SIRATYST (Stuff I Read and Thought You Should Too) --
“To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
(Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, Agricola 30-31)"
Before Neera Tanden can become Director of the Office of Management
and Budget, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask
questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.
1. You supported
an attack on Libya that proved fraudulently marketed, illegal, and
catastrophic in results, after which you argued in an email to your
colleagues for trying to force Libya to pay via oil profits for the
privilege of having been bombed. You wrote that this would be a good
solution to a U.S. budget deficit. One of your colleagues replied that
such a policy might create a financial incentive for attacking more
countries. What countries, if any, would you most favor attacking and
then billing for the service?
2. Reclaiming, thank you, reclaiming my time, what
criteria do you think one should use if one were to select the countries
most appropriate to attack and then bill for it?
3. You suggested in your email that the U.S. public
would better support future wars if the wars’ victims paid for them. You
hope to oversee a budget that is tipped more heavily toward militarism
than most, and possibly any, other national government on earth. A
majority of U.S. discretionary spending goes into militarism. You come
to the job from a think tank funded, in part, by weapons companies and
foreign dictatorships that do business with those weapons companies — a
think tank that has taken very weapons-friendly positions, even refusing
to oppose the war on Yemen. How does that qualify you to oversee the
sort of conversion to peaceful practices that will be required for
survival and prosperity?
4. You suggested in that same email that the
alternatives to making countries pay for being bombed would be to cut
Headstart or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children, or Medicaid. How do those alternatives make it
onto the list of possibilities, while reducing military spending does
not, reducing police and prison and border patrol and ICE and CIA and
NSA spending does not, taxing corporations does not, taxing billionaires
does not, taxing financial transactions does not, taxing carbon does
not?
5. You spent much of your nine years running a think
tank courting major corporate donors, and producing corporate-friendly
policies. You instructed your staff to check whether content might
offend big donors prior to publishing. You even censored major work
products to appease big donors, such as deleting a report chapter on New
York police abuse of Muslims after Michael Bloomberg chipped in over $1
million. You also censored criticism of the government of Israel and
gave a platform in Washington to its leader. You kept much of your think
tank’s funding secret, and the reasons why were pretty clear from what
became public. How does this qualify you to serve the public in an open
and transparent and representative government?
6. You’ve long advocated cutting Social Security,
one of the most successful and popular U.S. government programs ever. Is
that still your position, and why or why not?
7. You claim that you pushed, while observers say
you punched, a reporter for asking Hillary Clinton about her support for
the war on Iraq. Can you provide the Senate with guidelines for the
sort of questions to which the proper response is physical assault? Does
this question qualify? Do you, honestly, right now, want to punch me?
8. You have outraged numerous political opponents,
including members of both major political parties in this Senate. Much
of what you’ve already been asked about, we only know about because you
outraged your own employees. You once outed an anonymous victim of
sexual harassment, which shocked and outraged those involved. What
qualifies you as the best person to work harmoniously with every agency
in the U.S. government?
9. You sought to delegitimize the 2016 U.S.
presidential election, not with serious documented complaints, but with
baseless claims that the Russian government infiltrated and manipulated
the vote counting. Did you believe those claims? Do you believe them
now? Do you take any responsibility for the large numbers of other
people who believe them now?
10. What would be one example of a situation in which you would choose to become a whistleblower?
Twas the night before Christmas, And all through the States, Children were starving; no food on their plates. Facing eviction, families in despair, Waiting on Congress, who just didn't care. Leadership nestled snug in their beds, Only worried about pork for lobbyist friends.
from @PopularResistance description of the podcast linked above.
Miko Peled is an author, writer, speaker, and
human rights activist living in the United States. He is considered by
many to be one of the clearest voices calling for justice in Palestine,
support of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS) and the creation of a single democracy with equal rights in all of
historic Palestine. Educated in Jerusalem, Japan and the United States,
Peled is also an accomplished professional martial artist. For 23
years, Peled ran a martial arts school that was dedicated to teaching
leadership skills and non-violent conflict resolution through martial
arts.
Miko is also a contributor to several online publications (Mint Press, The Electronic Intifada, Democracy Now, Mondoweiss), authors this blog (mikopeled.com), and produces The Miko Peled Podcast,
all of which he dedicated to advocating for the creation of one
democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He
travels regularly to Palestine where he speaks and works with the
popular resistance, the BDS movement, and other justice groups. As a
result, he has been arrested several times by the Israeli authorities
for his activism.
The Justice Department is setting a dangerous precedent that threatens reporters — and the truth.
By Laura Poitras
Ms.
Poitras is a filmmaker and journalist who has reported extensively on
national security issues. She shared a Pulitzer Prize for public service
with The Guardian and The Washington Post for her reporting on the
N.S.A.’s mass surveillance program and is a founding board member of the
Freedom of the Press Foundation.
I
am guilty of violating the Espionage Act, Title 18, U.S. Code Sections
793 and 798. If charged and convicted, I could spend the rest of my life
in prison.
This is not a
hypothetical. Right now, the United States government is prosecuting a
publisher under the Espionage Act. The case could set a precedent that
would put me and countless other journalists in danger.
