Illusions Of Democracy and The Internet

Although the Egyptian revolution gained sensational attention on social media sites, much work remains ahead as Egyptians formulate a new government [EPA]


The Internet Falls Short Of Presenting Facts About Realities and Responsibilities Of Governance and Freedom.

By Esther Dyson
Last Modified: 28 May 2011 12:51
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

The internet is an extraordinarily powerful tool. It has changed how we do business, how we do politics, and even how we change our leaders - at least some of the time.

But the ease with which we now communicate - the efficiencies we take for granted - can give us a false sense of how easy it is to follow through on some of these changes. Despite the importance of social media in fomenting revolution, and even in deposing deeply unpopular leaders, governing in the real world is not as easy as governing online.

This struck me last week when I listened to one of Egypt's new online generation talking enthusiastically about the future. His thesis was that once people have tasted freedom, once the oppressive leader is gone, they will naturally live as free people and build a new, democratic society without much central oversight. I wish I could believe that it will all be as easy for Egyptians as running a Facebook group was.

Generally, the internet is a tool for people whose basic needs are already being met. Members of the upper middle class in any country, including Egypt, often seem to forget that for most people, the value created on the internet cannot feed, clothe or house their families.

In centuries past, revolutionaries were farmers or blacksmiths or merchants; now they are Google executives and Facebook friends. The internet joins together the elite of the world. But it also cuts people off from the past and a sense of history. The exciting things that happen online are not the same as what happened offline in countries such as Romania and Kyrgyzstan, let alone in Libya.

In fact, habits are often stronger and more persistent than either insights or presidents. People may want a world free of corruption, but it's hard to understand how such a world works. When you are starting a new company and you need to get it registered quickly, how can you get the bureaucrat to do his job and move your paperwork along?

In many countries the answer is obvious. And, from the bureaucrat's point of view, his or her salary might be pathetic, but it comes with a steady stream of facilitation payments. That bureaucrat does not feel corrupt; he plays by the rules he signed on for when he got his job, and he does not want them changed mid-game.

There are many people in this or a similar position, and they all depend on one another to make a corrupt system work. It is difficult for them to understand how it could be any other way. Of course, they know from the media - indeed, from the internet - about transparency and freedom, but without quite understanding how it works.

I am often reminded of the Russian tech entrepreneur I talked to many years ago, back when the Soviet Union was falling apart. "It's great!" he said. "Our government is going to set free-market prices just like yours."

I don't want to be gloomy. People in the Middle East and other emerging democracies have definitely changed from their recent experiences, and their expectations have been raised. But they need to understand the challenges they face in building a new society.

The internet may have made this transition seem too easy. In online communities, it's fairly easy to build consensus. Membership is voluntary, and people who don't like the rules can leave. Or they can be kicked out: there is no requirement for due process.

Moreover, many resources are infinite on the internet. People aren't fighting over scarce housing or lucrative jobs. They are befriending one another, sharing information, and accumulating status, points, and experiences.

But in the real world, even online, things aren't so easy. Consider eBay, a wonderful and mostly successful melding of the online and offline worlds. It has a huge budget devoted to deterring and detecting fraud, and it can simply ban fraudsters. The company's success makes governance look easy, but that success is misleading. Unlike eBay, a country needs to put its criminals in jail and keep them there; it can't simply cancel their accounts.

Every society has its bad actors, and it needs an established (and accountable) authority to deal with them. Otherwise, the bad guys will take advantage of the good ones.

What that means is that the newly freed people of the Middle East must toughen their idealism with hard realism. They need to figure out how to negotiate and work with existing power structures - such as the army and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Like it or not, they cannot do that as a brigade of flower children; they need to pick leaders who can speak for them and negotiate for them. The modernisers need to form a coherent force - and most likely a political party - rather than simply relying on the wisdom (and good behaviour) of the crowd to govern the country.

That does not mean that activists should abandon the cause for which they are fighting. But it does mean understanding that even democracy has many rules - ideally rules that a majority has chosen. But they are mostly not chosen directly; those rules generally reflect compromises among elected representatives who can argue and negotiate in person, reflecting the overall preferences of those who elected them.

That may sound a little too much like the old system, but it doesn't have to be. Online, if you don't like the rules, you can simply leave and form a new community. Offline, you need to stay and help to change the rules for everyone.

