Posts Tagged ‘United States’

The Decline Of Unions In America

In the context of the Wisconsin fight about public union collective bargaining, Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker presents a short history of labor unionism in America – which in the last half century is a story of tragic decline. In that respect, the US is no different from Western Europe, only in the US unions are even more marginalized. Now, the Republic governor Scott Walker wants to strip Wisconsin state employees of their right to collectively bargain, and make union dues voluntary rather than integrated in paycheck deduction. This will effectively cripple the public unions (unions in the American private sector are already dead), robbing the people of one method of organizing themselves in a system of nearly unchecked capitalism, as well as depriving the Democratic Party of a crucial resource base.

Sounds like old-fashioned class war. If only the democratic revolutions in the Middle East weren’t happening at the same time, this would be front page news everywhere. Because the people of Wisconsin have been demonstrating and camping out for two weeks straight, and the Democratic Senators of the state have fled to Illinois, in order to temporarily avoid a vote. It’s hard not to draw a parallel with the Mid East. Either way, Hertzberg presents in a nutshell what it’s all about:

Organized labor was powerful and, for the most part, respected. Its economic and political muscle had played an indispensable role in insuring that the benefits of postwar prosperity were widely shared, transforming much of what many had unironically called the proletariat into an important segment of the broad American middle class.

Labor has come a long way since then—a long way down. At the outset of the nineteen-sixties, one in four workers had the protection of a union. By the early eighties, after President Reagan destroyed the air-traffic controllers’ union, the proportion was down to one in five. Now it’s one in eight. In a workforce twice the size it was in Edward P. Morgan’s heyday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s onetime fifteen million has shrunk to twelve million, with a couple of million more in unions unaffiliated with the federation.

Organized labor’s catastrophic decline has paralleled—and, to a disputed but indisputably substantial degree, precipitated—an equally dramatic rise in economic inequality. In 1980, the best-off tenth of American families collected about a third of the nation’s income. Now they’re getting close to half. The top one per cent is getting a full fifth, double what it got in 1980. The super-rich—the top one-tenth of the top one per cent, which is to say the top one-thousandth—have been the biggest winners of all. What is always called their “compensation” (wage workers lucky enough to have a job simply get paid) has quadrupled.

(…)

Last Friday—in the wee hours of morning, after two weeks of tumult and protest demonstrations—Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill that is breathtaking in its fealty to the ideology of the far right. The bill, dictated by the new Republican governor, Scott Walker, strips the state’s employees of their half-century-old right to bargain collectively—except over base pay, which can never be increased above inflation without a public referendum. It makes union dues purely voluntary and prohibits their collection via paycheck deduction. It requires the unions to face a certification vote every year—and, to get recertified, a union must win a majority of all employees, not just a majority of those voting.

(…)

What’s getting awfully difficult to deny is that what the Wisconsin Republicans are doing—and they have plenty of imitators and admirers—is solely for a partisan purpose, and a potentially lethal one.

Read more.

- Edit: To provide a counterpoint, Michael Lind of Salon.com has written a piece about how liberal politics can, and must, survive the collapse of union power.

Tags: collective bargaining, Democratic Party, labour movement, labour unions, public unions, Republican Party, Scott Walker, United States, Wisconsin
Category history, U.S. politics |

Julian Assange To Be Extradited To Sweden

OK. So what now? First, Assange may win the trial in Sweden. That’s perfectly possibly. Second, I honestly doubt he’d be extradited to the US from a EU country. That’s because on the one hand, there have been no charges filed against Assange in the US yet (as it’s not even sure he committed any ‘crime’ that’s currently in the books), and on the other hand, if there will be, there are of course serious concerns about his life and health.

The United States today ranks among the developmental countries in the world when it comes to treatment of prisoners (especially political prisoners, like Assange would be); in that respect, the US is on par with Libya and China. Just consider the treatment of detainees on Guantánamo Bay, and that of the WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning. These people are being deprived of basic human rights, being solitarily confined for months or years on end (which amounts to torture). They come out of it scarred for life. So, if European norms and values with respect to the rule of law mean anything at all, there will be no extradition to a country like the United States.

The Guardian:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange will appeal, his legal team confirmed. If this is unsuccessful, he will be extradited to Sweden in 10 days.

(…)

Assange has been fighting extradition since he was arrested and bailed in December. He has consistently denied the allegations, made by two women in August last year.

At a two-day hearing earlier this month, his legal team argued that Assange would not receive a fair trial in Sweden. They said the European arrest warrant (EAW) issued by Sweden was invalid because the Australian had not been charged with any offence and that the alleged assaults would not be legitimate extraditable offences.

Assange fears that an extradition to Sweden would make it easier for Washington to extradite him to the US on possible charges relating to the release by WikiLeaks of leaked US embassy cables.

If this was to happen, Sweden would have to ask permission from the UK for the onward extradition. No such charges have been laid, though the website’s activities are under investigation in the US.

Tags: Bradley Manning, European Union, extradition, Guantánamo Bay, Julian Assange, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, whistleblowing, WikiLeaks
Category Europe, politics, U.S. politics |

Obama’s Proposals For The US Government Budget

Andrew Sullivan lambasts President Obama on his budget cutting proposals, sent to Congress yesterday. In the United States, like in every Western country, the majority of government spending is on the welfare state (in the American case: on Medicare and Medicaid). But unlike every other country, there is one huge area of spending that is officially being kept from every discussion about spending cuts: the military. Cutting the defence budget is out of the question in the US (it’s not even part of the annual budget).

Since welfare state entitlements in the US are also protected by important lobbies (the Association for the Advancement of Retired People (AARP), is one of the most powerful lobbies in the US and opposed to any Medicare cuts), this means that freezing spending and cutting, which is sorely needed given the absurdly huge deficit (1.1 trillion dollar) and public debt, will have to be done in other government programs. Because raising taxes in America is, like, political suicide (although the Obama administration to a large extent does plan to generate revenue through tax hikes). But these programs, like subsidies, education, farming and infrastructure, taken together under the nomer ‘domestic discretionary spending’ don’t constitute that large a part of the budget, and might be pretty helpful in stimulating the economy…

So, the critique goes, while the elephants in the room, the welfare state and the military, are not taken on, valuable government programs are being cut. That sounds a lot like the Dutch situation, in which the incredibly expensive home mortgage interest deduction (‘hypotheekrente-aftrek’) is being saved, while cuts are being made in education, social security, public transportation, and other programs that everybody benefits from.

