Deep State Hidden Behind Government

Exclusive Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State
by Mike Lofgren
BillMoyers.com
February 21, 2014

Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo. – The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (1871)

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power. [1]

During the last five years, the news media has been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics of Washington. The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become the new normal. That is certainly the case, and I have been among the harshest critics of this development. But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American governmental system. On one level, the critique is self-evident: In the domain that the public can see, Congress is hopelessly deadlocked in the worst manner since the 1850s, the violently rancorous decade preceding the Civil War.

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country…
As I wrote in The Party is Over, the present objective of congressional Republicans is to render the executive branch powerless, at least until a Republican president is elected (a goal that voter suppression laws in GOP-controlled states are clearly intended to accomplish). President Obama cannot enact his domestic policies and budgets: Because of incessant GOP filibustering, not only could he not fill the large number of vacancies in the federal judiciary, he could not even get his most innocuous presidential appointees into office. Democrats controlling the Senate have responded by weakening the filibuster of nominations, but Republicans are sure to react with other parliamentary delaying tactics. This strategy amounts to congressional nullification of executive branch powers by a party that controls a majority in only one house of Congress.

Despite this apparent impotence, President Obama can liquidate American citizens without due processes, detain prisoners indefinitely without charge, conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people without judicial warrant and engage in unprecedented — at least since the McCarthy era — witch hunts against federal employees (the so-called “Insider Threat Program”). Within the United States, this power is characterized by massive displays of intimidating force by militarized federal, state and local law enforcement. Abroad, President Obama can start wars at will and engage in virtually any other activity whatsoever without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress, such as arranging the forced landing of a plane carrying a sovereign head of state over foreign territory.

Despite the habitual cant of congressional Republicans about executive overreach by Obama, the would-be dictator, we have until recently heard very little from them about these actions — with the minor exception of comments from gadfly Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democrats, save a few mavericks such as Ron Wyden of Oregon, are not unduly troubled, either — even to the extent of permitting seemingly perjured congressional testimony under oath by executive branch officials on the subject of illegal surveillance.

These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Moammar Ghaddafi’s regime in Libya, and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government was somehow able to commit $115 million to keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay at least £100m to the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over and access to that country’s intelligence.

Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During that same period of time, the government spent $1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined. A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive every single trace of your electronic life.

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself.

US Interferes in Another Sovereign Country

A New Cold War? Ukraine Violence Escalates, Leaked Tape Suggests US Was Plotting Coup

Friday, 21 February 2014 11:14 By Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
 

Protesters extend their barricades near Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, February 21, 2014. (Photo: Sergey Ponomarev / The New York Times)A short-lived truce has broken down in Ukraine as street battles have erupted between anti-government protesters and police. Last night the country’s embattled president and the opposition leaders demanding his resignation called for a truce and negotiations to try to resolve Ukraine’s political crisis. But hours later, armed protesters attempted to retake Independence Square, sparking another day of deadly violence. At least 50 people have died since Tuesday in the bloodiest period of Ukraine’s 22-year post-Soviet history. While President Obama has vowed to "continue to engage all sides," a recently leaked audio recording between two top U.S. officials reveal the Obama administration has been secretly plotting with the opposition. We speak to Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. His most recent book, "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War," is out in paperback. His latest Nation article is "Distorting Russia: How the American Media Misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine."
TRANSCRIPT:

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A short-lived truce has broken down in Ukraine as street battles have erupted between anti-government protesters and police. Last night, the country’s embattled president and the opposition leaders demanding his resignation called for a truce and negotiations to try to resolve Ukraine’s political crisis. But the truce only lasted a few hours. The last three days have been the bloodiest period of Ukraine’s 22-year post-Soviet history. Over 50 people have died, including at least 21 today. The truce ended today when armed protesters attempted to retake Independence Square. Both sides have accused the other of using live ammunition. A Ukrainian paramedic described the chaotic scene.

UKRAINIAN PARAMEDIC: [translated] Some bodies are at the concert hall. Some are at the barricades. Now there are maybe around 15 or 20 dead. It is hard to count, as some are carried away, others are resuscitated. Now, as far as I know, three dead people are at the city hall, and two more dead are at the main post office. There are so many at the concert hall that we didn’t even take them.

AMY GOODMAN: The Ukrainian parliament, Rada, and Cabinet buildings have reportedly been evacuated because of fears they could be stormed by protesters. The street clashes are occurring while the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, is meeting with the foreign ministers from Germany, Poland and France.
The Obama administration stepped up pressure on the Ukrainian government Wednesday by announcing a visa ban on 20 members of the Ukrainian government. The U.S. is also threatening to place sanctions on the Ukrainian government.

The protests began in late November after President Yanukovych reversed his decision to sign a long-awaited trade deal with the European Union, or EU, to forge stronger ties with Russia instead.

To talk more about the latest in Ukraine, we’re joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. His most recent book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, is now out in paperback. His latest piece in The Nation is called "Distorting Russia: How the American Media Misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine."

So, talk about the latest, Professor Cohen.

STEPHEN COHEN: Where do you want me to begin? I mean, we are watching history being made, but history of the worst kind. That’s what I’m telling my grandchildren: Watch this. What’s happening there, let’s take the big picture, then we can go to the small picture. The big picture is, people are dying in the streets every day. The number 50 is certainly too few. They’re still finding bodies. Ukraine is splitting apart down the middle, because Ukraine is not one country, contrary to what the American media, which speaks about the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Historically, ethnically, religiously, culturally, politically, economically, it’s two countries. One half wants to stay close to Russia; the other wants to go West. We now have reliable reports that the anti-government forces in the streets—and there are some very nasty people among them—are seizing weapons in western Ukrainian military bases. So we have clearly the possibility of a civil war.