Esther Dyson, CEO of EDventure Holdings, is an active investor in a variety of start-ups around the world. Her interests include information technology, health care, private aviation, and space travel.

A version of this article first appeared on Project Syndicate.

Saudi Arabia Scrambles To Limit Region’s Upheaval

Saudis perched on the Faisaliah Tower in Riyadh. The kingdom is aggressively emphasizing the relative stability of monarchies.


By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: May 27, 2011
Courtesy Of "The New York Times"

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia is flexing its financial and diplomatic might across the Middle East in a wide-ranging bid to contain the tide of change, shield other monarchies from popular discontent and avert the overthrow of any more leaders struggling to calm turbulent nations.

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An image from Bahrain TV shows a contingent of gulf troops arriving across a causeway from Saudi Arabia on March 14.

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From Egypt, where the Saudis dispensed $4 billion in aid last week to shore up the ruling military council, to Yemen, where it is trying to ease out the president, to the kingdoms ofJordan and Morocco, which it has invited to join a union of Persian Gulf monarchies, Saudi Arabia is scrambling to forestall more radical change and block Iran’s influence.

The kingdom is aggressively emphasizing the relative stability of monarchies, part of an effort to avert any drastic shift from the authoritarian model, which would generate uncomfortable questions about the pace of political and social change at home.

Saudi Arabia’s proposal to include Jordan and Morocco in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council — which authorized the Saudis to send in troops to quell a largely Shiite Muslim rebellion in the Sunni Muslim monarchy ofBahrain — is intended to create a kind of “Club of Kings.” The idea is to signal to Shiite Iran that the Sunni Arab monarchs will defend their interests, analysts said.

“We’re sending a message that monarchies are not where this is happening,” Prince Waleed bin Talal al-Saud, a businessman and high-profile member of the habitually reticent royal family, told the editorial board of The New York Times last week, referring to the unrest. “We are not trying to get our way by force, but to safeguard our interests.”

The range of the Saudi intervention is extraordinary as the unrest pushes Riyadh’s hand to forge what some commentators, in Egypt and elsewhere, brand a “counterrevolution.” Some Saudi and foreign analysts find the term too sweeping for the steps the Saudis have actually taken, though they appear unparalleled in the region and beyond as the kingdom reaches out to ally with non-Arab Muslim states as well.

“I am sure that the Saudis do not like this revolutionary wave — they were really scared,” said Khalid Dakhil, a Saudi political analyst and columnist. “But they are realistic here.”

In Egypt, where the revolution has already toppled a close Saudi ally in Hosni Mubarak, the Saudis are dispensing aid and mending ties in part to help head off a good showing by the Muslim Brotherhood in the coming parliamentary elections. The Saudis worry that an empowered Muslim Brotherhood could damage Saudi legitimacy by presenting a model of Islamic law different from the Wahhabi tradition of an absolute monarch.

“If another model of Shariah says that you have to resist, this will create a deep difficulty,” said Abdulaziz Algasim, a Saudi lawyer.

Saudi officials are also concerned that Egypt’s foreign policy is shifting, with its outreach to the Islamist group Hamas and plans to restore ties with Iran. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, also retains a personal interest in protecting Mr. Mubarak, analysts believe.

The Arab Spring began to unravel an alliance of so-called moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which were willing to work closely with the United States and promote peace with Israel. American support for the Arab uprisings also strained relations, prompting Saudi Arabia to split from Washington on some issues while questioning its longstanding reliance on the United States to protect its interests.

The strained Saudi posture toward Washington was outlined in a recent opinion article by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi analyst, in The Washington Post that suggested Riyadh was ready to go it alone because the United States had become an “unreliable partner.”

But that seems at least partly a display of Saudi pique, since the oil-for-military aid arrangement that has defined relations between the two for the past six decades is unlikely to be replaced soon. Saudi Arabia is negotiating to buy $60 billion in advanced American weapons, and President Obama, in his speech last week demanding that Middle Eastern autocrats bow to popular demands for democracy, noticeably did not mention Saudi Arabia. The Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, sat prominently in the front row.

