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9 Ways the Right’s Ayn Randian Experiment Screws Over the Young

RJ Eskow, Blog for Our Future — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:07:00 -0700

The decades-long assault on our core social values is on the verge of consuming its first complete generation of Americans.

Conservatives keep claiming liberals want a “cradle-to-grave nanny state.” That rhetoric has distracted us from the real social re-engineering taking place all around us. The right, along with its “centrist” collaborators, is transforming our nation into a bloodless and soulless Randian State.

Their decades-long assault on our core social values is on the verge of consuming its first complete generation of Americans. Born at the dawn of the Reagan era, Millennials were the first to be fully subjected to this all-out attack on the idea that we take care of each other in this country, and they’ll pay for it from the cradle to the grave.

Some of us are the parents of Millennials. Who’ll fight with them, and for them?

The Psychosis

The Simpsons made a running joke out of Springfield’s “Ayn Rand School for Tots,” where toddlers fend for themselves in playrooms whose signs say things like “Helping is Futile.” That’s very funny. What is happening to our country isn’t.

A successful social contract has bound us together since the FDR era. The Randian State is an effort to dismantle it, replacing our nation’s web of mutual trust and support with a lifelong helplessness and dependence on the whims and generosity of corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals.

The Randian State is built in the morally depraved mold of right-wing über-heroine Rand, who reviled the less fortunate – and even those who tried to help them – as “parasites,” while at the same time idolizing sociopathic killers.

That last statement isn’t rhetoric. It’s reporting. “He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman,” Rand wrote admiringly of child murderer and dismemberer William Edward Hickman. “He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

As Mark Ames points out, this echoes Rand’s description of her hero in The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.”

Hickman’s actions were certainly not those of a “nanny.” But, while most conservatives undoubtedly disapprove of his deeds, the glorification of sociopathic selfishness represents the mentality with which the Administration is perpetually seeking “compromise.” It has infected everything from the Beltway’s “bipartisan” consensus to the content of our national media.

Where’s Julia?

Conservatives went into rhetorical overdrive last year after the Obama campaign released an “infographic” ad called “The Life of Julia,” depicting ways Obama’s policies help women throughout their lives.

A typical reaction came from self-declared moralizer, former Reagan official, and chronic excessive gambler William Bennett. Bennett intoned that “Julia’s entire life is defined by her interactions with the state … Notably absent in her story is any relationship with a husband, family, church or community … Instead, the state has taken their place and is her primary relationship.”

That’s deceptive, of course. The presentation focused on government because it wasabout government. The Obama campaign wasn’t proposing to marry her or drive her to church. But reason rarely intrudes on such arguments. The Romney campaign quickly prepared a counter-slide show and the “socialist” debate was on.

Obama won.

Curiously, “Julia’s” story seems to have disappeared from the BarackObama.Com and Organizing For Action websites now that victory’s been achieved. Old links to it are dead, and attempts to click on this introduction only lead back to the site’s main page.

Anti-Social.

Bennett’s phrasing was drawn from conservative avatar Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher represented a radically un-American vision of life which lacks either our sense of community or our bonds of mutual trust, and which denies even the existence of society itself.

“Who is society?” demanded Thatcher. “There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families …”

Conservatives went searching for evidence that centrist Obama was really pushing cradle-to-grave socialism. The only target they could find for their faux outrage was Michelle Obama’s campaign to encourage breastfeeding, an embarrassing right-wing misfire which suggests there may be Freudian overtones to their “nanny” outrage.

Instead of pushing “cradle to grave” statism, the Administration pivoted immediately after the election to government-shrinking Grand Bargains. A “sequester” agreed to by both parties began slashing services on both ends of life. And the Administration’s attempting to end the sequester, not by calling for its straight repeal (as it should), but by offering cuts to Social Security at the later end of that “cradle to grave” span.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s why “Julia” has disappeared from the Obama website.

The Manifesto

The Randian State’s first manifesto may have been the startling document produced by Ronald Reagan’s “blue ribbon” education commission in 1983, which proposed to use schools as factories for more effectively turning Millennials – and every generation that follows – into usable raw material for corporate production.

The commission approached American education in a self-declared state of crisis, saying it was asked to address “the widespread public perception” – held by whom, exactly? – “that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.”

The sternly ideological report which resulted was called “A Nation At Risk.” Though right-wing in content, it reads like a Soviet proclamation on industrial production. Students are redefined as inputs in a system to maximize American corporate competitiveness, productivity and profits.

“History is not kind to idlers,” says the report. “We live among determined, well-educated, and strongly motivated competitors. We compete with them for international standing and markets …”

The rhetoric is hectoring and fierce:

“(T)he educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The “problem” was stated in terms that were both militaristic – “We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament” – and moralistic: “Our Nation’s schools and Colleges … are routinely called on to provide solutions to personal, social, and political problems that the home and other institutions either will not or cannot resolve.”

That was an assault on an idea that had been uncontroversial among Americans of all political persuasions for generations: that education can and should help children learn to participate more effectively in society. The authors had more concrete objectives in mind. Like Communist commissars plumping next year’s wheat harvest, their goal was productivity, productivity, productivity.

“Knowledge, learning, information, and skilled intelligence are the new raw materials of international commerce,” wrote the Commission. And by “raw materials,” Millennials, they meant you.

The rest of the Commission’s report is largely taken up by a) platitudes, and b) statistical studies which soon challenged aggressively. But the Randian State moved on, Millennials firmly in its maw. And while A Nation At Risk only targeted students, it soon had Americans of all ages in its sights.

Birth School Work Death

During the Thatcher years a British punk group called The Godfathers put out a song called “Birth School Work Death.” Here are nine ways the Cradle to Grave Randian State is harming Millennials in those four stages of life.

1. Prenatal Nutrition

For some the new regime began even before they were born. The Reagan Administration moved to cut nutrition funding for 600,000 pregnant women, a particularly hypocritical act for a movement which claims to be concerned about the rights of unborn children.

2. Early Childhood Nutrition

The same cuts also lowered food budgets for children in 4.6 million households, eighty-seven percent of which lived below the poverty line.

3. School lunches

The National School Lunch Act of 1946 and the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 both promoted healthy meals for America’s schoolchildren. Seems benign and even wise – unless you’re a Randian, of course. The Reagan Administration added to cuts in 1980 budget, then passed into infamy when it stated that ketchup and pickle relish could be considered “vegetables” when designing a balanced diet.

Few, if any, parents adopted this approach at the family dinner table. “Kids, finish your vegetables!” never became “Kids, finish sucking the factory produced, sugar-drenched condiments out of those little folding packets!”

4. Cutting education funds.

The Reagan Administration’s cuts to the Department of Education, some occurring under Education Secretary William Bennett, eventually totaled $19 billion.

The right has continued to mount an assault on school funding at every level ever since, from local school boards up to the state and Federal level. They’ve been joined by “centrist” Democrats like Rahm Emanuel in their efforts to demonize teachers and privatize schools.

5. Making college unaffordable.

The University of Virginia’s Miller Center conducted a study for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and found that “Since the mid-1980s” – roughly the start of the Millennial Generation -”the costs of higher education in America have steadily shifted from the taxpayer to the student and family.”

Median family income have risen by 147% since then, while college tuition and fees rose 439%, a tripling of education costs in real dollar terms. The impact has been greatest on lower-income families, sounding a potential death knell for social mobility.

From the New York Times: “Among the poorest families … the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 percent of median income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000.”

6. Leaving graduates drowning in debt.

The misguided ‘privatization’ of Sallie Mae, the government’s student loan enterprise, led to a series of political and financial scandals. (See “Sallie Mae’s Jets.”) It also contributed to an explosion of student loans, many of which went to highly dubious ‘colleges’ which issued high-cost, worthless degrees. Many other students went to more legitimate institutions, but found themselves drowning in debt.

Now 7.4 million students are about to see a doubling of their interest rates unless something is done. Elizabeth Warren has proposed given them access to the Fed’s ultra-low rates for banks, while more modest proposals would keep current rates in place.

The student debt situation for Millennials would be morally unconscionable even if rates remain at current levels. Anything else is shocking to contemplate. The UPI reports today that Sen. Lamar Alexander said the President and Republicans “agree” on what should be done.

That’s not reassuring.

7. Massive unemployment.

There are 10 million unemployed young people in the United States. The official youth unemployment rate is 16.2 percent, the adjusted rate (including discouraged workers) is22.9 percent – not much better than the Eurozone’s – and the anemic ‘jobs recovery’ is even weaker for Millennials.

The crisis covers everything from high-school-age summer and after-school jobs to employment after graduation.

Studies show that youth unemployment lowers income for the rest of a person’s life. That means this crisis is urgent as well as massive. Every passing month harms the future of an entire generation. What immediate, major measures are being proposed to address this emergency?

None.

8. An increasingly inequitable, wage-stagnating economy.

When Millennials do find jobs – hopefully – they’ll enter a marketplace and economy plagued by historic levels of wage inequality and stagnation.

That’s not an accident: It’s policy.Tax rates favor inequality. Right-wing Republicans and “centrist” Democrats have savaged unions, an effective counterweight against growing inequality. And both parties have served the growing financialization of our economy (although the GOP does it with more gusto), making things worse for everybody except Wall Street.

9. Greater fear and insecurity in old age.

Now the President has proposed cutting Social Security benefits through the cynical “chained CPI.” The “Chain” is also a tax increase, but only on income below the highest level, which means it will aggravate the inequalities that are hurting the vast majority of Americans.

Every generation will suffer if it passes, including those who have already retired. But for Millennials it will be a final late-life kick from the Randian State.

A Letter to Millennials

The year was 1984. Wham! and Cyndi Lauper were topping the charts. The top movie of the year was, appropriately enough, The Terminator. And the nation was re-electing Ronald Reagan. Americans are now suffering from birth to death as a result of this triumphal year for Randians, which plunged us deeper into a red-in-tooth-and-claw world and left millions struggling with its social consequences.

As they used to say back then: Have a nice day!

Dear Millennials: We tried to stop them. We failed. We’re sorry. Now we need a party – and more importantly, a movement – that will refuse to allow the continued destruction of government’s vital role in our social fabric.

Until we do, every generation will suffer. But you, the Millennials, will continue to carry the dubious distinction of being the first generation of Americans to have been assaulted from the cradle to the grave. For your sake and everyone’s else, you must fight back.

This Father’s Day, here’s a promise: Some of us will be right there beside you.

(This piece has been edited slightly since first published, mostly to replace the awkward phrase ‘Rand-y’ with ‘Randian.’)

Why America & China's Future Plans Are Totally Nuts

James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:32:00 -0700

Big plans for the future for the world's biggest economies will take them both further down the hole.

Societies periodically go insane. Fallacious memes sweep through a frightened and confused populace and bad things happen, bad choices get made. Two bad ideas in particular infect the American thought-o-sphere these days: 1) that non-cheap oil can keep all the rackets of consumerism going; 2) that we can offset all the quandaries of non-cheap oil with accounting fraud and debt creation.

These ideas present themselves in the places of greatest authority and influence. The president says “we have a hundred years of shale gas.” The Wall Street Journal says that an inflating Dow Jones index stands for a growing economy. My recent favorite came out of the increasingly demented New York Times on Saturday: Even Pessimists Feel Optimistic About the American Economy. Quoting an econ professor named Tyler Cowen from George Mason University The Times said:

The recent surge in domestic oil and gas production signals “the start of a new era of cheap energy,” he said, while less expensive online education programs could open the door to millions of people who have been priced out of more traditional academics.

That was a two-fer of stupidities since A) it ought to be self-evident that $90-a-barrel oil is not cheap oil, and B) that because of A, there’s unlikely to be lucrative employment for people who learn double-entry book-keeping on their laptops. In fact, anyone who actually learns math over the Internet must conclude that $90-a-barrel oil will crash all the supposedly normal operations of a consumer society, including the ability of oil-and-gas companies to get the capital investment necessary for further oil production.

None of these accredited morons seems to get the basic equation between available cheap energy — e.g. oil with a high energy-return-on-investment — and capital formation — the accumulation of wealth that can be deployed to produce more wealth-producing activity. That was only possible on the way up Hubbert’s curve. On the way down, alas, the relationship enters a Ponzi unwind of too many claims on excessive promises to pay. The net result is a society with a lower standard of living. Personally, I think it will go way lower, and way sooner than later.

The idea that online education is a sovereign tonic for economic vitality is just another gloss on the inane belief that technology can take the place of energy in the equation above. Tom Friedman, grand poobah, of The New York Times Op-Ed page is the cheerleader-in-chief for that meme, but it is accepted by virtually all authorities in business and politics, and their handmaidens in the academic chairs. As the American economy dissolves in an acid bath of capital scarcity and grievance, these idiots will be waiting for the next iPhone app that can power the electric grid — and thus all the new iPhones streaming out of the Apple factories of China into the hot little hands of nineteen-year-olds in Michigan taking “Macroeconomics” on the Kahn Academy website.

Speaking of China, The New York Times ran another humdinger over the weekend: China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities that illustrates how meshugga that society is. Such are the tragic sorrows of late-blooming techno-industrialism that China is doing exactly the opposite of what the future requires — namely, destroying the basis for small-scale local food production. But, not to put too fine a point on it, China is fucked. They are simply in the hopeless zone of population overshoot and resource scarcity. There was some loose talk in thatTimes story to the effect that China will offset all its problems by colonizing Africa (and, who knows, other lands with other resources), but it will be interesting to see how it goes on the slow boat back to Shanghai with all that bok choy rotting in the hold as it plies east out of Mombasa under an ever-hotter tropical sun.

