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FOCUS: In NYT's Fictional Presentation, China Pioneered the "Collect It All" Strategy |
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Sunday, 02 August 2015 12:12 |
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Wheeler writes: "Way down in the second-to-last paragraph of this NYT piece claiming the US will retaliate against China for the OPM hack, national security reporter David Sanger makes this claim about the hack, about experts affiliated with an agency that aspires to 'Collect it all.'"
Marcy Wheeler. (photo: The Nation)
In NYT's Fictional Presentation, China Pioneered the "Collect It All" Strategy
By Marcy Wheeler, Emptywheel
02 August 15
 ay down in the second-to-last paragraph of this NYT piece claiming the US will retaliate against China for the OPM hack, national security reporter David Sanger makes this claim about the hack, about experts affiliated with an agency that aspires to “Collect it all.”
Instead, the goal was espionage, on a scale that no one imagined before.
He follows it — he ends the entire article — with uncritical citation of this statement from a senior intelligence official.
“This is one of those cases where you have to ask, ‘Does the size of the operation change the nature of it?’ ” one senior intelligence official said. “Clearly, it does.”
Several paragraphs earlier, the reporter who did a lot of the most important work exposing the first-of-its-type StuxNet attack makes this claim. (NYLibertarian noted this earlier today.)
The United States has been cautious about using cyberweapons or even discussing it.
In other words, built into this story, written by a person who knows better, is a fiction about the US’ own aggressive spying and cyberwar. Sanger even suggests that the sensors we’ve got buried in Chinese networks exist solely to warn of attacks, and not to collect information just like that which China stole from OPM.
So if someone creating either a willful or lazy fiction also says this …
That does not mean a response will happen anytime soon — or be obvious when it does. The White House could determine that the downsides of any meaningful, yet proportionate, retaliation outweigh the benefits, or will lead to retaliation on American firms or individuals doing work in China. President Obama, clearly seeking leverage, has asked his staff to come up with a more creative set of responses.
… We’d do well to ask whether this is nothing more than propaganda, an effort to dissipate calls for a more aggressive response from Congress and others.
There is, however, one other underlying potential tension here. Yesterday, Aram Roston explained why some folks who work at NSA may be even more dissatisfied then they were when a contractor exposed their secrets for the world to see.
Employees at the National Security Agency complain that the director, Adm. Michael Rogers, is neglecting the intelligence agency in favor of his other job, running the military’s Cyber Command, three sources with deep knowledge of the NSA have told BuzzFeed News.
“He’s spending all his time at CYBERCOM,” one NSA insider said. “Morale is bad because of a lack of leadership.” A second source, who is close to the agency, agreed that employees are complaining that Rogers doesn’t seem to focus on leading the agency. A third said “there is that vibe going on. But I don’t know if it’s true.”
[snip]
[O]ne of the NSA sources said Rogers appears to be focusing on CYBERCOM not just because the new organization is growing rapidly but also because it has a more direct mission and simpler military structure than the complex and scandal-ridden NSA in its post-Snowden era. That makes focusing on CYBERCOM easier, that source said, “than trying to redesign the National Security Agency.”
If true (note one of Roston’s sources suggests it may not be), it suggests one of the most important advisors on the issue of how to respond to China’s pawning the US is institutionally limiting his focus to his offensive role, not on his information collection (to say nothing of defensive) role. So if Roston’s sources are correct, we are in a very dangerous position, having a guy who is neglecting other potential options drive the discussion about how to respond to the OPM hack.
And there’s one detail in Sanger’s story that suggests Roston’s sources may be right — where Rogers describes “creating costs” for China, but those costs consist of an escalation of what is, in fact, a two-sided intelligence bonanza.
Admiral Rogers stressed the need for “creating costs” for attackers responsible for the intrusion,
Those of us without the weapons Rogers have at his disposal think of other ways of “creating costs” — of raising the costs on the front end, to make spies adopt a more targeted approach to their spying. Those methods, too, might be worth considering in this situation. If we’re going to brainstorm about how to deal with the new scenario where both the world’s major powers have adopted a bulk collection approach, maybe the entire world would be safer thinking outside the offensive weapon box?
