 |
| Dr Arthur Kennedy |
Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy is a leading member of the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) who claims that the leadership of the two parties are
busily destroying their political parties through recklessness.
In an article published widely, he writes;
“It appears that increasingly, in the search of the
adulation of extremists in their parties, our political leaders are sounding
more outlandish by the day. In the process, the NPP and NDC seem bent on a
perverse collaboration to convince the public, through reckless accusations
that both parties are, in fact criminal enterprises. When our major parties
accuse each other of being corrupt, criminal or drug-infested, the public
believes both of them.
They are succeeding and that is unfortunate. Political
parties are indispensible to our development and we must see them as national
assets, worthy of our protection”
-Dr Arthur Kobina
Kenedy.
Who will listen to this man?
Editorial
GJA’S MANDATE
The
President of the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA) has stepped out of the
mandate of organisation and substituted his personal moral standards for those
of members.
Only
recently, he called on members to use their media to wage a crusade against
homosexuality.
In the
first place, the president ought to have realized that he has no authority
whatsoever to dictate the direction of editorial policy in any media house.
The Ghana
Journalists’ Association is just what its name implies an association of
journalist working in Ghana.
The
membership of the GJA does not own the media houses in which they work and in
fact cannot even determine editorial policy.
Journalists
join the GJA not because of their religions, political, ethnic or any other
affiliation but to pursue an agenda that is common to all practitioners of
their profession.
The
president needs to be told in very plain language that he will not be allowed
to put Ghanaian journalists in a straight jacket.
It may be
true that many Ghanaian journalist may find homosexuality unacceptable but it
is not the duty of the GJA to turn itself into a national moral police brigade.
The
leaders of the GJA must learn to keep within the boundaries of their mandate.
The loud
pontification on homosexuality is unfortunate.
20 YEARS OF THE INSIGHT; WHY IT IS MY
FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER!
I obtained my MBA from a university in the United States of
America about four years ago. I had lived in the US for close to 10 years,
studying and working.
 |
| The house at Kotobabi where The Insight began |
During this period I got attracted to left wing politics in
the US and realized that the form of democracy practiced there is to a large
measure a sham. I have learnt about the attempt to exterminate the Indian
population, the dehumanization of blacks from the era of the Trans Atlantic
Slav Trade and the attempt of the statics quo to impose the hegemony of the US
on the world.
On my return to Ghana, I looked for media which would enable
me to follow developments on the left of American politics and how they relate
to development in the third world generally.
Initially I was
attracted to The “Public Agenda” newspaper which has tried to stay objective
but I am now completely hooked to “The Insight”, Ghana’s only left- wing
newspaper.
The articles
published in “The Insight” have depth and they touch the very core of the
struggle of the people of Africa to survive in a dog-eat-dog world where the
law remains the wish of the mighty and powerful.
“The Insight” is
engaged in what has come to be known as “commitment journalism” which enable
professional to take a stand. “The Insight” identifies itself fully with people
living in mining communities, whose lands are being poisoned on a daily basis.
It is also firmly in the camp of the working people fighting for better living
and working conditions.
Above all “The Insight” has managed to rise beyond the
politics of NDC versus NPP and is able to criticize both parties when they go
wrong.
I don’t know what Ghana would have been like without “The
Insight”. Perhaps it could have become a neo-liberal nest in which the voice of
critical sections of the society would be silenced forever.
“The Insight is
making a pitch. One that makes it possible for the left to be heard in the
murky politics of Ghana.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of “The
Insight; I congratulate the management, journalists and staff of the newspaper
for a job well done.
It is my hope that in
the years ahead, “The Insight” will grow to become the most influential mass
medium in Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana.
Well done folks!
Joseph Kwasi Manu
Adabraka
DRC Probes $88M in Missing Mining Revenue
By Nick Long
Anti-corruption
investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they can't trace more
than $88 million that mining companies paid to a government revenue agency.
The
investigation has been carried out by the Congolese branch of a global
anti-corruption watchdog, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
(EITI).
(EITI).
EITI's
Congolese experts say they've been trying for six months to trace $88 million
that mining companies paid to a Congolese tax agency called the DGRAD. They say
the DGRAD has still not provided any proof that the money was paid to the
national treasury.
The DRC
planning minister has promised a judicial enquiry.
The $88
million gap in the public accounts, coupled with smaller amounts that have also
gone missing, could mean that the DRC's bid for full membership of the EITI is
suspended. That could make it more difficult for the DRC to obtain loans from
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which last year suspended a $225-million
program with Congo, citing lack of transparency in the mining sector.
The EITI
secretariat, which is based in Europe, says that since last year the DRC's new
government, led by Prime Minister Matata Ponyo, has been working closely with
the EITI and is trying hard to account for revenues and to expose mining
contracts to public scrutiny.
"We
indeed understand that the prime minister's government is very supportive of
the EITI," said Tim Bittinger, a spokesperson for the EITI. "The
government has put a substantial budget at the disposal of the EITI process,
and there have been several government-led meetings on how to reform the mining
and oil sectors and the EITI has figured prominently in reform
discussions."
Bittinger
noted that Prime Minister Ponyo has asked EITI to extend the scope of its
investigations and to look at how revenues from the mining sector are spent, as
well as how they are collected.
He said this demonstrates a political will to reform the sector, which was already evident even before the IMF suspended its Congo program.
He said this demonstrates a political will to reform the sector, which was already evident even before the IMF suspended its Congo program.
The EITI
board will have to make a decision this week on whether or not to declare the
DRC an EITI compliant country, a test the country has already failed twice. But
Bittinger suggested that whatever decision is made, the DRC's reform drive in
the mining sector is likely to continue.
"Whatever
happens at that level we see substantial momentum and drive in DRC," he
said. "We are not sure a decision either way will stop that drive which is
quite impressive, and we very much welcome the improvements we have seen over
the past years."
That view
is echoed by Elizabeth Caessens, an independent expert on mining and governance
in the DRC. Caessens, who works for the U.S.-based Carter Center, wrote
recently that the DRC government has made substantial efforts to disclose
information on its mining sector.
She said
there are doubts about one particular mining deal in which a state-owned
concession may have been sold for $60-million less than its real value, but
that many other deals have been exposed to scrutiny with the publication
recently of more than 100 contracts.
Those
contracts include some large deals with Chinese mining companies that were
previously kept out of the public eye.
The Economic and Political Decline of France
 |
| French President Francois Hollande |
By
Mathieu von Rohr
France is in the grip of a crisis. As both its
economy and European influence weaken, scandal has hobbled its political elite.
The country needs drastic overhaul, but President Hollande does nothing but
waver and hesitate.
Judging
by the imperial magnificence of the Elysee Palace, France has never ceased to be a world power. Rooms with
five-meter (16-foot) ceilings, gilded chandeliers, candelabras and elaborate
stucco work are guarded by members of the Republican Guard, who parade in front
of the palace gates with their plumes of feathers and bayonets.
The
man in charge, on the other hand, seems lonely and small in his palace. He is
surrounded by court ushers who make sure that glasses and writing sets are
perfectly arranged, and when he enters a conference room, they call out grandly
"Monsieur le Président de la République!", to give his attendants
time to stand up for him.