Chinese leadership apparently thinks this is the way to go. Just as the Princeton-bred American economists think that we can all migrate onto the Web and live a virtual existence on virtual wealth with virtual energy. The manifold disappointments that societies around the world face as they discover the falsity of their own memes is already leading to a lot of dangerous mischief, which is to say armed conflict. There is potential for a lot worse.

Texas Republican Says He Wants to Ban Abortion Because ... Fetuses Masturbate?

Alex Kane, AlterNet — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:25:00 -0700

The comments came as the House of Representatives prepared to debate a bill that would outlaw all abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy.

A Texas Congressman has come out in favor of an extreme abortion ban because, according to him, male fetuses masturbate.

RH Reality Check’s Adele Stan reports that Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said that fetuses at 15-weeks “stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?” Burgess is a former OB-GYN.

The comments came as the House of Representatives prepared to debate a bill that would outlaw all abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy. Burgess would like to see an even earlier abortion ban, at 15 weeks.

Stan reports that the scientific study underlying the GOP’s insistence that abortions should be banned because fetuses could feel pain at 20 weeks is disputed. “Major medical bodies in the United States and the United Kingdom have refuted the claim of fetal pain before the third trimester,” Stan writes.

If it passes, the abortion bill would challenge Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. While the bill has no chance of becoming law, it is meant to appease the Republican Party’s right-wing base.

Bank of America Whistle-blower Bombshell: “We Were Told to Lie” to Rip Off Borrowers

David Dayen, Salon — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:29:00 -0700

Bank of America whistle-blowers detail horrid schemes to fleece borrowers, reward staff for foreclosures.

Bank of America’s mortgage servicing unit systematically lied to homeowners, fraudulently denied loan modifications, and paid their staff bonuses for deliberately pushing people into foreclosure: Yes, these allegations were suspected by any homeowner who ever had to deal with the bank to try to get a loan modification – but now they come from six former employees and one contractor, whose sworn statements were added last week to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts.

“Bank of America’s practice is to string homeowners along with no apparent intention of providing the permanent loan modifications it promises,” said Erika Brown, one of the former employees. The damning evidence would spur a series of criminal investigations of BofA executives, if we still had a rule of law in this country for Wall Street banks.

The government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which gave banks cash incentives to modify loans under certain standards, was supposed to streamline the process and help up to 4 million struggling homeowners (to date, active permanent modifications number about 870,000). In reality, Bank of America used it as a tool, say these former employees, to squeeze as much money as possible out of struggling borrowers before eventually foreclosing on them. Borrowers were supposed to make three trial payments before the loan modification became permanent; in actuality, many borrowers would make payments for a year or more, only to find themselves rejected for a permanent modification, and then owing the difference between the trial modification and their original payment. Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner famously described HAMP as a means to “foam the runway” for the banks, spreading out foreclosures so banks could more readily absorb them.

These Bank of America employees offer the first glimpse into how they pulled it off. Employees, many of whom allege they were given no basic training on how to even use HAMP, were instructed to tell borrowers that documents were incomplete or missing when they were not, or that the file was “under review” when it hadn’t been accessed in months. Former loan-level representative Simone Gordon says flat-out in her affidavit that “we were told to lie to customers” about the receipt of documents and trial payments. She added that the bank would hold financial documents borrowers submitted for review for at least 30 days. “Once thirty days passed, Bank of America would consider many of these documents to be ‘stale’ and the homeowner would have to re-apply for a modification,” Gordon writes. Theresa Terrelonge, another ex-employee, said that the company would consistently tell homeowners to resubmit information, restarting the clock on the HAMP process.

Worse than this, Bank of America would simply throw out documents on a consistent basis. Former case management supervisor William Wilson alleged that, during bimonthly sessions called the “blitz,” case managers and underwriters would simply deny any file with financial documents that were more than 60 days old. “During a blitz, a single team would decline between 600 and 1,500 modification files at a time,” Wilson wrote. “I personally reviewed hundreds of files in which the computer systems showed that the homeowner had fulfilled a Trial Period Plan and was entitled to a permanent loan modification, but was nevertheless declined for a permanent modification during a blitz.” Employees were then instructed to make up a reason for the denial to submit to the Treasury Department, which monitored the program. Others say that bank employees falsified records in the computer system and removed documents from homeowner files to make it look like the borrower did not qualify for a permanent modification.

Senior managers provided carrots and sticks for employees to lie to customers and push them into foreclosure. Simone Gordon described meetings where managers created quotas for lower-level employees, and a bonus system for reaching those quotas. Employees “who placed ten or more accounts into foreclosure in a given month received a $500 bonus,” Gordon wrote. “Bank of America also gave employees gift cards to retail stores like Target or Bed Bath and Beyond as rewards for placing accounts into foreclosure.” Employees were closely monitored, and those who didn’t meet quotas, or who dared to give borrowers accurate information, were fired, as was anyone who “questioned the ethics … of declining loan modifications for false and fraudulent reasons,” according to William Wilson.

Bank of America characterized the affidavits as “rife with factual inaccuracies.” But they match complaints from borrowers having to resubmit documents multiple times, and getting denied for permanent modifications despite making all trial payments. And these statements come from all over the country from ex-employees without a relationship to one another. It did not result from one “rogue” bank branch.

Simply put, Bank of America didn’t want to hire enough staff to handle the crush of loan modification requests, and used these delaying tactics as a shortcut. They also pushed people into foreclosure to collect additional fees from them. And after rejecting borrowers for HAMP modifications, they would offer an in-house modification with a higher interest rate. This was all about profit maximization. “We were regularly drilled that it was our job to maximize fees for the Bank by fostering and extending delay of the HAMP modification process by any means we could,” wrote Simone Gordon in her affidavit.

It is a testament to the corruption of the federal regulatory and law enforcement apparatus that we’re only hearing evidence from inside Bank of America now, in a civil class-action lawsuit from wronged homeowners, when the behavior was so rampant for years. For example, the Treasury Department, charged with specific oversight for HAMP, didn’t sanction a single bank for failing to follow program guidelines for three years, and certainly did not uncover any of this criminal conduct. Steven Cupples, a former underwriter at Bank of America, explained in his statement how the bank falsified records to Treasury to make it look like they granted more modifications. But Treasury never investigated. Meanwhile, the Justice Department joined with state Attorneys General and other federal regulators to essentially bless this conduct in a series of weak settlements that incorporated other bank crimes as well, like “robo-signing” and submitting false documents to courts.

These affidavits, however, should return law enforcement to the case. William Wilson, the case management supervisor, alleges in his statement that this “ridiculous and immoral” conduct continued through August of 2012, when he was eventually fired for speaking up. That means Bank of America persisted with these activities for at least six months AFTER the main, $25 billion settlement to which they were a party. So state and federal regulators could sue Bank of America over this new criminal conduct, which post-dates the actions for which they released liability under the main settlement. Attorneys general in New York andFlorida have accused Bank of America of violating the terms of the settlement, but they could simply open new cases about these new deceptive practices.

They would have no shortage of evidence, in addition to the sworn affidavits. According to Theresa Terrelonge, most loan-level representatives conducted their business through email; in fact, various email communications have already been submitted under seal in the Massachusetts civil case. State Attorneys General or US Attorneys would have subpoena power to gather many more emails.

And they would have very specific targets: the ex-employees listed specific executives by name who authorized and directed the fraudulent process. “The delay and rejection programs were methodically carried out under the overall direction of Patrick Kerry, a Vice President who oversaw the entire eastern region’s loan modification process,” wrote William Wilson. Other executives mentioned by name include John Berens, Patricia Feltch and Rebecca Mairone (now at JPMorgan Chase, and already named in a separate financial fraud case). These are senior executives who, if this alleged conduct is true, should face criminal liability.

Bank accountability activists have already seized on the revelations. “This is not surprising, but absolutely sickening,” said Peggy Mears, organizer for the Home Defenders League. “Maybe finally our courts and elected officials will stand with communities over Wall Street and prosecute, and then lock up, these criminals.”

Sadly, it’s hard to raise hopes of that happening. Past experience shows that our top regulatory and law enforcement officials are primarily interested in covering for Wall Street’s crimes. These well-sourced allegations amount to an accusation of Bank of America stealing thousands of homes, and lying to the government about it. Homeowners who did everything asked of them were nevertheless pushed into foreclosure, all to fortify profits on Wall Street. There’s a clear path to punish Bank of America for this conduct. If it doesn’t result in prosecutions, it will once again confirm the sorry excuse for justice we have in America.

NYU’s Gilded Age: Students Struggle With Debt While Vacation Homes Are Lavished on the University’s Elite

Pam Martens, Russ Martens, AlterNet — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:41:00 -0700

The problems at NYU are emblematic of an insular institution whose Board is heavily dominated by the same Wall Street people who heaped disgrace upon their own institutions.

A review of deeds and mortgages in some of the toniest towns on the East Coast reveals that not only is New York University financing luxury Manhattan brownstones and high rise condos for its faculty and administrators out of its nonprofit coffers, it has also been secretly financing country homes for a select group. These extravagances have fallen directly on the shoulders of financially struggling students. NYU ranks fourth in Newsweek’s 2012 list of the least affordable colleges.

In September 2009, the New York Times published a remarkable exercise in inanity, profiling John Sexton, President of NYU, relaxing at his Fire Island beach house. Sexton calls his summer getaway a “rather large, wonderful house” in the interview. We learn what Sexton eats for breakfast (black coffee and yogurt), the name of his dog (Legs), how long it takes him to walk to church from the ferry (five minutes), how much weight he’s lost (30 pounds), and little else.

We don’t, for example, learn from the interview that his home on Fire Island has been financed since 1994 by several million dollars in loans from the NYU School of Law Foundation and NYU itself, according to the Suffolk County Clerk’s records.

This is not the only residence that NYU has made possible for its President. He has the use of two well appointed apartments owned by NYU in Manhattan. Sexton, who turned 70 in September, is also set to receive a length of service bonus of $2.5 million in 2015 and an annual pension of $800,000 when he retires. That pension is the equivalent of NYU taking $10 million of its assets and placing them in an immediate annuity for Sexton.

Sexton has plenty of company when it comes to getting out of the city in the summer through the generosity of NYU. Richard Tsien, Director of the NYU Neuroscience Institute, bought a house in East Fishkill, New York, 76 miles from the university, for $1,125,000 in February 2012 with $500,000 in financing from NYU. According to an online description, it’s a stone house on 7 park-like acres with a flowing stream and a functioning 12-foot water wheel.

Numerous other NYU professors have country homes financed by the NYU School of Law Foundation or NYU. Between primary residences and vacation homes, NYU and its affiliated nonprofits have an estimated $72 million to $96 million outstanding in loans to faculty and administrators. The university has acknowledged 168 loans.

These revelations come on top of other recent outrages at the university, such as the purchase of a $6.15 million condo on East 70th Street to house Robert Grossman, Dean of the NYU Medical Center. Grossman’s combined compensation at NYU as of the fiscal year ending August 31, 2011 was $3,488,960. Five other doctors at the Medical Center receive a combined total of $10.5 million in compensation.

The excesses at NYU under the presidency of John Sexton came partially to light during the Senate confirmation hearings of Jack Lew, President Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary. As NYU’s Chief Operating Officer, Lew had received a partially forgivable mortgage loan for $1.4 million to buy a luxury home in Riverdale and “severance pay” of $685,000 – even though he had voluntarily left to join Citigroup. In testimony to the Senate, Lew said NYU provided him with an annual payment equal to the interest paid on his mortgage.

Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, was part of Lew’s confirmation hearings and was deeply disturbed by Lew’s opaque and grudging release of the materials requested. As a result of what he had heard in the hearing, Grassley sent a March 15, 2013 letter to NYU requesting “all loan documents for loans made to individuals from 2000 to the present,” along with a demand to know the details about whose loans were forgiven, interest reimbursed, and so forth.

It’s now three months later and according to a spokesperson for Grassley, his office still doesn’t have all the loan documents. NYU is refusing to turn over the documents, instead forcing Grassley’s aides to look at the documents in the presence of NYU lawyers and “take notes but not make copies of the documents.” The next session is scheduled for June 27, according to the spokesperson. Grassley is a Republican. Because the Democrats have majority control in the Senate, Grassley lacks subpoena power.

The NYU chapter of the American Association of University Professors has asked the New York State Attorney General’s Charities Bureau, which oversees nonprofit organizations, to probe the mushrooming mortgage scandal and other matters. The faculty at a number of schools on the campus have delivered a no-confidence vote of Sexton, with particular ire arising from his NYU 2031 plan to broadly expand NYU’s real estate footprint in Greenwich Village with vast construction projects earmarked that would disrupt neighborhood life and cost the university billions of dollars. NYU is already the second largest real estate owner in New York City, with $3.3 billion in residential and commercial holdings according to its 2010 federal tax return.

I emailed one Law Professor, Geoffrey Miller, who had a home in New Rochelle financed by the NYU School of Law Foundation, and asked why he didn’t simply use the NYU Federal Credit Union, as many other faculty have done to finance their homes. The Credit Union’s web site indicates that it offers a “full range” of home mortgage loans in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont, up to a cap of $750,000. I also asked Miller if his loan was forgivable. Miller responded that he wouldn’t provide “personal financial information” over the internet. Of course, I wasn’t asking for sensitive things like account numbers or social security numbers or even dollar amounts. I was asking two very basic questions: why didn’t you use the Credit Union and was your loan forgivable.