Saudi Arabia is taking each uprising in turn, without relying on a single blueprint. In Bahrain, it resorted to force, sending troops to crush a rebellion by Shiites because it feared the creation of a hostile government — a kind of Shiite Cuba — only about 20 miles from some of its main oil fields, one sympathetic to Iran, if not allied with it. It has deployed diplomacy in other uprisings, and remained on the fence in still others. It is also spending money, pledging $20 billion to help stabilize Bahrain and Oman, which has also faced protests.

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia joined the coalition seeking to ease out President Ali Abdullah Saleh because it thinks the opposition might prove a more reliable, less unruly southern neighbor. But Arab diplomats noted that even the smallest Saudi gestures provided Mr. Saleh with excuses to stay, since he interpreted them as support. This month, for example, the Saudis sent in tanker trucks to help abate a gasoline shortage.

On Syria, an initial statement of support by King Abdullah for President Bashar al-Assad has been followed by silence, along with occasional calls at Friday Prayer for God to support the protesters. That silence reflects a deep ambivalence, analysts said. The ruling Saudi family personally dislikes Mr. Assad — resenting his close ties with Iran and seeing Syria’s hand in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, a Saudi ally. But they fear his overthrow will unleash sectarian violence without guaranteeing that Iranian influence will be diminished.

In Libya, after helping push through an Arab League request for international intervention, Saudi Arabia sat out and left its neighbors, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to join the military coalition supporting the rebels. It has so far kept its distance publicly from Tunisia as well, although it gave refuge to its ousted president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

There are also suspicions that the kingdom is secretly providing money to extremist groups to hold back changes. Saudi officials deny that, although they concede private money may flow.

In 1952, after toppling the Egyptian king, Gamal Abdel Nasser worked to destabilize all monarchs, inspiring a regicide in Iraq and eventually the overthrow of King Idris of Libya. Saudi Arabia was locked in confrontation with Egypt throughout the 1960s, and it is determined not to relive that period.

“We are back to the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Saudis led the opposition to the revolutions at that time, the revolutions of Arabism,” said Mohammad F. al-Qahtani, a political activist in Riyadh.

AIPAC's Denial and Ignorance

Witness The Shocking Denial and Ignorance About The Occupation Of Palestine By AIPAC Delegates

Interviews With Several AIPAC Delegates In The Streets Outside The Conference Reveals Widespread Ignorance By Attendees Of The Controversial Annual DC Meeting.

By Max Blumenthal

On May 22, thousands of supporters of America's most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, converged on Washington for the group's annual conference. For two days they watched Democratic and Republican congressional leaders pledge their undivided loyalty to the state of Israel, and by extension, to AIPAC's legislative agenda. Speeches by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the conference, with Obama attempting to clarify his statement demanding that 1967 borders be the "starting point" for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

I interviewed several AIPAC delegates in the streets outside the conference. While few, if any, were able to demonstrate any degree of sophistication in the understanding of the Israel-Palestine crisis, they had been briefed inside on how to respond to critics. No one I spoke to would concede that Israel occupied any part of Palestinian territory; none would concede that Israel had committed acts of indiscriminate violence or that it had transferred Palestinians by force; one interviewee could not distinguish Palestine from Pakistan. With considerable wealth and negligible knowledge -- few had spent much time inside Israel -- the delegates were easily melded by the cadre of neoconservative and Israeli "experts" appearing in AIPAC's briefing sessions.

As the day wore on, many delegates waded into confrontations with members of Code Pink and Palestine solidarity demonstrators who had set up a protest camp across the street. With conflict intensifying on the sidewalk, Code Pink's Medea Benjamin invited AIPAC delegates to express themselves from the protest stage. There, their most visceral feelings and deeply held views about Israel-Palestine crisis were revealed. See it for yourself.

Is Bankrupt Greece America's Future?

By: Michael S Rozeff
May 29, 2011 - 09:25 AM
Courtesy Of "The Market Oracle"

Greece has a sovereign debt problem. The bonds of the Greek government have been downgraded by a major rating service. Their prices have fallen sharply in the market. This means that the risk is high that the government will default on its sovereign debt.

The interest rates that the Greek government must pay in order to borrow have risen sharply. This is worsening the government’s solvency and budget problems.

The government faces default. The government’s various spending cutbacks haven’t solved the problem.

They cannot solve the problem. It’s apparently too late. The government would have to restructure its debt by renegotiating with its multiple lenders. That’s a difficult and time-consuming process. It would have to work out repayment while simultaneously altering government policies so that the country’s private market economy could expand. This involves knotty political and economic issues that take years to resolve. The government doesn’t have this time.