The Obama administration, however, is also making investments in education, scientific research, clean energy and infrastructure; something the Dutch cabinet could learn from if they weren’t so terribly short-sighted. So I’m really out of my depth here in judging whether this budget is any good.

A good overview of the budget proposals can be found here (check out the list on the right), and here. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, meanwhile, takes a helicopter view on the American government budget.

Andrew Sullivan argues that Obama, by not considering welfare state or military spending cuts and turning even more into an ordinary Washington politician than he already has, is screwing young voters over:

[The] core challenge of this time is not the cost of discretionary spending. Obama knows this; everyone knows this. The crisis is the cost of future entitlements and defense, about which Obama proposes nothing. Yes, there’s some blather. But Obama will not risk in any way any vulnerability on taxes to his right or entitlement spending to his left. He convened a deficit commission in order to throw it in the trash. If I were Alan Simpson or Erskine Bowles, I’d feel duped. And they were duped. All of us who took Obama’s pitch as fiscally responsible were duped.

(…)

They have to lead, because this president is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In this budget, in his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short term political interests. Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullshit it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road.

To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you’re fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama’s cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America’s fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.

Tags: bezuinigingen, budget, budget cuts, defence, economy, education, energy, hypotheekrente-aftrek, infrastructure, kabinet-Rutte, Medicaid, Medicare, Obama, Science, spending cuts, spending freeze, United States, US military, welfare state
Category Dutch politics, politics, U.S. politics |

What Egypt May Mean To Israel

While, I’d say, European media have mostly reported on the Egypt mass demonstrations in a carefully positive frame, on the American right the standard tone has mostly been that of concern and caution (or just a downright rejection of protesters as ‘rioters’). The Mubarak regime has been an ally of the US in the past thirty years, primarily because of the peace treaty with Israel. Now, with the possibility of regime change, that peace treaty might to some extent be up in the air. Views among the Egyptian public on Israel are very negative, and one of the main opposition groups – the Muslim Brotherhood – that may become part of a ruling coalition is no friend of the country either. So, Fox News and the once-esteemed Senator John McCain have already denounced the Muslim Brotherhood as ‘terrorists’ on par with Al Qaeda, and are claiming this Egyptian revolution is becoming another 1979 Iran.

But to which extent is this really true? Historically, the Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest islamic fundamentalist organization in the modern world; and its conservative wing nowadays opposes the ‘Zionist entity’ and the West, as well as the Egyptian political system. According to other commentators, however, the Brotherhood is a ‘middle class institution’ consisting of lawyers and engineers that aims to combine Islam with democracy.

Either way, Peter Beinart of The Daily Beast has a good, insightful piece on the character of the Muslim Brotherhood, the actual likelihood of the organization gaining too much power, and the consequences of a possible democratic regime change to Egypt’s relations with Israel. Basically – and I agree – is that, like in the case of Turkey where a moderate Islamist party is also in power, it would expose Israel to harsher criticism of its treatment of the Gazan people. Not entirely unfair, I’d say. Also, the blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip would from Egypt’s side probably be lifted. All in all, it may mean that the stalwart Netanyahu government may become a little more sensitive to Middle Eastern public opinion regarding the way it treats Palestinians. Would that be all bad?

Here’s the piece (re-posted entirely because it’s so good):

Obviously, a theocracy that abrogated Egypt’s peace treaty with the Jewish state would be bad for Israel, period. But that is unlikely. The Muslim Brotherhood is not al Qaeda: It abandoned violence decades ago, and declared that it would pursue its Islamist vision through the democratic process, which has earned it scorn among Bin Laden types. Nor is the Brotherhood akin to the regime in Iran: When Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tried to appropriate the Egyptian protests last week, the Brotherhood shot him down, declaring that it “regards the revolution as the Egyptian People’s Revolution not an Islamic Revolution” and insisting that “The Egyptian people’s revolution includes Muslims, Christians and [is] from all sects and political” tendencies. In the words of George Washington University’s Nathan Brown, an expert on Brotherhood movements across the Middle East, “These parties definitely reject the Iranian model…Their slogan is, ‘We seek participation, not domination.’ The idea of creating an Islamic state does not seem to be anywhere near their agenda.”

Could this all be an elaborate ruse? Might the Brotherhood act differently if it gained absolute power? Sure, but it’s hard to foresee a scenario in which that happens. For one thing, the best estimates, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Stephen Cook, are that the Brotherhood would win perhaps 20 percent of the vote in a free election, which means it would have to govern in coalition. What’s more, the Egyptian officer corps, which avowedly opposes an Islamic state, will likely wield power behind the scenes in any future government. And while the Brotherhood takes an ambiguous position on Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel–it opposes it but says it will abide by the will of the Egyptian people—the Egyptian army has little interest in returning to war footing with a vastly stronger Israel. Already, Mohammed ElBaradei, the closest thing the Egyptian protest movement has to a leader, has called the peace treaty with Israel “rock solid.”

But Egypt doesn’t have to abrogate the peace treaty to cause the Israeli government problems. Ever since 2006, when Hamas won the freest election in Palestinian history, Egypt, Israel and the United States have colluded to enforce a blockade meant to undermine the group’s control of the Gaza Strip. A more accountable Egyptian government might no longer do that, partly because Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, but mostly because a policy of impoverishing the people of Gaza has little appeal among Egyptian voters. It’s easy to imagine a newly democratic government of Egypt adopting a policy akin to the one adopted by the newly democratic government of Turkey. The Turkish government hasn’t severed ties with Israel, but it does harshly criticize Israel’s policies, especially in Gaza, partly because Turkey’s ruling party has Islamist tendencies, but mostly because that is what the Turkish people want.

Which bring us back to the question: Is this bad for Israel? Benjamin Netanyahu and AIPAC certainly think so, since they believe that what’s best for Israel is for its government to be free to pursue its current policies with as little external criticism as possible. I disagree. For several years now, Israel has pursued a policy designed, according to Israeli officials, to “keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse.” (The quote comes courtesy of the recent Wikileaks document dump). The impact on the Gazan people has been horrendous, but Hamas is doing fine, for the same basic reason that Fidel Castro has done fine for the last 60 years: The blockade allows Hamas to completely control Gaza’s economy and blame its own repression and mismanagement on the American-Zionist bogeyman. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad govern in the West Bank without the democratic legitimacy they would likely need to sell a peace treaty to the Palestinian people.