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FOCUS: Lay Cecil the Lion to Rest on the White House Lawn |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=63"><span class="small">Marc Ash, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Sunday, 02 August 2015 10:09 |
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Ash writes: "Blame for the death of Cecil the Lion lies squarely with the U.S. government. For decades, the White House and its conservation agencies have turned a blind eye to the well-being of wildlife in North America and around the world. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that inaction would lead to their endangerment and often extinction."
Cecil the Lion, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. (photo: Andy Loveridge, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit/AP)
Lay Cecil the Lion to Rest on the White House Lawn
By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
02 August 15
 lame for the death of Cecil the Lion lies squarely with the U.S. government. For decades, the White House and its conservation agencies have turned a blind eye to the well-being of wildlife in North America and around the world. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that inaction would lead to their endangerment and often extinction.
The Fish and Wildlife Service Is Investigating
From Laury Parramore, damage control specialist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of Cecil the Lion.”
Sounds like the FWS is keeping busy on this, but the fact that lions in the wild have been critically endangered and face total extinction in less than perhaps as little as 40 years has been well known to the FWS for decades.
In searching for the truth, the Fish and Wildlife Service might well investigate itself. As recently as October 2014, the FWS rejected Endangered Species status for African lions, saying that sport-hunting was “not found to be a threat to the species at this time.” The Safari Club International (SCI) was ecstatic. Their headline called the ruling a “Major Setback for Anti-Hunting Efforts!”
SCI has now apparently suspended the membership of Dr. Walter J. Palmer and his professional hunting guide, Theo Bronkhorst, over the killing of Cecil, according to its story headlined “SCI Suspends Membership of Hunter and Professional Hunter Involved in Death of Cecil.”
The FWS is now apparently reconsidering the same proposal to list African lions as endangered that it rejected last year – but it’s the FWS, so there’s a major, politically motivated loophole. Hunters would still be allowed to import trophy kills as long as the country in which the lion is killed sustainably manages its lion population. Sorry, Son of Cecil, looks like you will face the same fate your father did. Walter Palmer would be free to kill again and again, as long as the host country kept its certification up to date.
Sustainability is a recurring theme in Safari Club position statements. Articulated well here:
"Given the outstanding efforts of African governments in creating and maintaining protected strongholds for a large majority of the lion population, it is doubtful that the Service will be able to defend its conclusion that the lion is threatened with extinction in the foreseeable future."
While that statement appears to oppose the efforts of the FWS, the SCI should not have been so concerned. In the great tradition of Obama-era regulation, industry leads and the government follows.
The FWS appears to have adopted the rationale of the SCI rather than make an independent stand. The killing of Cecil demonstrates the margin for abuse when a special class of killing is sanctioned by law. “It’s okay as long as certain criteria are met.” The danger is that men like Bronkhorst and Palmer are free to interpret compliance on the fly as they aim their rifles, or cross bows, as the case may be.
A stronger stand from the FWS is needed. If lions are endangered, protect them – no caveats, no loopholes. And arguably greater and more urgent action by the FWS is needed to confront the ivory trade.
A Clue from FWS Director Dan Ashe
H. Ronald Pulliam, former director of the National Biological Service under Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, reported in July of 2014 on a roundtable discussion that he had attended at which FWS Director Dan Ashe spoke. Pulliam’s remarks on what was said:
"I just stepped out of a small roundtable discussion with, among others, Dan Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Director Ashe told the small group that he sees a “giant clash” between those who favor conservation and those who favor economic development and that he believes that conservationists “must accept a world with fewer wolves, salmon, and spotted owls.” The Director of the very agency most responsible for protecting the nation’s biodiversity went on to say that, in the name of compromise, we must accept “a world with less biodiversity.'”
Director Ashe did respond for this article to Dr. Pulliam’s report, saying, “No. The words that Dr. Pulliam puts in quotes are not mine.” Ashe then goes on to offer context remarks that do more to support Pulliam’s characterizations of his positions than undermine them. Launching into a longwinded recitation of the effects of man on the wild and embracing the limitations of what can be done by the FWS to mitigate those effects:
"We have to look landowners, business owners, mayors, governors and others in the eye and tell them that their ambitions must be tailored in order to leave enough on the table to allow a species to survive. We get bruised and bloodied. But that’s our job, and we reap the rewards of knowing we are in the fight, and achieving results for species and the ecosystems on which they depend. And of course, those are the same ecosystems that humans depend upon. Others get the luxury to sit in ivory towers and on environmental or corporate boards, express their umbrage or outrage and issue judgment. That’s a different competition."