The problem traces back to the earlier fact that for some years the government was able to borrow heavily at low interest rates. This means that it was able to sell its bonds at high prices. The problem arose because these market prices were too high.

The sovereign debt of Greece became overvalued due to central bank/banking system money inflation. This inflation, it should be strongly emphasized, originated in the fiat dollar system of the United States and the Federal Reserve.

The central banks of the world and the world money supply are heavily influenced by what the Federal Reserve does through a kind of multiplier effect, because foreign central banks respond to Fed inflation with inflation of their own. Ronald I. McKinnon explained this important process in his June 1982 article in the American Economic Review. We see it happening today when foreign banks have to inflate in reaction to QE2 in order to prevent their currencies from strengthening too much against the depreciating dollar.

The high bond prices encouraged the Greek government to borrow too heavily and to raise government spending. But since its spending was not productive, it didn’t produce high enough tax revenues to service the debt. In time the government faced the problem it now has, which is not enough tax cash flows or income to service the debt.

Monetary inflation, in other words, causes overvalued sovereign debt. This sets in motion larger government spending, higher debt loads, and an eventual fiscal crisis when tax revenues fall short of what is required to maintain government spending and service the debt.

This process goes on in addition to the business cycle effects, well-known in Austrian economics, that inflation produces. In keeping with the analogous finance literature on overvalued equity, I identify this process as one that involves agency costs of overvalued sovereign debt.

This process is only made worse when major lenders, such as large banks, have reason to believe that they occupy a privileged position and that their bond positions will be paid off by political means if necessary. These lenders then all the more become willing to buy overvalued sovereign debt.

This effect of inflation is important because of its broad applicability in an age of inflation. In particular, a number of other countries including the U.S. have followed the Greek path.

Michael C. Jensen was the first to analyze the agency costs of overvalued equity. Everything that he says about the dire effects on a company’s behavior from having an overpriced stock find a parallel when a government issues overpriced debt. The parallels are not perfect, of course. In fact, every bit of analysis suggests that the problem will be worse for overvalued sovereign debt.

Intuition can be a misleading guide in these matters. We are taught that a high stock price is a good thing, and it is a good thing when it accurately reflects value creation in the enterprise. But not all high stock prices arise from value creation. Central bank money inflation fosters speculation. Speculation leads to asset price bubbles. Rising prices attract naive investors.

We have twice seen in recent memory how government/central bank inflation-produced speculation leads to a breakdown in critically important internal market practices and institutions. First we had overvalued stocks break down in 2000 amid hundreds of cases of overstated earnings. Accompanying this were accounting and auditing scandals as well as law firm and investment banking misbehavior. Second, starting in 2006 and continuing to the present, we have the real estate bubble. We have seen similar scandalous behavior pervading the mortgage and real estate businesses. This has included all the major banks, all major investment bankers, the government agencies like Fannie Mae, legislatures, law firms, bond rating agencies, insurance companies, and auditors. The scandal went even more deeply into the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve through their multiple bailout activities.

This breakdown in institutions that are supposed to act as professional agents finds its root cause in government that goes way beyond its appropriate bounds.

In the case of overvalued equity, Jensen points to "earnings management" that becomes lying about earnings as one means by which management becomes corrupted in order to come through with earnings numbers that justify its overvalued equity. The analogue is for governments to lie about the beneficial effects of the programs and activities that they are promoting and funding with their excessive debts. We hear politicians today justify huge sales of overpriced government debt as worthwhile because they are fighting recession, producing jobs and green shoots, kick-starting the economy, and providing national security. Like phony accounting numbers for earnings, these are all myths and lies. We hear Federal Reserve officials peddling similar misinformation to justify their bond purchases that are helping to keep sovereign debt overpriced.

Jensen suggests that "manning the helm of an overvalued company feels great at first." Among other things, the management bonuses rise steeply. Politicians likewise score among voters and secure campaign contributions when inflation stimulates some economic activity initially. They can point to housing projects going up or a falling unemployment rate or the numbers of people who are first-time homeowners. The financial and housing industries shower money on them. The Federal Reserve can build up its image by broadcasting how it prevented the financial system from collapsing.

