The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday “effectively sided with the government” against embattled New York Times journalist James Risen by rejected his appeal of a lower court ruling challenging the Justice Department’s demand that he reveal a confidential source.
“By going after Risen, the Obama administration has done more damage to reporter’s privilege than any other case in forty years.” —Trevor Timm, Freedom of the Press Foundation
The ruling means that Risen has come to the end of the appeals process in his case and must now either testify in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling or face possible jail time. The Department of Justice believes that Sterling is Risen’s confidential source, but Risen has consistently refused to confirm that belief, citing press freedoms and his right as a journalist to protect confidential sources. If he refuses to testify—as he has repeatedly said he will—he could be placed in contempt of court and face jail time until he complies.
As the Times itself reports:
Fellow journalist Glenn Greenwald expressed his frustration with the court’s decision, by tweeting:
Norman Solomon, a journalist and co-founder of the progressive advocacy organization RootsAction, says the ruling exemplifies issues he highlighted in a recent piece, titled An Assault from Obama’s Escalating War on Journalism, written about the Risen case for Common Dreams last week. In comments emailed in the wake of Monday’s court decision, Solomon explained:
“Fortunately, what makes James Risen an excellent journalist is also what is making him an excellent protagonist for real freedom of the press.” —Norman Solomon, RootsAction.org
And Trevor Timm, co-founder and executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement:
Seemingly undeterred by the court’s decision, Risen himself, according to the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, has vowed to continue to fight for his right to protect sources. Wemple tweeted:
Reaction on Twitter was also trending among journalists, free press advocates, and others:
Tweets about “James Risen”
______________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?
The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”
The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.
As we’ve reported, the Red Cross releases few details about how it spends money after big disasters. That makes it difficult to figure out whether donor dollars are well spent.
The Red Cross did give some information about Sandy spending to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who had been investigating the charity. But the Red Cross declined our request to disclose the details.
So we filed a public records request for the information the Red Cross provided to the attorney general’s office.
That’s where the law firm Gibson Dunn comes in.
An attorney from the firm’s New York office appealed to the attorney general to block disclosure of some of the Sandy information, citing the state Freedom of Information Law’s trade secret exemption.
The documents include “internal and proprietary methodology and procedures for fundraising, confidential information about its internal operations, and confidential financial information,” wrote Gabrielle Levin of Gibson Dunn in a letter to the attorney general’s office.
If those details were disclosed, “the American Red Cross would suffer competitive harm because its competitors would be able to mimic the American Red Cross’s business model for an increased competitive advantage,” Levin wrote.
The letter doesn’t specify who the Red Cross’ “competitors” are.
The Red Cross is a public charity and occupies a unique place responding to disasters alongside the federal government.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Among the sections of the documents the Red Cross wanted redacted was “a two-line title” at the top of a page, one line of which was “American Red Cross.”
The attorney general’s office denied that redaction, writing that it “can not find disclosure of this two line title will cause the Red Cross any economic injury.”
Asked about the effort to have Sandy materials kept secret, Red Cross spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego told ProPublica: “We sought to keep confidential a small part of the letter [sent to the AG] that provided proprietary information important to maintaining our ability to raise funds and fulfill our mission.”
Doug White, a nonprofit expert who directs the fundraising management program at Columbia University, said that it’s possible for nonprofits to have trade interests — the logo of a university, for example — but it’s not clear what a “trade secret” would be in the case of the Red Cross. He called the lawyer’s letter an apparent “delaying tactic.”
Ben Smilowitz of the Disaster Accountability Project, a watchdog group, said,
“Invoking a ‘trade secret’ exemption is not something you would expect from an organization that purports to be ‘transparent and accountable.'”
In agreeing to withhold some details, the attorney general’s office found that portions of the documents the charity wanted to redact “describe business strategies, internal operational procedures and decisions, and the internal deliberations and decision-making processes that affect fundraising and the allocation of donations.”
The attorney general’s office also found “that this information is proprietary and constitutes trade secrets, and that its disclosure would cause the Red Cross economic injury and put the Red Cross at an economic disadvantage.”
Another section the Red Cross wanted redacted was a paragraph that noted the charity’s “willingness to meet with the [Office of the Attorney General.]” The attorney general’s office denied that part of the request
Borrego, the Red Cross spokeswoman, declined to say how much the charity is paying Gibson Dunn but said, “we do not use funds restricted to Superstorm Sandy to cover those expenses.”
