Tuesday 30 September 2014

The Little-Known Law Behind Our 'Collect It All' Spy State

ACLU Freedom of Information request exposes the executive order defined by the NSA as the "primary source" of their surveillance authority



The powers granted to the National Security Agency to spy on millions of Americans and 
people abroad were vested by a little-known executive order that—until now—has 
received scant scrutiny or oversight, newly uncovered government documents revealed
 on Monday.
Executive Order 12333, passed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, is the "main game in town for NSA surveillance," according to Alex Abdo, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained internal documents on the order through a Freedom of Information request.

One of the documents, an internal surveillance manual published by the NSA, describes EO 12333 as the "primary source" of their intelligence-gathering authority. And a "Legal Fact Sheet," distributed by the NSA two weeks after Edward Snowden disclosed their widespread surveillance, says that the agency conducts the majority of their intelligence gathering through signal interruption (or SIGNIT) "pursuant to the authority by EO 1233."

Unlike Section 215 of the Patriot Act or the FISA Amendments Act—which thus far have been the focus of public debate—the executive branch is alone in implementing EO 12333, meaning that there is essentially no oversight from Congress nor the court system.

"We've already seen that the NSA has taken a 'collect it all' mentality even with the authorities that are overseen by Congress and the courts," Abdo continues. "If that history is any lesson, we should expect—and, indeed, we have seen glimpses of—even more out-of-control spying under EO 12333."

According to Abdo's analysis of the documents, which were published by the NSA as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency among others, EO 12333 allows the government to monitor any international communication that contains any alleged "foreign intelligence information."

"That phrase is defined so nebulously that it could be read to encompass virtually every communication with one end outside the United States," Abdo writes. He adds that the documents "make it clearer than ever that the government's vast surveillance apparatus is collecting information—including from Americans—about much more than just terrorist threats."



The Fallacy of Feeding the World

by



Yesterday I heard someone talking about how the US has a responsibility to “feed the world”. I have a real problem with this, who gave us this mandate?

The thought of the US “feeding the world” is ridiculous in so many ways, but more so, it is condescending to say the least, to the rest of the world. Who made us keepers of the world? Who decided we knew how to feed them and who decided the people of world were incapable of feeding themselves?
In the first place they may not want to eat what we want to feed them, which would be mostly Genetically Modified (GM) corn and soy and fat beef with hormone residues. Sorry, I don’t want to eat that either.

Corporate agribusiness apparently determined it was their right to decide what the world should eat and thanks to their healthy campaign contributions, the US government politically and economically supports their agenda. International trade deals currently being negotiated with the European Union (TTIP) and the Pacific Rim nations (TPP) would, among other things, force acceptance of GM crops and prohibit labeling of GM foods. So, this would be law, the world would grow GM crops and the world would eat GM food, like it or not.


Unfortunately many farmers bought into the “promise” of GM crops and by default, a dependence on chemical fertilizer, toxic pesticides and the questionable utility and safety of GM as animal feed and as a major ingredient in processed foods that people eat. In the US the vast majority of food (organic food being the exception) has GM content, because that is what is grown here—and many would wish that scenario on the rest of the world.

There is always the implication that the world is somehow incapable. They are not hungry because they are stupid, or because they don’t know what to eat, or how to grow crops adapted to their climate. They are hungry because they are poor.
When they (industrial agriculture) speak about feeding the world, will they be giving the hungry of the world all they food they need?

Because most hungry people are poor people, they are not in the position to buy their food, if they were they would be doing it now wouldn't they? So, who will pay for all this? That is a question no one seems to have an answer for. Somehow, I doubt the industrial food system plans to lose money when they begin feeding the world. Benevolence is not one of their virtues.

We in the US have not had much experience dealing with foreign governments and corporations taking away our farmland, or civil wars, or dictators. In the midst of genocide, I would guess growing ones own food is not the priority.

