 deputies are qualified to use them.

The 34 weapons are registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record to the Camden County sheriff. The AK-47s and five of the Bushmasters were stored and used at Blackwater while the remainder of the weapons were assigned to local deputies, Perry had said. Those numbers match with the guns listed on the search warrant receipt filed Wednesday.

The sheriff did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Blackwater is the largest private security firm in Iraq, and it has been under scrutiny as a federal grand jury in Washington investigates the company’s involvement in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. The firm is also under investigation for possible weapons smuggling allegations — violations the firm strongly denies.

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report from Washington.

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Police chiefs against universal DNA database

Friday, June 27th, 2008

The majority of police chiefs are against a universal DNA database for the people of Britain.

At a meeting during the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) annual conference, 61 per cent of police chiefs voted against the idea of putting all UK residents on the national database.

Only 38 per cent of those present at the vote supported a universal database with one per cent unsure.

The national DNA database is a hugely controversial topic. Critics point to the fact people can be placed on the database without ever being formally charged or arrested.

Reports suggest that there are one million people placed on the database who have never been charged.

Jago Russell from campaign group Liberty claims: “There is no rational justification for who is on and off the database”.

Supporters claim that DNA is a vital tool in solving a large number of crimes and a national database would greatly improve the speed in which crimes are solved.

Chris Simms, the Acpo lead on forensics, suggested at the annual conference that 6,000 cases had been solved due to people being on the DNA database even though they had never been charged.

It is thought there over four million DNA sample currently on the database.

During a debate at the annual conference this week, 77 per cent of police chiefs said the media and politicians comments on the database had affected public opinion.

And asked if they thought people who had been never been charged or found guilty should have their DNA removed from the database, 62 per cent said no with 35 per cent saying yes.

Mr Russell criticised the current system whereby those who volunteer their DNA can not have it removed from the database. He also raised concern at the fact that children’s DNA is held.

He added that simply being placed on the database implied guilt.

“DNA retention carries with it the stain of criminality”, he declared.

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NY judge: NSA can refuse to discuss wiretapping

Friday, June 27th, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) | The National Security Agency does not need to tell lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees whether their phones were tapped as part of the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program, a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday.

The NSA has refused to say whether it listened in on the conversations of the lawyers who are advising detainees being held at the U.S. naval facility in Cuba. The NSA says even confirming the existence of such wiretaps would jeopardize national security.

A federal judge in Manhattan agreed, saying the super-secret agency can’t be forced to disclose information about the program.

“Confirming or denying whether plaintiffs’ communication with their clients has been intercepted would reveal information about the NSA’s capabilities and activities,” U.S. District Judge Denise Cote wrote.

President Bush acknowledged in 2005 that, for years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the NSA intercepted international phone conversations and e-mails involving U.S. citizens. The program did not require warrants and operated without oversight from the nation’s spy court, which normally approves wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies.

Since lawyers don’t know whether their phones are tapped, some have avoided international phone calls and e-mails with clients and family members, said Shayana Kadidal, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights.

When calls must be made, “It means we begin conversations with, ‘We can’t be certain the government isn’t listening in on this call,”‘ Kadidal said.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the lawyers demanded to know whether their calls were intercepted. The NSA refused to confirm or deny the existence of such records. Such a response is allowed when acknowledging the mere existence of a document would compromise intelligence operations.

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$2 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan questioned

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By Greg Miller | WASHINGTON — The United States has paid more than $5 billion to reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism expenses that have often been exaggerated, if not fabricated, according to a government audit released Tuesday that blasts the Pentagon for poor management of the program.

The report concluded that the Pentagon could not properly account for as much as $2 billion in payments to Pakistan over a three-year period from 2004 to 2007.

Auditors uncovered an array of questionable costs, including $45 million for roads and bunkers that may never have been built; $200 million for the operation of air defense systems even though Al Qaeda has no known aircraft; and overcharges for meals and vehicles used by Pakistani troops.

Overall, the report by the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Defense Department had routinely covered costs without verifying that they “were valid, actually incurred, or correctly calculated.”

The Pentagon has paid about $5.6 billion to Pakistan in counter-terrorism reimbursement funds in the nearly seven years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, by far the largest sum paid as part of the program to a counter-terrorism ally.

The audit acknowledges that the Pentagon has recently taken steps to improve its scrutiny of the expense reports submitted by Pakistan.

“Up until that point in time we would say that there was not sufficient oversight,” said Charles Michael Johnson Jr., director of counter-terrorism issues at the GAO and the principal author of the report. Even now, Johnson said, “we still point out concerns and areas where we think there should be further enhancements” of the Pentagon’s oversight of the program.

In particular, Johnson pointed to the Pentagon’s practice of reimbursing Pakistan without taking into account favorable fluctuations in the exchange rate. The document is the latest in a series of studies to criticize the Bush administration’s management of the Coalition Support Funds program, which was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and has doled out billions of dollars to 27 nations.

The report was greeted with outrage on Capitol Hill, where it was the focus of a hearing Tuesday by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.

“The more I learn about Coalition Support Funds to Pakistan, the more I am troubled,” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), chairman of the subcommittee. Tierney questioned whether the program should be discontinued or overhauled, saying it has “failed to beat back the Taliban threat to our troops in Afghanistan or the threat of Al Qaeda.”

The report provided the most detailed account to date of questionable reimbursements made to Pakistan.

The Defense Department paid Islamabad $200 million for radar expenses from January 2004 to February 2007, for example, even though U.S. military officials in Pakistan urged the Pentagon to reject the charges because “terrorists in the FATA did not have air attack capability.”

The FATA is the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the border with Afghanistan, where Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be based.

The Pentagon also reimbursed Pakistan $45 million for road and bunker construction. But the accompanying documentation “did not provide sufficient support that all the claimed costs were based on actual activity or expenses,” the GAO report noted.

The Pentagon has subsequently declined to cover similar charges until Pakistan provides the coordinates of the roads and bunkers it claims to have built.

So far, “Pakistan has not provided this additional information,” the report said.