All of which is to say: a shift in U.S. and Israeli policy towards Hamas is long overdue. The organization has been basically observing a de-facto cease-fire for two years now, and in the last year its two top leaders, Khaled Meshal and Ismail Haniya, have both said Hamas would accept a two-state deal if the Palestinian people endorse it in a referendum. That doesn’t mean Hamas isn’t vile in many ways, but it does mean that Israel and America are better off allowing the Palestinians to create a democratically legitimate, national unity government that includes Hamas than continuing their current, immoral, failed policy. If a more democratic Egyptian government makes that policy harder to sustain, it may be doing Israel a favor.

The Middle East’s tectonic plates are shifting. For a long time, countries like Turkey and Egypt were ruled by men more interested in pleasing the United States than their own people, and as a result, they shielded Israel from their people’s anger. Now more of that anger will find its way into the corridors of power. The Israeli and American Jewish right will see this as further evidence that all the world hates Jews, and that Israel has no choice but to turn further in on itself. But that would be a terrible mistake. More than ever in the months and years to come, Israelis and American Jews must distinguish hatred of Israel’s policies from hatred of Israel’s very existence. The Turkish government, after all, has maintained diplomatic ties with Israel even as it excoriates Israel’s policies in Gaza. ElBaradei this week reaffirmed Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel even as he negotiates the formation of a government that could well challenge Israel’s policy in Gaza.

Instead of trying to prop up a dying autocratic order, what Israel desperately needs is to begin competing for Middle Eastern public opinion, something American power and Arab tyranny have kept it from having to do. And really competing means reassessing policies like the Gaza blockade, which create deep—and understandable—rage in Cairo and Istanbul without making Israel safer. It is ironic that Israel, the Middle East’s most vibrant democracy, seems so uncomfortable in a democratizing Middle East. But at root, that discomfort stems from Israel’s own profoundly anti-democratic policies in the West Bank and Gaza. In an increasingly democratic, increasingly post-American Middle East, the costs of those policies will only continue to rise. Israel must somehow find the will to change them, while it can still do so on its own terms, not only because of what is happening in Tahrir Square, but because the next Tahrir Square could be in Ramallah or East Jerusalem. After all, as Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar recently noted, Palestinian kids use Facebook too.

Tags: AIPAC, democratization, Egypt, fundamentalism, Gaza, Gaza blockade, Hamas, international relations, Islam, Israël, Middle East, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Netanyahu, Palestinians, regime change, revolution, Turkey, United States
Category politics |

The Unstoppable Fox News

Here’s another reason why a Sarah Palin victory in 2012 is not at all unthinkable. The latest Nielsen ratings are out, and Fox News absolutely destroys every other cable channel. At this point, they don’t have any real competitors anymore on U.S. cable television.

Frightening how one media outlet can pretty much take over the entire journalistic landscape in one country.

Check it out:

Fox News  1,128,000 (-5%)
2. CNN  433,000 (-29%)
3. MSNBC  399,000 (0%)
4. HLN  276,000 (-10%)

Total Day 25-54-Year-Olds

1. Fox News  299,000 (-6%)
2. MSNBC 141,000 (-4%)
3. CNN  133,000 (-27%)
4. HLN  120,000 (-14%)

Primetime Viewers
                               
1. Fox News  2,024,000 (-7%)        
2. MSNBC  764,000 (-5%)
3. CNN  591,000 (-34%)
4. HLN  444,000 (-21%)

Primetime 24-54-Year-Olds

1. Fox News  497,000 (-8%)
2. MSNBC  250,000 (-9%)
3. CNN  173,000 (-34%)
4. HLN  143,000 (-33%)

The Top 5 Cable News Programs in Average Total Viewers

1. The O’Reilly Factor: 3,191,000
2. Hannity: 2,294,000
3. Glenn Beck: 2,248,000
4. Special Report with Bret Baier: 2,111,000
5. On the Record: 1,889,000

Top 5 Cable News Programs Among 25-to-54-Year-Olds

1. The O’Reilly Factor: 781,000
2. Hannity: 585,000
3. Glenn Beck: 572,000
4. On the Record: 481,000
5. The O’Reilly Factor (repeat): 447,000

Tags: cable television, CNN, Fox News, journalism, media, MSNBC, Nielsen ratings, Sarah Palin, television, United States
Category U.S. politics |

Trying Assange

Due to an extended period of traveling my internet access ebbs and flows, so blogging will be light from this corner over the next forty days (most access is used to just try to catch up to events as they unfold!). But I thought this piece was a nice complement to Adriejan’s earlier post on his thoughts on what Assange has done via WikiLeaks and how it might be interpreted morally and legally. The article essentially brings in two pretty insightful lawyers to consider what lies ahead for lies ahead legally for Assange (on the leaks only):

GWEN IFILL: Now, for a look at the legal questions surrounding the Assange case, we turn to Jeffrey Smith, a partner at the Arnold & Porter law firm. He served as general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1995 to 1996. And Abbe Lowell, partner at the law firm McDermott, Will & Emery, he’s been involved in a number of high-profile cases and has defended clients charged with espionage.

Welcome to you both, gentlemen. Jeff Smith, what jeopardy is Assange actually in?

JEFFREY SMITH: I think he’s in serious legal jeopardy. And I think he should be.

Obviously, the U.S. government is looking at a variety of charges, espionage being the most central. But there are a number of other things, as the attorney general said, for which he might be charged.

GWEN IFILL: For instance?

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, there’s a variety of possibilities, including mishandling of government property, theft, receipt of theft of government property, other things that I’m sure the government is looking at, possible disclosure of the identity of intelligence agents, any number of things.

GWEN IFILL: What kind of case can you imagine being made against him?

Is it one that could stick, Mr. Lowell?

ABBE LOWELL: Well, first, it’s not hard to charge him, because grand juries do that with not such a high level of proof.

The question will be whether a charge sticks. And that’s depending on a number of factors. One is, there’s never been a prosecution of the recipient of this kind of information under the Espionage Act, when that entity claims to have First Amendment media protection.