Nation-wide droughts and lack of infrastructure that cause the loss of much of the agricultural production, loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that take a good share of the rest for loan repayments all take their toll and leave little to put on one’s plate.

A lack of corporately owned agricultural technology does not cause hunger any more than a lack of aspirin causes headaches. Poor wages, trade policies that dump foreign agricultural products into the market undercutting farm prices, and government policy that pushes small farmers off their land—these are the causes of hunger.

So, let’s get this straight, we don’t need to feed the world. The indigenous farmers of the world have been around longer than the US farmer has, in many ways they taught us how to feed ourselves. They do not want to eat what corporate agribusiness wants to feed them, they want culturally appropriate diets that are healthy and adapted to their farms—and that is clearly more important than corporate profit.

Politically, “feeding the world” is a reason to control the world—so the world, especially the poor, will fit neatly into the equation for ever-growing corporate profit. Because increasingly it seems, corporate profit is all that matters politically.

To say “we are feeding the world” is nothing more than a justification for the industrial farming practices that squeeze every possible bit of profit from every acre, every animal and every farmer. Confined animal feeding operations, water pollution, soil erosion, toxic pesticides, farm worker abuse—it has to be accepted because it is the only way to “feed the world”.

Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer from Wonewoc, Wisconsin.


http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/29/fallacy-feeding-world

Monday 29 September 2014

‘What the US Did to Cambodia Was an Epic Crime’

Q&A with Journalist John Pilger

By Daniel Pye

Since his early days as a correspondent covering the wars in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, documentary filmmaker and journalist John Pilger has been an ardent critic of Western foreign policy. Following in the footsteps of Martha Gellhorn, Pilger set out to cover the Vietnam War from the perspective of those most affected by it – the Vietnamese people and US draftees. In 1979, he filmed Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia, which depicted the humanitarian catastrophe following the ousting of the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh. He would go on to make three more films about Cambodia and become an outspoken critic of the United States’ intervention in the country and the West’s support of Pol Pot.This week, he spoke to Post Weekend’s Daniel Pye about covering the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge, Henry Kissinger’s recent comments downplaying the US bombing of Cambodia and new plans to send Australian refugees to the Kingdom.

You visited the country in 1979 with filmmaker David Munro and photographer Eric Piper. What drew you to Cambodia and what was it like reporting in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge?
I had reported, written about and filmed Vietnam since the 1960s; I suppose part of my heart lay in Indochina and its struggle for peace and independence – a struggle in which Vietnam may have lost more than four million people and Cambodia certainly lost well over two million, if you include the bombing and civil war that paved the way for Pol Pot. So, yes, I had kept a close eye on developments in Cambodia. What was evident then, and is clear now, was that Pol Pot would not have been able to seize power had it not been for the US bombing campaign. CIA assessments, the work of scholars like Ben Kiernan and the reporting of Richard Dudman from inside Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea, together with numerous other credible sources, reach that conclusion. My own interviews with refugees and former Khmer Rouge left little doubt. In 1979, my colleagues and I were determined to see for ourselves, which wasn’t easy. We teamed up with a French group of doctors bringing aid as that critical year’s monsoon got under way. It’s almost impossible to describe the devastation and trauma we found. Incredibly, the United States and its Western allies imposed a crippling embargo on the country, then led by the government of Heng Samrin. This was blatant revenge on Vietnam, whose liberating troops had come from the wrong side of the Cold War. While the West stood by – concentrating its aid in the refugee camps in Thailand and supporting Pol Pot’s defunct regime in the UN – much of the emergency aid to reach Cambodia came from the devastated southern provinces of Vietnam.