I reached out to NYU to justify these loans under IRS rules for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, the structure under which both NYU and the School of Law Foundation are organized. One rule is quite specific, warning that 501(c)(3)s “must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.”

NYU spokesman, John Beckman, responded: “NYU is located in the highest cost-of-living area in the country. NYU loan programs are one part of strategy that has transformed New York University over the last several decades from a regional, largely commuter, school to one of the top ranked research universities in the world. A core tenet of the transformation was to create a cohesive, residential academic community of faculty, students, and administrators committed to and interacting in university life, including academic and extracurricular activities (and, in the case of senior administrators, where they can be available around the clock).”

But that doesn’t explain Sexton’s home 57 miles from Manhattan or Tsien’s home an hour and a half away or any of the other country homes far outside of New York City. If anything, it’s an argument against the ability to have senior administrators “available around the clock.” (Not that this is an acceptable practice under any circumstance.)

Beckman continued on the matter of country homes: “NYU loan programs, while primarily targeted for the purchase of principal residences accessible to campus, also can assist in meeting other financial needs of the accomplished faculty and senior administrators that NYU seeks to recruit and retain in a highly competitive market for such talent. NYU’s peer institutions typically also have loan programs and other housing assistance programs for faculty and senior administrators. For these reasons, NYU's loans are directly related to NYU’s exempt purposes.”

One detail on NYU’s 2010 federal tax filing raises further red flags. A little footnote reads as follows: “One highest compensated employee received compensation over a base salary based on the surplus of revenues after expenses for the IVF Faculty Practice Group.” That would seem to be in direct conflict with the IRS ruling that “no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.”

IVF refers to in vitro fertilization, available through the NYU Medical Center’s Fertility Center. Two individuals appearing on NYU’s highest compensated individuals’ listing on the 2010 tax filing for NYU are Dr. Jamie Grifo, listed as earning $2.9 million, and Dr. Nicole Noyes, listed at $1.8 million. Both are listed as employees of the Fertility Center on its web site.

One person who is not getting financing from NYU for a country home, a city home or a multi million dollar salary is Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights activist and lawyer who has been a fellow at NYU for the past year. Chen had escaped house arrest in China and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing before arriving at NYU.

Chen released a statement Sunday night, saying he was getting the boot at NYU because of pressure from the government in China. Since the New York Post ran an article to that effect last Thursday, NYU has vehemently denied the accusation. NYU plans to open a campus in Shanghai this fall, a plan that requires the goodwill of Chinese officials. The plan has caused great controversy at NYU because of ongoing human rights abuses by the totalitarian government there. NYU’s campus in autocratic Abu Dhabi is equally contentious, with faculty charging that NYU is simply selling its brand abroad in exchange for big donations.

The problems at NYU are emblematic of an insular institution whose Board is heavily dominated by the same Wall Street people who heaped disgrace upon their own institutions. The NYU Association of American University Professors has proposed a broad new blueprint for governance at NYU. It includes faculty and student representation on the Board of Trustees, participation in selecting new presidents and provosts, the ability of faculty to have a say in any domestic or global expansion plans, and a full knowledge of the university’s fiscal affairs. When John Sexton returns from Fire Island and meets with the Board, adopting the new management model should be the first order of business.

When the Government Asks, Tech Companies Usually Turn Over User Information

Alex Kane, AlterNet — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:23:00 -0700

How often do technology companies hand over user information to the government? More answers to that question have come out in recent days.

Just how often do technology companies hand over user information to the government? That question has taken on renewed significance in the wake of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s disclosures. A big problem, though, is that technology companies like Facebook and Google can’t reveal many specific details about the government requests, as Mother Jones’ Dana Liebelson points out.

Snowden disclosed the existence of a program called PRISM, which, according to an NSA slide detailing the program, allowed the government “direct access” to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and more. But the companies say that the government requests information from the companies based on a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act request, and the data is then turned over.

In the wake of this revelation, companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter asked the U.S. government to be allowed to release data on how much information they give over when asked. In response, the government said they could release information about the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests--but only in conjunction with information about other government agencies’ requests. In practice, this means that the information released does not reveal a whole lot about FISA requests.

Microsoft and Facebook have now released the data they are allowed to, though Google and Twitter have not and are pressing to be allowed to disclose the specific amount of FISA requests, according to Mother Jones.

This new data is in addition to information already released over the past few years by some technology companies about government requests for user information. But they can only provided limited information about what are known as national security letters--a Patriot Act-authorized demand letter to organizations or companies related to a terrorism investigation. Liebelson notes that “Google could only report that it had received as many as 999 national security letters in 2012, targeting between 1,000 and 1,999 user accounts.” Companies can’t reveal a lot about the content contained in requests turned over as a result of national security letters.

Mother Jones has some more numbers:

Last year, Google “received over 16,400 requests covering more than 31,000 user accounts from federal, state, and local authorities.”

Microsoft received 6,000-7,000 government requests for information in the second half of last year that related to 32,000 accounts.

Facebook received 9,000-10,000 government requests in the second half of last year as well, which affected 19,000 accounts.

Twitter received 1,494 government requests last year, which affected 2,093 accounts.

Those numbers include FISA requests along with state and local government requests. The companies usually hand the information over. Google granted the information to government 89% of the time; Microsoft 79% of the time; and Twitter 72% of the time. Other companies besides those have not released new data incorporating FISA requests.

In total, 64,936 users of Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft were affected by government requests from July-December 2012.

7 Things to Know About the Draconian GOP Bill That Would Force Women to Birth Babies Without Brains

Tara Culp-Ressler, Think Progress — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:14:00 -0700

Anti-abortion zealots are getting bolder.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a measure spearheaded by Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that would cut off legal access to abortion services at 20 weeks after fertilization. It represents the most restrictive abortion bill to come to a vote in either chamber over the past decade. Here’s what you need to know about this attack on women’s reproductive rights — and how it fits into a broader, coordinated nationwide campaign to slowly chip away at abortion access:

1. It’s based on the scientifically-disputed theory that fetuses can feel pain before the third trimester of pregnancy.
So-called “fetal pain” measures are based on junk science that represents a minority position among medical professionals. Most doctors don’t believe that fetuses can feel pain until much later in pregnancy, after the point of viability (generally considered to be around 24 weeks), and scientific research has repeatedly confirmed this position. Nevertheless, abortion opponents have successfully stoked emotional outrage surrounding later-term abortion — particularly following the high-profile murder trial of illegal abortion provider Kermit Gosnell — by twisting the facts to make it appear that these abortions are always barbaric procedures.
2. It has sparked more controversy over Republicans’ attitudes toward rape.
The original version of Franks’ legislation did not include an exception for victims of rape or incest. Defending the lack of an exception in these cases, the Arizona congressman last week claimed that “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” Franks is just the latest Republican to make an offensive comment about rape victims, and his comments inspired comparisons to former Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous assertion that women don’t often get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because the body “has ways of shutting that whole thing down.” Following the controversy that erupted from his statements, Franks revised the legislation at the last minute to include an exemption for survivors of rape and incest — but only if rape victims first report the sexual crime to the police, and if incest victims are minors.
3. Abortions after 20 weeks are already extremely rare, and the women who need them are usually in the most desperate of circumstances.
Although Franks claimed he didn’t need to legislate rape victims’ reproductive rights because the instances of pregnancies resulting from rape are “very low,” the instances of abortions after 20 weeks are actually much lower than that. Pregnancy results from rape anestimated 5 percent of the time, while abortions after 20 weeks represent just one percent of all abortions. The women who seek out this type of later abortion procedure tend to fall into one of two categories: the economically disadvantaged women who need to delay abortion until they can save up the money for it, and the women who discover serious fetal health issues only after their pregnancy has advanced. Criminalizing abortion after 20 weeks will force some women to give birth to fetuses with no brain function — or other types of fatal anomalies — and watch their children suffer outside of the womb during their short lives.
4. The national legislation initially started out as an abortion restriction for the women who live in Washington, DC.
Franks has repeatedly attempted to impose his anti-abortion agenda on the women living in the nation’s capitol. Because the District of Columbia does not have its own representation in Congress, lawmakers from other areas often use it as their legislative playground. Franks’ fetal pain measure failed last year, but that didn’t stop him from re-introducing it — and eventually expanding it to apply to women in every state. The Republican lawmaker said that Gosnell’s crimes compelled him to restrict abortion access not just for DC women, but for women across the entire country.

5. Even though a national ban has no chance of passing, 20-week bans are successfully advancing on the state level.
Franks’ 20-week ban is essentially dead-on-arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the President has already indicated that he will veto it if it comes to his desk. But that doesn’t mean fetal pain measures are nothing to worry about. In fact, this anti-choice strategy is successfully advancing on the state level. After Nebraska first enacted a 20-week ban on abortion in 2010, a handful of other states rushed to do the same. Now, according to the Guttmacher Institute, about 11 states have banned abortion services before the point of viability specifically based on the notion that fetuses can feel pain — and more states are currently advancing fetal pain bills. Texas isconsidering a 20-week abortion ban in its special session, and anti-choice lawmakers are hoping to rush it through. GOP-led legislatures inSouth Carolina and Wisconsin also may advance fetal pain laws in the last days of their sessions.
6. “Fetal pain” laws are unconstitutional, and state-level versions have been repeatedly blocked in court.
As increasing numbers of states have enacted 20-week abortion bans, courts have blocked several of them from taking effect. Fetal pain measures effectively narrow the window during which women may exercise their constitutional rights by moving up the cut-off for legal abortion services — a direct violation of Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to legal abortion until the point of viability. Twenty-week bans inIdaho, Georgia, and Franks’ home state of Arizona have all been blocked for this reason.
7. The anti-choice movement is growing bolder, and abortion opponents are demonstrating they’re not afraid to directly challenge Roe v. Wade.
Even though the national 20-week ban has no chance of becoming law, the fact that Republicans in the House brought it to a vote illustrates the fact that abortion opponents aren’t backing down from the fight. Over the past decade, anti-abortion Republicans have relied on an “incremental” strategy to limit abortion access, passing dozens of state-level restrictions couched in terms of “women’s health and safety” rather than attempting to ban the procedure altogether. Lawmakers used to be wary to advance stringent laws that overstep Roeand are likely be struck down in court. That’s not the case anymore. This session, state legislatures have passed increasingly harsh abortion bans — like a six-week ban in North Dakota and a 12-week ban in Arkansas — and they’ve made it clear that they want to test the boundaries of Roe v. Wade. “These laws are flying through,” Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, told the New York Times. “The attention has really been at the state level around abortion issues. Now what you also see at the federal level is very disturbing, and it shows that abortion opponents are very emboldened.”

Will Legalizing Pot Destroy Humboldt Or Transform It into the Napa Valley of Weed?

Emily Brady, AlterNet — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 09:52:00 -0700

The marijuana capital of the world tries to figure out the future of its illicit product.

Mare Abidon had first heard about the event while listening to KMUD-FM, the community radio station. A local talk show host named Anna “Banana” Hamilton was organizing it. The flyers she posted around town advertised the event two ways: “The Post-Marijuana Prohibition Economy Forum,” and the shorthand version, which rolled off the tongue much easier: “What’s After Pot?” The accompanying art featured a pot leaf, two nude female figures wearing baseball caps, clumps of trimmed marijuana buds, and what appeared to be dollar bills with wings fluttering away.

The meeting was taking place at the Mateel Community Center in Southern Humboldt, an area of 1,200 square miles of sprawling wilderness in the far reaches of Northern California. The area used to be known as the Mateel, after the Mattole and Eel rivers that flow through it, but now, as if it were some Manhattan neighborhood, many people called it by the abbreviated term SoHum.

Over the years, SoHum, the rest of Humboldt, and neighboring Mendocino and Trinity counties had become known around the country as the Emerald Triangle, after the region’s brilliant green clandestine marijuana crop. Since the mid-1970s, outlaw farmers throughout the Triangle had been supplying America with its favorite illegal drug. What had started as a lark nearly forty years earlier had become the backbone to the county’s economy. Throughout the region, and particularly in SoHum, marijuana farming had become a way of life, one that transcended class and generations. “It’s what we do here,” people would say.

Mare herself had grown a half-dozen plants every year for decades.

But the code of silence surrounding the marijuana industry was such that, until one March evening in 2010, there had never been a public gathering in Southern Humboldt where what people did there was openly discussed.

Sure, for twenty years there was an annual hemp festival, where pot-related books and paraphernalia were sold, and for decades there had been meetings to discuss the actions of law enforcement in the community, but a public discussion about the dependence of the local economy on the black market marijuana crop had never happened before. Up until this moment, it was even considered bad form to ask what someone did for a living in the community. It was just understood.

Mare passed through the front doors of the Mateel Community Center and a giant wooden sculpture of an open hand. Inside, the stage where musicians from around the world came to play shows was empty, but the entire oak floor below was filled with a dozen long banquet tables and an army of folding chairs. On each table were handwritten place cards indicating who should sit there. There were tables for landowners, local government, medical marijuana patients, the press, “Growers,” and “Just Curious.” There was even a gray metal chair labeled “FBI.”