The GAO also documented apparent overcharges for meals and vehicle maintenance. During one period, the Defense Department was paying the Pakistani navy more than $3.7 million per year in repair and maintenance charges on “a fleet of fewer than 20 passenger vehicles” that was never used in combat. The charges amounted to more than $19,000 per month for each vehicle.

Pakistan sometimes seemed to be double-dipping, submitting separate charges for “vehicle damage” and “cost of vehicles repaired” without explaining the difference between the two categories.

In response to such criticism, the Pentagon has given U.S. military officials in Pakistan a larger role in scrutinizing that country’s counter- terrorism expenses, and has begun rejecting more requests.

Bobby Wilkes, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Central Asia, acknowledged breakdowns in oversight but defended the program, saying that Pakistan could not afford to deploy and maintain 100,000 troops and paramilitary forces in the tribal areas without the reimbursements it receives from the United States.

The support funds are “critical to our eventual success in Afghanistan and the war on terror,” Wilkes said.

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Iraq authorities say U.S. soldiers killed 9 civilians

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By Doug Smith | BAGHDAD — Nine Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in two armed clashes involving U.S. soldiers, local authorities reported. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents.

In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery crash after gunfire erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers with a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle.

Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport. Iraqi police also reported that two bodyguards were injured.

A statement from the U.S. military characterized the three as criminals who opened fire on the military convoy about 9 a.m. The statement said that the assault left bullet holes in the U.S. vehicles and that a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.

The conflicting information in the two reports could not be immediately reconciled.

In east Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed one American soldier Wednesday, the U.S. military announced today. At least 4,110 U.S. service members have died since the war began in 2003, according to icasualties.org.

Earlier Wednesday outside Tikrit, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, six people were killed and threeinjured in and near a farmhouse that was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike, police said. A U.S. ground patrol called in the strike after coming under fire.

Police said the farmer, Affar Ahmed Zidan, heard the patrol outside about 2:30 a.m. and fired three warning shots in the air, thinking the soldiers were thieves.

Zidan then phoned police for help while hiding under a tree, saying he feared the Americans would bomb him, police said.

A neighbor, Tariq Azzawi, said Zidan was killed beside the tree and his wife and three children were killed in the house. The hospital raised the toll to six.

A statement from the U.S. military said the patrol was fired upon and surveillance teams observed an armed man moving into a nearby group of buildings. The airstrike was ordered when he refused to come out.

The man was killed and four women were slightly injured, but a thorough search did not reveal any other deaths, the statement said.

Civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. military and private security contractors are a nagging cause of resentment with the Iraqi public and have become a sticking point in negotiations on an agreement to allow U.S.-led forces to remain in Iraq after the United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

The Iraqi government is seeking legal jurisdiction in all cases involving injury or death to Iraqis. U.S. negotiators are willing to allow private security contractors to come under Iraqi law, but not the military.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday, a Mosul City Council member and his driver were fatally shot in an ambush. A car bomb went off near an ice cream shop in east Baghdad, killing three and injuring seven, police said. And two people were killed and four people were injured in Karbala when a bomb detonated in a microbus.

In Washington, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani met with President Bush in the White House.

Talabani’s office released a statement saying he praised Bush as “a great friend of the Iraqi people” and pledged to work toward a security agreement between the two countries.

Special correspondents in Baghdad, Najaf and Samarra contributed to this report

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Oh! What a Lovely (drugs) War

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By Ron F | According to UN figures, in the 2000 growing season opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan covered 82,000 hectares. (1)

Following a ban ruthlessly enforced by the Taliban opium cultivation declined to 8,000 hectares in the following year, according to the same reporting agency. Much of this remaining opium cultivation was carried out in areas not under Taliban control, but by our friends in the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, who you’ve probably never heard of because they have been rebranded as the Northern Alliance.

According to a just released UN report opium cultivation now stands at - wait - for - it -

193,000 hectares (2)

This is the largest *ever* recorded and more than double the highest cultivation rate recorded when the Taliban were in power.

That’s quite an achievement after seven years of an occupation partly predicated on “reducing the supply of heroin”.

(1) UN Office on Drugs and Crime - Afghanistan Opium Survey 2005 (pdf)

(2) UNODOC 2008 World Drug Report (pdf)

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Zimbabwe and the Question of Imperialism

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Democracy Now! |

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Criticism of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and the actions of his ruling Zanu PF party is growing. The most recent condemnation comes from former South African President Nelson Mandela, who mourned the “tragic failure of leadership” in Zimbabwe on Wednesday. They were the former leader’s first comments on the situation.

President Bush also criticized Mugabe Wednesday for defying international pressure to cancel a run-off election scheduled for Friday.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round of elections in March but withdrew from the run off late on Sunday and sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare out of what he says is concern for his safety. On Wednesday he called for the African Union backed by the United Nations, to lead a “transitional process” in Zimbabwe. He also emphasized that Friday’s vote would not be recognized.

But Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission has ruled that Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the election last Sunday was filed too late and has no legal force. Meanwhile at least 300 Harare residents have taken shelter from the political violence at the South African embassy.

Today we host a discussion on Zimbabwe: We’re joined in Washington DC by Professor Gerald Horne. He is the Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and the author of numerous books including “From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980.” Joining us on the phone from Syracuse, New York is Professor Horace Campbell. He is Professor of African American Studies and Politics at Syracuse University. He has written extensively about Pan-Africanism and Zimbabwe.

Gerald Horne, Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and the author of numerous books including “From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980.”

Horace Campbell, Professor of African American Studies and Politics at Syracuse University. He has written extensively about Pan-Africanism and Zimbabwe.

Rush Transcript

AMY GOODMAN:As we move now from Iraq to Zimbabwe, Juan?

JUAN GONZALES:Well criticism of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and the actions of his ruling Zanu PF party is growing. The most recent condemnation comes from former South African President Nelson Mandela who mourned the quote tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe on Wednesday. They were the former leaders first comments on the situation president Bush also criticized Mugabe Wednesday for defying international pressure to cancel a runoff election scheduled for Friday.

