NSA Spying Ilegal

Federal Judge Rules Against N.S.A. Phone Data Program

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — A Federal District Court judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, and he ordered the government to stop collecting data on two plaintiffs’ personal calls and destroy the records of their calling history.

• Document: Federal Judge’s Ruling on N.S.A. Lawsuit

In a 68-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia called the program’s technology “almost Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.”

Judge Leon stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, a matter that he said could take some six months.

Vanee Vines, a spokeswoman for the N.S.A., had no immediate comment on the ruling by Judge Leon, a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush.

The ruling is the first successful legal challenge brought against the program since it was revealed in June after leaks by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden. It was brought by several plaintiffs led by Larry Klayman, a conservative public-interest lawyer. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a similar lawsuit in the Southern District of New York.

In a statement distributed by the journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was a recipient of leaked documents from Mr. Snowden and who wrote the first article about the bulk data collection, Mr. Snowden hailed the ruling.

“I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,” Mr. Snowden said. “Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.”

Though long and detailed, the ruling is not a final judgment, but rather a preliminary injunction to stop the data collection while the plaintiffs pursued the case. It turned on whether there was a substantial likelihood that they would ultimately succeed and whether they would suffer substantial harm in the meantime.

But Judge Leon left little doubt about his view.

“The question that I will ultimately have to answer when I reach the merits of this case someday is whether people have a reasonable expectation of privacy that is violated when the government, without any basis whatsoever to suspect them of any wrongdoing, collects and stores for five years their telephony metadata for purposes of subjecting it to high-tech querying and analysis without any case-by-case judicial approval,” he wrote. “For the many reasons set forth above, it is significantly likely that on that day, I will answer that question in plaintiffs’ favor.”

In laying out his conclusion, Judge Leon rejected the Obama administration’s argument that a 1979 case, Smith v. Maryland, meant that there is no Fourth Amendment protections for call metadata — information like the numbers called and received and the date, time and duration of the call, but not the content.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which secretly approved the N.S.A. program after hearing arguments from only the Justice Department, has maintained that the 1979 decision is a controlling precedent that shields the program from Fourth Amendment review. But Judge Leon said the scope of the program and the way people use phones today distinguishes the N.S.A. data collection from the type at issue in that case.

“Put simply, people in 2013 have an entirely different relationship with phones than they did 34 years ago,” he wrote. “Records that once would have revealed a few scattered tiles of information about a person now reveal an entire mosaic — a vibrant and constantly updating picture of the person’s life.”

Judge Leon also emphasized that he was unpersuaded by the government’s claims that the program served the public interest, pointedly noting that it failed to cite “a single instance in which analysis of the N.S.A.'s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive.” 

Progressives and Labor Together

PDA and Labor Come Together in New York for HR 676

Written by  Robert Score

 

Robert Score (IATSE Local One), Rep. John Conyers, Stephen Shaff, PDA

A truly historic meeting took place in New York City at a Labor Breakfast on December 6th, co-hosted by the Progressive Democrats of America and the New York City Central Labor Council in celebration of the endorsement of HR 676 - Expanded and Improved Medicare For All by the NYC CLC last May.

U.S. Congressman John Conyers, the author and lead sponsor of HR 676, was the honored guest and spoke of the energy that the endorsement by the NYC CLC, which represents over 1.3 million union members, brings to the movement of Healthcare for All.  NYC CLC President Vincent Alvarez spoke to the necessity for all working people, union and non-union, to have proper healthcare and that the forces within the industrial-insurance complex, although powerful, must be confronted before the working class families of our country are completely decimated by the ever increasing costs of health care.

Stephen Shaff, representing the PDA, addressed the group of labor leaders and healthcare advocates, noting the work being accomplished by the PDA and the importance of collaboration between the two distinct groups in achieving the common goal of healthcare for all.

Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator for the Labor Campaign For Single Payer Healthcare, Mark Hanny, Executive Director of Metro NY Healthcare For All, Laurie Wen and Katie Robbins from Physicians For National A National Health Plan (PNHP), Joe Benincasa, CEO of The Actors Fund, Scott Cool, IATSE Local One Trust Fund Administrator, Political Directors and rank and file members from several unions including the District Council of Carpenters, the IATSE, CWA and the TWU, were also in the house.

After all in attendance broke bread together, President Alvarez made the opening remarks.  We then shared a moment of silence in memory of world leader Nelson Mandela. It was my privilege to introduce Stephen Shaff and special guest and PDA supporter, television broadcaster Phil Donohue, who very eloquently spoke of his labor background and introduced The Honorable John Conyers.

Mr. Conyers held our attention with his strategic advice to advance the common cause of Single Payer Healthcare For All and his history of always standing for "Jobs, Justice and Peace."