Two sizable earthquakes struck off the coast of Japan near the precarious Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant early Monday.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, one quake measuring magnitude 5.8 and another measuring 5.6 struck off the coast of Honsu—Japan’s largest and most populated island—overnight.
The agency says there is no immediate risk of a tsunami. However, the larger of the two quakes hit just 21 nautical miles from the Fukushima plant, where the containment of radioactive water and waste has been fraught with problems since an earthquake struck off the coast of the plant in 2011.
As Scotland voted against independence from the United Kingdom, rival supporters crowded into Glasgow’s George Square on Friday in what became a contentious gathering quickly broken up by police officers.
According to a police spokeswoman, about 200 people total converged on the city’s central plaza, although they were dispersed shortly. Police launched flares and Unionists waved U.K. flags in the air as they faced off with independence voters. According to the BBC, the confrontation started with a “coordinated” push from pro-Unionists. Peter Adam Smith, a journalist with STV News, posted a vine that captured some pro-U.K. demonstrators using Nazi salutes:
The confrontation in the square followed a surprise in parliament as Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond announced his sudden resignation, telling a press conference, “Right now there is a decision as to who is best placed to lead this process forward politically.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
“I believe that in this new exciting situation, redolent with possibility, party, parliament and country would benefit from new leadership,” Salmond said.
Salmond had previously said he would stay on as SNP leader through 2016, but on Friday told reporters he would not accept a new nomination at the party’s annual conference in November. He is likely to be succeeded by his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, whom he appointed to lead the referendum process.
Updates and photos of George Square were being tracked on Twitter:
#georgesquare Tweets
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Pending lawsuits in three states could have far-reaching implications for the coal-mining industry, as the U.S. Department of Interior has been charged with too quickly rubber-stamping coal-mining operations without adequate public input or consideration of pollution impact.
Filed by the environmental group WildEarth Guardians, the lawsuits take the Interior Department to task for what is described as “a chronic failure … to involve the public and address the potentially significant environmental and economic impacts of coal mining throughout the Rocky Mountain West.” They call for the government to shut down mining operations until more complete environmental reviews are completed.
While the lawsuits deal with four specific mines, the fallout from the civil cases could be more far-reaching, due to how many mines have been approved via the same process.
“If WildEarth’s request for relief is granted … the result would be devastating economic harm to coal miners, operators and the entire industry that services coal production,” mining association attorney Stephen Bell wrote in a recent court brief, as reported by the Associated Press.
Under federal law, the Interior Department has to approve a “Mining Plan” before a company can mine federal coal reserves. The plans must demonstrate compliance with federal regulations and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), looking at how mining would impact air and water quality both now and in the future.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
In the case of four mines in Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico, the Department signed off on Mining Plans that failed “to accurately consider potentially significant direct and indirect environmental impacts in accordance with NEPA,” the lawsuits read.
In particular, WildEarth alleges that the Department failed to give sufficient public notice about environmental analyses, approved plans that employed outdated information and standards, and ignored blatant public health risks. The Trapper mine in Colorado, for example, is currently in violation of the Clean Air Act and has exceeded its water pollution limits by more than 1,000 percent, according to WildEarth.
“Without any public knowledge, Interior has given the green light for coal companies to despoil our air, our water, and our land,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director. “It’s bad enough that that Interior is approving this kind of dirty energy development in secret, but it’s also doing so without consideration of the environmental implications. The public deserves better.”
Attorneys for the federal government deny any wrongdoing and have asked for the case to be dismissed.
_____________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Intense shelling and aerial assaults that claimed hundreds of lives over the weekend continued in the Gaza Strip on Monday, pushing the number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ beyond 500 people, with many thousands wounded, since it began on July 8.
“While official claims that the objective of the ground offensive is to destroy tunnels into Israel, what we see on the ground is that bombing is indiscriminate and that those who die are civilians.” —Nicolas Palarus, Doctors Without Borders
In the Gaza City suburb of Shuja’iyya on Sunday, more than 120 Palestinians—at least 40 of whom where women and children—were killed during intense and reportedly “indiscriminate” bombing by Israeli forces. The Ma’an News Agency reports that overall, 150 Palestinians were killed across the territory on Sunday.
“It was a night of horror,” one 50 year-old Palestinian from the city of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza told Reuters.