PRESIDENT BUSH:

JUAN GONZALES: Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round of elections in March but withdrew from the runoff late on Sunday and sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harari out of what he says is concern for his safety. On Wednesday he called for the African Union backed the United Nations to lead a quote transitional process in Zimbabwe. He also emphasized that Friday’s vote would not be recognized.

TSVANGIRAI:

MDC

JUAN GONZALES: But Zimbabwe’s electoral commission has ruled that Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the election last Sunday was filed too late and has no legal force. Meanwhile at least 300 Harari residents have taken shelter from the political violence at the South African embassy.

MAN SPEAKING:

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we host a discussion on Zimbabwe. We’re joined in Washington D.C. by Professor Gerald Horne, Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and the author of numerous books including “From the Barrel of a Gun, the United States in the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965 to 1980.” Joining us on the phone from Syracuse is Professor Horace Campbell, Professor of African American Studies and Politics at Syracuse University in New York, has written extensively about Pan-Africanism and Zimbabwe. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I want to begin with Gerald Horne in Washington. Can you talk about what is happening in Zimbabwe and the coverage of it, how we understand what is happening in Zimbabwe in the United States?

GERALD HORNE: Well obviously what is happening in Zimbabwe is quite tragic and I would hope some of the sympathy that is extended to Zimbabwe could be extended as well to other African nations that do not have white minorities. For example, the statement condemning or questioning the Zimbabweans elections emerged from Swaziland, a South African nation that is one of the last absolute monarchies on this small planet. Some might well question why isn’t Swaziland’s human rights situation being interrogated and investigated? A scant year ago in Nigeria, the continent’s giant, you had shambolic elections, had hundreds killed yet that barely registered a blip on the international media. At least not in the North Atlantic. Many talk, perhaps understandably, about the fact the President Mugabe has served as President since 1980, but what about Omar Bongo of Gabon, a close ally of the U.S, an oil-rich country in West Africa, which of course, he has served as president since 1967? 13 years before Mugabe came into power. I mean, I could go on in this vain, but I think the fact that thousands were killed in Zimbabwe in the 1980’s and yet, he received a virtual knighthood from Queen Elizabeth and received an honorary degree from Massachusetts, and yet, today in 2008, he is a subject of international scorn after of course he expropriates some white farmers, really speaks of profound racism in terms of how this issue has been covered in the North Atlantic media.

JUAN GONZALES: Horace Campbell, I want to ask about this issue. It does seem that the western media did not focus on Zimbabwe at all until the expropriations began of land. But does that deal with—the land of the white-minority there-–but does that deal with the underlying class conflicts that are obviously clearly percolating in reaching ahead right now in the country?

HORACE CAMPBELL: Well, thank you for having me on the show. First of all, I would say this platform on Democracy Now! is a platform for the progressives, the left, and those who are involved in the peace movement. Our discussions on what is going on in Zimbabwe or any other part of Africa should be guided by how our solidarity with the peoples of Zimbabwe, with the oppressed workers of Southern Africa, and in all parts of Africa can assist our own struggle in this country against all forms of oppression. And so, comparing Zimbabwean’s oppression with other oppression in Africa does not excuse the oppression of the Zimbabweans people by any means. I think Gerald is very right about these oppressions across Africa, but organizations in this country that are in solidarity with the peace movement across the world ,that are in solidarity with the Zimbabwe people, should take the cue from the Congress of South African Trade Union that is calling for a blockade of Zimbabwe because of the oppression. And I think what distinguished Zimbabwe from those countries that Gerald speaks about is that none of those countries is representing themselves as being in the forefront of liberation. Robert Mugabe and Zanupe started out like they were Lumumba in the Congo. They ended up like Mubutu, killing from the people, arrested opposition leaders, killing people, calling homosexual pigs and dogs, and killing hundreds, tens of thousands of people. 18% of the Zimbabwean people are unemployed. While the stock exchange is the most successful in Africa. We on the left, in the peace movement, we acknowledge that George Bush nor Brown have any moral authority to criticize Zimbabwe because of the unjust war that they’re fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But having said that, we on the left and the progressives, we must take the moral leadership in having solidarity with those opposition leaders, those workers, those human rights workers in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa who are being oppressed by the Mugabe government.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Gerald Horne?

GERALD HORNE: Well I think there is very much to recommend with what Horace Campbell said. As a taxpayer to this government here in Washington, my first approach must be this regime of George W. Bush. And I think we have to question the hypocrisy of George Bush who has engaged in questionable elections in Florida and Ohio, questioning the legitimacy of the elections in Zimbabwe. More than that, if the situation in Zimbabwe is so terrible, and I agree it is, why is it that the Bush administration continues to send undocumented Zimbabwe workers back to Zimbabwe? There’s been talk about a so- called genocide unfolding in Zimbabwe, yet, you see the Gordon Brown administration in London not giving asylum to Zimbabwe workers who are exiled now in London. We talk about the Mugabe regime, but just the other day it was revealed that Anglo American, the major transnational corporation with close South African ties and headquarters in London, is about to make a $400 million investment in Zimbabwe. Barclay’s bank is in Zimbabwe. Rio Tinto-Zinc, the major mineral conglomerate is in Zimbabwe. It seems to me in the first place, we in the North Atlantic should be focusing on these kinds of contradictions that we can affect and as the African National Congress has said, leave Zimbabwe to the Zimbabwean people themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to a break and we’ll come back to this discussion. Our guests in Washington, Professor. Gerald Horne, Professor of African Studies at the University of Houston, he has lived in Zimbabwe, Professor Horace Campbell also joins us, professor of African- American studies at Syracuse University. We will be back with them both in a moment.

[music break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. We’re talking about Zimbabwe. Professor Gerald Horne of the University of Houston is in Washington, Professor Horace Campbell of African American Studies and Political Science of Syracuse University is speaking to us from Syracuse. If you could respond, Professor Campbell, to what Gerald Horne said before the break.