It was a large crowd for Southern Humboldt. Nearly two hundred people were milling about. Instead of picking a table, Mare headed for the fireplace in the back corner that was sculpted to resemble a giant redwood tree trunk and looked as though it should have a cauldron bubbling away inside it. There were other familiar faces in the crowd—neighbors and friends—and the unfamiliar. Seated at the landowners’ table was a woman with long, coppery red hair named Kym Kemp. A third-generation Humboldter, Kemp had been blogging about local marijuana culture since 2007, under the name Redheaded Blackbelt. Her blog posts ranged from photos of local wildflowers and quilts she helped stitch to links to stories about the marijuana industry and flyers of the occasional missing person. Sitting nearby was a man Mare knew named Charley Custer, who was dressed in his trademark Stetson hat and Jesus sandals. Custer had moved to Humboldt from Chicago in 1980 to write a book that he referred to as his “opus dopus.” It was, as of yet, incomplete.

Engrossed in a conversation over by the stage was the event’s mastermind, Anna “Banana” Hamilton. Hamilton was an outspoken folksinger in her sixties who hosted a monthly talk show on KMUD called Rant and Rave. She normally tooled around town in jeans and a baseball cap, but on this evening, she was dressed up, in a lavender velvet top and pearls.

The irony was that every table was now full except for the growers’ table, where only two brave souls had claimed a seat. One of them was Mare’s neighbor Syreeta Lux, a sturdy blonde who wore an enormous grin. Lux had lived in the community for decades and figured it was impossible to have a conversation about the future of the marijuana industry if growers were still invisible. It’s now or never, she figured, as she pulled her chair up to the empty table. Lux quickly waved over a friend, and wrote “medical” above the word growers, to try to get people to feel more at ease. Like Mare, she recognized many faces of friends, neighbors, and other community members in the crowd who were also growers, but still no one else joined her.

It may have seemed strange that fourteen years after California passed the nation’s first medical marijuana law, which allowed people to grow pot legally with a doctor’s recommendation, America’s most infamous marijuana growers might be hesitant to claim their heritage, but this was a community that had paid a price for its decades-long rebellion. It had endured annual government raids, and the army itself had once invaded. Then there was the lawless side of the business, the home-invasion rip-offs, and the occasional murder. For decades, to announce oneself as a grower would have been like painting a big target on one’s back. The times were indeed changing, but they didn’t change quickly in Humboldt.

The event was about to begin, and Syreeta Lux decided to take things a step further. She stood up, held the “Growers” sign high above her head, and commanded the room’s attention.

“If anyone is looking for a place to sit, there’s lots of room at our table to grow,” she announced in a loud, booming voice.

And then she grinned even wider.

From her spot by the fireplace, Mare figured she would let Syreeta represent the female growers. After years of living in the shadows, Mare had no intention of claiming a seat at that table. She had glanced around the room and realized that regardless of where people were sitting, the majority were what she called marijuana moonshiners, just like her. But when Syreeta stood up and encouraged others to join her, it was as if Mare’s feet had a mind of their own, and just like that, she found herself stepping forward. In front of her family, friends, community, elected officials, local and national media, and maybe even the FBI, Mare shuffled toward the growers’ table.

And she wasn’t the only one.

“Come on!” Syreeta Lux shouted for others to join them, and they did.

Like some kind of illicit farming coming-out ceremony, more growers stepped into the light. Eventually their numbers swelled to a few dozen, and later they had to retreat to the outdoor patio to have enough space to talk among themselves. But first, from her perch near the stage, Anna Hamilton spoke the words that everyone knew, but no one had yet dared to declare publicly.

“The legalization of marijuana will be the single most devastating economic bust in the long boom-and-bust history of Northern California, impacting local businesses, nonprofit organizations, the workforce, and county tax revenue,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect to peer at the crowd over the top of her reading glasses.

As Hamilton and everyone else knew, pot farming was not only a way of life in the region; it was the foundation of the entire economy. People had grown so dependent on the lucrative black market prices that some locals referred to marijuana’s illegality as the best government price support program in U.S. history. Prohibition and suppression create risk for growers and artificial scarcity on the market, sending prices and profit margins through the roof.

But that price support system was now at risk.

The U.S. government effectively outlawed marijuana in 1937. Though it is nontoxic and there are no recorded cases in history of anyone ever dying from overdosing on the drug, since the creation of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970 the federal government has classified marijuana as a Schedule I substance. This means the government considers pot more dangerous than cocaine or methamphetamine, with no medical value whatsoever. Many American people are of a different mind. In the late 1990s, starting with California in 1996, states began adopting medical marijuana laws. By the spring of 2010, fourteen states and Washington, D.C., had passed such laws.

These new laws, coupled with a cultural shift toward the acceptance of marijuana on a national level, brought more people into the industry and caused the price of pot on the black market gradually to decline. Marijuana was now a multi-billion-dollar industry in the Golden State, and a measure to legalize and tax it for adult recreational use had just gathered enough signatures to appear on the November ballot.

As Anna Hamilton pointed out that evening, if the measure passed, it could change everything in Humboldt.

“Every member of our society holds a stake in the consequences of legalization,” she said, as she began to point to the various tables—to the landowners, educators, members of the business community, and pot growers.

“Did I skip anyone who wants to be recognized tonight?” she asked. “Any representatives from the federal government? I see someone’s sitting in that fed chair over there. Is that just a joke?!”

Apparently it was, so Hamilton continued.

If the legalization measure passed, she predicted that the price of marijuana grown outdoors in the sun, the traditional Humboldt way, could drop from its current rate of around $2,000 a pound to as low as $500. If that happened, the effects would be catastrophic. The market would bottom out, affecting growers and everyone who worked for them, which Hamilton estimated to be between fifteen and thirty thousand people in Humboldt County alone.

In a few months’ time, the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, would release a study with a similar prediction. It estimated that the legalization of the production and distribution of marijuana in California could cause prices to drop up to 80 percent.

There was reason to worry in the room, and it wasn’t just about economic self-interest. Proceeds from marijuana had not only supported and sustained individuals in the community, but had also helped build local institutions, including a health clinic, the radio station KMUD, and the Mateel Community Center, where the evening’s conversation was taking place. Donating earnings from a plant or a pound to these nonprofits, and to the community schools and volunteer fire departments, was how for years many locals paid their “taxes.”

All this was poised to change.

“If the value of marijuana drops below a certain level,” Hamilton warned, “the state will be faced with the collapse of its rural economies. Businesses will be shuttered, the nonprofit community will be unable to provide services to suddenly displaced peoples, and the golden goose will be dead.”

She looked up at the crowd.

“We will all face this economic decline together. For the sake of our region, it is time to begin planning for this upheaval now, together.

“What will we do?” she asked.

There was dead silence.

“We have all the talent and all the answers we need right here in this room.”

Among the ideas that bubbled up that evening was an advisory panel of pot growers that would meet with local elected officials to discuss how to regulate their industry. One couple came away from the meeting inspired to form the area’s first collective to try to sell organic, artisanal Humboldt pot legally under the state’s medical model. Some audience members expressed the long-held fear that legalization would bring the corporatization of the industry and that the market would be flooded with cheap, mass-produced weed, and they wouldn’t be able to compete. Others, including a local government official, saw it as an opportunity to take advantage of Humboldt’s legendary brand. Across the country and beyond, the Humboldt County name had become deeply linked with pot.

“We’ve had this name association for thirty or forty years now,” County Supervisor Mark Lovelace remarked. “If this is a newly legitimized industry, shouldn’t we be looking at capitalizing on that?”

There was talk of creating an appellation, modeled after the world’s great wine-growing regions, to designate that local pot was Humboldt homegrown. The way Hamilton saw it, the future of the area was either “appellation or Appalachia.” Should marijuana become legal, Humboldt County could become the Napa Valley of Pot, complete with “marijuanaries,” where tourists could visit and sample the latest harvest. The business possibilities were endless: “bud and breakfasts,” where rooms overlooked fragrant green gardens; a marijuana museum, detailing the history of the area’s decades-long experiment in civil disobedience; food and pot pairings at local restaurants; and some kind of four-wheel-drive trolley service, like the limos of the Napa Valley, to cart intoxicated tourists up unpaved roads to tour the pot farms.

“I’m not dying until there’s a tasting room in Humboldt County!” a woman with a brown bob and glasses passionately declared.

She was greeted with an enthusiastic round of applause.

That evening, Mare Abidon wasn’t worried about the price of pot or how she might brand herself; instead, she was bursting with hope. She had always expected that marijuana would become legal one day, and when it did, she planned to plant big pot bushes in plain sight between the cherry trees around her deck. In fact, she’d never imagined it would take this long. She never really understood the whole War on Drugs, or why the government considered marijuana such a menace. She thought it was great medicine, and even safer than alcohol as a way to unwind at the end of the day.

With the coming legalization, Mare thought that all the jails were going to be emptied of people arrested for pot, and that she and her friends who grew it were finally going to become legitimate members of society. Much was discussed that night, but what Mare took away, what she’d always remember, was that giddy rush of emotion, the feeling of pure liberation as she stepped into the light and walked toward that growers’ table. “It was like crawling out from under a rock that I had been under for decades,” she later confessed.

But, of course, not everyone felt that way.

Nigella Lawson Apparently Choked by Her Husband in the Middle of a Restaurant -- and Nobody Stepped in to Stop It

Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:02:00 -0700

Society still has a long way to go.

If ever there were a woman who represented the ideal of homey perfection, it’d be Nigella Lawson. This, after all, is the woman who jokingly titled one of her cookbooks “How to Be a Domestic Goddess,” a woman whose television show “Nigella Bites” frequently ended with her triumphantly feeding an eager crowd (or just her two children).

So it came as stunning news Sunday when the Mirror’s People page published a series of photographs showing the British food writer and television personality apparently being choked by her husband Charles Saatchi during a recent lunch at Scott’s restaurant in London. In the series of photographs, the man’s hand is seen extended across a table and around Lawson’s throat. As the Mirror sensationally describes it, “At first he used only his left hand, then both. At one stage he tweaked her nose then pushed both hands in her face. Twice Nigella jerked her head backwards as if in fear.” Strangely, soon after, she reportedly kissed him on the cheek. Another photo shows her apparently crying and visibly upset, leaving the restaurant. Police are now investigating the incident but have not launched a formal investigation.

Saatchi, a renowned advertising executive and art dealer, has insisted the photographs don’t tell the true story. In a conversation with the Evening Standard, he says, “About a week ago, we were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and I held Nigella’s neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasize my point. There was no grip, it was a playful tiff. The pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place. Nigella’s tears were because we both hate arguing, not because she had been hurt. We had made up by the time we were home. The paparazzi were congregated outside our house after the story broke yesterday morning, so I told Nigella to take the kids off till the dust settled.” Hint: If you can acknowledge that you were having an “intense” argument and that during it you put your hands around a woman’s throat “to make a point,” there’s going to be a whole lot of serious question as to how “playful” your actions were, sir. Next time you’re looking for “emphasis,” try it a little further away from an artery. The 53 year-old Lawson, meanwhile, has only confirmed via a spokesman that she and two her children by her late first husband John Diamond have moved out of their London home, with no further comment. Her rep told Us this week, “We will not be commenting on the images.”

Lawson has said in the past of her marriage that “I’ll go quiet when he explodes, and then I am a nest of horrible festeringness.” And last year, Saatchi was photographed at a restaurant conspicuously clamping his hand over his wife’s mouth. Lawson, who has lavishly recalled her late mother in her books and television shows, has admitted that she would threaten,“I’m going to hit you till you cry,” and once hit her brother so hard she hurt her hand.

What exactly led to that hand around Lawson’s throat – a moment captured by a photographer skulking outside – is unknown. What is known is the conservative MP and all around dirtbag Nick Griffin quickly took the opportunity to tweet that “If I had the opportunity to squeeze Nigella Lawson, her throat wouldn’t be my first choice.” What is known is that a member of the paparazzi made money selling the images. What is known is the unbylined Mirror staff were able to find onlookers who said the incident was “utterly shocking to watch,” that Lawson “had a real look of fear on her face,” and that “He was being intimidating, threatening” and “abusive, frightening and disrespectful” – and yet they couldn’t find a single person who’d intervened in the slightest while a woman was being “attacked” in broad daylight.

What is known is that a woman who is beautiful, who is wealthy, who is successful, who is over the age of 50, can have a man reach out and grab her by the throat during an “intense” debate just as easily as a woman who is poor or young or uneducated – and that regardless of who the woman is, it’s a lot easier to find some mansplaining troll willing to laugh it off or be dismissive about it than it is to find somebody who will actually stand up and ask what the woman herself in the holy hell is going on. Or to ask simply, “Are you okay?”

That’s why organizations like Ring the Bell, which encourage men and women to speak up and speak out about violence against women, matter so much. That’s why if anything good can come of this, let it be a reminder that whether we’re in a fancy London restaurant or a trailer park or a dorm, maybe we don’t know the whole story, maybe we don’t know what’s going on between that couple arguing over there. But when it becomes physical, it’s not the time to look away, and then later primly declare how very “shocking” it all was.

Permanent Washington’s Backlash to Edward Snowden

David Sirota, AlterNet — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:47:00 -0700

The government officials, pundits and reporters who comprise Permanent Washington have derided Snowden and those who helped him disseminate his disclosures.

Whether in celebrity culture or in our Facebook-mediated interactions, we live in the age of the human being as a public brand. So there's nothing surprising about the reaction to this week's disclosures about the National Security Agency's unprecedented surveillance program. In our cult-of-personality society, that reaction has been predictably — and unfortunately — focused less on the agency's possible crimes against the entire country than on Edward Snowden, the government contractor who disclosed the wrongdoing.