But, when there is overvalued equity, Jensen says "massive pain lies ahead". A company cannot produce real earnings to justify its overpriced stock. It turns to earnings manipulation and fraud. It turns to wasteful acquisitions. Nortel acquired 19 companies between 1997 and 2001.When Nortel stock fell by 95 percent, not only was its value destroyed but also that of these acquisitions. Companies seek out unworkable products and build up unusable capacity.

The same massive pain goes for governments that overextend themselves with excessive borrowing at then-low rates of interest. This is evident in Greece. It threatens to become evident elsewhere, including the U.S. When the nation does not produce enough income to service the government debt, some manner of default is bound to occur.

The U.S. is finding it extremely difficult to find a way out of the looming pain that its overvalued sovereign debt has caused. The U.S. has over-issued debt. Its "acquisitions" lie in every area of government spending, in particular, popular social spending programs and a huge military establishment. Huge numbers of Americans have been "acquired" and linked into programs like food stamps.

Huge numbers of Americans expect a future retirement safety net courtesy of Uncle Sam. This is looking less and less likely as time passes. As in the case of overvalued equity that eventually crashes and burns up phantom value, U.S. sovereign debt will crash and burn as the private market economy increasingly cannot produce sufficient revenues to pay the taxes required to service the debts.

The proximate cause of this likelihood is agency costs of overvalued sovereign debt.

That itself traces back to a faulty political system that has destroyed proper constraints on the funding of government and therefore on government size. This has three main aspects. (1) The central bank is able to enter the sovereign debt market at will and keep the price overvalued. (2) The government is able to impose a wide range of taxes in order to fund its programs and debts.(3) There are no limits to government spending and the demand for such spending is infinite.

Let’s look at each of these briefly.

The constraint on money creation has disappeared Government no longer competes with markets for privately-produced and costly money in the form of gold and silver. When government debt promised and paid gold, government had no recourse but to tax its citizens in gold. Without that constraint, government can pay off debt by issuing more debt and more promises to pay off in paper.

The debt is supported in price by government’s powers to tax. As long as the people are able to produce enough income to pay these taxes and are willing to pay them, the system of debt expansion goes on because debts are serviced. The system is dynamically unstable, however. The larger that government becomes, the lower the ability of the private sector to produce real income becomes because government spending is unproductive and prevents capital formation This undermines the ability of people to pay the required taxes. Debt grows but economic growth falls short of debt growth due to low growth in capital formation. Taxes then fall short of spending and deficits rise. The government and the country’s economy then get into an untenable position.

The third aspect is that the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, does not limit government spending or government activities and size, and this lack of limitation is combined with an infinite demand for receipt of government funds among the population. In other words, almost everyone stands ready to rob his neighbor via government taxes and get the proceeds for himself through redistribution in government spending; and there are no limits on how large this thievery can become.

This system is dynamically unstable too. It eventually must run into a wall or limit because the parasitic activities will overwhelm the productive activities. This limit is now in view. The government’s unfunded liabilities ($200 trillion by some estimates) vastly exceed its capacity to tax at current levels. Only by outright expropriation of wealth in the form of saved assets (seizing pensions) or by high levels of taxation that sap human wealth can the promises be kept. Those routes spell massive pain.

If a society does not impose limits on its own parasitic activities, it will eventually destroy itself. If it crushes its productive activities, it will destroy itself. If the society’s people do not impose the proper limits on their own behavior, individually and collectively, then they are setting a course for massive pain.

At this time, Greece does look like the future of America. Is it too late for America? Just about. When I see this society impose some limits on its parasitic behavior and encourage productive behavior, I will become more optimistic. However, I’ve been waiting for that for 40 years and I’ve yet to see it.

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire.

© 2011 Copyright Michael S. Rozeff - All Rights Reserved. 

There’s a Secret Patriot Act

By Spencer Ackerman
May 25, 2011 | 4:56 pm
Courtesy Of "Wired Magazine"


You think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden says it’s worse than you know.

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. Wyden (D-Oregon) says that powers they grant the government on their face, the government applies a far broader legal interpretation — an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged. But one prominent Patriot-watcher asserts that the secret interpretation empowers the government to deploy ”dragnets” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden told Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

What exactly does Wyden mean by that? As a member of the intelligence committee, he laments that he can’t precisely explain without disclosing classified information. But one component of the Patriot Act in particular gives him immense pause: the so-called “business-records provision,” which empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a security investigation.