Can you describe the humanitarian situation you witnessed and the response from the West to the suffering of the Khmer people?
The need of people was overwhelming. On my first day in Phnom Penh, I saw terribly malnourished children, including those who had walked in from the countryside. For many, life was a nightmare. People were drifting back to what had been a ghost city, and their distress was obvious. In an abandoned petrol garage, a woman and a group of stricken children were cooking leaves in a pot, the fire crackling with banknotes – worthless money – that had poured from the National Bank of Cambodia which the retreating Khmer Rouge had blown up. One of the first emergency aid flights into Phnom Penh arrived while I was there. The DC-8 was filled with medical supplies and powdered milk, organized by Oxfam, then the only major Western NGO prepared to break the Western embargo. And this was the “International Year of the Child”.

In an interview last week with NPR, Henry Kissinger said that the Nixon administration’s secret bombing of Cambodia had killed fewer people than drone strikes under President Obama. How would you respond to his comments?
There is plenty of evidence that makes Kissinger’s version [of events] laughable. The credible Finnish Government Commission of Inquiry described – rightly in my view – a “decade of genocide” with three phases. The first phase was 1969 to ‘75, the years of the American bombing, during which it is estimated that 600,000 Khmer died while two million became refugees. Michael Vickery’s study gives a “war loss” of 500,000 for this period. There are other estimates, some lower, some higher. What is beyond doubt is that Kissinger and Nixon unleashed an unprecedented aerial savagery – much of it kept secret from the US Congress and people – on a defenceless people. Kissinger should have stood trial with Khieu Samphan and the other Khmer Rouge leaders. What the US did to Cambodia was an epic crime.

What do you think of the Australian government’s deal with Cambodia to have refugees “resettled” here from its off-shore detention centre on Nauru and of Australia’s “stop the boats” policy?
The Australian governments’ treatment of refugees is immoral and criminal. The deal by which Cambodia will detain refugees for Australia defies natural justice, the decisions of the Australian courts and the legally-binding 1951 Refugee Convention, which lays out the rights of refugees and the legal obligations of governments. The agreement Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is making with the Cambodian government both squalid and lawless. His government is bribing Cambodia to collude in this lawlessness, and the reason is political opportunism and racism. Politicians like Morrison are terrified they’ll be voted out of office if they allow refugees fleeing personal danger in the Middle East or South Asia to enter the country. For an Australian like myself, this is all too shaming; and any official or diplomat who took part is setting up this deal ought to be shamed. Two refugees recently died in terrible circumstances in “offshore” detention imposed by Australia: one of them was murdered, the other denied basic medical care. Some 2,500 refugee children are held in detention by the Australian government, many of them suffering terrible conditions, and some of them, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission, denied even “places for babies to learn to crawl or walk on the three-by-three metre metal containers where they are confined in the extreme heat”.

Civil society groups have documented what has been described as a “land-grabbing crisis” in Cambodia. Do you think donor nations and institutions should shoulder more responsibility for the exploitation of Cambodia’s natural resources?
Yes, I do. All the major so-called donor nations have been content to watch Cambodia’s exploitation, from which they have profited.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.


Copyright © 2013 The Phnom Penh Post

Turbans target of racial abuse

Sikh community members say they've seen a rise in verbal abuse because of people linking their turbans to terrorism.

By Julia Calixto

Harjit Singh from the Australian Sikh Heritage Association, says that the increased fear toward Sikhs is due to images of Islamic State extremists in the Middle East.
"We walk down the street and sometimes we do get abused being called a terrorist or go home Taliban, those things are just unfortunate," Mr Singh said. 
"Sikhs, turban, bearded people have been in Australia for 150 years and were very much loved and integrated into the community."
Mr Singh wants more people to know about Australia's rich Sikh heritage and that the vast majority of turbans are, in fact, worn by Sikhs as only high officials in Islam wear the turban.
In an attempt to combat fears and prejudices, community iniatives are seeking to bridge the divide between cultures. 
In the Sydney suburb of Kellyville, the Super Sikh Cup encourages multiculturalism within the community through sport. 
Turbans and Trust gives people the chance to try the turban on and learn a bit more about the culture.
Kevin Connelly, the Local Member for Riverstone, tried a turban on and says people shouldn't jump to conclusions.
"It's simply a form of head covering respecting their religious observance, there are many such things around different traditions in the world and most of them present nothing whatsoever for people to be afraid of or worried about.."
The turban has existed for thousands of years and was originally worn by royalty. Five hundred years ago the Sikhs incorporated it into their community, partly as a symbol of equality.  The turban is mandatory for Sikh men, but Sikh women can wear them too.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/09/28/turbans-target-racial-abuse