And the longer-term outcome may be—and I want to emphasize this, because nobody in the United States seems to want to pay attention to it—the outcome may be the construction, the emergence of a new Cold War divide between West and East, not this time, as it was for our generation, in faraway Berlin, but right on the borders of Russia, right through the heart of Slavic civilization. And if that happens, if that’s the new Cold War divide, it’s permanent instability and permanent potential for real war for decades to come. That’s what’s at stake.

One last point, also something that nobody in this country wants to talk about: The Western authorities, who bear some responsibility for what’s happened, and who therefore also have blood on their hands, are taking no responsibility. They’re uttering utterly banal statements, which, because of their vacuous nature, are encouraging and rationalizing the people in Ukraine who are throwing Molotov cocktails, now have weapons, are shooting at police. We wouldn’t permit that in any Western capital, no matter how righteous the cause, but it’s being condoned by the European Union and Washington as events unfold.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you say the Western countries who bear some responsibility, in what sense do they bear responsibility? I mean, clearly, there’s been an effort by the United States and Europe ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union to pull the former Soviet states into their economic sphere, but is that what you’re talking about?

STEPHEN COHEN: I mean that. I mean that Moscow—look at it through Moscow’s eyes. Since the Clinton administration in the 1990s, the U.S.-led West has been on a steady march toward post-Soviet Russia, began with the expansion of NATO in the 1990s under Clinton. Bush then further expanded NATO all the way to Russia’s borders. Then came the funding of what are euphemistically called NGOs, but they are political action groups, funded by the West, operating inside Russia. Then came the decision to build missile defense installations along Russia’s borders, allegedly against Iran, a country which has neither nuclear weapons nor any missiles to deliver them with. Then comes American military outpost in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which led to the war of 2008, and now the West is at the gates of Ukraine. So, that’s the picture as Moscow sees it. And it’s rational. It’s reasonable. It’s hard to deny.

But as for the immediate crisis, let’s ask ourselves this: Who precipitated this crisis? The American media says it was Putin and the very bad, though democratically elected, president of Ukraine, Yanukovych. But it was the European Union, backed by Washington, that said in November to the democratically elected president of a profoundly divided country, Ukraine, "You must choose between Europe and Russia." That was an ultimatum to Yanukovych. Remember—wasn’t reported here—at that moment, what did the much-despised Putin say? He said, "Why? Why does Ukraine have to choose? We are prepared to help Ukraine avoid economic collapse, along with you, the West. Let’s make it a tripartite package to Ukraine." And it was rejected in Washington and in Brussels. That precipitated the protests in the streets.

And since then, the dynamic that any of us who have ever witnessed these kinds of struggles in the streets unfolded, as extremists have taken control of the movement from the so-called moderate Ukrainian leaders. I mean, the moderate Ukrainian leaders, with whom the Western foreign ministers are traveling to Kiev to talk, they’ve lost control of the situation. By the way, people ask—excuse me—is it a revolution? Is it a revolution? A much abused word, but one sign of a revolution is the first victims of revolution are the moderates. And then it becomes a struggle between the extreme forces on either side. And that’s what we’re witnessing.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the Ukrainian opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who admitted earlier today the opposition does not have full control of protesters in Independence Square.

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: The only chance to do it is to stop the riot police, to stop the protesters, to impose a DMZ, like demilitarized zone, and to move this conflict from the streets to the Parliament.

REPORTER 1: Parts of the protesters are out of control?

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: No one—I would be very frank, that the government doesn’t control the riot police, and it’s very difficult for the opposition to control Maidan. And there are a number of forces who are uncontrolled. This is the truth.

REPORTER 2: So, Ukraine is in chaos now.

ARSENIY YATSENYUK: Ukraine is in a big mess.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Professor Cohen?

STEPHEN COHEN: A moderate.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go—

STEPHEN COHEN: Who wants to be president.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to President Obama. He’s in Mexico for the big Mexico-Canada-U.S. summit talking about Ukraine.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: With regard to Ukraine, along with our European partners, we will continue to engage all sides. And we continue to stress to President Yanukovych and the Ukrainian government that they have the primary responsibility to prevent the kind of terrible violence that we’ve seen, to withdraw riot police, to work with the opposition to restore security and human dignity, and move the country forward. And this includes progress towards a multi-party, technical government that can work with the international community on a support package and adopt reforms necessary for free and fair elections next year. Ukrainians are a proud and resilient people who have overcome extraordinary challenges in their history, and that’s a pride and strength that I hope they draw on now.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama in Mexico, Professor Cohen.

STEPHEN COHEN: What are you asking me to comment on?

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to his response.

STEPHEN COHEN: To what he just said? Shame. Shame. He is saying that the responsibility for restoring peace is on the Ukrainian government, and it should withdraw its security forces from the streets. But let me ask you, if in Washington people throwing Molotov cocktails are marching on Congress—and these people are headed for the Ukrainian Congress—if these people have barricaded entrance to the White House and are throwing rocks at the White House security guard, would President Obama withdraw his security forces? This is—this is—and do you know what this does? And let’s escape partisanship here. I mean, lives are at stake. This incites, these kinds of statement that Obama made. It rationalizes what the killers in the streets are doing. It gives them Western license, because he’s not saying to the people in the streets, "Stop this, stop shooting policemen, stop attacking government buildings, sit down and talk." And the guy you had on just before, a so-called moderate leader, what did he just tell you? "We have lost control of the situation." That’s what I just told you. He just confirmed that.