François Hollande never
intended to become a king, but rather a "normal president," as he put
it, and now he has to play one nonetheless. He occasionally seems like an actor
who has somehow ended up in the wrong play.
Outside,
throughout the country, unemployment reaches new highs each month, factories
are shut down daily, hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest gay
marriage, and the French are increasingly outraged over a barrage of new
political scandals as the country hovers on the cusp of waning global
relevance. Yet this roar of dissatisfaction doesn't permeate the walls of
Hollande's world. Here, it is quiet, very quiet.
Shortly
after moving into his new official residence, Hollande warned his staff that in
a palace it is easy to feel protected, and he insisted that he did not want to
be "locked in." But that is precisely what is happening, as evidenced
by the documentary film "Le Pouvoir" (The Power), which recently
debuted in French theaters and whose creators accompanied Hollande during the
brutal first eight months of his presidency.
Elite
in a Bubble
They
paint an image of a likeable man who seems to spend a lot of time rewriting
speeches prepared by his staff. As you watch him in the movie, you start to
wonder: Does he do all the important things when no one's watching or does he
really spends most of his time on the unimportant? However, the main subject of
the film is not the president, but rather the reality bubble in the country's
top echelons. Not just Hollande, but also most of his cabinet ministers, still
reside in Parisian city palaces that predate the French Revolution, and perhaps
that's a problem.
A
justice minister who spends her days in the Hôtel de Bourvallais on Place
Vendôme, next door to the Hotel Ritz, a culture minister who goes to work at
the magnificent Palais Royal, a prime minister whose offices are in the grand
Hôtel Matignon and a president who resides at the Elysee Palace, they all need
a great deal of inner strength to avoid losing their connection to reality.
It's a difficult proposition, because Paris's settings of power convey the
message that France is big, rich and beautiful.
But
the mood hanging over the country is depressed. France is in the midst of the
biggest crisis of the Fifth Republic. It feels as if the French model had
reached an end stage, not just in terms of the economy, but also in politics
and society. A country that long dismissed its problems is going through a
painful process of adjustment to reality and, as was the case last week, can
now expect to be issued warnings by the European Commission and prompted to
implement reforms.
France's
plight was initially apparent in the economy, which has been stagnating for
five years, because French state capitalism no longer works. But the crisis
reaches deeper than that. At issue is a political class that more than three
quarters of the population considers corrupt, and a president who, this early
in his term, is already more unpopular than any of his predecessors. At issue
is a society that is more irreconcilably divided into left and right than in
almost any other part of Europe. And, finally, at issue is the identity crisis
of a historically dominant nation that struggles with the fact that its neighbor, Germany, now
sets the tone on the continent.
The
French economy has been in gradual decline for years, without any president or
administration having done anything decisive about it. But now, ignoring the
problems is no longer an option. The economy hasn't grown in five years and
will even contract slightly this year. A record 3.26 million Frenchmen are
unemployed, youth unemployment is at 26.5 percent, consumer purchasing power
has declined, and consumption, which drives the French economy, is beginning to
slow down, as well.
There
is a more positive side of the story, which sometimes pales in the face of all
the bad news. France is the world's fifth-largest economy, and interest rates
for government bonds have been at historic lows for months. The country is far
from being on the verge of bankruptcy and cannot be compared with Italy or
Spain, and certainly not with Greece. Nevertheless, France is ailing. And
looking weak is something the French themselves hate more than anything else.
Consequences
of French Decline
This
mixture of factors could jeopardize the entire European structure. For one thing,
if France continues to decline, more and more responsibility will be shifted to
Germany. "Germany cannot carry the euro on its shoulders alone
indefinitely," writes Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff.
"France needs to become a second anchor of growth and stability."
Another
problem is that the European Union is losing its standing in France at a more
dramatic pace than in any other EU member state. According to a study by the
Pew Research Center, the public approval of the EU in France has declined from
60 to 41 percent in only a year. This might be owed to the uncomfortable fact
that Brussels is increasingly treating France as a problem and not as one of
Europe's supporting columns, and many French citizens have started to see the
terms 'Brussels' and (German Chancellor) 'Angela Merkel' as synonymous.
But
is the EU to blame for the France's crisis? Can Europe truly be held
responsible for the fact that the government is behind 57 percent of total
economic output in France? That government debt has risen to more than 90
percent of the gross domestic product? Is it Germany's fault that, for decades,
French administrations have failed to make the country's business environment
more competitive? And has anyone in Brussels demanded that a fifth of all
workers in France be employed by the government?
France
may be ailing, but it still has a lot going for it. It is home to successful
major corporations, such as the luxury brand group LVMH, tire manufacturer
Michelin and many pharmaceutical companies. The country has an efficient
healthcare system, the highest birthrate in Europe and healthier demographics
than Germany, fostered by tax breaks for families, the acceptance of working
mothers as a fact of life and a corresponding system of full-day childcare.
But
the French welfare state costs money, a lot of money. The country has neglected
to make decisions on how much its individual achievements are worth, and how
certain luxurious aspects of life it has come to appreciate could be modified
to conform to not-so-luxurious realities, including the 35-hour workweek, a
retirement age of 60 for some workers and unemployment benefits of up to €6,200
($8,122) a month. As a result, there is a sense of gridlock, and a sour public
mood is following on the heels of bad economic news.
Stuck
in Past Grandeur?
France
has an illustrious past, of which it is justifiably proud, but its historic
success also prevents it from clearly recognizing the need for reforms. The
omnipotent, bloated central government, which also controls the economy, should
have been reformed long ago. The privileges of the Paris political elite are so
outdated that they have become intolerable, and many bribery and corruption
scandals are undermining an already fragile political legitimacy.
It
cannot be accidental that France's leading politicians increasingly refer to
their country as the "grande nation." Since the election campaign,
President Hollande has hardly missed an opportunity to invoke the nation's
greatness. With some dialectical malice, one could see this as evidence that
France's greatness is now becoming a relic, but it certainly reflects the
self-hypnosis of a nation whose stature is in the process of shrinking.
"Our
soldiers demonstrated our role," Hollande said recently in a major press
conference at the Elysée Palace, as he praised one of his rare successes, the
military operation in Mali. "Namely that of a great nation that can
influence the balance of power in the world."
There
is an increasingly stark contrast between the feigned grandiosity of the
president's appearances and the faintheartedness of his daily actions. The
obstructionism and inflexibility that prevail throughout the entire country can
only be eliminated through deep-seated renewal. But so far Hollande, who
promised "change" in his campaign, has been more conspicuous for his
hesitation than his courage.
Since
this spring, Hollande has been viewed by most commentators as the nice
"Grandpa" in the Elysee Palace, who lacks the gumption to address the
country's serious structural problems. The French constitution grants the
office of the president more power than is allotted any other leader of the
Western world. Besides, his Socialist Party holds significant majorities in the
National Assembly, the Senate and even in regional governments.
In
other words, Hollande could get down to business on any day he chooses. He
could reform the country as he wished, if only that were his objective. But no
one -- not citizens, not journalists and possibly not even his cabinet
ministers -- knows what he wants and if indeed he wants anything at all.