Partisan Reporters Criticise Gaza Coverage

Jonathan Cook


I have noted in several previous articles the unusual, possibly unique, problem relating to media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The reporting corps is awash with "partisan reporters" – that is, Jews who have an ideological, social or familial connection and sympathy with one side, the Israeli side.

I have no objection to reporters having views, even strong ones, about this conflict, or any other issue in the news. I do myself. In fact, I believe journalists cannot be "objective", as I have explained at length elsewhere.  But in the case of Israel-Palestine, many reporters are being chosen precisely for their partisanship – and these reporters are being selected because they are partisan in one direction only. Just check how many Palestinian reporters (I don’t mean glorified fixers or undervalued stringers) report for the US media on the conflict.

Editors possibly justify their policy to themselves by assuming that Jewish reporters, especially ones with family in Israel, will improve their access to Israeli elites. Given the rampant chauvinism in Israel, this may be so. But it means only one side of the elite debate is being accessed – the Israeli one.

Illustrations of the partisan reporter’s mindset have been thrown up afresh in a debate about media responsibility during Israel’s attack on Gaza. A prime example is Matti Friedman, who worked for many years at the US news agency Associated Press. AP has a pretty terrible record in its coverage of the conflict, as well as documented examples of its local staff censoring stories that reflect badly on Israel.

Preposterously, Friedman asserts in his essay for the Tablet magazine that the media’s disproportionate interest in Israel-Palestine reflects an unhealthy and "hostile obsession with Jews". In fact, it indicates something else entirely: the West’s long and unhealthy interest in supporting the Zionist movement’s dispossession of the Palestinian people in their homeland, and a deep sense by Western elites of their political and military investment in the Jewish state project.

The media’s obsession with Israel results both from Israel’s place at the heart of the West’s perceived strategic interests in the region and from a need to pander to influential domestic Jewish readerships. There is a reason, after all, why the New York Times is probably the most Israel-obsessed newspaper in the world outside Israel itself – and it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

Most of Friedman’s article is so patently one-sided, and detached from reality, it barely warrants addressing. One needs only to read his claim that the big story overlooked by the media is: "The fact that Israelis quite recently elected moderate governments that sought reconciliation with the Palestinians". Yes, in your dreams, Matti.

Similarly, Friedman apparently also knows enough Palestinians to argue that the real story they want covering is corruption within their own society. Maybe the two Palestinians you befriended think like that, Matti, but I guess that may be a rather self-selecting group. Why do you think they befriended you?

As someone who has lived among Palestinians for more than a decade, I can assure you that, however much corruption there is in Palestinian society (and there certainly is), it is considered a far less pressing concern than the occupation of the West Bank, the siege of Gaza, the continuing dispossession of Jerusalem, and the abandonment of the refugees. You may think Palestinians have their priorities wrong, Matti, but there is no disputing that those are their priorities.   
Friedman also wants the conflict recharacterised as a Jewish-Muslim one rather than Israeli-Palestinian. The media apparently collude in this mistaken framing. Thus, Friedman argues:
A knowledgeable observer of the Middle East cannot avoid the impression that the region is a volcano and that the lava is radical Islam, an ideology whose various incarnations are now shaping this part of the world. Israel is a tiny village on the slopes of the volcano. Hamas is the local representative of radical Islam and is openly dedicated to the eradication of the Jewish minority enclave in Israel.
Except the conflict existed well before anyone had heard of Hamas, al-Qaeda or Isis. Religion was never at the root of the conflict, though Israel – hoping to exploit Western prejudices about a clash of civilisations – has been working hard to make it so.
Friedman again:
Jerusalem is less than a day’s drive from Aleppo or Baghdad, and it should be clear to everyone that peace is pretty elusive in the Middle East even in places where Jews are absent. But reporters generally cannot see the Israel story in relation to anything else.
But Western interests, and the resulting Western interference, Western-backed puppets, and the West’s fair-weather, Islamic allies, are never far away from wherever one is in the Middle East. That is why peace is and remains elusive. Israel is one central prong in this Western policy of interference. The real story is that reporters like Friedman – in fact, all reporters in the mainstream – are either oblivious to the West’s indelible impact on the region, or career-minded enough to avoid mentioning it.