According to the New York Times on Monday, “Israel has lost 18 soldiers so far, as well as two citizens killed by rocket and mortar fire.”
Late on Sunday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting over the crisis in Gaza and demanded all parties agree to an immediate cease fire. The council, however, did not pick up an official resolution offered by Jordan which put forth stronger language condemning the violence against civilians in Gaza and called for a lifting of the siege that prevents people from leaving the enclave that has now become an open battlefield.
In a statement, the France-based medical relief agency Doctors Without Borders/MSF called on Israel to immediately stop bombing the civilian population trapped in the sealed-off Gaza strip and to respect the safety of medical workers and health facilities working there.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
“Shelling and air strikes are not only intense but are also unpredictable, which makes it very difficult for MSF and other medical workers to move and provide much needed emergency care,” said Nicolas Palarus, MSF field coordinator in Gaza.
“While official claims that the objective of the ground offensive is to destroy tunnels into Israel,” Palarus continued, “what we see on the ground is that bombing is indiscriminate and that those who die are civilians.”
UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon, speaking in Doha on Sunday, made his strongest comments yet on Israel’s military assault, calling for an end to the campaign that has now killed hundreds of civilians and wounded thousands, including a huge numbers of children.
“I condemn this atrocious action,” Ban said. “Israel must exercise maximum restraint and do far more to protect civilians.”
Both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama have also backed the latest calls for a cease fire and expressed “concern” for the increasing numbers of civilian casualties, but continued to stop short of condemning Israeli’s aggressive tactics.
In a call with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, according to the White House, Obama raised “serious concern” about the growing number of casualties on both sides, including increasing Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza and the loss of Israeli soldiers, but reaffirmed the U.S. position that Israel has a “right to defend itself.”
Kerry was on his way to Cairo on Monday to engage with regional leaders gathered there to work on the possibility of a negotiated settlement. Kerry made headlines on Sunday for what were described as “unguarded” comments made to a senior aide in which he was shown expressing frustration over the increasing numbers of civilians deaths caused by Israel’s attack. “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry said, seeming to challenge the repeated claims made by Israeli officials.
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
The failure of the two major players in global trade negotiations to bridge their differences has put paid to the adoption of the protocol of amendment for implementation of the contested Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) for the time being.
India and the United States failed Thursday at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reach agreement on construction of a legally binding decision on a “permanent peace clause” that would further strengthen what was decided for public distribution programmes for food security in developing countries at the ninth ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia, last year.
New Delhi made its choice clear to Azevedo: either members [of the WTO] agree to a permanent solution for food security or postpone adoption of the TFA protocol until there are credible outcomes on all issues, by the end of the year.
The Bali decision on food security was one of the nine non-binding best endeavour outcomes agreed by trade ministers on agriculture and development.
For industrialised and leading economic tigers in the developing world, the TFA – which would harmonise customs procedures in the developing world on a par with the industrialised countries – is a major mechanism for market access into the developing and poorest countries.
WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo, who had put all his energies over the last seven months into ensuring the timely adoption of the TFA protocol by July 31 as set out in the Bali ministerial declaration, was clearly upset with the failure to adopt the protocol.
“The fact we do not have a conclusion means that we are entering a new phase in our work – a phase which strikes me as being full of uncertainties,” Azevedo told the delegates at the concluding session of the General Council, which is the highest WTO decision-taking body between ministerial meetings.
The Bail ministerial declaration was adopted at the WTO’s ninth ministerial meeting in December last year. It resulted in a binding multilateral agreement on trade facilitation along with non-binding outcomes on nine other decisions raised by developing and poorest countries, including an interim solution on public distribution programmes for food security.
The developing and poorest countries remained unhappy with the Bali package even though their trade ministers endorsed the deal. The countries of the South resented what they saw as the “foster parent treatment” accorded to their concerns in agriculture and development.
While work on clearing the way for the speedy implementation of the TFA has preceded at brisk pace at the WTO over the last seven months, other issues were somewhat neglected. Several African and South American countries, as well as India, remained unhappy with the lack of progress in issues concerning agriculture and development, particularly in public distribution programmes for food security.
Last week, India fired the first salvo at the WTO by declaring that unless there are “credible” outcomes in the development dossier of the Bali package, including a permanent solution for food security, it would not join the consensus to adopt the TFA. Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba shared India’s concerns.