So what Obama needs to say is, "We deplore what the people in the streets are doing when they attack the police, the law enforcement official. And we also don’t like the people who are writing on buildings 'Jews live here,'" because these forces, these quasi-fascist forces—let’s address this issue, because the last time I was on your broadcast, you found some guy somewhere who said there was none of this there. All right. What percent are the quasi-fascists of the opposition? Let’s say they’re 5 percent. I think they’re more, but let’s give them the break, 5 percent. But we know from history that when the moderates lose control of the situation, they don’t know what to do. The country descends in chaos. Five percent of a population that’s tough, resolute, ruthless, armed, well funded, and knows what it wants, can make history. We’ve seen it through Europe. We’ve seen it through Asia. This is reality. And where Washington and Brussels are on this issue, they won’t step up and take the responsibility.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, even in most recent history, whether you look at Libya or whether you look at the situation in Syria, where those presidents warned that there were extremist elements inside a broader popular movement that were eventually going to gain control, this seems like a replay in terms of what’s going on here in the Ukraine of a popular movement, but yet a very, very, as you say, right-wing movement—not only a right-wing movement, but a fascist movement with a history. Ukraine has had a history of a fascist movement going back to the days of Nazi Germany.

STEPHEN COHEN: Let’s go to real heresy. Let’s ask a question: Who has been right about interpreting recent events? Let’s go to the Arab Spring. Obama and Washington said this was about democracy now, this is great. Russia said, "Wait a minute. If you destabilize, even if they’re authoritarian leaders in the Middle East, you’re not going to get Thomas Jefferson in power. You’re going to get jihadists. You’re going to get very radical people in power all through the Middle East." Looking back, who was right or wrong about that narrative? Have a look at Egypt. Have a look at Libya. Who was right? Can Russians ever be right about anything?

Now what are the Russians saying about Ukraine? They’re saying what you just said, that the peaceful protesters, as we keep calling them—I think a lot of them have gone home. There were many. By the way, at the beginning, there were hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, of very decent, liberal, progressive, honorable people in the streets. But they’ve lost control of the situation. That’s the point now. And so, the Russians are saying, "Look, you’re trying to depose Yanukovych, who’s the elected government." Think. If you overthrow—and, by the way, there’s a presidential election in a year. The Russians are saying wait 'til the next election. If you overthrow him—and that's what Washington and Brussels are saying, that he must go—what are you doing to the possibility of democracy not only in Ukraine, but throughout this part of the world? And secondly, who do you think is going to come to power? Please tell us. And we’re silent.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the famous leaked tape right now. The top State Department official has apologized to her European counterparts after she was caught cursing the European Union, the EU, in a leaked audio recording that was posted to YouTube. The recording captured an intercepted phone conversation between the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe. Nuland expresses frustration over Europe’s response to the political crisis in Ukraine, using frank terms.

VICTORIA NULAND: So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the U.N. help glue it. And, you know, [bleep] the EU.

AMY GOODMAN: While Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s comment about the EU dominated the news headlines because she used a curse, there were several other very interesting parts of her conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

GEOFFREY PYATT: Let me work on Klitschko, and if you can just keep—I think we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. Then the other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych, but we can probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.

VICTORIA NULAND: So, on that piece, Geoff, when I wrote the note, Sullivan’s come back to me VFR saying, "You need Biden?" And I said, "Probably tomorrow for an attaboy and to get the deets to stick." So Biden’s willing.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Pyatt, speaking with Victoria Nuland. The significance of what she is saying? She also had gone to Ukraine and was feeding protesters on the front line.

STEPHEN COHEN: Cookies, cookies. Well, here again, the American political media establishment, including the right and the left and the center—because they’re all complicit in this nonsense—focused on the too sensational, they thought, aspect of that leaked conversation. She said, "F— the European Union," and everybody said, "Oh, my god! She said the word." The other thing was, who leaked it? "Oh, it was the Russians. Those dirty Russians leaked this conversation." But the significance is what you just played. What are they doing? The highest-ranking State Department official, who presumably represents the Obama administration, and the American ambassador in Kiev are, to put it in blunt terms, plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine.

Now, that said, Amy, Juan, you may say to me—neither of you would, but hypothetically—"That’s a good thing. We don’t like—we don’t care if he was elected democratically. He’s a rat. He’s corrupt." And he is all those things. He is. "Let’s depose him. That’s what the United States should do. Then the United States should stand up and say, ’That’s what we do: We get rid of bad guys. We assassinate them, and we overthrow them.’" But in Washington and in Brussels, they lie: They’re talking about democracy now. They’re not talking about democracy now; they’re talking about a coup now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, this is more from—

STEPHEN COHEN: And we—excuse me—and we should—we, American citizens, should be allowed to choose which policy we want. But they conceal it from us. And I’m extremely angry that the people in this country who say they deplore this sort of thing have fallen silent.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let’s listen to little bit more of the leaked conversation between the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe.

VICTORIA NULAND: Good. So, I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea.