Today in a Haaretz commentary, a former partisan reporter for the BBC, Richard Miron, added his support to this heavily distorted picture of media malfeasance. Being a former BBC journalist, he tries to be a little more "balanced" in his views than Friedman, but finds nothing in Friedman’s screed from which to distance himself.

As if confirming Friedman’s claims, Miron lambasts reporters for "emoting" on the Palestinians’ behalf, citing Jon Snow of Britain’s Channel 4.  Whatever one thinks of Snow – and I think he ultimately failed his viewers by chiefly packaging Palestinian suffering in Gaza in humanitarian terms – Miron, like Friedman, is grossly misrepresenting the true picture of Western media coverage of Gaza. That rare bout of soul-searching from one prominent presenter was but a drop in an ocean of wall-to-wall sympathy for Israel in the US media. The story there echoed the assumption of President Barack Obama that Israel has a right to defend itself … from Palestinian resistance to decades of Israel’s belligerent occupation and an eight-year siege of Gaza. That part of the story was hardly ever mentioned, even by Snow.
Miron does make one sensible observation:
Knowing Gaza’s physical geography, it’s safe to conclude that if Hamas operatives did come out from the territory’s packed urban confines, they would have been quickly struck by an Israeli drone or aircraft fire.
But blinded by his partisanship for Israel, he then wants to use this observation to support Israel’s story that Palestinians in Gaza were being used as "human shields". He specifically criticises BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen for writing that "he saw no evidence … of Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields". But contrary to Miron’s assumption, avoiding committing suicide (on a battlefield determined by Israel’s siege policy) is not the same as turning other Palestinians into human shields. At least Bowen understands that obvious point, even if Miron, blinded by his partisanship, cannot.

Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books).Visit Jonathan's website.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m109517&hd=&size=1&l=e

Court: Releasing Images of Guantanamo Prisoner Would Incite Violence, Especially Since He Was Tortured

By: 