So, one issue will be whether or not WikiLeaks is a media outlet, and whether or not Assange is a journalist. If so, it’s one question as to whether that statute applies constitutionally. Secondly, if it does, there’s cases that say that, again, it’s easy to charge, but to convict, the government has to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the highest specific intent to do harm to the United States that you possibly can have.

And that may be something they can prove, but people shouldn’t think that this is just a walkaway. It’s not that easy.

GWEN IFILL: Not a slam-dunk. Define, first of all — assuming that espionage is one approach which the Justice Department is pursuing, define what that means.

JEFFREY SMITH: In this context, as Abbe says, it’s never been used, but the plain language of the statute does say that it is a crime for someone who has national defense information without authority to convey it to someone else, knowing that it will do harm to the United States.

Over the years, the courts have added to that, knowing that it will do harm, the requirement that the individual act in bad faith. And my own judgment is that that will be pretty easy to prove here. I do not think that what Assange did, this massive release of information, with no patina of journalism around it, I think it’s hard to believe that that will be constitutionally protected activity.

GWEN IFILL: Let’s talk — let’s just get that off the table, this whole question of whether he is a journalist and whether he is — what he did was constitutionally protected.

In your opinion?

ABBE LOWELL: Well, here’s what the government would say in bringing a case.

The government will say that this is just providing the vehicle of a site in which raw material is dumped out, with no editorial function and no real activity, ergo, it’s not really journalism.

And what journalists likely will say, because the line is a very fuzzy one, and it’s a dangerous one under the First Amendment, and Assange will say back, is, no, acquiring information by whatever means and disseminating it to the public is the definition of journalism.

It has not been tested. It is ironic that this issue of what is the new media, what is the Internet may be defined and tested under the auspices of a 1917 criminal statute called the Espionage Act.

GWEN IFILL: Because this is — what we remember is the Pentagon Papers, for instance, the case of Daniel Ellsberg, who wasn’t a journalist, but released these documents, which were hard-copy documents.

JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.

GWEN IFILL: They weren’t electronic documents, so it wasn’t as many. But does that make a difference in how we gauge this?

JEFFREY SMITH: I think there are a lot of differences.

First of all, the Pentagon papers case, as it went before the Supreme Court, was a prior-restraint case. That is to say, the government was trying to prevent The New York Times from publishing it, rather than prosecute Ellsberg for disclosing it.

And, even in that case, a majority of justices on the Supreme Court said, admittedly not central to the decision, but said that prosecution of journalists might be possible in some circumstances. Justice Douglas dissented.

But I think this may be a case — I think he has no real hope to call himself a journalist. He even solicits people on his Web site for them to submit classified documents or secrets. So, in some respects, he’s inducing others to violate the law. And I don’t think the courts would look favorably on that.

ABBE LOWELL: Gwen, the thing is that, up until now, these have been very selective cases with very selective disclosures…

GWEN IFILL: Right.

ABBE LOWELL: … whether or not it’s a single potential document or whether or not it’s a single specific disclosure, not hundreds of thousands, and not done in this fashion.

So, therefore, the WikiLeaks case is going to be the test at the outer limits of how far the First Amendment may protect. And what are those words in that very old statute, the Espionage Act, going to mean, when they were written in the wake of World War I for a phenomenon of maps and ledgers and diagrams, and being applied in 2010 to terabytes of information?

GWEN IFILL: Well, and also to kind of a post-terror environment, or which…

JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.

GWEN IFILL: But I’m curious, one little detail, which is, he’s not a U.S. citizen. How liable is he under these laws?

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, there’s one case in which an East German citizen was convicted under the statutes.

I don’t think — he undoubtedly would raise the question of extraterritorial application, but I don’t think his citizenship makes any difference. It will have had an impact on the United States. And I think the courts won’t give him any slack on that issue.

ABBE LOWELL: And he, if he wants to, will raise the defense of whatever he gets out of the First Amendment which would be applicable to him in the United States, even if he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. So, it will cut both ways.

But, because he is not in the United States, there’s the extra issue of whether he can be extradited. And that’s a whole different set of obstacles for the U.S. to get. And, anyway, it’s just not that simple, that he’s done something and we’re going to have him here the day after tomorrow to face charges.

GWEN IFILL: Nothing is terribly simple in this case.

What — what about the idea that he has stolen government property, that he is in possession and is disseminating something that belongs to somebody else?

JEFFREY SMITH: I think there’s a relatively minor dimension of this. It may be a case — a charge brought against him, but the much more serious is the espionage harm to the national security.

And I think that I’m — frankly, I’m hopeful that the government is able to obtain jurisdiction over him and successfully prosecute him.

ABBE LOWELL: I think that’s what the attorney general was referring to, in part.

GWEN IFILL: Yes.

ABBE LOWELL: I mean, I — it’s an easier, in some ways, case to make than to sort through the First Amendment protection of the Espionage Act’s application to the media.

And the wrinkle there is that he’s not the one who stole the information, at least as far as what is being reported.

GWEN IFILL: Private Bradley Manning is alleged to have — the Army private — to have done it.

ABBE LOWELL: That’s right. So, as to whether or not the normal theft of government information can be applied to him is yet another complication. Now, it is a serious crime. And it can be charged and punished as a felony. And it’s always easier to go after the easier statute than it is to do the other.

So, if you’re looking at — to what the federal government could do, they will look at the Espionage Act. They will look at the theft of government information or government material. And we will see if there’s even a more creative one that the attorney general had in mind.

GWEN IFILL: What is the difference, theoretically, between what Julian Assange did in this case and what newspapers did in publishing the information he gave them, The New York Times, The Guardian in London?

JEFFREY SMITH: I think it’s a fundamental difference. What Assange did was solicit this young private, assuming that’s — he’s the source of it, to give him the secrets. And then he just put it out or is proposing to put it out.

What the newspapers have done, in my judgment, is constitutionally protected. They looked at the material. They talked to the U.S. government. They asked the U.S. government what harm would result. They made certain redactions in the documents. They did other reporting surrounding the cables to see how it fit in the broader picture of what’s going on.

And I think that’s fundamentally different than what Assange did.

GWEN IFILL: And…

ABBE LOWELL: And from a…

GWEN IFILL: Go ahead.