Despite concerted political lobbying by leading U.S. administration officials and envoys from Western countries in New Delhi to change its stand, the Indian government informed the WTO director-general Wednesday that it wanted a substantive outcome on food security, without which it would oppose the TFA protocol.
Without bringing India and the United States into a face-to-face dialogue at the WTO, Azevedo held talks with the representatives from the world’s two largest democracies in a one-on-one format.
According to sources familiar with the WTO’s closed-door consultations, Azevedo informed India that its demand for a substantive outcome on food security would not be acceptable to members because they would not approve “re-writing” the Bali ministerial declaration.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
New Delhi made its choice clear to Azevedo: either members agree to a permanent solution for food security or postpone adoption of the TFA protocol until there are credible outcomes on all issues, by the end of the year.
“India’s position remains the same,” New Delhi trade minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters after a meeting with the U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker Thursday.
Given the importance of TFA for U.S. business interests, Washington yielded some ground by agreeing to a compromise, but the two sides were stuck on legal aspects, particularly on how this should be adopted at the General Council.
The result Thursday was that the differences between the two led to an adjournment of the General Council without the TFA protocol.
“We have not been able to find a solution that would allow us to bridge that gap,” the WTO director-general told members. “We tried everything we could … but it has not proved possible,” Azevedo said.
“We are absolutely sad and disappointed that a very small handful of countries were unwilling to keep their commitments from the December conference in Bali and we agree with the director-general that the failure has put this institution on very uncertain ground,” U.S. deputy trade representative Ambassador Michael Punke told reporters.
Brazil’s trade envoy Marcos Galvao suggested that it would be possible to reinvigorate the talks despite the failure Thursday. “When we come back in September, we can come forward with the Bali package and the whole work programme,” Galvao told IPS.
In New Delhi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said “our feeling is obviously that the agreement that was reached in Bali is an agreement that importantly can provide for food security for India.”
“We do not dismiss the concerns India has about large numbers of poor people who require some sort of food assurance and subsistence level, but we believe there’s a way to provide for that that keeps faith with the WTO Bali agreement,” Kerry maintained.
Credible and permanent rules for food security are vital for developing countries to continue with their public distribution programmes to address livelihood security.
“The programme enables governments in the developing countries to put more money in the hands of the poor farmers by buying their crops at stable and higher price, and use those government purchases to feed the hungry – many of those same farm families – with free or subsidised food distributions,” said Timothy A. Wise, an academic with the Global Development and Environment Institute at the U.S. Tufts University.
Several developing and poorest countries – Zambia, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Botswana, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Jordan, India, and Saudi Arabia – are currently implementing food security programmes for different food articles.
The Bali package involves nine issues in addition to the TFA and they need to be addressed “on an equal footing,” Nelson Ndirangu, Kenya’s senior trade official told IPS. “I’m sympathetic to India’s stand and I agree that all issues, including a permanent solution for food security, must be addressed along with the TFA,” said Ndirangu.
NATO and the Ukrainian government on Friday said that several Russian military vehicles were destroyed overnight when they crossed the border into Ukraine.
A statement on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s website said that Russian APCs were seen entering the country from a point near the aid convoy, but were destroyed by artillery fire from Ukrainian troops, according to the Associated Press. “The president informed that the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of the machines had been eliminated by Ukrainian artillery at night,” the statement said.
Poroshenko did not provide any proof to corroborate his claim. However, NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance had seen a “Russian incursion” into Ukraine, the AP reports.
Rasmussen also told reporters that the APCs were a sign that Russia was continuing to supply separatists in Ukraine with “a continuous flow of weapons and fighters.”
The vehicles were apparently unrelated to the Russian convoy said to be carrying humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine, which is currently stopped at a border point, where CNN reports it is being inspected by officials. The European Union has expressed concern that the convoy could be pretext for an invasion, but the Russian government denied the claim, stating it was only interested in “the tremendously grave humanitarian situation” in the region.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
It is unclear what the mission for the secret convoy was. Ukraine did not consider the tanks’ border crossing a sign of invasion, Bloomberg reports. However, Defense Ministry spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said that the vehicles had been painted white to “camouflage” the operation as a peacekeeping mission. Bloomberg writes:
According to NPR, “European diplomatic officials and some journalists in the area first reported that some Russian military vehicles did cross into Ukraine overnight and that two British newspapers said ‘at least 23 Russian military vehicles’ were involved.”