HORACE CAMPBELL: Yes, I want to reiterate a point that any kind of political work we do on Zimbabwe should assist us in educating our people here so that when the Zimbabwe political leadership represents itself to say that it is being persecuted because it expropriated the land of the former white settlers, we have to interrogate what did the expropriation of the land mean for the millions of Zimbabweans workers, small farmers. It is very clear that the Zimbabwean people needed to reclaim the land from the white settlers. But the Mugabe government, when he was receiving his knighthood from the british government, never negotiated about the land because throughout the period from 1980- 1992, Zimbabwe had the legal powers to be able to set in motion the possibilities for strengthening the working peoples, the farm workers, the women, the plantation and agricultural workers. And hen we speak about land, we must understand that whether the land is owned by white farmers are black farmers, the fundamental productivity on the land emanates from the labor of the working people—working people. So our task is how is it we defend the working people of Zimbabwe? The hundreds of thousands of workers who live on the conditions of wretchedness, who have been exploited by the black capitalist farmers, who are in the Zimbabwean government just as the whites have done. So any kind of transition in Zimbabwe must involve strengthening the rights of the workers, the women, and the use in Zimbabwe. I think that what Gerald said should throw away all of the talk about Mugabe been against imperialism because it was very clear that anglo- American, Barclay bank, and Rio-Tinto and diamond dealers have made billions of dollars while Mugabe was talking about the land. And what we’re calling for is for any transitional period in Zimbabwe to be one where there is intervention by the African Union so that the billions that have been carried out by the ruling elements in Zimbabwe, that we do not have them carried out repression of the workers with impunity and then stealing the money as they have done the past 8-10 years.

JUAN GONZALES: Gerald Horne, I’d like to ask you. Obviously Mugabe has been an icon and a hero, a giant in terms of the liberation movements in Africa for decades. But your sense now, do you believe that he still represents any forces for progress in Africa or has he gradually transformed himself into a dictator?

GERALD HORNE: Well, I think that president Mugabe is a force to be reckoned with in Zimbabwe. And I agree with those leaders in the region who feel that he and his party must be contented with if there is to be a settlement of this controversy in Zimbabwe. I should also say that with regard to professor Campbell, I’m here not to carry a brief on OPS, but they have argued they did not move on land reform before 1994, i.e. the date of the South African elections, so as not to unsettle the situation in neighboring South Africa, which of course has outstanding land claims of its own. We all know there are more white farmers killed in South Africa than have been killed in Zimbabwe. And likewise, there are outstanding land claims in neighboring Namibia as well. I think it’s understandable why there has been a focus on on Zanu PF, but standing in the wings of the opposition of the MDC and sadly, unfortunately, there has not been considerable focus on them such as their leaders, Roy Bennet, a top leader, a former major land owner in Zimbabwe who of course throttled an African leader on the floor of the Zimbabweans parliament—I would of thought that kind of behavior would have ended in independence in 1980. You have other leading Rhodesians in the leadership of MDC. One thing that worries many of us is that if MDC does come to power, there will be a split and quite frankly, they will pave the way for the rise of certain retrograde elements like Roy Bennet come back into power. In some ways, MDC, a trade union-led movement, is akin to solidarity in Poland which of course paved the way for the present right wing in Poland to come to power in Warsaw. So we have to be careful when we try to butt in to the internal affairs of a sovereign state. I think our energies would be best served by putting pressure on this government here in Washington and its comical sidekick in London.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Horace Campbell?

HORACE CAMPBELL: The intellectual subservience of the MDC and the leadership ofthe MDC is clear to most workers in Southern Africa. But this point in the history of Zimbabwe, the MDC doesn’t have political power. The social forces that are organized in Zimbabwe against the government have thrown their weight behind the MDC at the present moment. The Women of Zimbabwe rise, these are independent organizations, Padari, the workers, agricultural and plantation workers. I do not think—we do not have the right to say to the Zimbabwean workers that your under oppression and therefore, we should decide for you because of the history of Mugabe’s relationship to the liberation movement, 28 years ago, then we should be saying to you what your choices should be. In Southern Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Union movement has called for a blockade of the Zimbabwean government and is the Zimbabwe leadership and the Congress of South African Trade Union which is the largest trade union movement in Southern Africa is a movement which is calling for the isolation of Mugabe government. What we agree with Gerald is on as the falling—the land question in Southern Africa is an urgent question in the media, in south Africa, and in Zimbabwe. But having said that, we must learn lessons from Zimbabwe. To say that when land his been reclaimed it should not be reclaimed for rich, black farmers to replace white farmers. Land when it is being reclaimed in South Africa or in Nambia should be reclaimed in a condition where there is health and safety conditions for the working people’s. So yes, we should take lessons from Zimbabwe and we should introduce new politics in Southern Africa that is coming out of the politics of reconciliation. That no concept of victory should be victory which gives power to one group over another there should be ways in which the transition towards a new political dispersion—in south Africa it is one that strengthens the producing classes, the small workers, farmers, students. And these are the forces that have been repressed, brutalized, the trade union leaders that are in jail right now in Zimbabwe should be released. Opposition leaders should be released. Women should be released. Human rights workers should be released. So that yes, we can criticize the leadership of the MDC and I have done so in my writing, in my book, “Reclaiming Zimbabwe” but the government of Zimbabwe must now arise in a situation where we provide leadership in a condition where 80% of the people are unemployed, where women have been persecuted as prostitutes when a walk on the streets. Were homosexuals have been called pigs and dogs and where men go around trying to have sexual relations with young virgins saying this would prevent HIV/AIDS. We need a new political leadership to go against this kind of backwardness that came out of the kind of patriotic leadership that we had for the past 28 years.

AMY GOODMAN: We wanted to bring South African archbishop Desmond Tutu into this. He also came out forcefully against the violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe speaking in Cape Town Tuesday, who warned Mugabe should bend to international pressure or could risk facing universal sanctions and could risk facing an international criminal court.

TUTU:

ICC

AMY GOODMAN: Archbishop Desmond Tutu Gerald Horne, your response both to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Horace Campbell.