“It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” Wyden says. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.”

That’s why Wyden and his colleague Sen. Mark Udall offered an amendment on Tuesday to the Patriot Act reauthorization.

The amendment, first reported by Marcy Wheeler, blasts the administration for “secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes.” It would compel the Attorney General to “publicly disclose the United States Government’s official interpretation of the USA Patriot Act.” And, intriguingly, it refers to “intelligence-collection authorities” embedded in the Patriot Act that the administration briefed the Senate about in February.

Wyden says he “can’t answer” any specific questions about how the government thinks it can use the Patriot Act. That would risk revealing classified information — something Wyden considers an abuse of government secrecy. He believes the techniques themselves should stay secret, but the rationale for using their legal use under Patriot ought to be disclosed.

“I draw a sharp line between the secret interpretation of the law, which I believe is a growing problem, and protecting operations and methods in the intelligence area, which have to be protected,” he says.

Surveillance under the business-records provisions has recently spiked. The Justice Department’s official disclosure on its use of the Patriot Act, delivered to Congress in April, reported that the government asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to collect business records96 times in 2010 — up from just 21 requests the year before. The court didn’t reject a single request. But it “modified” those requests 43 times, indicating to some Patriot-watchers that a broadening of the provision is underway.

“The FISA Court is a pretty permissive body, so that suggests something novel or particularly aggressive, not just in volume, but in the nature of the request,” says Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s resident Patriot Act lobbyist. “No one has tipped their hand on this in the slightest. But we’ve come to the conclusion that this is some kind of bulk collection. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if it’s some kind of internet or communication-records dragnet.” (Full disclosure: My fiancée works for the ACLU.)

The FBI deferred comment on any secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to the Justice Department. The Justice Department said it wouldn’t have any comment beyond a bit of March congressional testimony from its top national security official, Todd Hinnen, who presented the type of material collected as far more individualized and specific: “driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”

But that’s not what Udall sees. He warned in a Tuesday statement about the government’s “unfettered” access to bulk citizen data, like “a cellphone company’s phone records.” In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Udall urged Congress to restrict the Patriot Act’s business-records seizures to “terrorism investigations” — something the ostensible counterterrorism measure has never required in its nearly 10-year existence.

Indeed, Hinnen allowed himself an out in his March testimony, saying that the business-record provision “also” enabled “important and highly sensitive intelligence-collection operations” to take place. Wheeler speculates those operations include “using geolocation data from cellphones to collect information on the whereabouts of Americans” — something our sister blog Threat Level has reported on extensively.

It’s worth noting that Wyden is pushing a bill providing greater privacy protections for geolocation info.

For now, Wyden’s considering his options ahead of the Patriot Act vote on Thursday. He wants to compel as much disclosure as he can on the secret interpretation, arguing that a shadow broadening of the Patriot Act sets a dangerous precedent.

“I’m talking about instances where the government is relying on secret interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those interpretations are,” Wyden says, “and the reliance on secret interpretations of the law is growing.”

Site: Oregon.gov

See Also:

• House Extends Key Patriot Act Provisions
• House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers
• Lawmakers Punt Again on Patriot Act Reform
• You Can Take the 9/11 Security State From My Cold, Dead, Top …
• FBI Cops to Illegal Spying

The True American Patriots Who Voted AGAINST The Patriot Act

The PATRIOT Act Vote: One Quarter Of The Way To A Fourth Amendment

By: emptywheel
Thursday May 26, 2011 4:19 pm
Courtesy Of "Fire Dog Lake"

The final vote in the Senate opposing yet another sunset of the PATRIOT act was 72-23-5, meaning we’re almost a quarter of the way to regaining some semblance of a Fourth Amendment.


Those voting against the forever PATRIOT?

Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Begich (D-AK) Bingaman (D-NM) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Coons (D-DE) Durbin (D-IL)

Franken (D-MN) Harkin (D-IA) Heller (R-NV) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Lee (R-UT) Merkley (D-OR) Murkowski (R-AK)

Murray (D-WA) Paul (R-KY) Sanders (I-VT) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Wyden (D-OR)

Though note we’re not really a quarter of the way to a Fourth Amendment.

Most of these Dems, I suspect, oppose the passage of another sunset without a debate. Some are particularly pissed about the latest interpretation of Section 215. But most still support the concept of PATRIOT powers.