Almost universally, the government officials, pundits and reporters who comprise Permanent Washington have derided Snowden and those who helped him disseminate his disclosures. For instance, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., bashed him for committing "treason" while Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., called for the arrest and prosecution of the journalists who broke the NSA snooping story. Likewise, establishment pundits from CNN's Jeffrey Toobin to the New York Times David Brooks loyally defended government's national security agencies by respectively assaulting Snowden as a "narcissist" and a loser who "could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school." Meanwhile, plenty of Obama loyalists — many of whom criticized the Bush administration for much less invasive surveillance — took to Twitter to berate Snowden as an attention-seeking traitor.

Though they failed to show that Snowden's disclosures endanger national security, these attacks do tell an important story — not about the whistleblower, but about America.

First and foremost, the backlash reveals that Permanent Washington doesn't work for We the People — it works to protect itself. We know this because whereas Snowden is vilified for disclosing information that's inconvenient to Permanent Washington, those who leak classified information that is advantageous to Permanent Washington are left alone.

Yes — most of those slamming Snowden expressed no outrage when the White House recently leaked Obama-glorifying information about the president's assassinations of alleged terrorists.

Same thing when it came to John Brennan. As Reuters' Jack Shafer notes, after the president's counterterrorism adviser leaked administration-defending information about a terrorist attack, "instead of being prosecuted for leaking sensitive, classified intelligence, Brennan was promoted to director of the CIA" — and few of those now complaining about Snowden expressed any outrage.

"The willingness of the government to punish leakers is inversely proportional to the leakers' rank and status, which is bad news for someone so lacking in those attributes as Edward Snowden," Shafer correctly concludes.

Of course, Permanent Washington's self-interested assaults on Snowden will inevitably find some support among the general public. The question is: why?

This gets to the second way that this week's events expose far more ugly truths about us than about Snowden.

In a democratic society, as Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald put it, "we're supposed to know virtually everything about what (government officials) do: That's why they're called public servants." That's why, until given reason not to, we should naturally sympathize with — and support protections for — whistleblowers like Snowden.

But that's the thing: Our core notions about transparency and self-governance have been under withering assault by Permanent Washington. Over time, that assault has succeeded in convincing many Americans to embrace the authoritarian view that says whistleblowers are a bigger problem than the government crimes they expose.

To understand what's wrong with that attitude, consider the critics through the prism of history.

Those castigating Snowden probably would have insisted that the biggest crime of the Vietnam War was Daniel Ellsberg publishing the Pentagon Papers. They likely would have also said that the biggest crime of Watergate was Deep Throat blowing the whistle.

It is the same authoritarian argument against Snowden today — and until we wake up to the real agenda at work, Permanent Washington will continue undermining civil liberties and America's democratic ideals in any way it can.

The New Generation of American Patriots Are the Whistlebowers Who Came of Age After 9/11

Gary Younge, The Guardian — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:52:00 -0700

The violation of civil liberties in the name of security has compelled many to take enormous risks in the name of patriotism.

When Darrell Anderson, 22, joined the US military he knew there was going to be a war, and he wanted to fight it. "I thought I was going to free Iraqi people," he told me. "I thought I was going to do a good thing."

Until, that is, he realised precisely what he had to do. While on patrol in Baghdad, he thought: "What are we doing here? Are we looking for weapons of mass destruction? No. Are we helping the people? No, they hate us. What are we working towards, apart from just staying alive? If this was my neighbourhood and foreign soldiers were doing this then what would I be doing?" Within a few months, he says, "I was cocking my weapon at innocent civilians without any sympathy or humanity". While home on leave he realised he was not going to be able to lead a normal life if he went back. His mum drove him to Canada, where I met him in 2006 at a picnic for war resisters in Fort Erie.

Anderson's trajectory, from uncritical patriotism to conscious disaffection and finally to conscientious dissent, is a familiar one among a generation of Americans who came of political age after 9/11. Over time, efforts to balance the myth of American freedom on which they were raised, with the reality of American power that they have been called on to monitor or operate, causes a profound dislocation in their world view. Like a meat eater in an abattoir, they are forced to confront the brutality of the world they are implicated in and recoil at their role in it – occasionally in dramatic fashion.

It is from this generation that the most recent prominent whistleblowers have emerged: Edward Snowden, 29, the former National Security Agency contractor, now on the run after passing evidence of mass snooping to the Guardian; Bradley Manning, who at 22 gave classified diplomatic and military information to WikiLeaks and now faces a court martial; the late Aaron Swartz, who by 24 was a veteran hacker when he was arrested for illegally downloading academic articles from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later took his own life; and Jeremy Hammond, 28, who is facing federal criminal charges for allegedly publicising the internal files of a private spying agency.

Just as America's military record abroad, complete with torture and "collateral damage", has helped push a section of disaffected Muslim youth across the globe towards terrorism, so the violation of civil liberties and privatisation of information has driven a number of disillusioned Americans to law-breaking dissent at home.

In a 2008 book, The Way We'll Be, US pollster John Zogby categorised this age cohort as First Globals. Tracking everything from views on gay marriage to propensity to travel, he described young Americans aged 18-29 as "the most outward-looking and accepting generation in American history". Unfazed by social diversity at home, they held more open attitudes towards the rest of the world. They were far more likely to travel abroad than others, have friends or family overseas, and to be aware of international politics. "[They] might not be more able than other age cohorts to point to Darfur on a map," argued Zogby, "but they at least know there is a Darfur, and they care what's happening there."

The perpetual war and accompanying "anti-terror" security structure after 9/11 is all this generation has ever known. And it has had a profound impact on shaping their views on US foreign policy.

In 2007, 63% (significantly higher than any other age group) disagreed with the statement "I support my country, right or wrong". In 2004, 86% thought "an imperialist power that acts on its own regardless of what the rest of the world thinks" was improper or somewhat improper, while just 3% thought the opposite. On the latter question, Zogby wrote: "No other group we studied, not Democrats nor self-described progressives, not readers of the New York Times, had a greater spread between the two extremes." It is in this context that the defiance and determination of these young people must be understood.

One could make too much of their age as a unifying factor. Since these leaks demand proficiency with new technology, those involved are bound to be younger. And older people, with families, careers and pensions, are less likely to do things they know will put them in jail or force them to flee. Moreover, for all the similarities between them, there are significant differences. Snowden contributed money to Republican libertarian Ron Paul's campaign; Hammond describes himself as an "anarchist-communist".

Yet, while each acted separately from the other, their unrepentant justifications read as though they were unconsciously working in concert. "I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors," wrote Hammond.

"We need to take information," wrote Swartz. "Wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world."

"This is the truth. This is what is happening," said Snowden. "You should decide whether we need to be doing this."

Manning said: "I want people to see the truth, because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public."

They seek to liberate not land or people, but information. The state seeks to criminalise them as spies. But it wasn't treachery but patriotism (once blind, now wide-eyed, and arguably always misplaced) that brought most of them to this point. Their aim was neither to enrich themselves nor to aid a foreign power, but to make the power in which they invested much of their identity – America – more transparent, knowledgeable, accountable and honourable.

Anderson, Manning and Snowden, for example, all joined the military-security sector after Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib were in the public domain. They knew what could be done in America's name. They just never thought they would be put in a position where they would have to choose between doing it, concealing it or exposing it. Raised in the true American ideal that an individual can make a difference, they spoke up.

Forced to choose between allegiance to the flag and uniform, and loyalty to the ideals the flag is supposed to represent and the uniform is supposed to defend, they chose the latter. Their defiance stems from the fact that, in acting as they have, they don't believe they've let down America. They believe they had to act because America was letting itself down.

U.S. Supreme Court Rejects GOP Voter Supression Tactic

Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:40:00 -0700

Arizona’s 2004 effort to fight ‘voter fraud’ rejected.

Another relic of the Republican Party’s voter suppression arsenal was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, when it ruled that Arizona could not require citizenship documents be added to the federal voter registration application—as opposed attesting to one’s citizenship by signing a legal oath.

The case stems from a GOP-sponsored ballot measure passed by Arizona voters in 2004 that was promoted as stopping so-called 'voter fraud.' Under this paranoid theory, people—usually Democrats—were fabricating voter registrations and repeatedly voting to steal elections. 'Voter fraud’ was a cause célèbre among the GOP, especially during the George W. Bush administration, when the White House forced the Justice Department to fire federal prosecutors who would not vigorously pursue these cases.

Needless to say, the U.S. prosecutors found, and repeated academic studies confirmed, that this kind of tampering rarely occurred and was usually caught by election officials. Typically, it only happened in the most local races, where an overzealous family member tried to help a relative where a few dozen votes might alter the outcome.

However, the political attraction of ‘policing the polls’ appealed to Republicans in many states, who often believed that Democrats could only win by cheating. As a result, many GOP-dominated states have toughened their voter I.D. laws, creating new hurdles for millions of legal and eligible voters when voter umpersonation, where it exists, is very rare.

The larger GOP strategy has always been about discouraging likely Democratic voters, especially among young people and in communities of color. Arizona’s Republicans went further than any other state by requiring that would-be voters submit citizenship documents in addition to using the federal mail-in voter registration form, which one signs under penalty of perjury.

The case has been a priority among progressive voting rights groups for years, because the mail-in federal form is what’s used in grassroots drives. Had Arizona prevailed, it would have been a tremendous change in how elections are run—akin to Florida recently passing (and then having courts throw out) penalties that made groups like the League of Women Voters stop their registration efforts during the 2012 presidential election.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Arizona could not pre-empt the federal voter form by piling on additional requirements beyond those already needed to be an eligible voter: one’s age, residency, citizenship, and legal standing (not being a felon or judged by the court to be mentally unfit).

“We conclude that the fairest reading of the statute is that a state-imposed requirement of evidence of citizenship not required by the Federal Form is ‘inconsistent with’ the NVRA’s [National Voter Registration Act] mandate that States ‘accept and use’ the Federal Form,” the Majority’s opinion said. “If this reading prevails, the Elections Clause requires that Arizona’s rule give way.”

Practically speaking, states only use one voter registration application even though they conduct a mix of federal and local elections. The Supreme Court said that states could cancel a registration if they had additonal information, which is what they do now when someone is convicted of a felony or judged to be mentally incompetent.

They also said Arizona could lobby the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to revise the federal registration form. Some election lawyers said that scenario points to a new strategy for Republicans, who might seek a court order to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements because there are currently no sitting EAC members. But that angle has not yet been tried.

The decision is a victory for voting rights groups who are awaiting a much more serious ruling from the Court. The GOP has also challenged the sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that allows the Justice Department to overrule changes in new election laws and procedures in states and counties with histories of racial discrimination.

That law allowed the DOJ to stop numerous GOP-sponsored laws in the last presidential election, from drawing new election district boundaries that prevented non-white candidates from winning, to curbs on voter registration drives—such as the Florida law, to other efforts to curtail early voting options.

The GOP’s attorneys have argued that America is now a post-racial society that doesn’t need the 1965 Voting Rights Act any more, while the party's legislators have pushed for laws like Arizona’s citizenship requirement—which clearly target communities of color. Needless to say, the party ignores this apparent contradiction.

This Week in Poverty: Congress Turns Its Back on Rural America

Greg Kaufmann, The Nation — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:02:00 -0700

Kansas, and other rural states and communities, are experiencing a harsh blow to early childhood education due to recent sequester cuts.

The following article first appeared on the Nation.com. For more great content from the Nation, sign up for their email newsletters here.

For fifteen years in Neodesha, Kansas (population 2,486) there were only two options for early childhood education services in town: a program for at-risk 4-year-olds operated by the school district, and a Head Start Center for children ages 0 through 5 run by the Southeast Kansas Community Action Program (SEK-CAP).

SEK-CAP offers a range of services to twelve counties, responding to the housing, utilities, transportation, employment, medical care, child care, education and nutrition needs of low-income people in Southeast Kansas. The counties have a combined population of approximately 192,000 people and the child poverty rate is nearly 26 percent—an increase of more than 13 percent in the past year. The past three years have also seen a rise in unemployment, food and housing insecurity, as well as agricultural and natural disasters.

Due to sequester cuts, SEK-CAP decided in May that it could no longer afford to operate the Head Start Center in Neodesha (pronounced “Nee-OH-duh-shay”), which served seventeen children and their families, and employed five staff members. The rental and maintenance costs of the building made this closure the obvious choice for the agency to find the savings forced upon it by Congress.

Gray said the affect of the cuts is far more significant than “it might appear on paper.”

“When you’re talking about people’s lives, and their ability to maintain gainful employment, or ensure that their children are receiving age-appropriate care and intellectual stimulation, then the cuts become incredibly deep and incredibly apparent,” said Gray.

In addition to instruction at the center, teachers made monthly home visits to work on family and education goals. Every child had an individualized education plan based on an assessment of his or her needs.

“My oldest son struggled with gross-motor skills for a while, so we focused on that and got him where he needs to be,” said Amanda Tompkins, chair of the SEK-CAP Policy Council and a Head Start parent who sent three children through the program. “My daughter was advanced in her speaking ability, so the teacher gave me tools so that I could [help] her grow that skill. The program has taught me how to be a mom and a teacher for my children.”

Linda Broyles, director of early childhood services for SEK-CAP, said that Tompkins’s experience is typical for a Head Start family.