Does
he aim to be France's great reformer but lacks the courage to defy the left
wing of his party, as a member of the German government believes? Or is it that
he clings to his party's old formulas, wants to change as little as possible
and is waiting for the day when the recovery happens on its own?
Hollande's
Mixed Messages
At
the recent 150th anniversary celebration of Germany's center-left
Social Democratic Party (SPD), Hollande praised the "bold reforms"
introduced by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, which attracted attention in
France. But it remains unclear how he intends to apply this recognition to his
own country. Last week, when the European Commission called upon France to
"credibly implement ambitious structural reforms" in areas that
include pensions, ancillary wage costs and taxes, he responded defiantly,
saying that the Commission had no right to dictate anything to France. His
country is reforming itself, he added, but how it approaches the task is its
own affair.
It
was a surprisingly irate reaction, given how accommodating the Commission has
been to the French. They have been given a two-year reprieve, until 2015, to
reduce new borrowing to less than 3 percent of GDP. In other words, France is
not expected to cut spending and enact reform at the same time, which is a
departure from the hard line represented most prominently by German Chancellor
Merkel.
Nevertheless,
France is routinely offended by criticism from abroad, especially coming from
Germany. It is precisely this combination of sensitivity and heel-dragging when
it comes to reform that other Europeans find worrisome.
What
could be done? There are plenty of blueprints available, the most recent by
former EADS CEO Louis Gallois, who was asked to write a report for Hollande on
how France could improve its competitiveness. His conclusions are similar to
those of the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. According
to Gallois, France should reduce its ancillary wage costs, which amount to half
of gross salaries, as soon as possible. It should relax its rigid labor laws,
under which it currently protects those with tenured jobs from others trying to
enter the labor market -- mostly young people -- whose employment status often
remains precarious. Other steps under discussion include raising the retirement
age and lowering taxes.
The
administration, elected on the strength of completely different and unrealistic
promises, reacted lukewarmly to the Gallois report and has since given the
impression that it is pursuing a zigzag course. It has indeed enacted a few
reforms, such as tax relief for small and mid-sized businesses and a cautious
amendment of its labor laws. On the other hand, the government is still
adhering to many campaign promises, including the lowering of the retirement
age for certain groups to 60 and a 75-percent wealth tax on incomes over €1
million, which triggered reactions throughout Europe and was promptly struck
down by the Constitutional Council. The French audit court recently criticized
the government's plan to hire 60,000 new teachers.
It
took until March 2013 for Hollande to clearly state, for the first time, that
government spending needs to be reduced and that the French will have to
"work a little longer" for their pensions in the future. But before
anything can happen, the government will first need to enter into protracted
negotiations with labor unions.
The
Minister of Productive Recovery
To
comprehend the way of thinking that has shaped France for decades, it's worth
having a conversation with a man who is sitting in the First Class car of a TGV
high-speed train traveling in the direction of the Alps, from Paris to
Chambéry. He looks splendid as always, with his perfectly fitting tailored
suit, his blue eyes and his bright white teeth. Arnaud Montebourg is 50 but
looks much younger. He is France's industry minister, but his official title is
more apt, because it sounds as grandiose as the minister himself: Minister of
Productive Recovery. A visit to a dying factory is on today's agenda.
His
destination is the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum plant in Savoy, which its owners
plan to shut down because they believe that operating the plant is no longer
economically viable. Montebourg, who has never worked in industry himself,
disagrees. He has even found a German company that wants to keep the factory
and its jobs afloat, with government support. The purpose of his visit is to
garner support for his rescue plan with German assistance.
"France
once had a glorious industry," says the minister. He adds that he
personally combats the nightmare scenario that author Michel Houellebecq
described in his novel "The Map and the Territory," set in 2035, when
all of France has become nothing but a theme park for tourists.
To
avert this fate, Montebourg, since coming into office, has been hectically
travelling around a country whose industrial base is in jeopardy. More than
1,000 factories have been closed in the last four-and-a-half years, and
industry's share of value added is now only half as large as it is in Germany.
Montebourg
has assumed the role of the outspoken populist among his fellow cabinet
ministers, while the others tackle the tedious task of reforming the status
quo. The darling of the party's left wing, he is reputed to be on hostile terms
with the prime minister, and Hollande seems convinced that it is better to have
Montebourg in his government than leading demonstrations against him.
The
minister believes in the state. Although it has "no divine power," he
says, it can "accomplish a lot." France is a "world power,"
and it refuses to be forced into a game of "cat and mouse" by
international corporations, continues Montebourg. Part of his portfolio is to
publicly berate big business leaders, which includes telling people like steel
baron Lakshmi Mittal that he is no longer welcome in France. Although such
statements attract attention, it is not clear how many jobs they have yet
preserved.
At
the beginning of the year, Montebourg engaged in a public correspondence with
American corporate leader Maurice Taylor, whom he had asked to acquire a
Goodyear tire factory threatened with closure. Taylor responded: "How
stupid do you think we are?" He wrote that he had no interest in investing
in a country where "so-called workers" spend "only three
hours" a day actually working and in which he would be constantly battling
with unions.
A
De-Globalized France
?
Montebourg's
second opponent is Germany. The German economic model is "uncooperative,
dangerous for France and suicidal for Europe," he wrote in his book
"Votez pour la démondialisation!" (Choose De-Globalization). During
the train ride, Montebourg says that austerity in Europe needs to ende and the
European Central Bank should start acting like other central banks and
"monetize parts of the debt," which basically means printing money so
as to reduce government debts, which he says will never be fully repaid anyway.
"It is Germany that should withdraw from the euro if it refuses to accept
doing what the other countries are doing to resolve the crisis."
In
Chambéry, he gets into a black limousine and, in a convoy of six vehicles,
arrives at the giant Rio Tinto Alcan plant in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, set
against a backdrop of mist-covered mountains. The employees are waiting for him
in the rain, as if expecting a savior. Montebourg takes a tour of the plant,
and when he steps out into the rain after an hour, he tells the employees again
about the German company he has found for them, gets back into his car and is whisked
away.
After
the visit, the head of Rio Tinto Alcan's aluminum division says in front of the
factory's entrance: "Of course the government has a role to play, but I
would like to point out that we own the factory."
In
the traditional French concept of economic policy, no company is ever entirely
private, because businesses are bound to serve the Republic. In this sense,
Montebourg embodies a worldview that, in a somewhat watered-down form, can be
found among many members of the elite. He is an intellectual heir of
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who served as finance minister under Louis XIV in the 17th
century and lent his name to a doctrine known as Colbertism, which holds that
the state establishes manufacturing companies, directs the economy and pursues
a protectionist trade policy.
This
legacy continues to influence France today. Every president from Charles de
Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy has been inspired, at least in part, by Colbertism.
Free trade, the market economy and liberalism are expletives in France. Is
Montebourg Colbertism personified? "Colbert wore a wig, but I don't,"
he says, laughing out loud over his joke, and adds: "That was a good one,
wasn't it?"