GEOFFREY PYATT: Yeah. I mean, I guess, you think—in terms of him not going into the government, just let him sort of stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I’m just thinking, in terms of sort of the process moving ahead, we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok and his guys. And, you know, I’m sure that’s part of what Yanukovych is calculating on all of this. I kind of—

VICTORIA NULAND: I think—I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy—you know, what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week. You know, I just think Klitsch going in, he’s going to be at that level working for Yatsenyuk. It’s just not going to work.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, speaking with Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine. Stephen Cohen, this—this chess game—

STEPHEN COHEN: You don’t need me here. What do you need me for?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —this chess game that they’re conducting here?

STEPHEN COHEN: There it is. There it is.

AMY GOODMAN: But explain the names. Who is Klitsch, Yats?

STEPHEN COHEN: All right. And notice the intimacy with which the Americans deal with the two leading so-called "moderate"—and these are big shots, they both want to be president—Ukrainian opposition. Klitschko is Vitali Klitschko, a six-foot-eight former—he resigned his title two months ago to enter politics—heavyweight champion of the world. His residence has been Ukraine—I mean, Germany. He plays—he pays taxes in Germany. He’s a project of Merkel. He represents German interests. I’m sure he’s also faithful to Ukraine, but he’s got a problem. Yatsenyuk, however—not Yatsenyuk, but the other guy she calls "Yats" is a representative of the Fatherland Party. It’s a big party in Parliament. But Washington likes him a lot. They think he’ll be our man. So you could see what they’re saying. We don’t quite trust Klitschko. Now, if you want to get esoteric, that’s the tug between Washington and Berlin. They’re not happy with Merkel, the chancellor of Germany. They don’t like the role Merkel is playing, generally. They think Germany has gotten too big for its britches. They want to cut Merkel down. So you noticed Klitschko, the boxer, is Merkel’s proxy, or at least she’s backing him. You notice that they say, "He’s not ready for prime time. Let him do his homework."

Now, this guy—I’m bad on Ukrainian names. Tyagnybok, that they say has got to play a role, he’s the leader of the Freedom Party, the Svoboda Party, but a large element of that party, to put it candidly, is quasi-fascist. And they’re prepared to embrace this guy. This is the guy, by the way, that Senator John McCain in November or December went to Kiev and embraced. Either McCain didn’t know who he was, or he didn’t care. The United States is prepared to embrace that guy, too—anything to get rid of Yanukovych, because they think this is about Putin. That’s all they really got on their mind.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, here you have President Obama, again, speaking yesterday in Mexico.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Our approach as the United States is not to see these as some Cold War chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia. Our goal is to make sure that the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future, that the people of Syria are able to make decisions without having bombs going off and killing women and children, or chemical weapons, or towns being starved, because a despot wants to cling to power.

AMY GOODMAN: Who benefits from the instability, Professor Cohen, in Ukraine? And what does it mean for Putin? Is he concerned about this?

STEPHEN COHEN: Of course he’s concerned. It’s right on his borders, and it’s all tainting him. I mean, The Washington Post wrote an editorial yesterday. Putin is happy that the violence has broken out in the streets. Everybody understands, even The Washington Post understands, which understands almost nothing about Russia, but they got this, that during the Sochi Olympics, the last thing Putin wants is violence in Ukraine. So why is he happy about it? He deplores it. He’s unhappy. He’s furious at the president of Ukraine. He read him the Riot Act on the phone last night, that why doesn’t he get control of the situation? What is he doing? So Putin is not responsible for this. Can we speak about Obama?

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly.

STEPHEN COHEN: Very quickly. I grew up in the segregated South. I voted for him twice, as historical justice. That’s not leadership. That’s a falsification of what’s happening in Ukraine, and it’s making the situation worse, what he says, is that we deplore the violence and call upon Ukrainian government to withdraw its forces and stop the violence. He needs to talk about what’s happening in the streets.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And is it conceivable, if Ukraine descends into a further civil war, that Russia might intervene?

STEPHEN COHEN: It’s conceivable. It’s conceivable. Here—I mean, Yanukovych—you might say, as an adviser to Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine, "Impose martial law now, because you’ve got bad PR in the West anyway, and you’re not in control of the situation." The problem is, Yanukovych isn’t sure he controls the army.

AMY GOODMAN: He just fired the head of the army yesterday.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, we don’t know what it means, but it indicates he’s not too sure about the army. But, by the way, you asked, would Russia intervene? Would NATO intervene? NATO is all over the place. NATO was in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Ask yourself that: Would NATO send troops in? Is that, yes, you think they would?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I—

STEPHEN COHEN: We don’t know.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We don’t know, yeah.

STEPHEN COHEN: And we’re not going to be told, just like we’re not being told what’s going on in these private conversations about deposing the president of Ukraine. If they depose—

AMY GOODMAN: Unless they’re leaked again.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, and if the Russians leak them, it doesn’t count. Is that right?

AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. can hardly protest, given the whole scandal with the NSA recording conversations.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, well, you know what they said. They said—they said, when this got leaked, that this is a low point in statecraft. After Snowden? After Snowden? I mean, what did Tennessee Williams used to say? Mendacity? Mendacity? The mendacity of it all? Don’t they trust us, our government, to tell us a little bit of the truth at last?

AMY GOODMAN: Stephen Cohen, I want to thank you for being with us. We’re going to move onto Venezuela. Stephen Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. His most recent book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, it’s just out in paperback. His latest piece in The Nation is "Distorting Russia: How the American Media Misrepresent [Putin], Sochi and Ukraine." This is Democracy Now!
 

Giant Shark Banks on the Attack

 

AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore

 

Predator Banks Enter Brave New World of Epic Scams and Public Hasn’t Got a Clue

Wall Street is using loopholes in financial legislation to seize control of entire industrial chains.