I
confess that I — alongside journalists at The Guardian, The Washington
Post and other news organizations — reported on and published highly
classified documents from the National Security Agency provided by the
whistle-blower Edward Snowden, revealing the government’s global mass surveillance programs. This reporting was widely recognized as a public service.
The Espionage Act
defines the unauthorized possession or publication of “national
defense” or classified information as a felony. The law was originally
enacted during World War I to prosecute “spies and saboteurs.” It does
not allow for a public interest defense, which means a jury is barred
from taking into account the difference between a whistle-blower
exposing government crimes to the press, and a spy selling state secrets
to a foreign government.
Before
Sept. 11, 2001, the Espionage Act was rarely used in the context of
journalism. The most notable exception is the case of Daniel Ellsberg,
who in 1971 was charged with violating the Espionage Act for providing
news organizations, including The Times,
with the Pentagon Papers. The charges against Mr. Ellsberg were dropped
when the illegal methods of the government’s evidence gathering —
breaking into his psychiatrist’s office and warrantless wiretapping —
were exposed.
All
this changed after Sept. 11, when the Espionage Act became a tool of
the government to selectively prosecute sources and whistle-blowers, and
to intimidate journalists and news organizations seeking to publish
reports that the government wanted to suppress.
During Barack Obama’s presidency alone, the Justice Department
prosecuted eight journalism-related Espionage Act cases against sources,
more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined.
Nicholas Kristof: A behind-the-scenes look at Nicholas Kristof’s gritty journalism, as he travels around the world.
One of the most alarming
abuses of the Espionage Act under President Obama was the case of
Stephen Kim, a State Department analyst who in 2010 was indicted under
the law for disclosing classified information to the Fox News journalist
James Rosen. In the Justice Department’s search warrant, Mr. Rosen is
described as a possible “co-conspirator.”
Mr. Rosen was ultimately not charged, but tragically Mr. Kim pleaded
guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act and served 10 months
in prison. (I co-produced a film about the case.)
Despite
this escalation of prosecuting whistle-blowers and sources, the
government had never crossed the line to charging journalists or
publishers for receiving or releasing classified information — until
last year.
That was when the Justice
Department indicted Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of
WikiLeaks, with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, on top of one
earlier count of conspiring to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The
charges against Mr. Assange date back a decade, to when WikiLeaks, in
collaboration with The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel and
others, published the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and subsequently partnered with The Guardian to publish State Department cables.
The indictment describes many activities conducted by news
organizations every day, including obtaining and publishing true
information of public interest, communication between a publisher and a
source, and using encryption tools.
I made a film about Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks called “Risk.” I filmed Mr. Assange for many years, and as the film shows, we had seriousdisagreements.
There are many reasons to be critical of Mr. Assange, and I have not
shied away from them. But we should be clear about what he is being
prosecuted for and the stakes for press freedom.
WikiLeaks’ publications exposed war crimes, revealed previously undisclosed civilian deaths in American-occupied Iraq, detailed government corruption in Tunisia on the eve of the Arab Spring, and generated countlessotherreports that dominated the front pages of newspapers around the world throughout 2010 and 2011.
WikiLeaks
was responsible for the most unvarnished reporting on American
occupations and foreign policy since the start of the “war on terror,”
and helped to shift the public consciousness.
None
of the architects of the “war on terror,” including the C.I.A.’s
torture programs, have been brought to justice. In contrast, Mr. Assange
is facing a possible sentence of up to 175 years in prison.
He
is detained at Belmarsh, a high-security prison in London, recently
under lockdown because of a coronavirus outbreak, and fighting
extradition to the United States. A British judge is expected to rule on
his extradition on Jan. 4. On Wednesday, 15 members of Britain’s Parliament issued a letter
to the secretary of state requesting to meet with Mr. Assange ahead of
the extradition decision, citing concerns of press freedom.
I
have experienced the chilling effect of the Espionage Act. When I was
in contact with Mr. Snowden, then an anonymous whistle-blower, I spoke
to one of the best First Amendment lawyers in the country. His response
was unnerving. He read the Espionage Act out loud and said it had never
been used against a journalist, but there is always a first time. He
added that I would be a good candidate because I am a documentary
filmmaker without the backing of a news organization.
It
is impossible to overstate the dangerous precedent Mr. Assange’s
indictment under the Espionage Act and possible extradition sets: Every
national security journalist who reports on classified information now
faces possible Espionage Act charges. It paves the way for the United
States government to indict other international journalists and
publishers. And it normalizes other countries’ prosecution of
journalists from the United States as spies.
To
reverse this dangerous precedent, the Justice Department should
immediately drop these charges and the president should pardon Mr.
Assange.
Since Sept. 11, this country
has witnessed an escalating criminalization of whistle-blowing and
journalism. If Mr. Assange’s case is allowed to go forward, he will be
the first, but not the last. If President-elect Joe Biden wants to
restore the “soul of America,” he should begin with unequivocally
safeguarding press freedoms under the First Amendment, and push Congress
to overturn the Espionage Ac
We demand that progressives in Congress refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi until she pledges to bring Medicare for all to the floor of the House. Force the vote!