However, the apparent reality is that all too often the FWS looks those “landowners, business owners, mayors, governors” in the eye and tells them that their ambitions will be adopted as policy or law.
Late last year, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell gave the FWS a little hand in standing up for Great Lakes wolves in their struggle to survive. In a lawsuit filed by the The Humane Society of the United States, Born Free USA, Help Our Wolves Live, Friends of Animals and Their Environment, and a number of other wildlife protection groups, Judge Howell ruled against the FWS, the Department of the Interior, and the States of Michigan and Wisconsin. Howell ruled that wolves in those states and in Minnesota must be returned to the Endangered Species List and should never have been delisted at all. However it was Judge Howell’s admonishment to the government that set the ruling apart:
"The D.C. Circuit has noted that, at times, a court “must lean forward from the bench to let an agency know, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough.” This case is one of those times."
Economics, the Environment, and Politics
The most common argument in favor of ignoring sound environmental policy is economics. In essence: “Too bad about the environment, economic growth trumps.” It also happens to be a very easy argument to debunk.
If we are talking about the economic priorities of wealthy campaign donors, then yes, without a doubt, sound environmental policy would absolutely be costly. Tough to build an empire on good judgement. But if the economic wellbeing of the nation is considered, then good sound environmental policy is excellent economic policy.
In fact poor environmental policy is a massive economic burden on the American taxpayer. In terms of contamination cleanup, health care costs, impact on local economies, you name it, America pays dearly for poor environmental policy. So why does it continue? The wealthy campaign donors and their lobbyists run the game in the nation’s capitol, and we live with the consequences.
President Obama’s Stunning Environmental Disconnect
On April Fool’s Day 2010, the Washington Post ran a story titled “President Obama Opens New Areas to Offshore Drilling.” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called it “a new direction.” The Washington Post called it “a high-stakes calculation by the White House.”
Nineteen days later, on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore drilling rig operated by BP, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the greatest environmental disaster in human history.
While Obama’s ruling did not directly affect or authorize the Deepwater Horizon operation, it ignored the enormous danger that such drilling operations represent.
By December of that year the administration had reversed itself. This time the headline read, Obama Bans Offshore Oil Drilling in Atlantic Waters, a now contrite Secretary Salazar saying at the time, “The changes we're making are based on the lessons we have learned.’’
Lessons that apparently did not leave a lasting impression. The last of the protesters blocking a Royal Dutch Shell icebreaker from leaving Portland this week have been “physically removed and arrested” by Portland police and the U.S. Coast Guard, “public safety being the main concern,” according to a local police official. So Shell is off to the Arctic to do whatever they do with a free pass from a White House whose main priority appears to be politics.
Sure, Obama has taken a few symbolic steps on behalf of the environment, proposing that carbon emissions from American power plants be cut – from 2005 levels – thirty percent by 2030. It’s enraging the coal industry, but in reality barely scratches the surface of the problem.
The 2014 agreement between the U.S. and China to limit greenhouse gases is an impressive initiative, but with Obama writing China out of the TPP agreement, China’s cooperation on anything is not something the White House should count on.
Another noteworthy Obama environmental action was the expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument from 89,000 square miles to over 490,000. But at the same time, Obama has been a staunch proponent of natural resource exploitation on American protected lands. So “protection” in the Obama era is apparently relative, if not meaningless.
Overall, President Obama appears to view environmental concerns through a decidedly political lens. It’s not a passion for the man; it’s not something that he is committed to. The actions and decisions of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior underscore that lack of commitment.
The administration has the power. Does it have the will? The survival of many species depends upon that.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts |
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Sunday, 02 August 2015 08:34 |
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Parry writes: "The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED's U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow."
Russian president Vladamir Putin. (photo: AP)
Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
02 August 15
The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED’s U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes Robert Parry.
 he Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”
If you read the Post’s editorial on Wednesday and a companion op-ed by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and “power mad” in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty.