    

Wall Street watchers have been concerned for some time about the monopolizing trend among big banks. One of the most alarming developments in recent years is a buying spree in which megabanks have been gobbling up physical assets.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has delved into this story in his characteristically colorful way, shining a light on how this particular activity took off, namely through an overlooked provision in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This arcane-sounding piece of Clinton-era legislation ranks high on the list of Very Bad Ideas coming out of Washington since the 1980s. It essentially overturned Depression-era regulations that had kept the banking sector under control and opened the door for commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies to merge their businesses.

The fine print of the bill also allowed commercial banks to dive into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."

So what exactly classifies as “complementary” to financial activity? When the idea came up in Congress in 1999, JPMorgan’s Michael Patterson said it was something like American Express owning a lifestyle magazine that complemented its business. No biggie.

But in reality, it has meant pretty much everything. Like, for example, oil tankers and raw materials. The result is something the public never signed off on — banks getting their mitts on entire supply chains and industrial processes. Taibbi explains how this is going down:

“Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum.”

Recently, something rotten occurred in Denmark, as Goldman Sachs launched its bid to buy a 19 percent stake in the national electricity provider, a deal that would give it control of key management decisions. The streets erupted in protest as Danes (some carrying images of vampire squids) raged at the idea that government ministers could have invited an American investment bank to exert so much control over the state energy grid. The deal actually set off a crisis in the Danish government.

In California, citizens found out recently that big banks have been rigging prices in the physical business interests they own. JPMorgan Chase and Barclays are accused of manipulating the delivery of electricity in California and elsewhere. Last year, JPMorgan paid $410 million to settle allegations of power market manipulation in California to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Goldman Sachs, for its part, has come under scrutiny for allegedly delaying the delivery of metals from warehouses it owned so that it could manipulate prices (it has since offered to speed delivery).

Banks not only own the supply chains, they also place bets on their activity in financial markets, such as buying commodities futures. The whole thing is a recipe for corruption and conflicts of interest. Regulators, who have doing precious little about the money laundering, bribery and other scams we already know about, have been slow to address these new problems, the scope of which may be very frightening indeed.

The financial crisis taught us that big banks have turned into dangerous companies that are not only too big to fail, but, as Attorney General Eric Holder openly admitted, too big to police. Their reach continues to extend into more areas of the economy, with little public debate. President Obama has surrounded himself with economic advisors who are not inclined to rein in the banks; some of the banks even participated in the dismantling of the laws that once protected American citizens from their predation.

A lot will depend on the ability of the regulators to adapt to the changes occurring in the banking industry. Wall Street is under pressure to get rid of some commodities assets amid growing awareness of their ability to muck around with the availability of supplies and prices. The Federal Reserve is moving toward tighter restrictions on bank roles in physical commodity markets, and has issued a request for public input on the matter.

Wall Street’s push into the physical commodities markets is a brave new world of financial risk, which will be assumed, as always, by you and me. Now we can add the fear of a catastrophic pipeline explosion to the list of events that might trigger another meltdown the taxpayers will end up paying for.

Meanwhile, you can bet Wall Street is looking for the next loophole.

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of "Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture." She received her Ph.D. in English and cultural theory from NYU. She is the director of AlterNet's New Economic Dialogue Project. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.

State GOP Attack Public Unions Dues Checkoff Rights

Republicans Attack Public Unions' Dues Check Off Rights

The Latest Attack on Public Sector Unions: Paycheck Protection in Pennsylvania and Missouri

Tuesday, 11 February 2014 10:06 By John Logan, Truthout | Op-Ed

Wisconsin workers rally, March 6, 2011. (Photo: Karen Hickey for wisaflcio / Flickr)

The GOP offensive against public sector unions at the state level that began in earnest in Wisconsin and Ohio in early 2011 is far from over. In its more recent manifestation, Republican politicians in Missouri and Pennsylvania are once again promoting so-called "paycheck protection" legislation, which they claim will protect the interests of ordinary workers. Nothing could be further from the truth. In common with similar legislation that right-wing groups have promoted for the past two decades, the goal of this legislation is to silence the political voice of working people and ensure that the wealthy dominate state elections.

Paycheck "Protection" Has Always Been a Partisan Right-Wing Ploy
Along with legislation restricting public sector bargaining and right-to-work laws, paycheck protection legislation - which either restricts unions' ability to raise or spend money on politics - has been one of the main anti-union initiatives that conservative activists have promoted at the state level.

Starting with the very first legislation in Washington State in 1992, a state-level network of right-wing organizations promoted paycheck legislation through ballot initiatives and bills. Paycheck legislation has always been a cynical attempt to tilt the balance of political power in favor of right-wing politicians who promote that legislation, not an effort to protect individual union members and non-union employees. In 1998, President Clinton explained that paycheck is a partisan power solution in search of an imaginary problem: "This is an attempt to create the impression that workers are being put upon when they aren't. And it's being done to alter the balance of power in the political debate."