ABBE LOWELL: … First Amendment point of view, Gwen, though, not so fast.

GWEN IFILL: Well, that’s what I was going to ask. Is there a broader definition of the First Amendment protection here that could be applied?

ABBE LOWELL: You know, Jeff is correct that, in terms of conduct, depending on what conduct is found, whether or not he did solicit the private or not, for example, would be a very big difference.

JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.

ABBE LOWELL: But — but, putting that aside, let’s just say that you are comparing apples to apples, and the apples were what he discloses to the public and what the other media disclosed. If it’s the same cables with the same redactions, if it’s the same kind of information, that will not distinguish his conduct well from what the other, let’s say, more traditional media does.

And I will tell you, whether or not it changes the charge will be a very big part of his defense, to show that those two acts are the same.

GWEN IFILL: It sounds very much like, at least from a legal sense, this story is just beginning.

JEFFREY SMITH: Yes.

GWEN IFILL: Jeff Smith and Abbe Lowell, thank you both very much.

JEFFREY SMITH: You’re very welcome.

To be clear, the piece is full of opinion, legal and otherwise, but I think it nonetheless provides a good look at the considerations on the table and, in part at least, some of the perspectives likely being considered at various levels of the U.S. government. It is quite interesting that this case may be “tested under the auspices of a 1917 criminal statute called the Espionage Act”. Clearly those who drafted the Act had no capacity to envisage some of the practical realities at the heart of this case. That said, I think the principles of the Act are what are at play in this case, and so it is probably a red herring to point to a lack of congruence between a 1917 Act and technological innovation.

Tags: Cablegate, espionage, Espionage Act, First Amendment, journalism, Julian Assange, law, United States, whistleblowing, WikiLeaks
Category politics, U.S. politics |

Arab Leaders, Israel Urge US To Attack Iran

One of the most important revelations from the WikiLeaks classified diplomatic cable publication is possibly that, as we blogged about earlier, not only Israel is urging the U.S. to go military on Iran before it acquires nuclear weaponry, but so do Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. For the Sunni leaders of these states, the prospect of the Shiite republic having an atom bomb must be awful.

And not only that: the sense is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, this might set off a Middle East arms race, with other states scrambling to arm themselves as well. On the other hand: imagine the prospect of either Israel unilaterally attacking Iran, or the US engaging in its third war against an Islamic state in a decade.

Yet since, whether we like it or not, a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by either Israel or the US is increasingly in the air (the war drums are already being beaten by American conservatives), this is pretty consequential information.

The Guardian:

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.

The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.

The Saudi king was recorded as having “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”, one cable stated. “He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah’s meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.

The cables also highlight Israel’s anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, its readiness to go it alone against Iran – and its unstinting attempts to influence American policy. The defence minister, Ehud Barak, estimated in June 2009 that there was a window of “between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable”. After that, Barak said, “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.”

The leaked US cables also reveal that:

• Officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran’s nuclear programme to be stopped by any means, including military.

• Leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil”, an “existential threat” and a power that “is going to take us to war”.

• Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned in February that if diplomatic efforts failed, “we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both”.

• Major General Amos Yadlin, Israeli’s military intelligence chief, warned last year: “Israel is not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the US was on 11 September 2001.”

(…)

[In] a meeting with Italy’s foreign minister earlier this year, Gates said time was running out. If Iran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, the US and its allies would face a different world in four to five years, with a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. King Abdullah had warned the Americans that if Iran developed nuclear weapons “everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia”.

(…)

No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. “If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them,” the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.

Tags: Cablegate, classified diplomatic cables, diplomacy, Egypt, international relations, Iran, Israël, Jordan, Middle East, military strike, non-proliferation, nuclear program, Saudi Arabia, United States, WikiLeaks
Category politics, U.S. politics |

WikiLeaks Publishes 250,000 Classified U.S. Diplomatic Cables

It’s on: despite a cyberattack on their website just hours ago, WikiLeaks has published more than 250,000 classified diplomatic cables from American embassies around the globe. In major newspapers, there’s now talk about a worldwide diplomatic crisis.

What’s in it is, well, huge and encompassing, with lots and lots of information on countless international matters.

The Guardian:

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many of which are designated “secret” – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN’s leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistlebowers’ website, also reveal Washington’s evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a major shift in relations between China and North Korea, Pakistan’s growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

Among scores of other disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme

• Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime.

• Devastating criticism of the UK’s military operations in Afghanistan.

• Claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the British royal family.

The US has particularly intimate dealings with Britain, and some of the dispatches from the London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and Westminster. They range from serious political criticisms of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs.

The cache of cables contains specific allegations of corruption and against foreign leaders, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from tiny islands in the Caribbean to China and Russia.

The material includes a reference to Vladimir Putin as an “alpha-dog”, Hamid Karzai as being “driven by paranoia” and Angela Merkel allegedly “avoids risk and is rarely creative”. There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables name countries involved in financing terror groups, and describe a near “environmental disaster” last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium. They disclose technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and include a profile of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse.

(…)

The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier earlier this year and passed to WikiLeaks. Assange made them available to the Guardian and four other newspapers: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to “dump” the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department’s fears, it also initially intends to post only limited cable extracts, and to redact identities.

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified “human intelligence directives” issued in the name of Hillary Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the leadership of the United Nations. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top UN officials and their staff and details of “private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys”.

(…)

They are classified at various levels up to “SECRET NOFORN” [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn. The embassies which sent most cables were Ankara, Baghdad, Amman, Kuwait and Tokyo.

Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Cablegate, China, classified diplomatic cables, counterterrorism, diplomacy, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, U.S. embassies, United Kingdom, United States, WikiLeaks, Yemen
Category Europe, politics, U.S. politics |

WikiLeaks: The Worst Is Yet To Come?

Well, it sounds like this might be particularly bad news for the United States. The CBC is reporting that WikiLeaks is on the verge of another round of leaks “that could result in the expulsion of U.S. diplomats from foreign postings“. The US seems to have scrambled diplomats to try to head off the fallout. The new leak is reported to centre on diplomatic files.

Tags: betchya Obama's have not gonna have a particualrly fun day tomorrow, Canada, Julian Assange, United States, WikiLeaks
Category Canadian politics, politics, terrorism, U.S. politics |

Nederland, Colorado

I was aware that you had places in California with a lot of medical marihuana dispensaries, that rename themselves into Dutch-sounding names like Oaksterdam. But I didn’t know there’s a town high up in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, that is actually called Nederland, and is a countercultural outpost where even recreational marihuana use is legalized.