Whenever
Montebourg talks about growth, it always has something to do with the state. A
few weeks ago, for example, he held a seminar for suppliers of government-owned
businesses, which have an annual budget of €60 billion. He told his audience
that state buying agents should from now on give preference to domestic
products. "In this way," he said, "every civil servant becomes a
soldier for 'Made in France'!"
The
industry minister also likes to tell the story of how he summoned auto industry
leaders to discuss with them which company was to devote itself to which field
of research: Valeo to the self-driving car, Peugeot to hybrid engines and the
rest to hydrogen and electric cars.
Nothing
illustrates France's relationship to the economy more effectively than the
spaceship-like Ministry of the Economy, Finances and Industry in the Paris
district of Bercy, on the Seine River, an enormous complex that currently
houses seven ministers, each of whom does something related to the economy.
Bercy, as the small ministerial city is called, is a monument, cast in
concrete, to French economic dirigisme.
The
Other Face of the French Economy
Montebourg
is not the only important man when it comes to the French economy. Minister of
Finance Pierre Moscovici has his office three floors above Montebourg's office
in Bercy. Like the prime minister and the president, Moscovici is trying to
find a middle ground between French tradition and European demands. Moscovici
and Montebourg have a tense relationship. Together they form the two faces of
the French government in economic matters -- the one constantly raging against
austerity and the European Commission and the other traveling around Europe and
insisting that France is serious about balancing the budget.
Last
October, when steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal announced that he was shutting down
blast furnaces in Florange in northeastern France, dramatic scenes erupted
within the government. Montebourg wanted to temporarily nationalize the
unprofitable production facility, but Hollande refused to support him. It took
some persuasion to convince the minister not to submit his resignation.
These
psychological dramas say a lot about how much the French left has had to adjust
to reality since it came into power. It is true that Hollande has inherited a
difficult legacy. Ironically, a Socialist is now expected to do the dirty work
after 17 years of conservative rule. This is all the more difficult in a
country in which being leftist still comes with the lofty claim to having
superior morals and being imbued with the desire to make the world a better
place.
Hollande
was incapable of using the euphoria over the transition of power to take
decisive action. Now the left wing of his party is already rebelling, as it
laments what it calls the "austerity" that prevails in France. But in
contrast to Greece, for example, where government spending has been cut
significantly, there has been no real austerity in France yet -- and because of
the reprieve granted by the Commission, there will be none for the time being.
The
French political class suffers most of all from the fact that, in a
German-dominated euro zone, it can no longer implement its traditional notions
of an economy financed by state debt, if only because of constant pressure from
the financial markets. As a result, Hollande is on his way to a European policy
similar to that of his predecessor Nicolas
Sarkozy, even though he promised voters a new direction. This makes
some Socialists irate, a feeling they expressed publicly in recent weeks when
prominent party members called upon the president to seek
"confrontation" with Germany.
But
when Merkel and Hollande met in Paris last week, they put on a unified front.
They even presented, for the first time since Sarkozy was voted out of office,
a joint Franco-German paper for the EU summit in June.
Blame
Germany
Nevertheless,
this does nothing to change the fact that, in the eyes of many Socialists,
Germany is to blame for the crisis. They fault both the now-weakened austerity
mandate in Europe and the German economic model, arguing that the Germans
pursue an unfair, egoistic export policy. Politicians across the political
spectrum, from right-wing populist Marine Le Pen to Arnaud Montebourg to
several conservatives, have voiced similar criticism.
The
French left paints Germany as a place afflicted with deep social problems. Even
members of Hollande's staff are quick to cite German poverty figures in private
talks, even though they are not much higher than French figures. They say that
they don't believe in the German export model for all and are fighting to
preserve the European social model.
In
recent months, Germanophobia
within parts of the public has even reached
troubling levels. During the presidential campaign, Montebourg
caused a stir when he accused Merkel of having "Bismarck-style
policies." But hardly anyone raised an eyebrow when the renowned
intellectual Emmanuel Todd said in a talk show recently that the goal of German
economic policy was "to exterminate" its neighbors.
As
a candidate, Hollande was still inspired by the serious conviction that, as
president, he would convince the German chancellor to relent on European
issues. Instead, the French voice has become quieter at the European level.
Paris's diplomats used to set the tone in Brussels. But when Finance Minister
Moscovici reportedly fell asleep during a meeting with his European
counterparts on the bailout package for Cyprus, no one noticed. International
Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde had to wake him up, according
to reports by prominent French daily Le Monde and Reuters news agency.
Some interpreted this as evidence of France's waning importance in Europe. A
furious Moscovici tweeted that he hadn't dozed off at all, and that the rumors
were nothing but "French bashing." It's a term that French
politicians have resorted to frequently of late, as a way of brushing aside
criticism from abroad.
What
this shows, however, is that France's fear of no longer playing an important
role is real. This is all the more jarring because the country, with its
1,500-year history and its "civilisation française," sees itself as a
natural leader among nations. France still maintains a costly vestige of its
former colonial empire, scattered halfway around the globe. The imperial
Parisian palaces contribute to the sense that France is not just an ordinary
country. Does democracy truly benefit from being celebrated in a monarchical
setting?
'A
French Oligarchy That Sticks Together'
France's
biggest problem is not economic reforms, like the ones Germany demands, but a
dearth of democratic culture, says journalist
Edwy Plenel. He is sitting in the conference room of an office
building in a residential neighborhood in eastern Paris. Plenel, with his
trademark large moustache, was a Trotskyite in his youth. Today, at 60, he
manages the Internet newspaper Mediapart, which has set almost all major
French political scandals of recent years into motion -- including perhaps the
most devastating of them all, the case of Jérôme Cahuzac.
The
fact that a budget minister faced allegations of tax fraud and held a secret
bank account in Switzerland, which he had strenuously denied until overwhelming
proof finally forced him to admit it, transcended even the worst of
improprieties to which the French had become accustomed. The case of disgraced
former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn had already given the
public a glimpse into the the behavior of an elite that considers itself above
the law. Citizens had long resigned themselves to the fact that many
politicians repeatedly embroil themselves in inscrutable financial scandals.
The
Cahuzac case, says Plenel, demonstrates with nearly chemical clarity that the
French democracy isn't functioning properly. "Democracy isn't just the
institutions," he explains, "but also the way it is lived out."
In
this case the entire system failed, says Plenel. After Mediapart
reported on the minister's Swiss bank account in December, other media
organizations, which Plenel accuses of engaging in "government
journalism," chose to believe Cahuzac's lies instead. Neither the
president nor the parliament, including the opposition, took action after the Mediapart
report. The judiciary only became involved when Mediapart filed a
complaint, says Plenel. "In this manner, the public gains the impression
of a French oligarchy that sticks together."
Plenel
has been working as one of France's few investigative journalists for the last
30 years. He was with Le Monde for many years, including a stint as
editor-in-chief. After leaving the paper, he founded Mediapart, which is
now in its third year, has 45 employees and is turning a profit. Plenel defends
the profession of journalism as he understands it, but, as he points out, this
makes him something of an oddity in France. France's basic problem, says
Plenel, is presidentialism. "We entrust everything to one man instead of
strengthening our democracy."