Union members and non-members already enjoy a well-established legal right not to contribute to union political spending. Unions cannot force employees to have money for representation or political activities automatically deducted from their paycheck without authorization. Paycheck-protection legislation does not provide workers' with any rights they do not currently enjoy, but it deprives choice from workers who want a union with an effective political voice. In the name of solicitude for workers, disingenuous paycheck measures aim to take working people out of politics. In common with earlier paycheck measures, current paycheck bills in Pennsylvania and Missouri are based on model legislation devised by the ultra-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

In the past few years, right-wing organizations and activists have promoted bills targeting automatic dues deduction in well over a dozen states. They have succeeded in enacting legislation in Wisconsin, North Carolina (for school employees), Michigan (for school employees and child care providers) and have had partial successes in other states. Whenever they are put to the electorate, however, paycheck measures almost always lose - they have lost three times in California in the past 15 years - because voters recognize that they are a cynical ploy. In a 2013 campaign for protection legislation in Kansas, a right-wing lobbyist explained that he "needed this bill passed so we can get rid of public sector unions."

Corporate Political Money Is the Real Problem
The battle over political spending has intensified after the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which stated that corporations and unions have a constitutional right to make unlimited independent expenditures, so long as they are not coordinated with candidates' campaigns. Although they are vastly outspent, unions are the only organized group whose political expenditures are anywhere near the level of spending by powerful corporations and conservative billionaires, which is why right-wing groups target them.

Moreover, unions are the most transparent organizations in the country when it comes to spending on politics. Unions file detailed reports with the Labor Department that disclose a broad range of activities related to politics, including polling fees, money spent on internal political communications, and even the cost of bratwursts used to feed workers protesting Wisconsin's controversial law eliminating public sector bargaining at the state capitol in early 2011. Powerful corporations, in contrast, do not disclose a broad range of their political spending activities. Unlike union members and non-union employees - whose right to opt out of political spending is protected by law - employees, customers, and shareholders have no legal right to opt out of paying for corporate political expenditures. The same groups that have promoted paycheck protection measures have opposed giving shareholders opt-out rights when it comes to corporate spending on politics.

As Harvard Law Professor Ben Sachs has pointed out, most public employees, who have no legal right to opt out, help fund corporate political speech. Public sector employees are forced to subsidize corporate political speech through pension contributions - they "cannot choose stock or avoid compelled speech associated with stock choices" - but no employee is ever forced to subsidize union political speech. In addition, corporations spend most of their political funds on external lobbying, while unions spend more on internal political communications with their members. This lack of transparency is especially significant because in recent years, corporations and conservative billionaires have vastly outspent unions in both state and national politics.

In the past, right-wing supporters of paycheck protection have stated that this type of legislation will "enable us to break the unions" and "crush labor unions as a political entity." Paycheck bills are part of a nationwide assault on public sector unions and a nationwide strategy to diminish the political voice of working people. Paycheck protection is bad for Missouri and bad for Pennsylvania and should be rejected.

John Logan is a Professor of Labor at San Francisco State College.

UK NSA Attacks Anonymous Rebels

The New Snowden Revelation Is Dangerous for Anonymous - And for All of Us

By Gabriella Coleman, Wired

08 February 14

he latest Snowden-related revelation is that Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) proactively targeted the communications infrastructure used by the online activist collective known as Anonymous.

Specifically, they implemented distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the internet relay chat (IRC) rooms used by Anonymous. They also implanted malware to out the personal identity details of specific participants. And while we only know for sure that the U.K.'s GCHQ and secret spy unit known as the "Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group" (JTRIG) launched these attacks in an operation called "Rolling Thunder," the U.S.' NSA was likely aware of what they were doing because the British intelligence agents presented their program interventions at the NSA conference SIGDEV in 2012. (Not to mention the two agencies sharing close ties in general.)

Whether you agree with the activities of Anonymous or not - which have included everything from supporting the Arab Spring protests to DDoSing copyright organizations to doxing child pornography site users - the salient point is that democratic governments now seem to be using their very tactics against them.

The key difference, however, is that while those involved in Anonymous can and have faced their day in court for those tactics, the British government has not. When Anonymous engages in lawbreaking, they are always taking a huge risk in doing so. But with unlimited resources and no oversight, organizations like the GCHQ (and theoretically the NSA) can do as they please. And it's this power differential that makes all the difference.

There are many shades of gray around using denial-of-service attacks as a protest tactic. Unlike a hack, which involves accessing or damaging data, a DDoS attack renders a web page inaccessible due to an excessive flood of traffic. As an anthropologist who has studied hacker culture, hacktivism, and Anonymous in particular, I struggled to find some black-and-white moral certitude for such activities. But as one member of Anonymous told me: "Trying to find a sure fire ethical defense for Anonymous DDoSing is going to twist you into moral pretzels."

Judging the "moral pretzel" of DDoS attacks requires understanding the nuances of how they are carried out, and DDoS attacks tend to be problematic no matter what the motivation. Still, they've been a worthwhile exercise in experimenting with a new form of protest in an increasingly digital era. In the case of Anonymous, this form of protest came about because of the banking blockade against WikiLeaks. While the protest was rooted in deceit (they used botnets and many of their participants did not know that), it was certainly not destructive (especially since it was leveled against a large organization that could withstand it). The whole point was to get media attention, which they did.

But here's the thing: You don't even need to believe in or support DDoS as a protest tactic to find the latest Snowden revelations troubling. There are clearly defined laws and processes that a democratic government is supposed to follow. Yet here, the British government is apparently throwing out due process and essentially proceeding straight to the punishment - using a method that is considered illegal and punishable by years in prison. Even if DDoS attacks would do more damage upstream (than to IRC), it's a surprising revelation.

 

The real concern here is a shotgun approach to justice that sprays its punishment over thousands of people who are engaged in their democratic right to protest simply because a small handful of people committed digital vandalism. This is the kind of overreaction that usually occurs when a government is trying to squash dissent; it's not unlike what happens in other, more oppressive countries.