“It’s more than just a preparation for the educational system, [it’s] comprehensive family services,” said Broyles. “That means working with the whole family to set and attain goals, increase positive behaviors, establish preventative health care and create a lifelong love of learning and education.”

“There are no other means of comprehensive family-centered services in the town,” said Kristie Groff, a teacher at the center for twelve years.

The sequestration cuts in Southeastern Kansas have had somewhat of a domino effect. SEK-CAP also offered home-based services to ten children and their families in the town of Parsons (pop. 10,454) in neighboring Labette County, where the child poverty rate for children under age 5 is over 31 percent. These home-based slots are now going to be moved to Neodesha—to partly compensate for the loss of the Head Start Center—because there are other early childhood education alternatives in Parsons.

“Some of those alternatives might be cost prohibitive for some families, but the fact is Neodesha needs the [home-based program] more now. It was just our best possible fix,” said Gray.

A teacher visited the ten families in Parsons once a week, for an hour and a half, to provide age-appropriate activities and referral services to address other family needs such as transportation difficulties or a desire to pursue continuing education. The program also offered “socialization opportunities” twice per month. These events usually included nutrition education and preparation of a healthy snack or meal, age-appropriate games and time for the adults to break off and hold a meeting.

“It’s an opportunity to train parents about the program, and they can share their questions or concerns, so it’s fantastic for communication and a sense of community,” said Tompkins. “And if you’re a stay-at-home mom and don’t have an outlet, these daytime play dates are pretty important so you don’t tear your hair out.”

Gray said the home-based services are especially important for parents struggling with transportation and employment, and sometimes education.

“The focus on health and nutrition leads to budgeting food dollars, which leads to budgeting your household resources,” she said. “These are the kinds of supports that help families move out of poverty.”

As early childhood education services are lost for low-income people with limited options in towns like Parsons and Neodesha, the concern is that too many parents are turning to “the house down the street” to watch their kids, said Gray.

“Often times that is more child care than early childhood development,” said Gray. It’s also more often than not an unlicensed facility, which is why it’s affordable. “In a licensed facility we know there is appropriate safety and hygiene, and there are age-appropriate, developmentally appropriate activities. We don’t necessarily know that those things are in place in an unlicensed facility.”

Gray said that the sequester cuts in some cases are more significant in rural areas—where families might have to travel “forty miles one way”—than in “a larger metropolitan city, where two or three blocks away there might be another option.”

“Rural America often gets overlooked. We know Kansas is referred to as a ‘Flyover State’,” said Gray. “But there are a lot of people here, and a lot of people in poverty. Sequestration is just one cut. It’s the impact of that steady erosion of financial resources that is much greater in rural communities—because there are far fewer resources.”

Tompkins believes the long-term costs of these sequester cuts are being overlooked by policymakers.

“I see all of the benefits of Head Start services—early education, early intervention, early detection for children ages 0 to 5,” she said. “The people who are making these decisions—they just see the numbers that cross their desk."

Israel Is Stirs the Pot in Syria

Jonathan Cook, CounterPunch — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:21:00 -0700

In recent weeks Israel has moved from relative inaction to a deepening involvement in Syrian affairs.

Nazareth.

For much of the past two years Israel stood sphinx-like on the sidelines of Syria’s civil war. Did it want Bashar al-Assad’s regime toppled? Did it favour military intervention to help opposition forces? And what did it think of the increasing visibility of Islamist groups in Syria? It was difficult to guess.

In recent weeks, however, Israel has moved from relative inaction to a deepening involvement in Syrian affairs. It launched two air strikes on Syrian positions last month, and at the same time fomented claims that Damascus had used chemical weapons, in what looked suspiciously like an attempt to corner Washington into direct intervention.

Last week, based on renewed accusations of the use of the nerve agent sarin by Syria, the US said it would start giving military aid directly to the opposition.

With suspicions of Israeli meddling growing, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was finally forced last week to deny as ”nonsense” evidence that Israeli forces are operating secretly over the border.

Nonetheless, the aura of inscrutability has hardly lifted, stoked by a series of leaks from Israeli officials. Their statements have tacked wildly between threats to oust Assad one moment and denials that Israel has any interest in his departure the next.

Is Israel sending out contradictory signals to sow confusion, or is it simply confused itself?

The answer can be deduced in the unappealing outcomes before Israel whoever emerges triumphant. Israel stands to lose strategically if either Assad or the opposition wins decisively.

Assad, and before him his father, Hafez, ensured that for decades the so-called separation of forces line between Syria and Israel, after the latter occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, remained the quietest of all Israel’s borders.

A taste of what might happen should the Syrian regime fall was provided in 2011 when more than 1,000 Palestinians massed in the no man’s land next to the Golan, while Assad’s attention was directed to repressing popular demonstrations elsewhere. At least 100 Palestinians crossed into the Heights, with one even reaching Tel Aviv.

Last week, following intensified fighting between the rebels and the Syrian army over Quneitra, a town next to the only crossing between Israel and Syria, UN peacekeepers from Austria started pulling out because of the dangers.

Briefly the opposition forces captured Quneitra, offering a reminder that any void there would likely suck in Palestinian militants and jihadists keen to settle scores with Israel. That point was underlined by one Israeli official, who told the Times of London: “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos, and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there.”

For that reason, the Israeli military is reported to considering two responses familiar from Lebanon: invading to establish a security zone on the other side of the demarcation line, or covertly training and arming Syrian proxies inside the same area.

Neither approach turned out well for Israel in Lebanon, but there are indications – despite Netanyahu’s denial – that Israel is already pursuing the second track.

According to the New York Times, Israel is working with Syrian villagers not allied to Assad or the opposition and offering “humanitarian aid” and “maintaining intense intelligence activity”. In an interview with the Argentinian media last month, Assad accused Israel of having gone further, “directly supporting” opposition groups inside Syria with “logistical support”, intelligence on potential targets and plans for attacking them.

If the future looks bleak for Israel with Assad gone, it looks no brighter if he entrenches his rule.

A strong Assad means Syria will continue to play a pivotal role in maintaining a military front opposed to Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. That in turn means a strong Iran and a strong Hizbullah, the Shia militia in Lebanon.

Hizbullah’s formidable record in guerrilla warfare is the main reason Israel no longer occupies south Lebanon. Similarly, Hizbullah’s arsenal of rockets is a genuine restraint on greater Israeli aggression towards not only Lebanon but Syria and Iran too.

Israel’s air strikes in early May appear to have targeted shipments through Syria of more sophisticated weaponry for Hizbullah, probably supplied by Iran. Longer range missiles and anti-aircraft systems are seen as “game-changing” by Israel precisely because they would further limit its room for offensive manoeuvres.

Israel will be equally stymied if Assad stays in power and upgrades his anti-aircraft defences with the S-300 system promised by Russia.

Either way, Israel’s much vaunted ambition to engineer an attack on Iran to prevent what it claims is Tehran’s goal of developing a nuclear bomb – joining Israel in the club of Middle Eastern nuclear-armed states – would probably come at too high a price to be feasible.

So what does Israel consider in its interests if neither Assad’s survival nor his removal is appealing?

According to some well-placed Israeli commentators, the best Israel can hope for is that Assad holds on but only just. That would keep the regime in place, or boxed into its heartland, but sapped of the energy to concern itself with anything other than immediate matters of survival. It would be unable to offer help to Hizbullah, isolating the militia in Lebanon and cutting off its supply line to Iran.

In closed-door discussions, analyst Ben Caspit has noted, the Israeli army has put forward as its “optimal scenario” Syria breaking up into three separate states, with Assad confined to an Alawite canton in Damascus and along the coast.

A long war of attrition between Assad and the opposition has additional benefits for Israel following the decision by Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to draft thousands of fighters to assist the Syrian army. Protacted losses could deplete Hizbullah’s ranks and morale, while fighting is likely to spill over from Syria into Lebanon, tying up the militia on multiple fronts.

But there is a risk here too. If Hizbullah performs well, as it did in defeating the rebels this month at the town of Qusayr, its position in Lebanon could be strengthened rather than weakened. And in that situation Assad’s debt to Hizbullah would only deepen.

Such calculations are doubtless exercising Israeli military minds.

The greatest danger of all is that yet more parties get drawn in, turning the conflict into a regional one. That would be the likely outcome if Israel chooses to increase its interference, or if the US comes good with its recent threats to increase military aid to the opposition or impose a no-fly zone over parts or all of Syria.

Either way, Israel might see the transformation of Syria in to a new mini-cold war theatre as advantageous.

However, the Israeli sphinx isn’t offering any answers quite yet.

A version of this article first appeared in The National, Abu Dhabi.

Everything Americans Think They Know About Drugs Is Wrong: A Scientist Explodes the Myths

Kristen Gwynne, AlterNet — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:15:00 -0700

Columbia University scientist Carl Hart combines research and anecdotes from his life to explain how false assumptions have created a disastrous drug policy.

What many Americans, including many scientists, think they know about drugs is turning out to be totally wrong. For decades, drug war propaganda has brainwashed Americans into blaming drugs for problems ranging from crime to economic deprivation. In his new book High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, Carl Hart blows apart the most common myths about drugs and their impact on society, drawing in part on his personal experience growing up in an impoverished Miami neighborhood. Hart has used marijuana and cocaine, carried guns, sold drugs, and participated in other petty crime, like shoplifting. A combination of what he calls choice and chance brought him to the Air Force and college, and finally made him the first black, tenured professor of sciences at Columbia University.

Intertwined with his story about the struggles of families and communities stressed by lack of capital and power over their surroundings is striking new research on substance use. Hart uses his life and work to reveal that drugs are not nearly as harmful as many think. For example, most people who use the most “addicting” drugs do not develop a problem. Rather, Hart says, drugs are scapegoated for problems related to poverty. The policies that result from this misconception are catastrophically misguided. AlterNet spoke with Hart about his life and research.

Kristen Gynne: What are some of the false conclusions about drugs you are challenging?

Carl Hart: There are multiple false conclusions. There is a belief, for example, that crack cocaine is so addictive it only took one hit to get hooked, and that it is impossible to use heroin without becoming addicted. There was another belief that methamphetamine users are cognitively impaired. All of these are myths that have have been perpetuated primarily by law enforcement, and law enforcement deals with a limited, select group of people—people who are, in many cases, behaving badly. But to generalize that to all drug users is not only shortsighted and naive, it’s also irresponsible. The impact of that irresponsible behavior has been borne primarily by black communities. Nobody really cares about black communities, and that's why this irresponsible behavior has been allowed to continue.

It's also true that we've missed critical opportunities to challenge our basic assumptions about drugs. If drugs really were as damaging as we are led to believe, a respectable society should do something to address that problem. But the thing is, the very assumptions driving our drug policy are wrong, and must be questioned.

KG:How does the lack of people of color in academia or research affect our understanding of drugs?

CH: I'd just like to be clear, I don't say people of color, I say black people, because people of color can mean a number of other [races]. I'm talking about black people who, like me, when we go back to our communities and we ask about people who we grew up with, the response is, "Well, they got caught up with a drug charge, they're upstate. They're doing some time” or, “Oh, he's doing better now that he got out of jail. He can't really find a good job, but he's doing his best.”

It would be nice if we had black scientists, more black people in science, to incorporate these kinds of experiences as they think about the questions they investigate. The problem is it’s so homogenous that critical questions about our community are ignored because they're not seen as being important.

KG:And the result is that they don't comprehend environment, or the other variables that are affecting someone's decisions or behavior, and miss the mark?

CH: That's exactly right. It's that if you don't contextualize what is happening with drugs in the country you might get the impression that drugs are so bad they're causing all these people to go to jail: “Let's find out how drugs are exerting these awful effects.” Now, you have just completely disregarded context in which all of these things occur, and that is what has happened in science. If you don't fully appreciate the context, and you think that drug users are awful, then you don't think about how a person takes care of their kid, takes care of their family, goes to work, but they also use drugs. If you don't think about all of those contextual factors, you limit the picture and that's what we've done.

It's not that science lies. Science doesn't lie. But when you look at your research with a limited view, you may erroneously draw conclusions about drugs, when in fact other variables you might not understand are what's really at play.

KG:You talk about how people are always blaming problems on drugs, when those issues really spring from the stress of poverty. What are some examples?

CH: I think crack cocaine is the easiest example In the 1980s, as I was coming of age in my teens and my early 20s, people—black people, white folks, a number of people in the country—said crack was so awful it was causing women to give up their babies and neglect their children such that grandmothers had to raise another generation of children.

Now, if you look at the history in poor communities—my community, my family—long before crack ever hit the scene, that sort of thing happened in my house. We were raised by my grandmother. My mother went away because she and my father split up. She went away in search of better jobs and left the state, but it wasn't just her. This sort of thing, this pathology that is attributed to drugs, happened to immigrant communities like the Eastern European Jews when they came to the Lower East SIde, but people simply blamed crack in the 1980s and the 1990s.

Another example is that, since the crack era, multiple studies have found that the effects of crack cocaine use during pregnancy do not create an epidemic of doomed black "crack babies." Instead, crack-exposed children are growing up to lead normal lives, and studies have repeatedly found that the diferences between them and babies who were not exposed cannot be isolated from the health effects of growing up poor, without a stable, safe environment or access to healthcare.

KG:What about the idea that drugs can turn people into criminals?