The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” – and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED.
The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’
“The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts. …
“The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.”
But there are several salient facts that the Post’s editors surely know but don’t want you to know. The first is that NED is a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1983 to do what the Central Intelligence Agency previously had done in financing organizations inside target countries to advance U.S. policy interests and, if needed, help in “regime change.”
The secret hand behind NED’s creation was CIA Director William J. Casey who worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey – from the CIA – and Raymond – from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council – focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.
But Casey recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III – as Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment.”
NED Is Born
The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money — within NED — for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured. But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.
This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill. The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented, not fully recognizing the significance of the demand.
The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head the National Endowment for Democracy, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy. Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president.
Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC. For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.”
Currently, Gershman’s NED dispenses more than $100 million a year in U.S. government funds to various NGOs, media outlets and activists around the world. The NED also has found itself in the middle of political destabilization campaigns against governments that have gotten on the wrong side of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, prior to the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing an anti-Russian regime in Kiev, NED was funding scores of projects.
A second point left out of the Post’s editorial was the fact that Gershman took a personal hand in the Ukraine crisis and recognized it as an interim step toward regime change in Moscow. On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and explained how pulling it into the Western camp could contribute to the ultimate defeat of Russian President Putin.
“Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, NED is a U.S. government-financed entity that has set its sights on ousting Russia’s current government.
A third point that the Post ignored is that the Russian law requiring outside-funded political organizations to register as “foreign agents” was modeled on a U.S. law, the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In other words, the U.S. government also requires individuals and entities working for foreign interests and seeking to influence U.S. policies to disclose those relationships with the U.S. Justice Department or face prison.
If the Post’s editors had included any or all of these three relevant factors, you would have come away with a more balanced understanding of why Russia is acting as it is. You might still object but at least you would be aware of the full story. By concealing all three points, the Post’s editors were tricking you and other readers into accepting a propagandistic viewpoint – that the Russian actions were crazy and that Putin was, according to the Post’s headline, “power mad.”
Gershman’s Op-Ed
But you might think that Gershman would at least acknowledge some of these points in his Post op-ed, surely admitting that NED is financed by the U.S. government. But Gershman didn’t. He simply portrayed Russia’s actions as despicable and desperate.
“Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy on Tuesday was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding:
“This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.”
The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the op-ed.
So would an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. How many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?
Not surprisingly, Gershman couldn’t find the space to include any balance in his op-ed – and the Post’s editors didn’t insist on any.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
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Worker Pay Is Rising at the Slowest Rate Ever Recorded |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=36361"><span class="small">Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page</span></a>
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Saturday, 01 August 2015 13:05 |
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Reich writes: "Most people's pay is stagnant or dropping when adjusted for the costs of living, including rents that are going through the stratosphere."
Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)
Worker Pay Is Rising at the Slowest Rate Ever Recorded
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
01 August 15
orker pay is rising at the slowest pace ever recorded. But it's worse than that because the new data include everyone who's paid -- including top CEOs and Wall Street moguls. The fact is, most people's pay is stagnant or dropping when adjusted for the costs of living, including rents that are going through the stratosphere.
Conservative Republicans like this. They've long said that Americans are living beyond their means and that the best way to revive the economy is for pay to drop. That's why they don't want to raise the minimum wage, why they advocate so-called "right-to-work" laws that destroy unions, why they're in favor of outsourcing jobs abroad through "free trade" policies like the Trans Pacific Partnership, and why they're happy for companies to shift from hiring people full time to relying on independent contractors and part-time workers.
But Republicans have it completely backwards. When pay stagnates or declines, people don't have the money to buy beyond necessities -- which causes the economy to slow, as it's been doing (the latest report showed the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in the latest quarter, but the Commerce Department also marked down its growth numbers for prior years). Add to this the record share of workers who don't know how much they'll earn from week to week or even from day to day, because of the increasing reliance on part-time and independent contract work. That uncertainty is also holding back spending, which, in turn, retards the economy.
Repeat after me: Higher wages for middle and low-income workers are good for the economy. Lower wages are bad.
Worker pay is rising at the slowest pace ever recorded. But it's worse than that because the new data include everyone... Posted by Robert Reich on Friday, July 31, 2015
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