GERALD HORNE: Well obviously we have enormous respect for Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But I must return to the question that should occupy us in the North Atlantic. Which is why is it the Zimbabwe gets so much focus and attention on this side of the Atlantic when Paul Biya, the leader of Cameron a few weeks ago basically named himself President for life and it barely registers a blip? Similar situation unfolding in Uganda with Yoweri Museveni. I think part of the reason, not only the race and racism question, there’s also the question that many of the former Rhodesian have kith and kin on the side of the Atlantic. The spouse of Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State. The spouse of Chester Crocker, the former assistant Secretary of State for Africa under the Reagan administration. Even some distant relatives of George Washington for whom the city of which I’m sitting is named. Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian leader of course has relatives in San Diego. There were hundreds if not thousands of white mercenaries who flocked to Rhodesia in the 1970’s and 1980’s to fight against liberation of that particular country. And it befuddles and baffles me why this kind of basic historical background is not integrated into the conversation, integrated into the discourse on Zimbabwe. I think it gives a very bad impression on the African continent which leads many Africans to consider their only focus on the North Atlantic is on Zimbabwe because there is a white minority and that perhaps explains to why there has been such a lethargy in responding to some of the human rights violations that are unfolding in Zimbabwe. And until that kind of situation is rectified, I dare say there will continue to be an uncivil situation in Zimbabwe.

JUAN GONZALES: Gerald, all that being true and we clearly recognize that disparity in approach and coverage, back in 2005, there were massive forced relocations of hundreds of thousands of people by the Mugabe government that really stunned people, even here in a progressive community of the United States who have supported Mugabe and the past. Your response to those relocations and again to the issue of whether the government has increasingly become iron handed and dictatorial in dealing with its own people?

GERALD HORNE: Well, those dislocations were tragic and unfortunate. I know about them because I hail from St. Louis, Missouri. And of course it used to be said, with regard to that city and many other cities, that urban renewal meant negro removal. That kind of situation is not unique to Zimbabwe. In Senegal as we speak, there been tens of thousands of Africans who have been displaced because of a civil conflict there reaches back 25 years. It has barely registered a blip on the international press screen. So yes, those situations that are referred to in Zimbabwe are quite tragic and they need to be criticized as well as other analogous situations. And when those analogous situations are not criticized, it basically provides fodder for those who would like to downplay the situation in Zimbabwe.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Horace Campbell, we just have about 30 seconds, your response and your summary?

HORACE CAMPBELL: My response is that the government of Senegal, the government of Cameroon does not represent itself as a liberation government. The Zimbabwean government is very aware of the racism that exists in North America. And it is exploiting that racism and the antiracist sentiment among Africans in the west in order to legitimize its repression on the people. The government of Zimbabwe at this moment is illegitimate we must avoid war at all costs. Mugabe says only god can remove him and he will go to war. At present, he is at war with the Zimbabwe people and we must end the silence in the progressive and pan-African community against this type of manipulation and repression in the name of liberation.

AMY GOODMAN: We will leave it there. Professor Horace Campbell of Syracuse University and Professor Gerald Horne of Houston University, thank you for joining us. That does it for today’s show, if you want a copy of the show go to democracynow.org, tomorrow night I’ll be at Des Moines, Iowa at Simpsons College, tomorrow morning at ten in Fairfield Iowa at the library, and Tuesday night the Aspen Ideas Festival.

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Bush administration lifts North Korea sanctions

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Bush administration lifts sanctions, moves to take North Korea off terrorist list.

President Bush said Thursday he will lift key trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime he once branded as part of an “axis of evil.”

The announcement came after North Korea handed over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process.

Bush called the declaration a positive step along a long road to get the nation to give up its nuclear weapons. Yet, he remained wary of the regime, which has lied about its nuclear work before. And North Korea’s declaration, received six months late, falls short of what the administration once sought, leaving it open to criticism from those who want the U.S. to take an even tougher stance against the regime.

“We will trust you only to the extent you fulfill your promises,” Bush said in the Rose Garden. “I’m pleased with the progress. I’m under no illusions. This is the first step. This isn’t the end of the process. It is the beginning of the process.”

To demonstrate that it is serious about foregoing its nuclear weapons, North Korea is planning the televised destruction of a 65-foot-tall cooling tower at its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. The cooling tower is a key element of the reactor, but blowing it up — with the world watching — has little practical meaning because the reactor has already been nearly disabled.

Specifically, Bush said the U.S. would erase trade sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act, and notify Congress that, in 45 days, it intends to take North Korea off the State Department list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

“If North Korea continues to make the right choices it can repair its relationship with the international community … If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and its partners in the six-party talks will act accordingly,” Bush said.

The declaration, about 60 pages of documentation, is the result of long-running negotiations the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia have been having with Pyongyang.

A senior U.S. official said the declaration contains detailed data on the amount of plutonium North Korea produced during each of several rounds of production at a now-shuttered plutonium reactor. It is expected to total about 37 kilograms of plutonium — enough to make about a half-dozen bombs.

However, the declaration, which covers nuclear production dating back to 1986, does not contain detailed information about North Korea’s suspected program of developing weapons fueled by enriched uranium.

It also does not provide a complete accounting of how it allegedly helped Syria build what senior U.S. intelligence officials say was a secret nuclear reactor meant to make plutonium, which can be used to make high-yield nuclear weapons. Israeli jets bombed the structure in the remote eastern desert of Syria in September 2007.

North Korea had promised to complete the declaration by the end of last year in exchange for removal from U.S. terrorism and economic sanctions blacklists, which restrict its foreign trade and ability to get loans from international development banks.

North Korea was put on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism for its alleged involvement in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people. The designation has effectively blocked North Korea from receiving low-interest loans from the World Bank and other international lending agencies.

The president, insisting that the U.S. was not giving North Korea a free ride, said the U.S. action would have little impact on North Korea’s financial and diplomatic isolation. “It will remain one of the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world,” Bush said. All U.N. sanctions, for example, will remain in place.

Bush said the United States would monitor North Korea closely and “if they don’t fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them.”

Bush said that to end its isolation, North Korea must, for instance, dismantle all of its nuclear facilities and resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities “and end these activities in a way that we can fully verify.”

Bush thanked all members of the six-party talks, but singled out Japan. Tokyo has argued that the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from the list of terrorist nations should be linked to progress in solving North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.