CH: The pharmalogical effects of drugs rarely lead to crime, but the public conflates these issues regardless. If we were going to look at how pharmalogical drugs influence crime, we should probably look at alcohol. We know sometimes people get unruly when they drink, but the vast majority of people don't. Certainly, we have given thousands of doses of crack cocaine and methamphetamine to people in our lab, and never had any problems with violence or anything like that. That tells you it's not the pharmacology of the drug, but some interaction with the environment or environmental conditions, that would probably happen without the drug. Sure, new markets of illegal activity are often or sometimes associated with increased violence, or some other illegal activity, but it is not specific to drugs like people try to make it out to be.

Other than crime, you have myths that drugs cause cognitive impairment, make people unable to be productive members of society, or tear families apart. If the vast majority of people are using these drugs without problems—and a smaller proportion of users do have problems—what that tells you if you're thinking critically is it can't be only the drug, or mainly the drug. It tells you it is something about the individual situations, environmental conditions, a wide range of factors.

KG:What about addiction? Won't some people who use drugs inevitably become dependent on drugs?

CH: Given the large percentage of people who are not addicted and try these drugs, it's something other than the pharmacology of the drugs that's causing addiction. We find that 85% of the people, for example, who use cocaine are not addicted, even though they use the same cosmetological substance as those who are. Somebody could say there may be something biologically predisposing people who get addicted, but there is no evidence to support that position. Certainly, that idea should be investigated, but there is far more evidence to support the view that there are other things going in the lives of people who are predisposed to addiction, that can predict their addiction as well as other problems.

KG:What kinds of environmental factors matter?

CH: Well, let's think about drug use. Drug effects are predictable, and some drugs are really good at increasing euphoria and feelings of positive reinforcement. Now, if you don't have anything competing with drugs for pleasure and happiness, all you have is deprivation. Why wouldn't you get high?

If you have competing reinforcers or alternatives, like the ability to earn income, learn a skill, or receive some respect based on your performance in some sort of way, those things compete with potentially destructive behavior. And so as a psychologist, you just want to make sure people have a variety of potential reinforcers. If you don't have that, you increase the likelihood of people engaging in behaviors that society does not condone.

Skills that are employable or marketable, education, having a stake or meaningful role in society, not being marginalized—all of those things are very important. Instead of ensuring that all of our members have these things, our society has blamed drugs, said drugs are the reasons that people don't have a stake in society, and that's simply not true.

KG:So if drugs aren't the problem, why do we say they are?

CH: They’re just an easy scapegoat. You can imagine if so few people have engaged in an activity, you can make up some incredible stories about that activity, and be believed. And that's what's happened with drugs. Note that you can't make up those incredible stories about marijuana today, but there was a time when we could: the 1930s. That has passed because more people have tried marijuana, but you can make up those incredible stories about methamphetamine because so few people have used methamphetamine.

Well, I should say so few people actually know that they use methamphetamine. All those people who use Adderall and those kinds of drugs, they are using methamphetamine, basically. It is the amphetamine, not the "D" [like Adderall] or "meth" in front of it, that creates the effects.

KG:What is actually responsible for problems often linked to drugs?

CH: Poverty. And there are policies that have played a role, too. Policies like placing a large percentage of our law enforcment resources in those communities, so that when people get charged with some petty crime, they have a blemish on their record that further decreases their ability to join mainstream, get a job that's meaningful, and that sort of thing.

The policy decisions that we make play a far bigger role than the drugs themselves. When I turned 14, for example, there was a federal government program that, in order to keep kids like me out of the streets, gave us jobs. Under these federal government programs, we had money for the summer, for clothing—it was great. When we cut these types of programs and kids have nowhere to go what do you expect to happen? It doesn't take rocket scientists to figure this out.

Now, I have an 18-year-old who, this summer, won't have anything to do. I'm trying to find him some sort of work. Having a federal government program for underpriveleged children, that was great. That let kids know that the society might care about you. We teach them work skills, we teach them something about responsibility, we make sure they have money in their pockets. Now, you take away all of this, and you miss the chance to teach them about responsibility. You miss the opportunity to help them put food on the table, to put clothes on their backs.

KG:In your acknowledgements, you thank Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which you call "welfare as we once knew it."

CH: All of my childhood, we were on welfare. My mom received aid for families with dependent children—welfare. Without that, we wouldn't have had subsidized housing. Most of my childhood we had a two-bedroom apartment, but eventually we got into the projects, where we had four bedrooms. That was great.

We got food stamps that helped make sure we had something to eat, even though it was little. Without that program, I wouldn't have developed physically. There would have been a lot more stress in the household.

Now, the interesting thing about it is that all of my sibling were all on that program because of my mom, and all of my siblings now have jobs and they're responsible, taxpaying citizens. That's the typical story on that program, but the conservatives, under Reagan, they began to perpetuate this narrative of the welfare queen, when in fact, we know who the biggest welfare kings are: the people on Wall Street. The federal government gives far money to them than to poor families, but welfare became so villified that we essentially got rid of it.

KG:How does institutional racism affect policy? In your book, you talk about how crack, which is pharmacologically almost identical to cocaine, is punished with an 18-1 (and once 100-1) sentencing disparity because of racially coded language linking the "crack scourge" to bad behavior in poor, black communities. There was also a recent ACLU report, which found that blacks are an average of four times more likely to be arrested for pot than whites.

CH: I often testify as an expert witness to help women who have used marijuana while pregnant to keep their children. Case after case is a black woman. Security in the court is all black; the judges are all white; and the lawyers are young and white, building careers. It's just slavery all over again.

When you have a group that’s already identified as an “other,” or a villified group that is a minority, it's easier to associate a behavior with them. But people don't see black people as being fully human. That’s what happens in the US, although people won't tell you that.

Because when we think about Trayvon Martin, when we think about Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, these black kids who were killed at the hands of some security or law enforcement person—that almost never happens with white kids. If it did, it would be a national crises. But it's not a national crises because we really don't value black men and boys in the same way we value white boys and men. We don't see them as being equal.

I look at how people behave, and it's clear. As long as you view this group that way, you can continue to put large percentage of law enforcement resources in those communities, but not so much to make them better. If you want to make it better, you give people jobs. Instead, we put police in those communities to pretend that they care, to pretend that you're doing something. But that's not helping.

Whereas drug reactions are predictable, interactions with police are not and too often become deadly. As a parent of a black youth, I'd much rather my kids interact with drugs than law enforcement. White people don't need to think about that. Police officers too often see young, black boys as less than human. It creates a mentality where black kids are supposed to "know your place," and it affects your psyche. Indignities become part of who you are.

KG:How is meth changing this conversation?

CH: Meth is the new crack. It is the same thing as Adderall, but we are told it causes people's faces and teeth to decay. There is no evidence to suggest meth alone, versus poor hygiene, makes people look ugly. At the same time, because most people who use or arrested for meth are white people—poor of course, people we don't like—it creates an opportunity to say the drug war is not racist.

In Montana, they have invested in sentencing alternatives, like a maximum one-year sentence and treatment, for meth users. Could you imagine that happening with crack cocaine? Hell no. It's interesting because, with meth, we are doing our job, trying to seek alternatives to help people. Still, in some places, like Oklahoma, they're still locking white people up.

KG:In your book, it seems as though you feel some guilt for being successful, as if you have abandoned your community. How has your life changed?

CH: In terms of where I'm at now, I have money and I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, so that's a really good thing. Whereas, when I was an adolescent, it was a good day if I ate two meals. Now, I expect to eat three meals, and that sort of thing. But, on the other hand, when I think about family, friends andthat sort of thing, it was a lot better where I was previously because you knew where everyone stood, you knew everyone had your back, you didn't have to worry about people backstabbing you or trying to go after you for a variety of reasons. Mainly, you were just being who you are—that's one of the things I bring with me from the past.

Whether I am there or here, I have this sense of community responsibility and I hope that will always be with with me. When it's no longer with me, perhaps it's time to die.

KG:How do you navigate two different cultures?

CH: That's very difficult, because I deal in mainstream and my family, they don't as much. Not only do I deal in mainstream society, I deal in mainstream as a fucking professor at Columbia. Now, when I take that mask off to go home, and it takes me a few days to acclimate, to be like OK, I'm no longer in the shark pit, I can relax, and relax my vernacular. And then I have to leave again.

So, my family might see this Columbia personality, and they may take it as a personal affront. I feel like a fraud, oftentimes, at home, but it has nothing to do with how I feel about my family. It's just that I'm catching hell in the mainstream. In the mainstream, I’m suspect because I’m black, I have dreadlocks, I have a goatee. I mean, I'm just suspect. In my classroom and at Columbia, I'm not as suspect because it's clear I know what I'm doing, but I am still suspect. And people are curious; they don’t know that I have the same dreams and aspirations as they do. They think that I may be different somehow.

This sort of issue would be a fascinating topic for research, particularly when we think about physical health or mental health, and how it manifests. But that will never be approved by National Institute of Health, because it's not of interest to white researchers. These are just things that I have to live my life with.

KG:How does this book adress your experience in academia and black America?

CH: I speak the language of both. And as a result, I think it speaks to both. And I’m hoping in the process, maybe along the way, the people who are back home, whose stories I'm trying to share, will see themselves in my story. And the people in my mainstream—I'm trying to help them see themselves in my story.

At some point, I just hope that it merges, that they see we're not that different. We have the same hopes and dreams and aspirations. The expression of those hopes and dreams may be slightly different but we are very similar. That's what I'm hoping.

KG:What would policy that reflects reality look like, and how do we get there?

CH: That is complex, but quite simple to start. The first thing is we decriminalize all drugs. More than 80% of people arrested for drugs are arrested for simple possession. Wen you decriminalize, now you have that huge number of people—we're talking 1.5 million people arrested every year—that no longer have that blemish on their record. That increases the likelihood that they can get jobs, participate in the mainstream.

Number two is dramatically increase realistic education about drugs—none of this "this is your brain on drugs" stuff, but real education, which looks like making sure people understand effects of drugs they're using, particularly potentially medical affects. Don't use heroin with another sedative because it increases the likelihood of respiratory depression. Realistic education, telling people what to do, how to prevent negative effects associated with drugs. We do it with alcohol—you shouldn't binge drink, don't drink on an empty stomach—and could do it with other drugs.

Obama and His Allies Say the Govt Doesn't Listen to Your Phone Calls -- But the FBI Begs to Differ

Max Blumenthal, AlterNet — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:03:00 -0700

Given FBI acknowledgment that it monitors phone calls on a massive scale, with help from the NSA, gov't denials are hard to understand.

Today, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) insisted the NSA has not been recording Americans’ phone calls under any surveillance program, and that any claim to the contrary was “misinformation.” Rogers’ comments countered remarks from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who said he was told in a House Judiciary Committee briefing by FBI Director Robert Mueller that private firms contracted by the NSA could listen to phone calls made by American citizens.

Since Nadler’s comments were reported by CNET, he has issued a subsequent statement backtracking on his original remarks: "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.”

The full transcript of Nadler’s exchange with Mueller shows the FBI director claiming that “a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular phone and that particular individual” is required for the FBI to retrieve the content of any American’s call.

However, in a May 1 interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett– well before the scandal over NSA spying sent the White House and its allies into damage control mode – a former FBI agent named Tim Clemente made a startling revelation. According to Clemente, an April 18 phone call between Boston bombing perpetrator Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife was retrieved by the FBI as part of its surveillance of bulk US telecom data.

Here is the relevant section of Burnett and Clemente’s exchange:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?  

CLEMENTE: No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.  

BURNETT: So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.  

CLEMENTE: No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.

Clemente’s comments completely undermine Rep. Rogers’ claim that the government is not recording Americans’ phone calls, and seem to contradict Mueller’s claim that any surveillance that exists is “particularized” according to court orders. Unfortunately, the remarkable statement was buried under the Boston bombings media frenzy, and seems to have been forgotten amidst the latest revelations of NSA domestic spying.

During a March 11, 2011 briefing to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI’s Mueller offered another clue that his bureau was seeking broad access to American phone records. Towards the end of his testimony, Mueller complained that, “our investigations can be stymied by the records preservations practices of private communications providers. Current law does not require telephone companies and Internet service providers to retain customer subscriber information and source and destination data for any set period of time.”

A year later, the FBI formally requested that Congress expand the 1994 Communications for Law Enforcement Assistance Act (CLEA) to ensure that instant messaging, VoIP, and email servers were “wiretap friendly.” FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman began the process by drafting legislation requiring online servers to add extra coding to their programs providing the FBI a backdoor into consumer data, including emails and online chats.

This April, at a luncheon for the American Bar Association, the FBI’s Weissman declared that the bureau’s “top priority this year” was to enhance its ability to monitor web based services like Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox.

According to Bill Binney, a former high-ranking NSA official who resigned in protest of the agency’s domestic surveillance operations, the FBI depends on the NSA for data on Americans’ phone calls and online communications.

“The FBI is asking for data on Americans – just look at the Verizon court order – and FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act special court] is ordering data to be sent to the NSA,” Binney told me. “So the NSA is becoming the central processor and storage facility for government surveillance. That means they are going into emails and chats. They are absolutely involved in collecting data the FBI uses to spy on Americans.”

Given open FBI acknowledgment that it monitors American phone calls on a massive scale, and that it almost certainly relies on the NSA to do so, it is hard to understand the denials by the White House and its allies. Perhaps, like Groucho Marx, they hope we will believe them instead of our own two lying eyes.