The
'Grand Throne'
Plenel
explains that France had the most absolute monarchy on the continent until the
French Revolution swept it away, but it in turn was followed by the
dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. As a result, the concept of placing so much
control into the hands of one individual was implanted into the heart of
post-revolutionary politics. "It has shaped our entire history since then.
Unfortunately, General de Gaulle was also a Bonapartist."
In
1958, the office of the French president was created specifically to
accommodate De Gaulle. As a war hero, he enjoyed the stature of a democratic
ersatz king. But it is difficult to construe the office for modern times.
Sarkozy tried to breach the prevailing conventions in a constant state of
agitation, but in doing so he alienated the people. In Hollande's case, on the
other hand, the grand throne seems to reinforce his phlegmatic tendencies. At
the same time, he has trouble filling the seat.
Nevertheless,
the president remains at the center of society. The Paris elites resemble a
royal court, in which those who have gained access remain part of it forever --
making entry all the more difficult. The same group of people has dominated the
economy and politics for decades, and there is also little turnover in culture
and academia.
While
members of the upper class are prepared from an early age to attend the
"grandes écoles," or elite universities, which are practically a
prerequisite to a government career, there is only a theoretical path to the
top for the lower class, not to mention an entire generation of the children of
immigrants growing up in the ghetto-like suburbs of Paris, Marseille and
Toulouse. Largely excluded from the labor market, their prospects are few in
the French Republic. When they do make headlines, it is usually in connection
with reports of violence. In Marseille, for example, street gangs armed with
Kalashnikovs clash in broad daylight. And then there is the case of Mohamed
Merah, who became a terrorist in Toulouse.
There
is one person who benefits in particular from the French public's fear of the
future, and its rage against the elites, the crisis and immigrants: Marine Le
Pen, the leader of the right-wing populist National Front. Polls show that if a
presidential election were held today, she could even defeat Hollande in the
first round.
Growing
Unrest from the French Right
But
another new force has developed in the right half of society. It is the great
surprise of Hollande's presidency, and he is the one who unwillingly helped to
create it. Knowing that he would be unable to satisfy the left with his
economic policies, he gave the country a revolution in social policy: marriage
for gays and lesbians. Same-sex marriage is now legal in France, but instead of
mobilizing his supporters, Hollande has inspired the opposition.
A
previously unknown coalition took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands
on three Sundays to protest the law. It ranges from traditional Catholics to
the extreme right and the conservative center.
The
left and the right have been at odds in France since the Revolution, and there
is something folkloristic about their conflict. This too makes it so difficult
to achieve compromise. And because in France, feeling culturally attracted to
the right is by no means the exclusive preserve of older people, the movement
also includes large numbers of young people, many of them from the wealthy,
conservative districts in the western part of Paris.
Gay
marriage isn't their only concern. Not unlike the Tea Party activists in the
United States, their resistance to gay marriage is combined with the feeling
that the left's claim to power is not legitimate. The protests illustrate the
sensitivity of an anxious society that is easily inflamed on both sides of the
political spectrum. They also expose the vulnerability of a presidential system
when the strong man at the top is perceived as weak.
The
president will hardly be able to overcome the rift that runs through French
society and even divides the conservatives. His most radical opponents have
announced protests for the coming months. Should Hollande truly begin to embark
on real economic reforms at some point, and if the French are forced to make
real sacrifices one day, the left will probably also call for resistance in the
streets.
When
that happens François Hollande, in his palace, will realize what it means to be
alone.
Translated
from the German by Christopher Sultan
LEAKAGE: EDWARD
SNOWDEN DEFENDS LIBERTY
 |
| Ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden, The Great Leaker |
BBC Report
An ex-CIA employee has said he acted to "protect basic liberties
for people around the world" in leaking details of US phone and internet
surveillance.
Edward Snowden, 29, was revealed as the source of the leaks at his own
request by the UK's Guardian newspaper.
It emerged last week that US agencies were gathering millions of phone records and monitoring internet data.
A spokesman for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the case had been referred to the Department of Justice as a criminal matter.
'You
will never be safe'
Foreign Secretary William Hague cancelled a trip to Washington to address the UK parliament on Monday and deny the claims.
The Guardian quotes Mr Snowden as saying he flew to stay in a hotel in Hong Kong on 20 May, though his exact whereabouts now are unclear.
He is described by the paper as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, a defence contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
Mr Snowden told the Guardian: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.
"If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.
"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."
US media response
A USA Today
editorial accepts that "the primary result of Snowden's actions is a
plus. He has forced a public debate on the sweepingly invasive programs that
should have taken place before they were created". But, it goes on,
"pure motives and laudable effects don't alter the fact that he broke the
law".An editorial in the Chicago Tribune argues that "some new restrictions" in the US intelligence gathering programme may be in order, adding: "If the government is looking for, say, calls between the United States and terrorists in Pakistan or Yemen, why can't it simply demand records of calls to certain foreign countries. Is there no way to narrow the search to leave most Americans out of it?"
Robert O'Harrow in the Washington Post writes that the growing reliance on contractors in US intelligence gathering "reflects a massive shift toward outsourcing over the past 15 years, in part because of cutbacks in the government agencies". He argues that this "has dramatically increased the risk of waste and contracting abuses... but given the threat of terrorism and the national security mandates from Congress, the intelligence community had little choice".
He told the paper that the extent of US surveillance was "horrifying", adding: "We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place."
Mr Snowden said he did not believe he had committed a crime: "We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me."
Mr Snowden said he accepted he could end up in jail and fears for people who know him.
He said he had gone to Hong Kong because of its "strong tradition of free speech".
Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty with the US shortly before the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
However, Beijing can block any extradition if it believes it affects national defence or foreign policy issues.
A standard visa on arrival in Hong Kong for a US citizen lasts for 90 days and Mr Snowden expressed an interest in seeking asylum in Iceland.
'Core
values'
However,
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post quoted Iceland's ambassador to China as
saying that "according to Icelandic law a person can only submit such an
application once he/she is in Iceland".In a statement, Booz Allen Hamilton confirmed Mr Snowden had been an employee for less than three months.
"If accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm," the statement said.
At a daily press briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said he could not comment on the Snowden case, citing an ongoing investigation into the matter.
The first of the leaks came out on Wednesday night, when the Guardian reported a US secret court ordered phone company Verizon to hand over to the NSA millions of records on telephone call "metadata".
The metadata include the numbers of both phones on a call, its duration, time, date and location (for mobiles, determined by which mobile signal towers relayed the call or text).
Major US security leaks
- Pentagon papers, 1971: Daniel Ellsberg leaks study showing the government had knowledge it was unlikely to win Vietnam war
- Watergate, 1972: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal extent of cover-up over burglary at Democrat National Committee HQ
- Iran-Contra affair, 1986: Iranian cleric reveals illegal US arms sales to Iran, the proceeds of which are later used to fund Nicaraguan Contras
- Valerie Plame, 2003: Ms Plame is revealed to be an undercover CIA agent, ending her covert career
- Abu Ghraib, 2004: Publication of pictures showing abuse of detainees at Iraq prison by US officials turns initial media reports of abuse into full-blown scandal
- Bradley Manning, 2010: The soldier downloads thousands of classified documents from military servers and hands them over to Wikileaks
All the internet companies deny giving the US government access to their servers.