A federal appeals court has ruled that the United States government can keep video and photos of high-profile Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani secret because it is well-known that he was tortured and abused and any future release of information depicting him could be used by terrorist groups to incite anti-American violence.
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. At issue are at least 58 FBI videos “depicting Qahtani’s activities in his cell and his interactions” with Defense Department personnel. There are also two videos showing “forced cell extractions,” where Qahtani was likely removed from his cell in an abusive or aggressive manner, two videos showing “document intelligence debriefings” and “six mugshots” of Qahtani.
The Second US Court of Appeals in Manhattan declared in its decision [PDF] that the government had established “with adequate specificity” that images of Qahtani, who the government alleges was the 20th hijacker in the September 11th attacks, “could logically and plausibly harm national security because these images are uniquely susceptible to use by anti‐American extremists as propaganda to incite violence against United States interests domestically and abroad.”
The appeals court embraced the pro-secrecy arguments of US Central Command Chief of Staff Karl Horst, who had submitted a declaration to the court.
Release of the records, Horst argued, would endanger “US military personnel, diplomats and aid workers serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere” and aide the “recruitment and financing of extremist and insurgent groups” because “enemy forces in Afghanistan” and elsewhere “have previously used videos and photographs [particularly of US forces interacting with detainees] out of context to incite the civilian population and influence government officials.” For example, the media published images in 2004 “relating to allegations of abuse of Iraqi detainees” (i.e. Abu Ghraib) and media reported in 2005 on “alleged incidents of mishandling of the Koran at Guantanamo.”
Horst added, “[T]he subject of US detainee operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at [Guantanamo] is extremely sensitive with the host nations and governments whose nationals we detain.” Additionally, releasing information ” would facilitate the enemy’s ability to conduct information operations and could be used to increase anti‐American sentiment,” especially since the images “could be manipulated to show greater mistreatment than actually occurred, or change the chronology of actual events.”
As the court noted, in January 2009, the Defense Department’s Convening Authority for Military Commissions, Susan Crawford, stated that Qahtani’s treatment at Guantanamo “met the legal definition of torture” in an interview for The Washington Post. This statement was stunningly invoked to justify keeping videos and images concealed from the public.
“Apart from his notable profile, Qahtani is unusual because a significant government official has publicly opined that the interrogation methods used on him met the legal definition of torture,” the court contended.
“In effect, the court has embraced a rule that allows the government to use its own human rights abuses as a justification for concealing evidence of that misconduct from the public,” attorney Larry Lustberg, who argued the case for CCR, stated. “This rule is not only perverse, but it is also contrary to the Freedom of Information Act’s prohibition against using illegality or embarrassment as justifications for withholding information.”
Lustberg continued, “Fortunately, the Court of Appeals emphasized the limits of its opinion, noting that it was not holding that ‘every image of a specifically identifiable detainee is exempt from disclosure pursuant to FOIA,’ nor that ‘the government is entitled to withhold any documents that may reasonably incite anti‐American sentiment.’ But that qualification aside, this decision represents a sad illustration of the judicial abandonment of its obligations to secure the people’s rights under the Freedom of Information Act.”
A federal district court judge in the Southern District of New York had previously issued a similar ruling in September of last year. In fact, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald had argued in her decision the “written record of torture” made it “all the more likely that enemy forces would use Qahtani’s image against the United States’ interests.”
This anti-transparency argument is not all that different from arguments previously articulated by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
When the ACLU filed a FOIA lawsuit for photographs of detainee abuse, O’Reilly declared on July 25, 2005:
…Everybody knows those pictures incite violence against Americans. So why should more of them be fed to the press? We already know what happened at Abu Ghraib, and people are going to prison because of it. Clearly, more pictures of Abu Ghraib help the terrorists, as do Geneva Convention protections and civilian lawyers. So there is no question the ACLU and the judges who side with them are terror allies…
Additionally, Buchwald argued in the district court’s decision, “There is no evidence that any of the withheld videotapes or photographs depict illegal conduct, evidence of mistreatment, or other potential sources of governmental embarrassment.” Based off a review of the “FBI’s individualized description of the FBI Videotapes,” these records “do not document any abuse or mistreatment.”
It is difficult to determine if this claim is true. CCR cannot address the veracity of the claim because that would put attorneys at risk of being accused of improperly disclosing information to the public they are not authorized to disclose, according to a protective order in Qahtani’s habeas case.
Buchwald did not view the actual videotapes, an example of extreme deference toward the national security state. She read descriptions the government provided, which were likely written to ensure the judge was not suspicious or concerned about any of the tapes’ contents. It would appear the appeals court also accepted descriptions in an “FBI index” provided, which CCR was not allowed to view.
Either way, the appeals court adopted another pro-secrecy argument that because so much was known about Qahtani’s alleged treatment and detention already there was an even higher risk of violence being incited by terrorists.
CCR had argued that this “propaganda” justification would “stymie FOIA’s aims” and make it possible for the “government to disregard people’s right to a transparent government whenever there is a distant risk that someone somewhere could respond with violence.”
In other words, fear wins. The terrorists win. Terrorist groups can continue to relish the impact they are having on closing off American society.
The decision punishes Qahtani for being tortured. His lawyers do not get to reveal to the world additional details related to his abusive treatment because the government is afraid evidence of their torture will lead to blowback.
Court decisions like this also send a message to autocratic leaders of other countries, who are threatened by extremist groups, that they can defend keeping certain evidence of human rights abuses secret. All they have to do is point to the country that considers itself the freest nation in the world and invoke “national security” to justify keeping certain evidence of human rights abuses secret too.
Furthermore, it would be much easier to accept the arguments advanced by the government and complaisantly adopted as some kind of isolated and exceptional case if there had been US officials held accountable for torturing detainees, like Qahtani.
There has been virtually no justice for victims of US torture, and the bulk of one of the few and only official investigations by the government into torture by the Senate intelligence committee is likely to remain mostly concealed for many, many years as the CIA invokes similar arguments to justify heavily censoring a version of the report’s summary that may or may not be released to the public some time this year.
All the government needs is the confidence that it can argue, case by case, that information, which reflects poorly on the US shouldn’t be released. That is unquestionably what this decision gives the government the ability to do.
Essentially, if there is an enemy that can benefit from finding out how the US government brutally violates the human rights of people, those abuses do not ever have to be disclosed by the government. And, in that sense, the appeals court decision encourages a slide toward totalitarianism.