“The United States will never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans,” said Bush who called Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday to express U.S. concern about the issue. “We will continue to closely cooperate and coordinate with Japan and press North Korea to swiftly resolve the abduction issue.”

AP White House Correspondent Terence Hunt contributed to this story.

AP News

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Exposed: the arms lobbyist in Parliament

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By James Macintyre | A senior arms lobbyist is gaining access to ministers, MPs and peers inside Parliament using a research assistant pass allotted to a member of the House of Lords who benefits financially from one of his companies, The Independent has learnt.

Robin Ashby, who is chairman of a defence consultancy firm that offers to ask questions of government on behalf of its clients “without your fingerprint being evident”, includes among his acquaintances the Defence Secretary, the Chancellor and the Chief Whip.

Mr Ashby’s firm, Bergmans, lobbies on behalf of more than a dozen large defence and aerospace companies including BAE Systems, Northern Defence Industries, UK Defence Forum, Boeing and Rolls-Royce, which has been criticised for its past links to the Burmese regime.

Mr Ashby’s name features on an official staff list that was published by the House of Lords for the first time last night following pressure from media outlets including The Independent.

As Bergmans’ key lobbyist, Mr Ashby enjoys unfettered access to the Palace of Westminster. With his pass, he can bring several colleagues or members of the public into Parliament’s numerous entertainment venues, including the Lords’ terrace bar overlooking the Thames where he “frequently” meets Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and other ministers.

Mr Ashby can also use the pass, which is allotted to Baroness Harris of Richmond, to access the House of Commons library, which offers valuable research facilities at no cost.

Lady Harris is a Liberal Democrat whip and spokesman on the police and Northern Ireland. She receives a “regular” income from a separate company run by Mr Ashby, Great North News Service, for which the peer acts as an “adviser”, according to her parliamentary declaration of financial interests. Meanwhile her “researcher” gains access to the Palace of Westminster’s corridors of power and a string of top-level ministers.

As well as submitting Freedom of Information questions to government, Bergmans offers insider information about how the British Government works to a host of foreign countries including the Bahamas, Bahrain, the USA and Russia. On Bergmans’ website, Mr Ashby is shown meeting, among others, Tony Blair, his former press secretary Alastair Campbell, the Chancellor Alistair Darling, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the Chief Whip Geoff Hoon and Mr Browne.

MPs have been required to supply full information about their staff since 1985, but members of the Lords were exempt from the rule until last night.

On his entry, Mr Ashby names Bergmans but describes it as “a research and public affairs consultancy that campaigns to urge MPs and peers to keep manifesto promises to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty”. He does not mention its host of defence and arms clients.

Mr Ashby told The Independent that he felt “iffy” about whether or not he should have a pass, “because there is substantial potential for misunderstanding”. “It is quite possible for you to make me look bad,” he said.

Mr Ashby said his “primary” reason for holding a pass was to provide “security” advice to Lady Harris. She told The Independent that Mr Ashby “advises me from time to time but not that frequently”. She added that if she wants advice, she can call on him. Lady Harris admitted that she “occasionally” contributed to the Great North News Service, run by Mr Ashby. She added that she takes “an interest” in defence matters.

Mr Ashby said he “compartmentalises” his roles while in Parliament. “I am very clear with ministers – I informally declare my interests to senior ministers,” he said. He added that he did not use his pass to bring clients into Parliament and photos taken of him with ministers were taken outside the Palace of Westminster. The lobbyist said he frequently met the Defence Secretary at events on the parliamentary terrace. “I see Des Browne every time we have a welcome home for troops and he says nice things about me. He appreciates what I’ve done,” Mr Ashby said.

The services offered by Bergmans – which has a specific defence subsidiary run by Mr Ashby – include: “Opinion polling, focus groups, fundraising advice, governance, manifesto writing, socio-economic research, campaigning, visual images, and lobbying.” But, the company’s website adds, “many organisations are concerned that by asking for information they may prejudice their relationship with government, especially where the departments in which they are interested are also their potential customers.

“Bergmans Research therefore offers a confidential FoI [Freedom of Information] service – we’ll ask the questions … that you can’t, without your ‘fingerprint’ being evident. In the past few months we’ve asked and had answers to questions about planning studies, past purchasing decisions, advice to Ministers, future plans.”

Mr Ashby is also founder and head of the UK Defence Forum, which organises meetings between industry executives, civil servants and politicians, including Lady Harris. Mr Ashby provides secretarial services for the Royal Navy All Party Group in Parliament. Lady Harris is not a member of the group.

The latest recommendation from the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges states: “[The] interpretation of the ‘ultimate client’ rule should be amended. In future, where a Group is assisted by an outside consultancy, the names of any clients of the consultancy with a direct interest in the work of the Group should be listed in the Register.”

The Labour MP Tony Wright, chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into lobbying, said: “If lobbyists are getting parliamentary passes to ply their trade, and if lobbying companies are putting in FOI requests to conceal the identity of their clients, then these are issues of real concern that need attention.”

The key players

Baroness Harris of Richmond, Liberal Democrat Peer

Angela Harris first met Robin Ashby when she was on North Yorkshire’s county council between 1981 and 2001. While chairman between 1991 and 1992, she was impressed by the media skills of Mr Ashby, who acted as press officer to the council. Lady Harris went on to serve as chairman of the North Yorkshire Police Authority from 1994 to 2001. During that time, she decided to stand for the Liberal Democrats in the 1999 European elections. After failing to get elected, she was appointed a life peer for the party the same year. Lady Harris now serves as a whip in the Lords, and speaks on police and Northern Ireland issues. She was born in Lancashire in 1944 and was educated at Canon Slade Grammar School in Bolton. Lady Harris is married, with one son from a previous marriage.

Robin Ashby, Lobbyist

Robin Ashby is not afraid to be described as a friend to the political stars. Asked to confirm he met “the cream of New Labour” last night, he was quick to add, “and the cream of the New Tories, and occasionally even the Liberal Democrats”.

A graduate engineer with a finance background, Mr Ashby worked for British Steel and Middlesbrough Borough Council before joining Bergmans – “the longest established public relations consultancy in Newcastle” – in 1981. In 1992, he became its managing partner. Now a “player” around Westminster, he says he was advised by police to get a pass “because you’re here so often”.