Prism is said to give the NSA and FBI access to emails, web chats and other communications directly from the servers of major US internet companies.
The data is used to track foreign nationals suspected of terrorism or spying. The NSA is also collecting the telephone records of American customers, but said it is not recording the content of their calls.
US director of national intelligence James Clapper's office said information gathered under Prism was obtained with the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (Fisa).
Prism was authorised under changes to US surveillance laws passed under President George W Bush, and renewed last year under Barack Obama.
Mr Obama has defended the surveillance programmes, assuring Americans that nobody was listening to their calls.
Obama’s
Surveillance State
The war on terror has taken over not just U.S.
foreign policy, but also our inboxes, smartphones, and Facebook pages. And
we're only beginning to understand how much harm that's caused.
 |
| Barack Obama's credibility is shuttered |
By Suzanne Nossel
It's official. We are living in a
surveillance state. This week's revelations that wave after wave of
Verizon call data, and an endless sea of emails and Facebook posts, are all
being trawled by government dragnets are shocking but not really surprising.
We've known for years that the government's intelligence machinery has
invisible means of cultivating and harvesting personal data in service of a war
against terror that has taken over not just America's foreign policy, but also
our inboxes and homepages. Like the video footage of the backpack-laden
Boston bombers melting into the crowd, this week's disclosures are just an
in-your-face reminder that forms of privacy once taken for granted -- getting
lost in a crowd or maintaining a private email account -- are all but gone.
The absence of clear proof of harm from surveillance can make it impossible to challenge in court. In February of this year, the Supreme Court held that lawyers, journalists, and civil society groups including PEN American Center, where I work, lacked standing to challenge a law that allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on communications with foreign nationals. The Amnesty vs. Clapper decision held that the groups had failed to show they had suffered actual harm. In a convoluted Catch-22, advocates could not prove they were being monitored precisely because the program and its targets were kept secret, yet failure to so prove obviated a challenge in court. The case was lost and the program endures -- as far as we know -- intact.
That harm from these stealthy programs is hard to prove doesn't mean it does not exist. American history and contemporary international examples suggest that the harm can take multiple forms and be irreparable for individuals affected. In U.S. history, aggressive covert surveillance has persistently veered into government efforts to thwart and punish lawful dissent. During the McCarthy era, the FBI spied on suspected communists and used information collected to get them fired from their jobs, to foment dissent in their organizations, and to leak damaging information to the press. The sense of siege was particularly acute among the creative community, where writers and actors came under suspicion, were barred from working, and sometimes saw promising careers destroyed. During the Vietnam War and civil rights movement, intelligence-gathering was used to intimidate and blackmail activists.
While today's government data-mining tactics may be more precise and its motives more justifiable, we don't really know enough to be certain. The divulgences to date, many of which have been leaked rather than shared, tell us little about how many people -- guilty or innocent -- have been identified, suspected, scrutinized, questioned, and otherwise affected by the data collected. While the stories of those wrongly targeted by these newly exposed tactics haven't yet been told, mass-scale systems that base suspicion on algorithms must make mistakes. While the vast majority of officials with access to information generated by these schemes may maintain a strictly professional focus on ferreting out terrorism, the absence of transparency seems to virtually ensure that those who do not can go undetected. That the victims of error and overreach may be mostly foreign nationals does not mean the harm isn't real or that the consequences won't reverberate back to hurt Americans and American interests.
The trauma of the wrongly accused is not the only damage wrought by massive and intrusive surveillance; these programs may also harm those who are watched accidentally and mindlessly as a byproduct of programs directed at others.
In 1890, future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and attorney Samuel D. Warren wrote a seminal article defining a right to privacy. They pointed out that the law already recognized a "right to be let alone" and asserted that the common law "secures to each individual the right of determining, ordinarily, to what extent his thoughts, sentiments, and emotions shall be communicated to others." That zone of individual control, they argued, is essential to enable intellectual and creative freedom.
The process of drafting and redrafting an article, story, poem, love letter, or advocacy petition would be radically transformed if the writer focused on the fact that every single version could be sucked into a government server somewhere. Brandeis and Warren rejected the idea that voluntary surrender of privacy in one setting or to one group of people (Facebook friends, for example) forfeited the right to privacy in relation to others. They attributed to the individual the right to "fix the limits" of such disclosure. The freedom to create requires the freedom to control who sees your creation. While its parameters would evolve, the right to privacy became enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the world's most influential international human rights instruments.
Brandeis and Warren ground their right to privacy in the principle of an "inviolate personality," arguing that infringements on the individual's ability to decide who sees their thoughts and writings interfere with basic attributes of personhood and human dignity. This intangible but long-recognized form of harm correlates loosely but unmistakably with the discomfort and disgust most people feel at the thought of a national security bureaucrat, human or mechanical, rifling through our emails even if only to dismiss them unread as dull and useless.
Although Brandeis and Warren's arguments were set forth in the context of publishing and public disclosure, the prospect of personal information being involuntarily and secretly disclosed to the government is no less troubling, and probably more so.
In the extreme, the idea that government surveillance causes harm is hard to dispute. The resonance of dystopian fiction like Orwell's 1984 and the film Minority Report attest to the deep-seated popular fears associated with being watched by the government. The apprehension, conformity, loss of freedom, and widespread mistrust that eroded social norms and quality of life in societies like Hitler's Germany or Soviet Russia are widely documented.
In reflecting back on life for Czech writers under totalitarianism, the novelist Philip Roth told the audience at this Spring's PEN literary gala: "Every day brings a new heartache, a new tremor, more helplessness, and yet another reduction of freedom and free thought in a censored society already bound and gagged.... Unforeseeableness as the new norm and perpetual anxiety as the injurious result. And anger. The maniacal raving of a manacled being. Frenzies of futile rage ravaging only oneself. Alongside your spouse and your children, imbibing the tyranny with your morning coffee."
Research also shows that closely watched prisoners' sense of perpetually being watched contributes to anxiety, an inability to form bonds, and loss of individual initiative. In authoritarian regimes such as China and Iran, dissidents speak compellingly of the trauma and despair they endure as a result of being followed, monitored, and tracked in a dossier. Scarcely a week ago, the United States announced the easing of sanctions on Iran to permit the flow of technologies and tools to enable Iranians to be "more able to protect themselves against government hackers." The rationale seemed obvious.
The few studies that have looked at the effects of similar tactics in less hostile and restrictive settings have confirmed similar, though more muted, effects. An EU privacy study documented that under surveillance, individuals make choices that are more likely to conform to mainstream expectations. A Finnish research project installed cameras and recording devices in the homes of 12 families and documented annoyance, concern, anxiety, and anger among the watched, as well as a loss of spontaneity as inhabitants contemplated any new social event or activity being captured by the cameras.
Now multiply that 12 by 100 million and there are grounds for concern about how surveillance may reshape Americans' moods, psychology, and social life on a national scale. Until now, it might have been argued that what we did not know -- or chose to ignore -- about the staggering breadth of government surveillance couldn't hurt us. Now that it's front page news and trending on Twitter, that's no longer true.