Since 2008, activists around the world have rallied around the name 'Anonymous' to take collective action and voice political discontent. The last two years in particular have been a watershed moment in the history of hacktivism: Never before have so many geeks and hackers wielded their keyboards for the sake of political expression, dissent, and direct action.

Even though some Anonymous participants did engage in actions that were illegal, the ensemble itself poses no threat to national security. The GCHQ has no business infecting activists' systems with malware and thwarting their communications. And if we're going to prosecute activists and put them in jail for large amounts of time for making a website unavailable for 10 minutes, then that same limitation should apply to anyone who breaks the law - be they a hacker, our next door neighbor, or the GCHQ.

As it is, the small subset of Anonymous activists who engaged in illegal civil disobedience face serious consequences. These activists - on both sides of the Atlantic - are currently paying a steep price for breaking the law, because the current form of the laws under which they're charged (the Computer Misuse Act in the U.K., and the CFAA in the U.S.) tend to mete out more excessive and often disproportionate punishments compared to analogous offline ones. For instance, physical tactics such as trespass or vandalism of property rarely result in serious criminal consequences for participants and tend to be minor civil infractions instead of federal crimes. Yet that same nuance - which fundamentally recognizes the intention and the consequences of such protest actions - is rarely extended to online activities. Criminal punishments for such acts can stretch out to years, disrupt lives, lead to felony charges on employment records, and result in excessively high fines.

To put this in perspective: In Wisconsin alone a man was fined for running an automated DDoS tool against the Koch Industries website for 60 seconds. (He was protesting the billionaire Koch brothers' role in supporting the Wisconsin governor's effort to reduce the power of unions and public employees' right to engage in collective bargaining.) The actual financial losses were less than $5,000, but he was charged a fine of $183,000 - even though a far worse physical crime in the same state was only fined $6400.

In the U.K., Chris Weatherhead - who didn't directly contribute to a DDoS campaign but ran the communication hub where the protests were coordinated - received a whopping 18-month sentence. This is even more time than was given to hackers who broke into computer systems, stole data, and dumped it on the internet.

Based on these and other sentences already handed out, it's clear that judges consider Anonymous' actions to be serious and punishable. Scores of Anonymous hacktivists have already been arrested or jailed.

Meanwhile, agencies like the GCHQ face no such risks, deterrents, consequences, oversight, or accountability. This scenario is all the more alarming given that some of Anonymous' actions may be illegal and might warrant attention from some law enforcement agencies - but do not even come close to constituting a terrorist threat. And that means we're inching into the same territory as the dictatorial regimes criticized by democratic governments for not respecting internet freedoms.

 

Warren Calls for Postal Savings Accounts

by GleninCAFollow for GleninCA

• 

A few days ago, a diary was posted explaining that the US Inspector General had recently endorsed the idea of the United States Post Office offering simple banking services in addition to its normal mail delivery service. While this idea might seem foreign to many Americans, in the past the post office actually offered banking services for over 50 years. Per The New Republic, beginning in 1911:

"...the Postal Savings System allowed Americans to deposit cash with certain branch post offices, at 2 percent interest. By 1947, the system held deposits for over four million customers. Though dismantled in 1967 (after banks offered higher interest rates and eroded its market share), the post office continues to issue domestic and international money orders, including $22.4 billion worth in 2011, as well as prepaid debit cards through a deal with American Express."

Putting aside the sad fact that banks once offered 2% interest rates (and you would now be lucky to get even half a percent), today post offices could offer basic banking services such as check-cashing, saving accounts, and even small-dollar loans similar to payday lenders, yet at much lower interest rates which could potentially save low-income Americans thousands of dollars per household per year. The idea is so good that Senator Elizabeth Warren has now endorsed the idea.

In an op-ed for The Huffington Post, Senator Warren explains that because of the exorbitant fees that payday lenders charge, low-income Americans spend roughly 10% of their income on things like checking cashing and short term loans, which is roughly the same amount that the average American spends on food.

Having grown up in a low-income family myself, I've experienced far too many times to recall when my single mother would go to one of these payday lenders for a short-term loan just to keep the lights at home from being shut off or to pay the rent and would quickly find herself in a vicious cycle of more loans, fees, and high interest rates.

Fortunately in my adult life I haven't had to endure that same hardship, but in today's world of stagnant wages and an increasing cost of living, many Americans still turn to these payday lenders as they struggle to stay in the middle class.

As Elizabeth Warren points out, this idea has been done in other countries around the world and has been proven successful. Furthermore, not only could it help millions of Americans but it could also prove beneficial to the postal service's bottom line at a time when USPS - which employs over half a million people - desperately needs it.

This idea could easily be adopted by the Postmaster General and begin without Congressional approval, but so far he has declined to endorse the Inspector General's recommendation. But hopefully now with people like Senator Warren endorsing the idea,  public pressure will mount for this idea to become a reality.

Internet Corps Release NSA Orders

Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Yahoo release US surveillance requests

• Tech giants turn over data from tens of thousands of accounts
• Limited disclosure part of transparency deal made last month

• Spencer Ackerman

Microsoft, Twitter, Google and Facebook all participate in the NSA's Prism effort. Photograph: Pichi Chuang/Reuters

Tens of thousands of accounts associated with customers of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo have their data turned over to US government authorities every six months as the result of secret court orders, the tech giants disclosed for the first time on Monday.