Texas Jailers Ran a 'Rape Camp' Behind Bars, Women Claim

Cameron Langford, Courthouse News — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:02:00 -0700

This is unbelievable.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CN) - Texas jailers ran a "rape camp" where they "repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates," and forced them to masturbate and sodomize male guards, and one another, two women claim in court.

J.A.S. and J.M.N. sued Live Oak County and its former jailers Vincent Aguilar, Israel Charles Jr. and Jaime E. Smith, in Federal Court.

All three guards were arrested in August 2010 and charged with sexual assault, the Beeville Bee-Picayune reported at the time. The newspaper did not identify the victims.

Smith and Aguilar are in Texas state prisons today, according to the complaint, which says defendant Charles is living in Bee County.

Live Oak is a sparsely settled county in south central Texas. Its seat is George West.

"Beginning sometime in 2007 to at least August of 2010 the Live Oak County Sheriff's office ran a 'rape camp' known as the Live Oak County Jail," the complaint states. "In this facility, numerous jailers, all employed by the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office, repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates over an extended period of time. These forced acts of lasciviousness included, but are not limited to, forcing female inmates to repeatedly perform oral sex on male guards, forcing female inmates to repeatedly masturbate the male guards, the male guards masturbating in view of the female inmates, male guards forcing digital penetrative sex acts in the female inmates', forcing female inmates to engage in sexual sex acts with other female inmates, including but not limited to forcing female inmates to have oral sex with each other, among other things.

"In addition to the repeated sexual assaults, numerous female inmates were sexually harassed. Certain male guards would strip the female inmates of their clothing and provide only shaving cream to conceal their genitalia. Certain male guards would sometimes force the female inmates to shower in front of them while instructing them to shave their vaginas. In other instances, while detailing their degenerate sexual fantasies, the jailers would pin the girls against a wall, grope their persons, verbally berate them, digitally rape their vagina and/or anus, then force them to perform oral sex.

"In order to facilitate their carnal impulses, these guards would withhold food and water, engage in physical abuse, restrict privileges and verbally and emotionally abuse the women - even threaten to kill them in order to compel their compliance."

J.A.S. says she was arrested on marijuana possession charges in July 2010, and transferred to the Live Oak County Jail after a brief stay at the Jim Wells County Jail.

"Not long after she was transferred, she was approached by a jailer known to her only as 'Jesse,'" the complaint states. "He warned plaintiff to stay away from defendants Aguilar and Smith. Naively, she asked why and he emphasized, 'trust me, stay away from them. I can't tell you why, I'd lose my job.'

"Sometime later, while waiting at the facility nurses' station, defendant Aguilar approached plaintiff and touched her on her shoulder and back. The nurse on duty observed this happening and told defendant Aguilar to stop. In fact, the abuse was so widespread and pervasive that defendant Aguilar felt comfortable enough to ask Ms. Smith if he could touch her vagina, right in front of the jail nurse.

"Another incident occurred later involving both defendant Smith and defendant

Aguilar. Both men forcibly and inappropriately touched plaintiff. During the incident, defendant Aguilar kissed plaintiff and attempted to penetrate her. Only when plaintiff defended herself by slapping defendant Aguilar's face did he relent."

J.A.S. claims the guards knew where to take inmates to avoid having their sexual assaults recorded by the jail's "grossly ineffective" camera system.

During her pre-trial incarceration, the three guards had their way with her, she says.

"Defendants Aguilar, Smith and Charles all assaulted plaintiff in numerous ways over the course of several incidents. As they told it to plaintiff, she 'belong[ed] to [them]' and was their 'sex slave or whatever they wanted her to be,'" the complaint states.

"Plaintiff was forced to perform various sexual acts on defendants Charles, Aguilar and Smith, including oral sex and manual stimulation - whatever time permitted for their amusement. These incidents also included their own lewd acts on themselves, including masturbation where plaintiff was forced to conceal their ejaculate by way of ingestion.

"These and similar acts occurred so frequently that plaintiff cannot account for the number of assaults she was forced to endure - during any given attack, there would be from one (1) to three (3) different guards present who were participating or watching plaintiff being denigrated.

"Finally, several incidents took place wherein plaintiff was forced to perform sexual acts on another female inmate, plaintiff [J.M.N.]. Specifically, one night defendants
     Aguilar and Smith provided razors and shaving cream to plaintiffs. They made the women strip naked and told them to shave their pubic hair. Next they made the women put 'shaving cream bikinis" on each other as they looked on.
     "Once that was accomplished, the women were directed to rinse off and that the guards would return. When defendants Aguilar and Smith returned [J.A.S.] and [J.M.N.] were told to give them 'a show.'
     "The defendants made the women perform oral sex on each other, touch and grope each other, penetrate each other's vaginas with their fingers, all while the guards soaked it in, grinning and flicking their tongues out at the humiliated women. As if forcing these two women to perform pornographic sex acts on each other was not enough, defendants Aguilar and Smith then forced the women to stop and come to the door to touch their penises and allow the guards to grope and penetrate their persons.
     "After defendants Aguilar and Smith concluded their session with [J.A.S.] and [J.M.N.], defendant Smith came back later that night and forced [J.A.S.] to perform oral sex on him.
     "To make matters even more tragic, the charge of possession of a controlled substance, for which [J.A.S.] was being detained, was dismissed and the case was dropped upon her release from custody."
     J.M.N. says she was booked into Live Oak County Jail in July 2010.
     "Upon introduction with [J.M.N.], defendant Aguilar remarked that she 'look(ed) wild' and that he could not wait to (have sex with) her. He pinned her against a wall face first then rubbed up behind her, grabbing her breasts and breathing into her ear while rubbing his face along the nape of her neck. From that point forward, things only got worse ...
     "Throughout her stay, [J.M.N.] was repeatedly sexually assaulted by defendants.
     For the first several weeks these assaults were in the form of the guards placing their hands through the food slot in the cell door and forcing her to lower her pants and undergarments and then anally and vaginally penetrating her with their hands. They would also make [J.M.N.] show the guards her breasts, buttocks and/or vagina or the guards would withhold food, drink, essential hygiene items, threaten to harm her or take away privileges." (Parentheses and ellipsis in complaint.)
     J.M.N. says the assaults escalated until the night the guards forced her to perform sex acts on J.A.S.
     The women seek punitive damages for civil rights violations, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
     They are represented by Ronald W. Armstrong II of San Antonio.

Edward Snowden Q and A: "The US Government Destroyed Any Possibility of a Fair Trial at Home"

Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:12:00 -0700

The whistleblower behind the biggest intelligence leak in NSA history answered questions about the NSA surveillance revelations.

It is the interview the world's media organisations have been chasing for more than a week, but instead Edward Snowden is giving Guardian readers the exclusive.

The 29-year-old former NSA contractor and source of the Guardian's NSA files coverage will – with the help of Glenn Greenwald – take your questions today on why he revealed the NSA's top-secret surveillance of US citizens, the international storm that has ensued, and the uncertain future he now faces. Ask him anything.

Snowden, who has fled the US, told the Guardian he "does not expect to see home again", but where he'll end up has yet to be determined.

He will be online today from 11am ET/4pm BST today. An important caveat: the live chat is subject to Snowden's security concerns and also his access to a secure internet connection. It is possible that he will appear and disappear intermittently, so if it takes him a while to get through the questions, please be patient.

To participate, post your question below and recommend your favorites. As he makes his way through the thread, we'll embed his replies as posts in the live blog. You can also follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #AskSnowden.

We expect the site to experience high demand so we'll re-publish the Q&A in full after the live chat has finished.

11.07am ET

Question:

Guardian staff

GlennGreenwald

17 June 2013 2:11pm

Let's begin with these:

1) Why did you choose Hong Kong to go to and then tell them about US hacking on their research facilities and universities?

2) How many sets of the documents you disclosed did you make, and how many different people have them? If anything happens to you, do they still exist?

Answer:

1) First, the US Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it.
Second, let's be clear: I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the "consent of the governed" is meaningless.
2) All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

11.13am ET

Question:

Guardian staff

ewenmacaskill

17 June 2013 3:07pm

I should have asked you this when I saw you but never got round to it........Why did you just not fly direct to Iceland if that is your preferred country for asylum?

Answer:

Leaving the US was an incredible risk, as NSA employees must declare their foreign travel 30 days in advance and are monitored. There was a distinct possibility I would be interdicted en route, so I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that. Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration.

11.17am ET

Question:

ActivistGal

17 June 2013 2:15pm

You have said HERE that you admire both Ellsberg and Manning, but have argued that there is one important distinction between yourself and the army private...

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

Are you suggesting that Manning indiscriminately dumped secrets into the hands of Wikileaks and that he intended to harm people?

Answer:

No, I'm not. Wikileaks is a legitimate journalistic outlet and they carefully redacted all of their releases in accordance with a judgment of public interest. The unredacted release of cables was due to the failure of a partner journalist to control a passphrase. However, I understand that many media outlets used the argument that "documents were dumped" to smear Manning, and want to make it clear that it is not a valid assertion here.

11.20am ET

Question:

D. Aram Mushegian II

17 June 2013 2:16pm

Did you lie about your salary? What is the issue there? Why did you tell Glenn Greenwald that your salary was $200,000 a year, when it was only $122,000 (according to the firm that fired you.)

Answer:

I was debriefed by Glenn and his peers over a number of days, and not all of those conversations were recorded. The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my "career high" salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I've been paid.

11.23am ET

Question:

Gabrielaweb

17 June 2013 2:17pm

Why did you wait to release the documents if you said you wanted to tell the world about the NSA programs since before Obama became president?

Answer:

Obama's campaign promises and election gave me faith that he would lead us toward fixing the problems he outlined in his quest for votes. Many Americans felt similarly. Unfortunately, shortly after assuming power, he closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantanamo, where men still sit without charge.

11.27am ET

Question:

Anthony De Rosa

17 June 2013 2:18pm

1) Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

Answer:

1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

Updated

at 11.41am ET

11.40am ET

Anthony De Rosa

17 June 2013 2:18pm

1) Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.

2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?

2) NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.

Glenn Greenwald follow up: When you say "someone at NSA still has the content of your communications" - what do you mean? Do you mean they have a record of it, or the actual content?

Both. If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time - and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants.

11.41am ET

Question:

HaraldK

17 June 2013 2:45pm

What are your thoughts on Google's and Facebook's denials? Do you think that they're honestly in the dark about PRISM, or do you think they're compelled to lie?

Perhaps this is a better question to a lawyer like Greenwald, but: If you're presented with a secret order that you're forbidding to reveal the existence of, what will they actually do if you simply refuse to comply (without revealing the order)?

Answer:

Their denials went through several revisions as it become more and more clear they were misleading and included identical, specific language across companies. As a result of these disclosures and the clout of these companies, we're finally beginning to see more transparency and better details about these programs for the first time since their inception.
They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down?

11.55am ET

Question:

MonaHol

17 June 2013 4:37pm

Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:

I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.

Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Answer:

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with.
More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

12.04pm ET

Question:

Guardian staff

Spencer Ackerman

17 June 2013 4:16pm

Edward, there is rampant speculation, outpacing facts, that you have or will provide classified US information to the Chinese or other governments in exchange for asylum. Have/will you?

Answer:

This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a knee-jerk "RED CHINA!" reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

12.10pm ET

Question:

Answer:

US officials say this every time there's a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM.
Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.
Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

Updated

at 12.11pm ET

12.12pm ET

Question:

Mathius1

17 June 2013 2:54pm

Is encrypting my email any good at defeating the NSA survelielance? Id my data protected by standard encryption?

Answer:

Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.

12.24pm ET

Question:

Answer:

Binney, Drake, Kiriakou, and Manning are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures. Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response.
This disclosure provides Obama an opportunity to appeal for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men. He still has plenty of time to go down in history as the President who looked into the abyss and stepped back, rather than leaping forward into it. I would advise he personally call for a special committee to review these interception programs, repudiate the dangerous "State Secrets" privilege, and, upon preparing to leave office, begin a tradition for all Presidents forthwith to demonstrate their respect for the law by appointing a special investigator to review the policies of their years in office for any wrongdoing. There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.

12.28pm ET

Question:

Ryan Latvaitis

17 June 2013 2:34pm

What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?

What evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?

Answer:

This country is worth dying for.

12.34pm ET

Question:

AhBrightWings

17 June 2013 2:12pm

My question: given the enormity of what you are facing now in terms of repercussions, can you describe the exact moment when you knew you absolutely were going to do this, no matter the fallout, and what it now feels like to be living in a post-revelation world? Or was it a series of moments that culminated in action? I think it might help other people contemplating becoming whistleblowers if they knew what the ah-ha moment was like. Again, thanks for your courage and heroism.

Answer:

I imagine everyone's experience is different, but for me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.

12.37pm ET

Follow-up from the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman:

Regarding whether you have secretly given classified information to the Chinese government, some are saying you didn't answer clearly - can you give a flat no?

Answer:

No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government. Just like with the Guardian and the Washington Post, I only work with journalists.

12.41pm ET

Question:

So far are things going the way you thought they would regarding a public debate? – tikkamasala

Answer:

Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history.

12.43pm ET

Final question from Glenn Greenwald:

Anything else you’d like to add?

Answer:

Thanks to everyone for their support, and remember that just because you are not the target of a surveillance program does not make it okay. The US Person / foreigner distinction is not a reasonable substitute for individualized suspicion, and is only applied to improve support for the program. This is the precise reason that NSA provides Congress with a special immunity to its surveillance.

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