Which means we’re not really making all that much progress.

One aspect of today’s vote I did find interesting, however, was that five Republicans voted against tabling Rand Paul’s gun amendment (limiting the use of Section 215 to get gun records), but voted in favor of the overall sunset. These five are: Barrasso (WY), DeMint (SC), Enzi (WY), Moran (KS), and Shelby (AL).

In other words, these men seem to object only to the use of super government powers when it threatens their gun rights, but not their First Amendment, nor their financial privacy, nor their associations.

While I happen to think figuring out what kind of guns suspected terrorists are buying is a reasonable use of a counter-terrorism law, if we have to have one, I am curious whether this vote will make gun nuts realize that their privacy’s at stake, too (though Saxby Chambliss got up to make it clear that domestic terrorists–like the right wing terrorists who might most object to using PATRIOT to collect gun purchase records–were not at risk). This vote also has the makings of one that TeaParty politicians might use to distinguish themselves from other Republicans.

Because right now, opposition to PATRIOT excesses is still mostly a Democratic issue (though Rand Paul definitely took the leadership role Russ Feingold would have had in the past). Until more Republicans join Paul, Heller, and Lee in opposing PATRIOT, it’ll remain on the books, particularly so long as we have a Democratic President whom Democratic Senators are happy to have wielding such power.

Update: After a half hour of debate, the extension passed the House 250-153.

RELATED POSTS

• The Un-Patriot Acts of Harry Reid May 26, 2011
• Wyden and Udall Want Obama to Admit to Secret Collection Program May 24, 2011
• Clapper: We Need to Pass PATRIOT to Make Sure Apple Continues to Track Your Location May 26, 2011
• Reid and Republicans Tee Up Another PATRIOT Extension May 19, 2011
• Happy Memorial Day! Remember Your Government Will Be Tracking with Whom You Celebrate this WeekendMay 27, 2011

Fear Of Sharia The New 'Red Scare'

A Proposed Tennessee Law Could Criminalize Religious Gatherings Of Two Or More Muslims.

By Hamed Aleaziz
First Posted: May 27 2011 00:39 AM
Courtesy Of "The Mark News"

In the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden, an outpouring of hope and relief swept across the United States. After 10 years, the U.S. had finally found the man responsible for 9-11, and, naturally, people were in a celebratory mood. For American Muslims, bin Laden’s death marked an opportunity for people to move past the suspicious, often xenophobic attitudes toward Islam in the U.S. One American Muslim, a college student named Umar Issa, told The Associated Press, "His death brings an opportunity for understanding between Americans and Muslims. I'm happy about that. The discrimination I've faced, my friends have faced – it's time for that to come to an end."

Unfortunately for Issa and other American Muslims, the election in 2012 could make the coming year an even worse time to be a Muslim in the U.S. A select group of politicians and media outlets are dividing Americans, painting Muslims in the U.S. as a “threatening” group. This type of suspicion and prejudice threatens the American ideal, which relies on its diverse citizenship working together, rather than against one another.

The media, always eager to stir up sensationalist drama, are particularly keen on controversy during election seasons. If the events of the past year are any indication, Sharia law and its “threat” to Americans could become another fringe issue that receives undue media attention. (Remember the situation with Rev. Jeremiah Wright?) The presumed threat is that Sharia law, or Islamic jurisprudence, could somehow be implemented in the U.S., leading to a Taliban-like takeover of the American justice system. This ludicrous idea has members of the GOP increasingly concerned about “radical” Muslims and their supposed potential to violently shift U.S. politics. What’s lost in the debate is that the American Constitution already guards against the implementation of religious law inany form.

On May 10, Politico reported that “invoking Sharia and casting it as a growing danger at odds with American principles has become a rallying cry for conservatives.” Candidates like Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Michele Bachman, and Rick Santorum have already singled out “creeping” Sharia as a serious threat to the U.S. The media have been quick to join the conversation, making the “fear” seem more real and widespread than it actually is. Unfortunately, the supposed fear is being manipulated to pave the way for draconian laws that pose significant consequences for American Muslims’ civil liberties.