As part of a transparency deal reached last week with the Justice Department, four of the tech firms that participate in the National Security Agency’s Prism effort, which collects largely overseas internet communications, released more information about the volume of data the US demands they provide than they have ever previously been permitted to disclose.

But the terms of the deal prevent the companies from itemising the collection, beyond bands of thousands of data requests served on them by a secret surveillance court. The companies must also delay by six months disclosing information on the most recent requests – terms the Justice Department negotiated to end a transparency lawsuit before the so-called FISA court that was brought by the companies.

In announcing the updated data figures, the companies appeared concerned by the lack of precision over the depth of their compelled participation in government surveillance.

“We still believe more transparency is needed so everyone can better understand how surveillance laws work and decide whether or not they serve the public interest,” said Google’s legal director for law enforcement and information security, Richard Salgado, in a post on the company’s official blog.
“Specifically, we want to disclose the precise numbers and types of requests we receive, as well as the number of users they affect in a timely way.”

In the most recent period for which data is available, January to June 2013 – a period ended by the beginning of whistleblower Edward Snowden’s landmark surveillance disclosures – Google gave the government the internet metadata of up to 999 customer accounts, and the content of communications from between 9,000 and 9,999 customers.

Microsoft received fewer than 1,000 orders from the FISA court for communications content during the same period, related to between 15,000 and 15,999 “accounts or individual identifiers”.
The company, which owns the internet video calling service Skype, also disclosed that it received fewer than 1,000 orders for metadata – which reveals communications patterns rather than individual message content – related to fewer than 1,000 accounts or identifiers.

Yahoo disclosed that it gave the government communications content from between 30,000 and 30,999 accounts over the first six months of 2013, and fewer than 1,000 customer accounts that were subject to Fisa court orders for metadata.

Facebook disclosed that during the first half of 2013, it turned over content data from between 5000 and 5999 accounts – a rise of about 1000 from the previous six month period – and customer metadata associated with up to 999 accounts.

Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo also gave the FBI certain customer records – not content – under a type of non-judicial subpoena called a national security letter. Since disclosure of national security letters is not subject to a six-month delay under last week’s deal, Microsoft revealed that it received up to 999 such subpoenas between June and December 2013, affecting up to 999 user accounts. Facebook’s National Security Letter total was the same.

Yahoo received up to 999 national security letters during the same period, affecting 1,000 to 1,999 accounts. Google received the same total, and disclosed that since 2009, national security letters have compelled the handover of customer records from as many as 1999 accounts every six months. Last week Apple disclosed that between 1 January and 30 June 2013 it had received less than 250 national security orders – including national security letters and other requests – relating to less than 250 accounts.

LinkedIn, the professional networking service, disclosed on Monday that it received the same total of generic “national security requests.”

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, posted on the company’s blog that “only a fraction of a percent of users are affected by these orders”, and argued that “we have not received the type of bulk data requests that are commonly discussed publicly regarding telephone records.”

But the disclosures only apply to data requests turned over to the NSA and FBI as the result of FISA court orders.

Documents that Snowden disclosed to the Guardian, Washington Post and other outlets show that the NSA also siphons communications and associated data from information in transit across the global communications infrastructure – without court orders, under authority claimed under a seminal executive order known as executive order 12,333.

“Nothing in today's report minimises the significance of efforts by Governments to obtain customer information outside legal process,” Smith said, affirming that the company remained concerned about reports of clandestine government hacking and would continue to press for more transparency from the US government and others.

Google data shows a significant growth in internet content collection from its products by the NSA. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The data from Google shows a significant growth in internet content collection from its products by the NSA. In the first six months of 2009, the company gave the government data from up to 2,999 customer accounts, a figure that grew to between 12,000 and 12,999 customer accounts by the second half of 2012 before dipping to under 10,000 accounts in the first half of 2013.
But the data does not provide any indication of what accounted for the rise, beyond the growth in popularity of Google email and other internet products.

Similarly, Microsoft revealed that it gave the US government content information on more than 12,000 customer accounts in the second half of 2011, a figure that grew to over 16,000 customer accounts in late 2012 before dropping to more than 15,000 in the first six months of 2013.
Kevin Bankston, the policy director for the Open Technology Institute in Washington, said the amount of information the companies were able to detail about their roles in US surveillance was “far less than what we need for adequate accountability from the government”.

“Lumping all of the different types of surveillance orders together into one number, then adding obscurity on top of obscurity by requiring that number to be reported in ranges of one thousand, is not enough to educate the American public or reassure the international community that the NSA is using its surveillance authorities responsibly," said Bankston, who like Google’s Salgado advocated legislation permitting the additional disclosure of “specific number of requests issued under specific legal authorities and the number of people affected by each”.

Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new information in the transparency reports was “a good first step” but added that large questions remained. Cardozo said the national security letters had all been “lumped together” and it was impossible to see what legal framework had been used to compel the companies to hand over information.

“It makes you question the government’s repeated assertions that it welcomes this debate,” he said.
Microsoft’s Smith lamented that “despite the President's reform efforts and our ability to publish more information, there has not yet been any public commitment by either the US or other governments to renounce the attempted hacking of internet companies.

“We believe the constitution requires that our government seek information from American companies within the rule of law. We'll therefore continue to press for more on this point, in collaboration with others across our industry.”

• An earlier version of this story stated in error that Google did not disclose the number of national security letters it had received. This has been corrected.

 It was further revised to remove an unsubstantiated description of Microsoft being a "major surveillance partner for the US government".