The New York Times reports.

Millions of Americans expressed their feelings about marijuana last week. In Colorado, 24 communities voted to ban or restrict shops selling legal medical marijuana. In California, voters wrestled with the question of legalization for recreational use — with issues of health, crime and taxes all coming into play — then voted no.

But here in Nederland, it was just another beautiful day high in the mountains.

Marijuana has been mainstream in this outpost of the counterculture, 8,000 feet in the Rockies and an hour northwest of Denver, since the days of Bob Marley’s cigar-size “spliffs” and the jokes of Cheech and Chong.

And to judge by the numbers, things have not changed all that much.

An explosion of medical marijuana sales over the last year in Colorado as well as the District of Columbia and the 13 other states where medical use is allowed has certainly brought a new element into the mix. Dispensaries like Grateful Meds, one of seven medical marijuana providers in Nederland, population 1,400, now have legal compliance lawyers on retainer and sales tax receipts in the cash drawer.

But marijuana is still marijuana, and Nederland’s perch overlooking what John Denver immortalized as “the Colorado Rocky Mountain high” has not budged.

State records show that by some coincidence, the concentration of medical marijuana patients and dispensaries selling medicinal cannabis is higher here in Colorado’s old hippie heartland than in any other corner of the state.

Read more.

Tags: Colorado, marihuana, marihuana legalization, Nederland, United States
Category psychedelics |

Negative Campaigning Ca. 1800

From Reason:

It’s true for the Netherlands as well. If you read what those nineteenth-century parliamentarians were saying to each other, Geert Wilders stands out as a model of civility.

Tags: attack ads, John Adams, negative campaigning, nineteenth century, The Netherlands, Thomas Jefferson, United States
Category history, politics |

Pay Or… Watch The Fire Department Watch Your House Burn Down?

This is totally messed up. A local NBC channel reports on how in Obion County, Tennessee rural residents are required to pay a $75 annual surcharge to receive coverage from the local fire department. Those that don’t pay the subscription are not supposed to receive service. Well, the policy which was introduced in the county in the 90s was put to the test last week:

Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won’t respond, then watches it burn. That’s exactly what happened to a local family tonight. A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.

The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late.  They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning.

Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton.  But the Cranicks did not pay.

The mayor said if homeowners don’t pay, they’re out of luck.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn’t put it out. It wasn’t until that fire spread to a neighbor’s property, that anyone would respond.

Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.

“I thought they’d come out and put it out, even if you hadn’t paid your $75, but I was wrong,” said Gene Cranick.

Because of that, not much is left of Cranick’s house.

They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come.

(…)

It was only when a neighbor’s field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn’t.

(…)

We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception.

“Anybody that’s not in the city of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer, either they accept it or they don’t,” Mayor David Crocker said.

Think Progress picks up the story, tying the episode to the question of what vision of governance Americans want for their country, as well as adding some information to the story like this gem:

Ironically, in the county commission’s latest report on its fire services, which outlines which parts of the municipal area will receive fire services only through subscriptions, the commissioners and fire service officials brag that the county is “very progressive.”

You can’t make this stuff up. They also note that conservative bloggers and opinion journalists at the National Review – one of, if not the primary print magazine of conservative opinion in America – have nearly uniformly lined up to suggest that the firefighters made the right decision! National Review reactions includes “comparing the family whose home was destroyed to “jerks, freeloaders, and ingrates”” and jokingly deriding the one staff writer that questions the fire department’s decision (“No solace to the homeowner, but an important lesson for compassionate conservatives like our own Dan Foster (Zing!)“). Full coverage of the National Review response by Think Progress here.

Awesome.

Tags: "We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn!", Tennessee, United States, user fees
Category politics, U.S. politics |

A More Mature Politics? The Netherlands v Canada

As an outsider from Canada observing Dutch politics I am pleasantly baffled by the relative orderliness and decorum that appear to characterize Dutch politics. Adriejan has already noted here the relative invisibility of Job Cohen during recent rounds of negotiations even as things seem to be hurtling towards the finish line. Perhaps the enthusiastic suggestion that Cohen initiate his own coalition agreement might have pushed things too far; you don’t want to upset Her Majesty after all.

From a North American (or even in Australia, my current home away from home) Cohen’s patience and near silence while the right-wing negotiations proceed is jarring. Instead one would expect Cohen to take every opportunity to rail against Wilders’ potential involvement in governing as well as against the other potential coalition partners for allowing Wilders to even get near such an opportunity. Cohen could easily have added pressure to the already splintering CDA. And his incentive seems to be clear enough: if the current right-wing talks had failed to deliver a coalition agreement, the next iteration of negotiations would likely have included Cohen’s PvdA front and centre.

Take, by way of contrast, the supposed ‘statesmanship’ or current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in discussing coalition formation in the context of the recent UK coalition as the first visitor to see new Prime Minister David Cameron:

Harper also had some comments on minority governments and coalitions, given that Cameron is the head of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

“Losers don’t get to form coalitions,” Harper said, in a shot apparently aimed at Canadian opposition parties…

“And of course this coalition in Britain, I would note, doesn’t contain a party dedicated to the break up of the country. And these were, as you know, the two problems in Canada, the proposition by my opposition was to form a coalition with the purpose of excluding the party that won the election and for the purpose of including a party dedicated to the break up of the country,” Harper said.

The British situation has some “instructive lessons for Canada,” he added.

Harper made the most of the opportunity to misrepresent not just the Westminster system and responsible government, but also a nearly formed coalition set on ending his grasp on power shortly after the last Canadian election. Without getting into all the gory details (see link below for more info), the key point is this: Harper in facing down a potential coalition consisting of the centrist Liberals and social democrat New Democratic Party that relied on the separatist Bloc Quebecois in much the same manner that Rutte and Verhagen will rely on the Islamaphobe Wilders, launched into all sorts of invective to (effectively) turn public opinion against the coalition effort.

A fiery Harper, in turn, accused Dion of “playing the biggest political game in Canadian history,” saying the [then] Liberal leader would recklessly attempt to govern the country amid a global economic crisis under threat of veto by “socialists and separatists.”