The lobbyist describes Baroness Harris as a friend whom he has known “for the thicker end of 25 years”. Lively in manner and keen to network, Mr Ashby describes himself as a “frequent writer and speaker on crisis management”.

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Gitmo Detainee’s Lawyer ‘Not Allowed To Tell Him’ He’s No Longer An ‘Enemy Combatant’

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Think Progress | Nearly two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees held at Guantánamo Bay have the right to habeas corpus and can thus challenge their detention in civilian courts, a U.S. Court of Appeals dealt another blow to the Bush administration’s detention policy.

The appeals court ruled that the Pentagon improperly designated Huzaifa Parhat, an ethnic Uighur Chinese national, an “enemy combatant” after being swept up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2001 and then sent to Guantánamo Bay, where he has been held since.

Despite the ruling, Parhat has yet to see any of its benefits. In fact, he doesn’t even know about it. Parhat’s lawyer told CBC radio’s As It Happens last night that Parhat is currently being held in solitary confinement and “has no idea” the appeals court ruled in his favor because, he added, “I’m not allowed to tell him”:

DEREK STOFFEL, CBC HOST: Mr. Willett, what’s your client’s reaction to this ruling?

SABIN WILLETT (PARHAT’S LAWYER): Boy what a great question that is because my client doesn’t know about this ruling because I’m not allowed to tell him. […] He’s sitting in solitary confinement today. He has no idea what’s happened as far as I know.

Listen here

Indeed, it is unclear what the appeals court’s ruling actually means for Parhat. The New York Times noted that the U.S. “said it will not return Uighur detainees to China because of concerns about their treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, which views them as terrorists.” Thus, as another one of Parhat’s lawyers noted, the “court victory may not mean freedom for him.”

For now, Willett said that “we’re going to file a motion with a judge to order them to let us call him on the phone and take him out of solitary confinement.” He added, “We’ve got a man in solitary confinement that they’ve got no authority to hold at all. Its unbelievable.”

Transcript:

DEREK STOFFEL, CBC HOST: Mr. Willett, what’s your client’s reaction to this ruling?

SABIN WILLETT (Parhat’s Lawyer): Boy what a great question that is because my client doesn’t know about this ruling because I’m not allowed to tell him.

STOFFEL: He doesn’t know?

WILLETT: We’ve asked — the first thing we did was ask the government for permission to make a phone call and they haven’t given it to us. Now we have a way to send him a letter that goes through clearence and we’ve sent it and maybe in three weeks he’ll get it.

He’s sitting in solitary confinement today. He has no idea what’s happened as far as I know.

STOFFEL: Well let me ask you then, what’s your reaction to this ruling?

WILLETT: Well I’m thrilled except for the constant vexation of the inablitiy to bring this thing to a real and human close. Huzaifa Parhat
has now been determined by about as conservative a court as there is not to be an enemy combatant — this is what we’ve been saying for years — and yet I can’t get him out of solitary confinement in the hands of my own government. So it is a frustrating but somewhat thrilling moment for us. […]

STOFFEL: I suppose the next thing you need to do is to let your client know what’s happened.

WILLETT: Thats what we’re trying to do. I mean, we’ve sent him a letter. We’re going to file a motion with a judge to order them to let us call him on the phone and take him out of solitary confinement. I mean we’ve got a man in solitary confinement that they’ve got no authority to hold at all. Its unbelievable. So we’ll be in court pretty soon, trying to get some more relief but it was a good day to get that notice.

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Kucinich: We went to Iraq for oil

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Press TV | Rep. Dennis Kucinich has accused the US of forcing Iraq to privatize its oil fields and keeping US troops at war to protect Iraqi oil reserves. Kucinich, who has introduced measures to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, said Thursday that oil executives who secretly met with the vice president in 2001 should be held criminally liable for pushing an illegal war.

“In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was USD 23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the US, competing for oil contracts with Iraq,” the Ohio Democrat said during a speech on the House floor.

“Today the price of oil is $135.59 per barrel, the US Army is occupying Iraq and the first Iraq oil contracts will go, without competitive bidding to, surprise, (among a very few others) Exxon, Shell and BP.”

In March 2001, two years before Iraq was invaded, Cheney met with top executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and others on his infamous secret Energy Task Force.

Kucinich seemed to accuse participants in that meeting of plotting the invasion of Iraq. There’s no indication that the participants discussed military action, although documents later released showed they did eye Iraq’s oil fields.

“Our nation’s soul is stained because we went to war for the oil companies and their profits. There must be accountability not only with this administration for its secret meetings and its open illegal warfare but also for the oil company executives who were willing participants in a criminal enterprise of illegal war, the deaths of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis and the extortion of the national resources of Iraq,” he said.

“We have found the weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. It is oil,” Kucinich continued. “As long as the oil companies control our government Americans will continue to pay and pay, with our lives, our fortunes our sacred honor.”

AGB/HAR

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Five Myths About the New Wiretapping Law

Friday, June 27th, 2008

By Patrick Radden Keefe | Sometime today, the Senate is likely to approve the most comprehensive overhaul of American surveillance law since the Watergate era. Unless you’re a government lawyer, a legal scholar, a masochist, or an insomniac, chances are you haven’t read the 114-page bill. Don’t beat yourself up: Neither have most of the 293 House members who voted for it last week. Ditto the mainstream press, who seem to have relied chiefly on summaries provided by the same lawmakers who hadn’t read it.

To be fair, wiretapping is so classified, and the language of the bill so opaque, that no one without a “top secret” clearance can say with any authority just how much surveillance the proposal will authorize the government to do. (The best assessment yet comes from former Justice Department official David Kris, who deems the legislation “so intricate” that it risks confusing even “the government officials who must apply it.”)

Out of the echo chamber of ignorance and self-serving political cant, a number of myths have begun to emerge. We may never know for sure everything that this new legislation entails. But here are a few things that it most certainly doesn’t.

Myth No. 1: This bill is a compromise.