The meeting concluded with our appetites satisfied and our activism energized. Thank you to PDA and the NYC CLC for a successful coming together of healthcare advocates, labor representatives and to Congressman John Conyers whose commitment to HR 676 is unwavering and inspirational.

Reining In the NSA

Amash-backed bill aimed to end NSA spying programs garners even bipartisan support

This Oct. 15, 2013, photo, shows a view of the U.S. Capitol building at dusk in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Andrew Krietz | akrietz@mlive.com
December 03, 2013

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade TownshipMLive.com File Photo 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An even split of Democratic and Republican legislators back a bill supported by Rep. Justin Amash, aiming to end the country's domestic surveillance programs.

The legislation, titled The USA Freedom Act, would, if signed into law, curb the National Security Agency's ability to conduct communications sweeps and close a "back door" to information by requiring a court order when performing searches of Americans in data already collected without warrants.

The Hill reported during the weekend that the bill has at least 102 cosponsors, including 51 Democrats and 51 Republicans. That number is up from what previously has been reported; at least 70 legislators, including Amash, R-Cascade Township, and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Detroit, supported the bill in October.

Will Adams, Amash's spokesman, said given the surge of support, he expects bipartisan, "comprehensive legislation" on the floor of the House this spring coming off of the upcoming holidays and the fiscal deadline in January.

"We think the American people want to rein in the NSA," Adams said. "They want their rights protected, they want their privacy protected from government surveillance."

The congressman recently told a group of constituents at a town hall event he has been pleased to receive positive reception over an issue he's blasted for the past year.

"It's getting out of control," Amash told the crowd. "(Courts are issuing) general warrants without specific cause, ... and you have one agency that's essentially having superpowers to pass information onto others."

Critics argue the NSA's actions of collecting private citizens' phone records are covert, done under secret court order without explanation and proper transparency."

Supporters, including U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, contend the agency acts within the interest of the United States' safety and security.
According to The Hill, members of Congress are placing increased pressure on House Republican leaders to bring the bill up for a vote. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, defends the NSA's programs and voted against the "Amash Amendment" in July, which would have defunded the programs.

A House Democratic aide told The Hill that Republican leadership is "boxed in" on the issue.
"They're stuck. They would deal with this in the way they deal with a lot of things — by just not moving the legislation," they told the publication.

However, Adams credits Boehner for allowing a vote on the amendment this summer despite his own vote. He, too, sees continued movement toward a possible spring vote considering some legislators who first opposed the amendment now support the Freedom Act.

"Regardless of what his personal views are ... he has, so far, afforded us the procedure to start the NSA reform debate," Adams said.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., coauthor of the 2001 USA Patriot Act, said the NSA has gone "far beyond" the original intent of the Patriot Act and overstepped its authority.

Eliz. Warren Progressives Choice

Warren, Liberal Faction Gaining Control Among Democrats

Monday, 02 Dec 2013 06:14 AM

By Elliot Jager

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A more liberal and populist movement is emerging within the Democratic Party that views President Barack Obama and the party's presumptive presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton as excessively centrist, according to the Washington Post.

This group is looking to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as its 2016 presidential standard-bearer.

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In contrast to Obama, Warren favors increasing Social Security payments. In a recent Senate floor speech she said, "The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 – at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors – is to allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch."

In addition to opposing any budget deal that would involve Social Security reductions, the more liberal faction favors stronger regulation of Wall Street; a $10.10-an-hour minimum wage, higher than the $9 favored by Obama; student loan debt relief; steps aimed at reducing economic inequality, and measures to protect workers from the aftershocks of globalization.

Clinton is seen by many on the left as being too close to Wall Street and to the devotees of Robert Rubin, her husband's Treasury secretary. Some also complain that Rubin's people have been running economic policy under Obama, according to the Post.

Warren, a former Harvard law professor, has also called for big banks to be broken up.

"Wall Street will fight us, but the American people are on our side," she told a union audience.

The Post reported that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, said that though he is not keen to run for president he is willing to do so if a sufficiently liberal Democrat does not enter the raise.

Fukushima Causing Thyroid Disease in CA Children

  Fukushima nuclear meltdown causes thyroid condition in California babies 

 

Photo: EPA

American scientists believe that the Fukushima nuclear fallout has impacted the health of babies born in California around the time of the Japanese power plant disaster. An upcoming review has revealed an increase in the number of newborns with congenital hypothyroidism, a rare but serious condition normally affecting about one child in 2,000.

Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland does not make enough thyroid hormone. 

The researchers believe the condition was triggered by the radioactive contamination traveling 5,000 miles across the Pacific.

In their study, which is to be published next week in peer-reviewed Open Journal of Pediatrics, the scientists examined congenital hypothyroidism rates in newborns and compared data for babies exposed to radioactive Iodine-131 and born between March 17 and December 31, 2011 with unexposed newborns delivered before the meltdown plus those born in 2012.