The idea that friendly and trusted online brands -- Yahoo, Facebook, and others -- had some part in enabling the NSA's broad incursions raises questions of what platforms and transactions, if any, can be fully trusted.
It seems inevitable that in the coming weeks, on the Sunday talk shows and perhaps in congressional committee hearings, we'll learn of examples of conspiracies thwarted and deadly plots exposed as a result of the powers afforded the vast intelligence-tech industrial complex. We'll also hear about well-intentioned, meticulous professionals who pry into all of our affairs only as much as absolutely necessary for national security, and not an iota more.
Defining the permissible limits of secret government surveillance programs isn't an easy task.
Failure to rigorously assess the benefits and dangers of surveillance and to hold a transparent national debate about what levels of intrusion are warranted risks pushing the United States toward a creeping embrace of elements of societies, past and present, that it most abhors.
The idea that new technologies can be simultaneously indispensable and dangerous isn't new. That the popular addiction to email, texting, Facebook, and YouTube will keep usage levels high virtually no matter what is revealed about where posts may wind up should not be confused with public consent to ever more encroaching surveillance. As long as the programs remain even partially secret, that consent can never be fully informed. There is no substitute for courts, legislators, and executive branch officials taking responsibility to ensure that, in trying to protect American society, we don't destroy what we love most about it.
Obama on NSA surveillance: Can't have 100% security and 100% privacy
 |
| Barack Hussein Obama, US President |
The NSA’s
extensive spying program is justified as it allows agents to identify “leads
with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism,” claimed US President
Barack Obama, adding that no one promised Americans both total security and
total privacy.
Obama
weighed in Friday morning on an evolving series of scandals surrounding an
apparent National Security Agency program designed to allow real-time online
surveillance of US citizens.
Obama was
concluding remarks about his Affordable Health Care Act during an address in
Northern California Friday morning when he fielded a single question about the
NSA and the recently disclosed domestic spying programs.
“I
think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 per cent security and
also then have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience,” the president
told the crowd while delivering several minutes of unscripted remarks about the
NSA.
Earlier
this week, civil liberties-focused lawyer-turned-journalist Glenn Greenwald of
The Guardian published a document disclosing that the NSA orders the phone
records of millions of American subscribers on a regular basis, and that
American telecom firms have been compelled to provide the US government with
numbers dialed, duration of call and other metadata.
One day
later, The Guardian and the Washington Post nearly simultaneously disclosed a
program named PRISM. According to Greenwald, PRISM allows the NSA to connect
directly to data servers controlled by the biggest names on the Web,
essentially providing Uncle Sam with backdoor access to the bulk of the
country’s communications.
“The
National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google,
Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret
document obtained by the Guardian,” Greenwald wrote late Thursday.
US
President Barack Obama makes a statement to reporters on the Affordable Care
Act at Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, on June 7, 2013 (AFP Photo /
Jewel Samad)
Obama
dismissed allegations that both NSA programs have been spying on Americans,
instead calling them critical aspects of the country’s continuously expanding
counterterrorism efforts. He also rejected the notion that the programs are as
vast in scope as has been reported, at the same time shifting blame away from
his administration and towards the lawmakers he said have been privy to both
operations every step of the way.
“The
programs,” said Obama, “are secret in the sense that they are
classified, but they are not secret in the sense that when it comes to
telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program.”
“With
respect to all of these programs, the relevant intelligence committees are
fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized
by broad bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006. And so I think at the
onset it is important to understand that your duly elected representatives have
been consistently informed on exactly what we’re doing,” insisted Obama.
“When it
comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s
not what this program was about. As indicated, what the intelligence community
is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not
looking at people’s names and they are not looking at content. But, by sifting
through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect
to folks who might engage in terrorism,” he said.
In
regards to PRISM, Obama also downplayed reports of a widespread domestic
surveillance operation.
“With
respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to US citizens and it
does not apply to people living in the United States,” he said. “And
again in this instance, not only is Congress fully appraised of it, but what is
also true is that the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court has to
authorize it.”
Congress
reauthorized FISA last year, giving federal investigators another five-year
window to wiretap the communications of Americans citizens if one of the
parties involved is thought to be outside of the US. Google began publishing
statistics about FISA's court-penned requests for user data in recent months,
but the actual scope of the government’s spying prowess has gone unreported.
Last year, two members of Congress even wrote the NSA for a rough estimate of how
many Americans were having their communications intercepted — a request which
was refuted.
“What you've got is two programs that were
originally authorized by Congress, had been repeatedly authorized by Congress;
bipartisan majorities have approved of them – Congress is continually briefed
on how they are conducted. There is a whole range of safeguards involved, and
federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout,” Obama said.
Obama
also suggested that under former president George W. Bush, discussions of the
programs might never have surfaced. “Five years ago, six years ago, we might
not have been having this debate,” he said, calling the discourse an
example of “maturity.”
That
didn’t keep Obama from condoning the leaked reports, though, and he made sure
to speak in that connection as well.
“I
don’t welcome leaks, because there are a reason these programs are classified,”
Obama said. “I think that there is a suggestion that somehow any classified
program is a quote-unquote ‘secret program,’ which means it is somehow
suspicious. But the fact of the matter is in our modern history, there are a
whole range of programs that have been classified, because when it comes to,
for example, fighting terrorism, our goal is to stop folks from doing us harm.
And if every step that we are taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on
the front page of the newspapers or any television, then presumably the people
that are tying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our
preventative measures. That’s why these things are classified. But that’s also
why we set up congressional oversight. These are the folks that you all vote
for as your representatives in Congress, and they are being fully briefed on
these programs.”
“In
the abstract you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential
program run amok, but when you actually look at the details then I think we’ve
struck the right balance,” he said.
The White
House had failed to respond directly to The Guardian and Washington Post
articles before the comments in California. He is currently traveling in the
state and plans to meet with the president of China there this weekend.
Obama
said he would continue to take questions through the week.
The scariest part of the NSA revelations
Forget PRISM,
the National Security Agency's system to help extract data from Google,
Facebook, and the like. The more frightening secret program unearthed by the
NSA leaks is the gathering and storing of millions of phone records and
phone-location information of U.S. citizens.
The data is used to connect known or suspected terrorists to people in the United States, and to help locate them. It has also been used in foreign criminal investigations and to assist military forces overseas. But the laws that govern the collection of this information and its use are not as clear. Nor are they as strong as those associated with PRISM, the system the NSA is using to collate information from the servers of America's tech giants.
Metadata is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Content of emails and instant messages -- what PRISM helps gather -- is. An order issued to Verizon by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court instructs the company to supply records of all its telephony metadata "on an ongoing, daily basis." Although legal experts say this kind of broad collection of metadata may be legal, it's also "remarkably overbroad and quite likely unwise," according to Paul Rosenzweig, a Bush administration policy official in the Homeland Security Department. "It is difficult to imagine a set of facts that would justify collecting all telephony meta-data in America. While we do live in a changed world after 9/11, one would hope it has not that much changed."