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/09/02/court-releasing-images-of-guantanamo-prisoner-would-incite-violence-especially-since-he-was-tortured/

Russia at U.N. accuses U.S., allies of bossing world around



UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia used its annual appearance at the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday to accuse the United States and its Western allies of bossing the world around, complaining they were attempting to dictate to everyone "what is good and evil."
The speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the 193-nation assembly was the latest example of the deteriorating relations between Moscow and Western powers, which have imposed sanctions on Russia over the conflict in neighboring Ukraine.
"The U.S.-led Western alliance that portrays itself as a champion of democracy, rule of law and human rights within individual countries ... (is) rejecting the democratic principle of sovereign equality of states enshrined in the U.N. Charter and trying to decide for everyone what is good or evil," he said.
"Washington has openly declared its right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own interests," Lavrov added. "Military interference has become a norm - even despite the dismal outcome of all power operations that the U.S. has carried out over the recent years."
Lavrov cited the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya that led to the toppling and death of longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi as examples of U.S. failures.

Russia on Friday questioned the legality of U.S. and Arab airstrikes in Syria to target Islamic State because the action was taken without the formal approval and cooperation of Moscow's ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Moscow has also criticized the United States over airstrikes against Islamic State, an Islamist militant group often referred that has taken over large areas of Syria and Iraq and is blamed for brutal slayings of civilians.
He reiterated Moscow's view that the United States and European Union "supported the coup d'etat in Ukraine" and that they were therefore responsible for the current conflict there.
A war involving pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine has killed more than 3,000 people. Kiev and Western governments say Russia has been arming, training and encouraging the militants, and had sent its own troops to Ukraine to tip the balance against Kiev.
Russia, which opposes the pro-Western course of leadership in the ex-Soviet republic, has denied that its troops have participated in the war or provided arms to rebels.
Separately, Lavrov demanded information about the state of Libya's chemical weapons arsenals after the Libyan government asked the global chemical weapons watchdog to draw up plans to ship a stockpile of 850 metric tons of chemicals overseas because of deteriorating security.
"We understand that our NATO colleagues after they bombed out this country in violation of (U.N. Security Council) resolution would not like to stir up the mayhem they created," Lavrov said. "However, the problem of uncontrolled Libyan chemical arsenals is too serious to turn a blind eye."
Western countries reject Russia's allegations they violated the 2011 U.N. resolution.
(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Peter Cooney)

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-u-n-accuses-u-allies-bossing-world-193208406.html