German Foreign Minister Franke-Walter Steinmeier said Friday in Brussels that there may be no connection between the humanitarian convoy and the military column. “What we still don’t know is whether this was a relatively, unfortunately, normal nightly course of events at the Russian-Ukrainian border, or if it had some sort of connection with the humanitarian convoy,” Steinmeier said. “The OSCE view initially leaned to there being no close connection.”
Almost 2,100 people have died in the conflict in eastern Ukraine since fighting began in April.
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
In advance of President Obama’s expected announcement of big changes to the nation’s immigration policies, hundreds of demonstrators staged a protest Thursday in Washington, D.C., calling for “humane and compassionate administrative relief” for undocumented immigrants. About 145 of the activists, including at least one elected official and many organizational leaders, were arrested following a sit-down rally that blocked the sidewalk outside the White House.
Following a mile-and-a-half-long march from the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, protesters hung banners and flowers on the fence outside the White House before sitting down on the sidewalk. “About 145 people were then peacefully handcuffed by the U.S. Park Police and taken in vans and buses to a detention facility in Anacostia,” the Washington Post reports.
They chanted “Si se puede!” and “Not one more!” and children wore T-shirts that pleaded: “Don’t Deport My Mom.” Marchers carried a banner that read, “Pres. Obama Stop Deporting.”
The demonstration was specifically focused on the negative effects of deportation on families who are separated as a result of U.S. policies. Ana Sol Gutierrez, a Democrat serving in Maryland House of Delegates who was one of those arrested during the action, said U.S. policies are dividing families who have been in the United States for years. And Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, who was also taken into custody, said “immigration reform that respects women and families is a feminist issue.”
Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland, a Latino advocacy group that organized Thursday’s demonstration, was also arrested. “Today, on this national day to fight for families, we call on President Obama to do everything in his power to enact humane and compassionate administrative relief that will end our suffering,” he said.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
All those who were detained were processed and released by last night.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama “is suggesting that he will defer his self-imposed deadline for announcing an expected change in immigration policy, as the White House wrestles with the political and legal dilemmas involved in making significant alterations without congressional approval.
“Fed up with congressional gridlock, the president has said he’ll use his executive power to make changes. One proposal under discussion would delay a decision on the more sweeping and controversial changes under consideration until after the November midterm election, according to a White House official familiar with the discussions.”
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union, American Immigration Council, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and National Immigration Law Center sued the federal government “to challenge its policies denying a fair deportation process to mothers and children who have fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution in Central America and come to the United States seeking safety.”
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Amnesty International released a free program on Wednesday that scans computers for surveillance software that is often used by governments to spy on journalists, human rights lawyers, political organizers, and other activists—technology that has been discovered to be in use in countries around the world.
“Governments are increasingly using dangerous and sophisticated technology that allows them to read activists and journalists’ private emails and remotely turn on their computer’s camera or microphone to secretly record their activities. They use the technology in a cowardly attempt to prevent abuses from being exposed,” said Marek Marczynski, Head of Military, Security and Police at Amnesty International.
The tool, aptly named Detekt, scans PC computers for programs like FinSpy, also known as FinFisher. Both are products of Gamma International, a German-UK company that may have lied about its associations with a number of oppressive Middle Eastern regimes, according to a recent investigation.
One such regime was the Bahraini government, which had used FinFisher to spy on prominent lawyers, politicians, and journalists during the Arab Spring revolutionary movement in 2011. FinFisher can be used to read emails, monitor Skype conversations, extract files from hard drives, and remotely operate a target’s computer microphone and webcam.
As Amnesty notes, there have been few attempts to safeguard against these kinds of invasive programs. Until now.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Detekt “represents a strike back against governments who are using information obtained through surveillance to arbitrarily detain, illegally arrest and even torture human rights defenders and journalists,” added Marczynski.
Because Detekt cannot remove or delete any infections it finds, its recommendations are simple: disconnect from the internet and seek expert assistance from a different computer.
“If Detekt indicates signs of infection, you should assume that your computer has been compromised and is no longer safe for use,” the website states.
The tool was developed by security researcher Claudio Guarnieri. Amnesty is launching it in partnership with Digitale Gesellschaft, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Privacy International.
“These spying tools are marketed on their ability to get round your bog-standard anti-virus,” Tanya O’Carroll, an adviser on technology and human rights at Amnesty International, told the BBC. “It’s easier to name the countries that are not using these spying tools than those that are.”
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.