The over the top rhetoric hit its peak when Harper’s Conservative Party sent out Member of Parliament Daryl Kramp to the mic to address the proposed coalition’s effort to unseat the government and gain an opportunity from the Governor General to govern in its place:

“This is over the top now. This is a coup d’état. It makes us look like a banana republic. The only difference here is there’s no blood, thank goodness.”

To those paying attention, like prominent Canadian pundit Paul Wells, Harper has already made clear that nearly two years later he intends to continue to campaign on much the same lines:

On Sept. 14 in a wedding hall in Edwards, Ont., Harper said, “Friends, next time the choice will be either a Parliament where we Conservatives have the majority of seats, or one where the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois have the majority of seats.”

Pay no attention to the opposition’s current silence on the matter, he said. “Regardless of what they tell you during an election, they will form a coalition the day after that election is over. Last time they waited—and they found out that that meant they couldn’t get away with it without having another election.” He said the opposition could never campaign on an explicit promise to form a coalition. “They would have been slaughtered.”

I’ve noticed this line of argument repeatedly from Harper over nearly two years, and written about it often on my blog.

Indeed Harper sent out his Finance Minister just last week to reinforce the message:

His speech last Tuesday at the Canadian Club of Ottawa was expected to be about the Canadian economy. Instead, it turned into a highly partisan rant about an “Ignatieff-NDP-Bloc Québécois Coalition” that will take over and bankrupt the country unless the Conservatives are elected to a majority.

(…)

Flaherty used the word ‘economy’ eight times in the speech. He referred to the coalition 14 times.

(…)

The speech, less than 24 hours after Parliament reopened for the fall sitting, ended any premise of civility and co-operation between the government and opposition and automatically had the election-speculation meters running.

While I would have been much more happy had the negotiations for the forthcoming right-wing Dutch government fall apart, and I have no particular sympathy for CDA, I do have a great appreciation for Cohen’s willingness and ability to reinforce the perception of Netherlands’s more consensual politics by not taking up the opportunity to vilify his opponents for the sake of grabbing power. And to be clear, this is not a call for the end of politics (what would I do with that half of my waking hours?!?!). But, there is much to be said for a more mature brand of politics than that currently practiced by governments and opposition alike in Canada, the United States or Australia.

Now hopefully the Netherlands’ seemingly inevitable new right-wing government will self-implode before they cause too much damage…

Of course challenges to my argument are most welccome!

Tags: acting like an adult, Australia, Canada, Canadian politics, formatie, politics, rechts kabinet, socialism, Stephen Harper, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Westminster model
Category Canadian politics, Dutch politics, politics, U.S. politics |

Europe According To The United States

Created by graphic designer Yanko Tsevetkov, who has a whole range of these stereotypes maps.

Tags: Europe, stereotypes, United States
Category Europe |

New Malware To Cross Boundary From Digital Into Physical World

I read about this at Yahoo News a few days ago, and now it’s also featured at the New York Times: Stuxnet, a piece of malware software that is capable of infecting and wreaking havoc upon industrial systems. Some experts call it a new ”cyber weapon”, that for the first time is able to cross the boundary from the digital realm into the physical world.

It’s pretty complex in a number of ways. First of all, Stuxnet doesn’t require an internet connection to spread; a usb stick simply plugged in is enough. Secondly, it infiltrates software used to run industrial plants, like chemical factories and nuclear plants (to be specific, it infiltrates software run in industrial equipment from Siemens). Thirdly, it is able to wait until the right moment is there to become active. On its own.

Now apparently, the Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran – part of what international observers see as the Iranian project to acquire nuclear weapons - has been infected with Stuxnet. So that raises the question who “launched” this cyber weapon at the facility. The malware is so complex that it apparently takes a state to develop it, and only a few states at that. The U.S. is one, China and Russia are others, the U.K., Germany, France and Israel also come into the picture.

It is tempting to point to the U.S. here, as it was published about a year ago that the government is secretly investing in new cyberweapons to undermine industrial systems. In fact, this NSA-based research has accelerated since Obama took office. Another example of the way in which Obama fights wars – through secret high-tech weaponry, employed around the world in a clandestine way, much like the unmanned drones the U.S. employs?

Yahoo (via the Christian Science Monitor):

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world’s first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet’s arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

At least one expert who has extensively studied the malicious software, or malware, suggests Stuxnet may have already attacked its target – and that it may have been Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, which much of the world condemns as a nuclear weapons threat.

The appearance of Stuxnet created a ripple of amazement among computer security experts. Too large, too encrypted, too complex to be immediately understood, it employed amazing new tricks, like taking control of a computer system without the user taking any action or clicking any button other than inserting an infected memory stick. Experts say it took a massive expenditure of time, money, and software engineering talent to identify and exploit such vulnerabilities in industrial control software systems.

Unlike most malware, Stuxnet is not intended to help someone make money or steal proprietary data. Industrial control systems experts now have concluded, after nearly four months spent reverse engineering Stuxnet, that the world faces a new breed of malware that could become a template for attackers wishing to launch digital strikes at physical targets worldwide. Internet link not required.

“Until a few days ago, people did not believe a directed attack like this was possible,” Ralph Langner, a German cyber-security researcher, told the Monitor in an interview. He was slated to present his findings at a conference of industrial control system security experts Tuesday in Rockville, Md. “What Stuxnet represents is a future in which people with the funds will be able to buy an attack like this on the black market. This is now a valid concern.”

(…)

Stuxnet surfaced in June and, by July, was identified as a hypersophisticated piece of malware probably created by a team working for a nation state, say cyber security experts. Its name is derived from some of the filenames in the malware. It is the first malware known to target and infiltrate industrial supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software used to run chemical plants and factories as well as electric power plants and transmission systems worldwide. That much the experts discovered right away.

(…)

By August, researchers had found something more disturbing: Stuxnet appeared to be able to take control of the automated factory control systems it had infected – and do whatever it was programmed to do with them. That was mischievous and dangerous.

But it gets worse. Since reverse engineering chunks of Stuxnet’s massive code, senior US cyber security experts confirm what Mr. Langner, the German researcher, told the Monitor: Stuxnet is essentially a precision, military-grade cyber missile deployed early last year to seek out and destroy one real-world target of high importance – a target still unknown.