Even members of Congress, like Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), have held congressional investigations into the threat posed by “radicalized” Muslims in the U.S. Such debates perpetuate xenophobia. In March, two Muslim men on their way to a conference on Islamophobia were kicked off of a Delta Air Lines flight because the pilot was uncomfortable with them being onboard. In the same week, aMuslim woman was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight in a similar manner. A dozen American states have proposed legislation to “curb the influence” of Sharia law. In the case of Oklahoma, such legislation has passed – though a judge temporarily prevented the state from enforcing the law.

Tennessee recently passed a law in both chambers of its legislature that would make practising Islam in groups of two or more a “Sharia organization.” The proposed law would render such a practice illegal, with a punishment of up to a 15-year prison term. While it still needs to jump through additional hoops in order to become law, the proposition of such legislation in the first place suggests the ease with which American Muslims’ civil liberties could be infringed upon given the current climate. With the country’s current high unemployment rate, the conspiratorial hallucinations of the Republican candidates may win the attention of frustrated, unemployed Americans.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilder’s anti-Islam party used similar tactics to gain seats in the Dutch parliament in 2010. If the GOP follows suit, the debate could set the U.S. back to the 1950s, when the “Red Scare” enveloped the U.S. in a debate over presumed “threats” to American ideals.

Such debates are leaving American Muslims feeling the scorn of an enflamed sector of American society. But, like in the Netherlands, xenophobic legislation and rhetoric will do nothing to alleviate the economic pains plaguing the country. Given the real challenges facing the U.S., fringe-level, bigoted discussions about irrational fears seem particularly out of place. When will the U.S. return its focus to the things that matter?

Democracy Compatible With Islam

"The principle has been established that democracy is not only compatible with western countries and their civilizations," Berlusconi said.


Saturday, 28 May 2011 14:14
Courtesy Of "On Islam"

DEAUVILLE, France – Extending hands of friendship to the Arab and Muslim countries, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi praised the spring of democracy that has shaken the Arab world earlier this year as showing Islam’s compatibility with democracy.

"The principle has been established that democracy is not only compatible with western countries and their civilizations," Berlusconi told journalists at the Group of Eight summit in Deauville, ADN Kronos International news agency reported on Friday, May 27.

“I believe this is very important.”

Going out in massive pro-democracy protests across their countries, Tunisian and Egyptian people managed to topple their decades-long tyrant rulers in January and February.

Other massive protests followed in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, Jordan and Iraq.

In Libya, hundreds of protestors took to the streets against the 40-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi.

Scrambling to save his 42-year regime, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi launched a deadly crackdown on protestors demanding an end to his rule of the oil-rich Arab country.

In Iraq, three people were killed and dozens wounded in the southern city of Kut in clashes between security forces and protesters demanding better basic services.

In Yemen, four months of ongoing massive demonstrations were still trying to end President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule in the impoverished Arab country.

Berlusconi’s comments followed sharp criticism over his warning earlier this week that Milan would turn into an “Islamic city” if his runner for mayor is defeated.

Italy has a Muslim population of some 1.2 million, including 20,000 reverts, according to unofficial estimates.

Italian Muslims have been in the eye of storm since the Berlusconi’s government and its far-right partners came to power.

The Northern League, an influential partner of Berlusconi coalition government, is widely accused of racism with many critics calling it the BNP of Italy, a reference to the British right-wing party.

History In The Making

Going on with his praise for the Arab spring, the Italian PM said that the democracy seen in the popular revolts was remaking the history.

The stirrings of democracy seen in the popular revolts are the latest in an "extraordinary period of history" that has unfolded over the past 25 years, he said.

"Who could have predicted the fall of Soviet Communism and the end of Apartheid in South Africa and the Arab people's decision to march towards democracy?" Berlusconi stated.

Tunisia's longtime president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled the country in January following a month of popular protests dubbed the Jasmine Revolution.

This inspired the revolt in Egypt that toppled its Hosni Mubarak from the presidency less than a month later on 11 February.

"These events show that democracy can take root in countries that have different cultures from those of the west and it's imaginable that these revolts could spread to other countries," Berlusconi concluded.

A similar message was conveyed in the statement concluding the two-day G8 summit in Deauville.

The G8 leaders signaled they “strongly support the aspirations of the Arab Spring as well as those of the Iranian people,” the G8 concluding statement said.

“The changes under way in the Middle East and North Africa are historic and have the potential to open the door to the kind of transformation that occurred in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall,” the G8 said.