The results have been revealed in a paper titled “Changes in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.”

It showed that hypothyroidism increased by 21% in the group of babies that were exposed to excess radioactive Iodine in the womb, while “borderline cases” in the same group surged by 27%.

After the Fukushima Daiichi explosion, the winds blew the toxic iodine and other volatile radio nuclides out to sea and to the Pacific. Although much of the toxic waste dispersed on its way to the US West Coast, small amounts of I-131 were measured in milk and led to widespread concern.

One of the reasons for this is that radio-Iodine is associated with thyroid cancer in children. According to the Global Research Center, which studies the effects of globalization, the past six months saw an increase in thyroid cancer among children aged 0-18 from the affected prefecture following the Fukushima catastrophe, with up to 53 cases confirmed.

Meanwhile, the Japanese authority has been repetitively dismissing the catastrophe as a potential cause of health effects in Japan, let alone California, citing the official estimates that claim the “dose” was too “low” for unborn babies to be affected.

Global Research

Europe Near Wall St Financial Tax

European Progress Toward a Financial Transactions Tax

Monday, 18 November 2013 09:16 By Salvatore Babones, Truthout | News Analysis

The Europeans for financial reform, a coalition of progressive forces, support a Financial Transaction Tax. Picture taken during the first seminar of the Europeans for Financial Reform initiative, Brussels, 15 March 2010. (Photo: Thomas Delsoi / PES PSE )Germany's major political parties have agreed on the need to impose a financial transactions tax (FTT) as part of a broad package of economic reforms to be undertaken by a coalition government.

The German federal elections in September 2013 gave the conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel 311 seats in the German Parliament, just short of a majority. As a result, Merkel is negotiating with other parties to form a governing coalition.

The FTT is very popular in Germany. Eighty-two percent of Germans support an FTT, according to the latest Eurobarometer poll, compared with 64 percent of Europeans as a whole.   If Europeans could vote on financial regulation, they would vote for an FTT.
For details on the implications of financial transactions taxes and how they work, see the answers to these Frequently Asked Questions on FTTs.

For good or for bad, Germany is the economic and political heart of the European Union. Europe's largest country and largest economy has an even larger influence on European politics. In many ways, as goes Germany so goes Europe.

In recent years, this has sometimes been a problem, as when Germany demanded harsh austerity measures in response to the Eurozone banking crises of 2008-12.

At other times, German leadership has been a blessing. Germany has consistently used its influence to promote peace and good governance. And since the NSA was caught tapping Merkel's phone, Germany has come out strongly in favor of Internet privacy.

Now, Germany is leading the way toward a European FTT. Until the German coalition negotiations, the FTT had faded from the European agenda in the face of determined opposition from big banks and other business interests.

The popularity of the FTT in Germany made it one of the first planks to be agreed upon in the ongoing coalition negotiations. It may take several weeks or months for Germany's political parties to reach a final agreement. When the new German government takes office, a European FTT likely will be one of its top priorities.

The European Union began moving toward an FTT at the June 2013 Eurozone summit. At that event, European leaders agreed in principle to impose a tax on financial transactions. Their stated goal was to raise money to support European financial institutions.

The main opposition to a European FTT comes from the United Kingdom. The UK government is closely aligned with London's banks and financial firms. These businesses would bear the brunt of any FTT, because it would make them pay tax every time they traded financial instruments like stocks, bonds and derivatives.

Despite its fierce resistance to a European FTT, the UK has had a tax on stock market transactions since 1808. All industrialized countries have or used to have some form of tax on financial transactions. The difference is that a European FTT would be explicitly designed to slow trading in some of the most profitable - but riskiest - areas of finance.

The UK is a member of the European Union but is not a member of the Euro currency group, the so-called Eurozone. Germany is the most important member of the Eurozone, and the European Central Bank is based in Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt. If the new German government pushes for an FTT, the Eurozone is likely to follow.

A European FTT would have an important demonstration effect for the rest of the world, including the United States. To date, global financial regulation has been very weak. Pundits who are opposed to financial regulation claim that globalization makes it impossible to tax and regulate banks across borders.

If Europe successfully implements an FTT, it will demonstrate that it is possible to make banks pay for the privilege of trading financial instruments like stocks, bonds and derivatives. This could be an important first step toward creating a more stable global financial system that better serves the interests of the peoples of the world.