By comparison, PRISM appears more tightly constrained and operates on a more solid legal foundation. Current and former officials who have experience using huge sets of data available to intelligence analysts said that PRISM is used for precisely the kinds of intelligence gathering that Congress and the administration intended when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 2008. Officials wanted to allow intelligence agencies to target and intercept foreigners' communications when they travel across networks inside the United States.
The surveillance law prohibits targeting a U.S. citizen or legal resident without a warrant, which must establish a reasonable basis to suspect the individual of ties to terrorism or being an agent of a foreign power. In defending PRISM, administration officials have said repeatedly in recent days that the FISA Court oversees the collection program to ensure that it's reasonably designed to target foreign entities, and that any incidental collection of Americans' data is expunged. They've also said that press reports describing the system as allowing "direct access" to corporate servers is wrong. Separately, a U.S. intelligence official also said that the system cannot directly query an Internet company's data.
But the administration has not explained why broadly and indiscriminately collecting the metadata records of millions of U.S. citizens and legal residents comports with a law designed to protect innocent people from having their personal information revealed to intelligence analysts. Nor have officials explained why the NSA needs ongoing, daily access to all this information and for so many years, particularly since specific information can be obtained on an as-needed basis from the companies with a subpoena.
Here's why the metadata of phone records could be more invasive and a bigger threat to privacy and civil liberties than the PRISM system:
1. Metadata is often more revealing than contents of a communication, which is what's being collected with PRISM. A study in the journal Nature found that as few as four "spatio-temporal points," such as the location and time a phone call was placed, is enough to determine the identity of the caller 95 percent of the time.
2. The Wall Street Journal reports that in addition to phone metadata, the NSA also is collecting metadata on emails, website visits, and credit card transactions (although it's unclear whether those collection efforts are ongoing). If that information were combined with the phone metadata, the collective power could not only reveal someone's identity, but also provide an illustration of his entire social network, his financial transactions, and his movements.
3. Administration officials have said that intelligence analysts aren't indiscriminately searching this phone metadata. According to two intelligence employees who've used the data in counterterrorism investigations, it contains no names, and when a number that appears to be based in the United States shows up, it is blocked out with an "X" mark.
But these controls, said a former intelligence employee, are internal agency rules, and it's not clear that the FISA Court has anything to say about them. In this employee's experience, if he wanted to see the phone number associated with that X mark, he had to ask permission from his agency's general counsel. That permission was often obtained, but he wasn't aware of the legal process involved in securing it, or if the request was taken back to the FISA court.
4. The metadatabase is widely available across the intelligence community on analysts' desktops, increasing the potential for misuse.
5. The metadata has the potential for mission creep. It's not only used for dissecting potential homegrown terror plots, as some lawmakers have said. The metadata is also used to help military forces overseas target terrorist and insurgent networks. And it is used in foreign criminal investigations, including ones involving suspected weapons traffickers.
For all these reasons, and probably more yet to emerge, it's the metadata that's of bigger concern. By comparison, PRISM is a cool name, a lame PowerPoint presentation -- and business as usual.
Shane Harris is a senior writer at The Washingtonian magazine and the author of The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State.
NSA leaker Snowden supported
Ron Paul
 |
| Republican Presidential hopeful, Ron Paul |
As
news continues to surface about classified NSA documents leaked last week, the
man who blew the whistle on the secret spy program is quickly becoming the
center of attention.
With all
eyes turned to 29-year-old Edward Snowden, the former CIA analyst who leaked
documents about the National Security Agency’s domestic spying is already on
his way to becoming the most discussed man in America. Less than 24 hours after
the Guardian went public with Snowden’s identity on Sunday, the leaker’s
personal life and politics have already taken center stage.
Now at
the center of some discussions is Snowden’s endorsement of Ron Paul during last
year’s presidential race, a revelation that is providing a rare glimpse into
the ideologies of a man who will likely face decades in prison for going
public.
According
to donation info published by the Center for Responsive Politics’ website
OpenSecrets.org, Snowden made two contributions totaling $500 to the
presidential campaign of then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) during the last calendar
year. Snowden made a $250 contribution to Rep. Paul on March 18, 2012, and
another $250 donation on May 6.
Rep. Paul
was vying for the Republican Party’s nomination as president during last year’s
election, ultimately losing that slot to former Massachusetts governor Mitt
Romney. Paul ended his active campaigning phrase shortly after Snowden’s second
contribution was made and retired from Congress in early 2013 after serving
decades on Capitol Hill.
Although
other links between Snowden and Paul haven’t been published yet, the leaker did
say in an interview this week that he supported a third party presidential
candidate during the 2008 race that ultimately ended in a win for Barack Obama,
a Democrat.
"A
lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a
third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it
[but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his
predecessor,” Snowden told the Guardian.
Before
Barack Obama won his bid for the White House in 2008, he campaigned on a
promise of having the most transparent presidential administration in the
history of the United States. Today his office continues to stand by that vow
despite spearheading an unprecedented war against leakers. The Obama
administration has so far charged seven people under the Espionage Act, and
more leakers have been prosecuted under that legislation than by every previous
president combined.
Snowden
is reported to currently be in Hong Kong after fleeing his apartment in Hawaii
at the beginning of last month. He previously worked for the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and, most recently, defense contractor Booz Allen
Hamilton. He only worked there for three months before the Guardian published
top secret documents last week about the NSA’s phone and Internet surveillance
programs, operated for years under a provision of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act and a well-hidden program called PRISM.
"The
NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything.
With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are
automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or
your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails,
passwords, phone records [and] credit cards,” Snowden told the Guardian.
"I
don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want
to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not
something I am willing to support or live under."
Before
the Guardian went public with Snowden’s allegations about the spy program —
then later his identity — the leaker went to the Washington Post and asked them
to publish his evidence of PRISM.
“Snowden
asked for a guarantee that The Washington Post would publish — within 72
hours — the full text of a PowerPoint presentation describing
PRISM, a top-secret surveillance program that gathered intelligence from
Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other Silicon Valley giants,” Post reporter
Barton Gellman admitted this week.
“I
told him we would not make any guarantee about what we published or when,”
Gellman recalled for the Post. According to Gellman, “The Post sought the
views of government officials about the potential harm to national security
prior to publication and decided to reproduce only four of the 41 slides.”
Snowden’s
attempt to expose the secretive program through the Washington Post draws an
eerie parallel to the case of Bradley Manning, the 25-year-old Army private who
gave hundreds of thousands of sensitive government files to the anti-secrecy
website WikiLeaks — but not before his phone calls to the Post and New York Times
were ignored.
On the
campaign trail last year, then-Rep. Paul said he’d protect Bradley Manning and other whistleblowers if elected to the White House.
“I
maintain that government becomes more secret and the people’s privacy is being
destroyed. We should protect the people’s privacy and we should make the
government much more open,” Paul said last April during a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas.
“I would
certainly lean in the direction of protecting people that are trying to tell
the truth,” said
Paul. “The more openness the better. That’s what a free society is all
about. It wouldn’t be so critical if the government was a lot smaller, but
because it is so big it is big issue because there is so much that could be
hidden.”
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