NYT:

The Iranian government agency that runs the country’s nuclear facilities, including those the West suspects are part of a weapons program, has reported that its engineers are trying to protect their facilities from a sophisticated computer worm that has infected industrial plants across Iran.

(…)

Stuxnet, which was first publicly identified several months ago, is aimed solely at industrial equipment made by Siemens that controls oil pipelines, electric utilities, nuclear facilities and other large industrial sites. While it is not clear that Iran was the main target — the infection has also been reported in Indonesia, Pakistan, India and elsewhere — a disproportionate number of computers inside Iran appear to have been struck, according to reports by computer security monitors.

Given the sophistication of the worm and its aim at specific industrial systems, many experts believe it is most probably the work of a state, rather than independent hackers. The worm is able to attack computers that are disconnected from the Internet, usually to protect them; in those cases an infected USB drive is plugged into a computer. The worm can then spread itself within a computer network, and possibly to other networks.

(…)

[The] Iranians have reason to suspect they are high on the target list: in the past, they have found evidence of sabotage of imported equipment, notably power supplies to run the centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium at Natanz. The New York Times reported in 2009 that President George W. Bush had authorized new efforts, including some that were experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks that serve Iran’s nuclear program, according to current and former American officials.

The program is among the most secret in the United States government, and it has been accelerated since President Obama took office, according to some American officials.

(…)

President Obama has talked extensively about developing better cyberdefenses for the United States, to protect banks, power plants, telecommunications systems and other critical infrastructure. He has said almost nothing about the other side of the cybereffort, billions of dollars spent on offensive capability, much of it based inside the National Security Agency.

Tags: Bushehr, computer worm, cyber attack, cyberwarfare, Iran, malware, NSA, nuclear program, Obama, Siemens, Stuxnet, United States, virus
Category gadgets / futuristic, terrorism, U.S. politics |

Back To The Future: Way Less Cool Edition

Have we returned to the ignorance of the 80s? This is one of the most troubling stories I have read in a while. Reuters is reporting on a new U.S. Center for Disease Control study that suggests that 1 in 5 gay and bisexual men living in major U.S. cities has HIV and that nearly half of those infected are unaware that they are HIV-positive.

Researchers at the CDC studied 8,153 men who have sex with men in 21 U.S. cities. The men were taking part in the 2008 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System, which looked at prevalence and awareness of the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Overall, they found that 19 percent of gay men are infected with HIV.

The study found that 28 percent of gay black men infected with HIV, compared with 18 percent of Hispanic men and 16 percent of white men.

Black men in the study were also least likely to be aware of their infection, with 59 percent unaware of their infection compared with 46 percent of Hispanic men and 26 percent of white men.

Age also plays a role. Among 18 to 29-year-old men, 63 percent did not know they were infected with HIV, compared with 37 percent of men aged 30 and older, the team reported in the CDC’s weekly report on death and disease.

(…)

Mermin said some studies had shown that there was less urgency and fear associated with HIV infections than in the past, which may be due to the effectiveness of AIDS treatment.

HIV preys on ignorance so everyone should pay attention to the CDC’s advice on testing. They advise that gay and bisexual men of all ages are tested for HIV test each year, and that men who are part of the highest risk groups – men who have multiple sex partners or who use drugs while having sex – get tested every three to six months. Of course, everyone else should get tested regularly too!

Tags: AIDS, HIV, United States, wtf?
Category U.S. politics |

Israel Found To Violate International Law, Human Rights

Via PhD studies in human rights (a must read blog) comes news that the UN Human Rights Council has released its investigation into Israel’s handling of the humanitarian aid flotilla:

Yesterday, the fact-finding commission appointed by the Human Rights Council to investigate the attack by Israeli forces on the humanitarian aid flotilla issued its report, which is available on the website of the Human Rights Council. According to the summary, ‘The fact-finding mission concluded that a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in Israel prior to deportation.’

The full report is available on the UN Human Rights Council’s website.

It will be interesting to see whether this becomes an issue in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks being supported by the United States and whether or not there is any effort to enact sanctions on Israel.

Tags: flotilla, human rights, international law, Israël, Palestine, United Nations, United States
Category Europe, politics, terrorism, U.S. politics |

The Greatest Nation In The World: One In Seven Live Below Poverty Line

Astonishing numbers. In the U.S. today, the country of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, 44 million people, or one in seven, live below the poverty line. The poverty line is defined here as $10,830 in pretax cash income, or $22,050 for a family of four. Of children, moreover, one in five live in poverty. That’s the highest level since 1994.

The New York Times:

Forty-four million people in the United States, or one in seven residents, lived in poverty in 2009, an increase of 4 million from the year before, the Census Bureau reported on Thursday.

The poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent — the highest level since 1994 — from 13.2 percent in 2008. The rise was steepest for children, with one in five residents under 18 living below the official poverty line, the bureau said.

The report provides the most detailed picture yet of the impact of the recession and unemployment on incomes, especially at the bottom of the scale. It also found that the temporary increases in benefits in last year’s stimulus bill eased the burdens on millions of families.

For a single adult in 2009, the poverty line was $10,830 in pretax cash income; for a family of four, $22,050.

The number of residents without health insurance in 2009 climbed to 51 million, from 46 million in 2008. The share of children who were uninsured fell, though, reflecting an expansion of government health programs covering low-income children. The share of uninsured adults rose, as a long-term decline continued in the number who have private health insurance. Health experts expect the share of residents without health coverage to decline in coming years as the health care overhaul adopted by Congress in March begins to take effect.

Government benefits like food stamps and tax credits, which can provide hundreds or even thousands of dollars in extra income, are not included in calculating whether a family’s income falls above or below the poverty line. But rises in the cost of housing, medical care or energy and the large regional difference in the cost of living are not taken into account either.

By any measure, living on so little income is precarious, and some experts think that people who are getting by on as much as twice the official poverty line should nonetheless be considered poor.

If the temporarily augmented food-stamp benefits and low-income tax credits were included as income, close to 8 million of those labeled as poor in the report would instead be just above the poverty line, the Census report estimated.

At the same time, expanded unemployment benefits, which are considered cash income and included in the calculations, helped keep 3 million families above the line last year, the report said.

Tags: Census Bureau, poverty, United States
Category U.S. politics |