System Needs Unemployment - Wolff

Capitalism and Unemployment

Friday, 15 November 2013 10:25 By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis'''

Jaime Rodriguez, who said he interviewed unsuccessfully with at least eight companies since being laid off, volunteers with Alba Davila, right, at a community resource center in New York, February 6, 2013. (Photo: Karsten Moran / The New York Times)Capitalism as a system seems incapable of solving its unemployment problem. It keeps generating long-term joblessness, punctuated by spikes of recurring short-term extreme joblessness. The system's leaders cannot solve or overcome the problem. Before the latest capitalist crisis hit in 2007, the unemployment rate was near 5 percent. In 2013, it is near 7.5 percent. That is 50 percent higher despite the last six years of so-called "effective policies to address unemployment."
Capitalism makes employment depend chiefly on capitalists' decisions to undertake production, and those decisions depend on profits. If capitalists expect profits high enough to satisfy them, they hire. If capitalists don't, we get unemployment. Capitalism requires the unemployed, their families and their communities to live with firing decisions made by capitalists even though they are excluded from participating in those decisions. The United States revolted against Britain partly because it rejected being victimized by tax decisions from which it was excluded. Yet employment decisions are at least as important as tax decisions.

Unemployment has three dimensions that often escape public discussion, perhaps because they raise such fundamental questions about the capitalist system. The first dimension concerns the immense losses for society from the kind of unemployment capitalism reproduces and that we suffer today. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sum of unemployed people, "marginal" workers (those who stopped looking for work), and involuntarily part-time workers (the "underemployed") is roughly 14 per cent of the labor force. That is 20 million of our fellow citizens. Alongside that statistic, the Federal Reserve reports that 20 percent of our "industrial capacity" (tools, equipment, raw materials, floor space in factories, offices and stores, etc.) is sitting idle, wasted, not being used to produce goods and services. Capitalists make the decisions to not hire those millions of workers and to not buy, lease, or use all that industrial capacity.

Capitalists make those decisions based on what is privately profitable for them, not on what is lost to society. And that loss is huge. A simple calculation based on the numbers above proves the point. We as a nation forego about 15 percent of extra output of goods and services because of unemployed people and idled tools, equipment, etc. That comes to roughly $2 trillion per year. Yes, you read that correctly. We could produce an annual extra output far greater than the government's budget deficit ever was. We could use that extra to reduce global poverty by more than what has been done by all advanced industrial nations for decades. In short, we have taken staggering losses for our planet from being entrapped within an economic system that permits employment decisions to be held hostage to capitalists' profit calculations.

The second dimension of unemployment is the actual costs it imposes on society, costs not borne entirely, or even chiefly, by the capitalists whose decisions determine unemployment. A partial list of such costs includes additional government expenditures for unemployment compensation, food stamps, welfare supports and stimulus programs. Since the current capitalist crisis began in 2007, these costs are already in the trillions of dollars. It is also well known and documented that rising unemployment is positively correlated with rising physical and mental health problems, alcoholism, family disintegration, urban decline and so on. Public and private resources are expended to cope with these problems aggravated by unemployment. These resources come from the public much more than from the capitalists whose private decisions produced most of the unemployment. Capitalism socializes unemployment's immense costs.

The third dimension of unemployment concerns how capitalism distributes unemployment among workers. In the United States, when capitalists decide to reduce employment because that is the most profitable decision for their individual, private enterprises, the question is: How will that unemployment be managed? The answer we see most often is that individual capitalists choose which individual employees they will fire. Thus in today's United States, capitalists have selected most of the 7.5 percent of our people who are unemployed or underemployed. These they have condemned to full-time unemployment or reduced to unwanted part-time work.

An alternative option would manage unemployment by reducing everyone's work week by 7.5 per cent, or roughly 3 hours out of a week's 40 hours. Every worker would then have 3 hours of extra leisure for which no pay would be received. Instead, the saved money would be used to hire the 7.5 percent of workers who no longer need to be fired. Their work would substitute for the 3 hours lost from every other worker's week. In this way, unemployment would be shared by everyone and not imposed on a minority selected by capitalists.

Of course, capitalists oppose this alternative option. It costs them the benefits that have to be provided to all workers - more than if they could withhold benefits from fired workers (the usual practice). More importantly, if unemployment were shared, the injustice and waste of it would be driven home personally to every worker by his/her reduced hours and reduced pay. Right-wing ideologies would then find it harder to blame the unemployed for their joblessness. It would also make it easier to persuade and mobilize all workers to fight unemployment as their common enemy. Finally, it could help to spark the long-overdue debate over the social benefits and costs of more work and output versus more leisure and less pressure on our natural resources and environment.

Capitalists defend their "right" to hire and fire as an "entitlement" that cannot be questioned. Yet it surely should be challenged on grounds of its undemocratic nature and its perverse social results. Employing people in socially useful work (however a democratic society might define that) is more humane to the individuals, families and communities involved, and more productive and less costly than rendering them unemployed. Yet a private profit-driven capitalist system yields the endless unemployment, spiking repeatedly, that society does not want. Except, of course, capitalists want it because it keeps them at the top of capitalist society.