The House bill “is the result of a compromise,” one of its architects, Steny Hoyer, D-Md., maintained the other day. But in truth, Hoyer and his colleagues gave the White House most of what it asked for, dramatically expanding the government’s surveillance capabilities without demanding any serious concessions in exchange. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., calls the deal “a capitulation,” and he’s right. Why else would the White House express its approval so quickly, after a full year in which President Bush petulantly vowed not to sign any legislation that obliged him to concede too much? Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., offered an honest appraisal: “I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped.”

Myth No. 2: We need the bill to intercept our enemies abroad.

One frequent refrain in favor of the new legislation is that without it, America’s intelligence capabilities will dry up, leaving the country vulnerable to attack. The National Security Agency wants to intercept communications that pass through routers in the United States, even when both parties to the communication are abroad. The administration has argued that the NSA should not have to obtain a court order to intercept those communications. Seems reasonable, right?

Of course it’s reasonable. So reasonable, in fact, that House Democrats proposed to fix the problem a year ago. They were rebuffed. Why? Because their plan contained too much judicial oversight. (They ended up folding, just as they have this time around.) So when people say that this legislation is all about exempting foreign-to-foreign communications that happen to pass through the United States from the warrant requirement, don’t buy it.

You see, the new law goes a lot further, basically doing away with warrants altogether in the domestic-to-international context. Under the proposal, the NSA can engage in what David Kris calls “vacuum cleaner surveillance” of phone calls and e-mails entering and leaving the United States through our nation’s telecom switches. Provided that the “target” of the surveillance is reasonably believed to be abroad, the NSA can intercept a massive volume of communications, which might, however incidentally, include yours. When authorities want to target purely domestic communications, they still have to apply for a warrant from the FISA court (albeit only after a weeklong grace period of warrantless surveillance). But where communications between the United States and another country are concerned, the secret court is relegated to a vestigial role, consulted on the soundness of the “targeting procedures,” but not on the legitimacy of the targets themselves.

This is a huge departure from FISA. As Glenn Greenwald argues in Salon, the underlying suggestion of the new proposal is “not that the FISA law is obsolete, but rather, that the key instrument imposed by the Founders to preserve basic liberty—warrants—is something that we must now abolish.”

Myth No. 3: The courts will still review the telecom cases.

Perhaps most controversially, the bill effectively pardons the telecom giants that assisted the Bush administration in the warrantless wiretapping program. They will now be shielded from dozens of civil lawsuits brought against them after their involvement was exposed. House Democrats insist that the telecoms are not automatically getting off the hook. Instead, the companies must go before a federal judge. But here’s the catch: For the suits against them to be “promptly dismissed,” they must demonstrate to the judge not that what they did was legal but only that the White House told them to do it.

This is another bit of face-saving window dressing, and its essence is best captured in a breathtaking remark from Sen. Bond: “I’m not here to say that the government is always right. But when the government tells you to do something, I’m sure you would all agree … that is something you need to do.” That more or less sums it up—one part Nuremberg defense, the other part Nixon.

Myth No. 4: The Democrats must fold because of the November election.

It’s no secret that congressional Democrats wanted to resolve the FISA debate before the August convention in order to avoid the perennial charge that they’re softies. After the House vote last week, Barack Obama issued a statement backing off his earlier tough stance on telecom immunity. The calculus seemed clear: McCain had just reversed his own position on illegal wiretapping and was spoiling for a fight, arguing that “House Democrats, the ACLU, and the trial lawyers have held up legislation to modernize our nation’s terrorist surveillance laws.” You can’t stand with the trial lawyers and the ACLU if you want to win a general election.

But does it really make sense to stand with AT&T and George W. Bush instead? As the Anonymous Liberal blogger pointed out, you could hardly ask for a more disreputable opposing team than a president with historic-low popularity and a bunch of corporate fat cats. And by reneging on his earlier position, Obama put himself in a box: If he lets the bill sail through the Senate, he will alienate his base. But if he attempts a filibuster or an amendment now, he will appear to be pandering to the objections of Moveon.org and other groups. It would have made more sense for the party leadership and the nominee to stick to their guns.

Myth No. 5: The law will be the “exclusive means” for surveillance.

The Democrats’ most pathetic bit of self-deluded posturing involves the inclusion of a clause suggesting that the new law represents the “exclusive means” by which “electronic surveillance and interception of certain communications may be conducted.” According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., this means “the law is the exclusive authority and not the whim of the president.” But, then, FISA always said that it was the “exclusive means.” And in 2001, pretty much on a whim, the president set it aside. So for those of you keeping score back home, the Democratic leadership is patting itself on the back for including in the new law a provision that was already in the old law—and which the Bush White House chose to ignore.

Here, then, is the bitter joke of the new legislation: From 2001 to 2007, the NSA engaged in a secret program that was a straightforward violation of America’s wiretapping laws. Since the program was revealed, the administration has succeeded in preventing the judiciary from making a definitive declaration that the wiretapping was a crime. Suits against the government get dismissed on state-secrets grounds, because while the program may have been illegal, it was also so highly classified that its legality can never be litigated in open court. And now suits against the telecoms will by dismissed en masse as well. Meanwhile, the new law moves the goal posts, taking illegal things the administration was doing and making them legal.

Whatever Hoyer and Pelosi—and even Obama—say, this amounts to a retroactive blessing of the illegal program, and historically it means that the country will probably be deprived of any rigorous assessment of what precisely the administration did between 2001 and 2007. No judge will have an opportunity to call the president’s willful violation of a federal statute a crime, and no landmark ruling by the courts can serve as a warning for future generations about government excesses in dangerous times. What’s more, because the proposal so completely plays into the Bush conception of executive power, it renders meaningless any of its own provisions. After all, if the main lesson of the wiretapping scandal is that we need more surveillance power for the government, what is to stop President Bush—or President Obama or President McCain—from one day choosing to set this new law aside, too? “How will we be judged?” Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., asked in a stirring speech deploring the legislation yesterday. “The technical argument obscures the defining question: the rule of law, or the rule of men?”

Have Your Say: Five Myths About the New Wiretapping Law
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This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 3:49 am and is filed under Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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