Why the CIA Is Smearing Edward Snowden After the Paris Attacks

By Glenn Greenwald, Los Angeles Times

27 November 15

ecent people see tragedy and barbarism when viewing a terrorism attack. American politicians and intelligence officials see something else: opportunity.

Bodies were still lying in the streets of Paris when CIA operatives began exploiting the resulting fear and anger to advance long-standing political agendas. They and their congressional allies instantly attempted to heap blame for the atrocity not on Islamic State but on several preexisting adversaries: Internet encryption, Silicon Valley's privacy policies and Edward Snowden.

The CIA's former acting director, Michael Morell, blamed the Paris attack on Internet companies "building encryption without keys," which, he said, was caused by the debate over surveillance prompted by Snowden's disclosures. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) blamed Silicon Valley's privacy safeguards, claiming: "I have asked for help. And I haven't gotten any help."

Former CIA chief James Woolsey said Snowden "has blood on his hands" because, he asserted, the Paris attackers learned from his disclosures how to hide their communications behind encryption. Woolsey thus decreed on CNN that the NSA whistleblower should be "hanged by the neck until he's dead, rather than merely electrocuted."

In one sense, this blame-shifting tactic is understandable. After all, the CIA, the NSA and similar agencies receive billions of dollars annually from Congress and have been vested by their Senate overseers with virtually unlimited spying power. They have one paramount mission: find and stop people who are plotting terrorist attacks. When they fail, of course they are desperate to blame others.

The CIA's blame-shifting game, aside from being self-serving, was deceitful in the extreme. To begin with, there still is no evidence that the perpetrators in Paris used the Internet to plot their attacks, let alone used encryption technology.

CIA officials simply made that up. It is at least equally likely that the attackers formulated their plans in face-to-face meetings. The central premise of the CIA's campaign — encryption enabled the attackers to evade our detection — is baseless.

Even if they had used encryption, what would that prove? Are we ready to endorse the precept that no human communication can ever take place without the U.S. government being able to monitor it? To prevent the CIA and FBI from "going dark" on terrorism plots that are planned in person, should we put Orwellian surveillance monitors in every room of every home that can be activated whenever someone is suspected of plotting?

The claim that the Paris attackers learned to use encryption from Snowden is even more misleading. For many years before anyone heard of Snowden, the U.S. government repeatedly warned that terrorists were using highly advanced means of evading American surveillance.

Then-FBI Director Louis Freeh told a Senate panel in March 2000 that "uncrackable encryption is allowing terrorists — Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and others — to communicate about their criminal intentions without fear of outside intrusion."

Or consider a USA Today article dated Feb. 5, 2001, eight months before the 9/11 attack. The headline warned "Terror groups hide behind Web encryption." That 14-year-old article cited "officials" who claimed that "encryption has become the everyday tool of Muslim extremists."

Even the official version of how the CIA found Osama bin Laden features the claim that the Al Qaeda leader only used personal couriers to communicate, never the Internet or telephone.

Within the Snowden archive itself, one finds a 2003 document that a British spy agency called "the Jihadist Handbook." That 12-year-old document, widely published on the Internet, contains instructions for how terrorist operatives should evade U.S. electronic surveillance.

In sum, Snowden did not tell the terrorists anything they did not already know. The terrorists have known for years that the U.S. government is trying to monitor their communications.

What the Snowden disclosures actually revealed to the world was that the U.S. government is monitoring the Internet communications and activities of everyone else: hundreds of millions of innocent people under the largest program of suspicionless mass surveillance ever created, a program that multiple federal judges have ruled is illegal and unconstitutional.

That is why intelligence officials are so eager to demonize Snowden: rage that he exposed their secret, unconstitutional schemes.

But their ultimate goal is not to smear Snowden. That's just a side benefit. The real objective is to depict Silicon Valley as terrorist-helpers for the crime of offering privacy protections to Internet users, in order to force those companies to give the U.S. government "backdoor" access into everyone's communications. American intelligence agencies have been demanding "backdoor" access to encryption since the mid-1990s. They view exploitation of the outrage and fear resulting from the Paris attacks as their best opportunity yet to achieve this access.

The key lesson of the post-9/11 abuses — from Guantanamo to torture to the invasion of Iraq — is that we must not allow military and intelligence officials to exploit the fear of terrorism to manipulate public opinion. Rather than blindly believe their assertions, we must test those claims for accuracy. In the wake of the Paris attacks, that lesson is more urgent than ever.

Why It Makes No Sense for Labor Unions to Endorse Hillary Clinton

By Michael Sainato, Observer

27 November 15

Given her record for flip flopping, unions should be weary of endorsing her candidacy

n June 2015, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told 1,300 fast food workers, "I want to be your champion," and that she supported their push for a $15 minimum wage.

Despite such a pledge, her support of their cause was more of a Faustian strategy than one of genuine interest. Ms. Clinton recently endorsed a $12 minimum wage. Her opponents, Senator Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley both voiced their support for a $15 minimum wage early in their campaigns, but it took until early November for Ms. Clinton to affirm her stance on the issue.

The fight for a $15 minimum wage has been a staple for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has spent millions to push it into the mainstream American consciousness—which is why their recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton makes no sense for the organization. Several SEIU members agree, with rifts in the organization over the endorsement, and the New Hampshire SEIU Chapter formally endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders in retaliation for the decision.

Ms. Clinton's political expediency on the minimum wage issue isn't the only ploy she has used to gain favor of labor unions. She has distanced herself from Wal-Mart, where she served as a board member from 1986-1992, while the corporation waged campaigns against labor unions seeking to unionize store workers. There is no evidence she ever vocalized her support for labor unions, and ABC News obtained videos of several board meetings she attended and remained silent as her fellow board members worked out anti-union strategies. The New York Times reported in 2007 that Ms. Clinton maintains close ties to Wal-Mart executives, but omits her past affiliation with the company in her speeches and website. At the time of her appointment to Wal-Mart's board, she held nearly $100,000 in stock and was a lawyer with the Rose Law Firm, which represented the company in several cases. Her current campaign treasurer, Jose Villareal, has also spent decades on boards of Wal-Mart and other companies run by their owners, the Walton family.

In addition to an endorsement from the SEIU, Ms. Clinton received endorsements from the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association. The decision has also created a rift within the union, with several state and local chapters protesting the endorsement. The American Federation of Teachers' endorsement Ms. Clinton resulted in a similar rift among its members—many opponents to the endorsement feel it undermines the democratic process to endorse a candidate before the primaries, which is why several unions still have not endorsed any candidate at all, including the nation's largest organization of labor unions, the AFL-CIO.

The Clintons' history with teacher unions isn't a positive one. The Washington Post recently reported during Bill Clinton's tenure as Governor of Arkansas, teacher unions hated the Clintons after they supported an education bill in Arkansas staunchly opposed by teacher unions, despite the generous campaign contributions and support given to Bill Clinton in his initial election to Congress in 1974. Given Ms. Clinton's penchant for flip flopping or waiting to affirm her stance on key issues until a favorable political side has revealed itself, teacher unions should have been more wary and at least held off endorsing a candidate until after the primaries.

During her current presidential campaign, Ms. Clinton hesitated in her disapproval of Keystone XL and the Trans Pacific Partnership until the majority of labor unions had vocalized their opposition to the deals, and made it clear she would have to oppose them if she wanted their support. After she obliged, several unions came through with their endorsement even though her affirming stance in opposition came months after Mr. Sanders'. Her initial involvement in setting up the deals while serving as Secretary of State should have been enough indication for labor unions to steer clear of endorsing the frontrunner candidate, who is more than likely not to hold their best interests to heart if she is elected.

The donor network of the Clinton Foundation should have also deterred labor unions from endorsing her. In 41 years, their foundation has received nearly $3 billion in contributions, most of which are from large corporations or their executives. Labor unions are deluding themselves if they believe Ms. Clinton is going to fight for their interests over those of corporations.