Chris Hedges's Blog, page 638

Zuckerberg Breaks Silence on Cambridge Analytica, Apologizes for Data Breach

Breaking his silence for the first time since reports last weekend that the political data firm Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained information on 50 million Facebook users, Mark Zuckerberg weighed in with a post on Facebook Wednesday afternoon. In a 937-word explanation he blamed himself, but he also blamed Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan, who mined the data then lied about destroying it.

I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I’m responsible for what happens on our platform. I’m serious about doing what it takes to protect our community. While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn’t change what happened in the past. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.

With Facebook facing investigations by attorneys general in both Massachusetts and New York, Zuckerberg assured one and all that the problem has already been fixed. In fact, he says it was done in 2014, the year after Kogan deployed his app, which gathered information on 300,000 people, but then improperly linked to their friends.

In 2014, to prevent abusive apps, we announced that we were changing the entire platform to dramatically limit the data apps could access. Most importantly, apps like Kogan’s could no longer ask for data about a person’s friends unless their friends had also authorized the app. We also required developers to get approval from us before they could request any sensitive data from people. These actions would prevent any app like Kogan’s from being able to access so much data today.

The statement goes on to create a timeline of events from the company’s founding in 2004 up to present day and outlines three solutions: closer monitoring of data-mining apps, educating users, and restricting access for app developers.

Kogan’s personality-predictor app harvested enough information to interest Cambridge Analytica, a firm part-owned by GOP donor father-daughter duo Rebekah and Robert Mercer, who also fund Trump super Pacs. Among other right-wing entities, they support Breitbart News, which might explain why Steve Bannon once served as vice president of Cambridge Analytica.

Earlier this week, CEO Alexander Nix was caught on hidden camera bragging about the firm’s illicit acts and has been subsequently suspended. Writing for the Mercury News, Rex Crum and Levi Sumagaysay sum up the worst month in Facebook’s 10-year history.

The Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica early on, and the former employee of the firm, Chris Wylie, has said the firm’s data and analysis helped shape the politically divisive tone of the Trump campaign.

Among the consequences so far: The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly investigating whether Facebook violated a consent decree that was part of a privacy settlement the company reached with the agency in 2011. Violations could result in fines of $40,000 a day per violation.

Then, the privacy issue du jour was that the FTC had accused Facebook of deceiving users by telling them certain information could be private, “then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public,” the FTC said when it announced the settlement—which bars the company from misrepresenting the privacy or security of user information.

The Cambridge Analytica mess comes as the company is still dealing with the fallout from its role in helping spread fake news and propaganda by Russian trolls, an idea Zuckerberg scoffed at two years ago—in fact, he called it “crazy.”

Kogan told The Associated Press he had no idea he had broken any laws and was assured by Cambridge Analytica that his actions were perfectly legitimate.

“My view is that I’m being basically used as a scapegoat by both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica,” he said. “Honestly, we thought we were acting perfectly appropriately, we thought we were doing something that was really normal.”

Authorities in Britain and the United States are investigating the alleged improper use of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica, a U.K.-based political research firm. Facebook shares have dropped some 9 percent, lopping more than $50 billion off the company’s market value, since the revelations were first published, raising questions about whether social media sites are violating users’ privacy.

Market value is likely to be further impacted by a raft of lawsuits sure to follow. Bryan Menegus reports in Gizmodo on what could be the start of a trend:

Salting that wound is a class-action lawsuit, filed today in California’s Northern district, on behalf of the social media giant’s shareholders.

Fan Yuan, the shareholder who filed the suit, accuses Facebook of making “materially false and/or misleading” claims about the company’s handling of user data—meaning the instances where Facebook or Zuckerberg himself addressed privacy and security issues and failed to disclose the ongoing Cambridge Analytica fiasco. …

Yuan’s suit—which represents a class of unknown size—alleges that failures to disclose the ongoing situation with Cambridge Analytica has reduced the value of shares he and others hold in the company. He’s asking to award damages unspecified and any other amount the court deems proper.

Zuckerberg followed his statement with further efforts to stop the hemorrhaging by sitting down opposite CNN tech correspondent Laurie Segall on Wednesday night.

“This was a major breach of trust and I’m really sorry this happened,” he said in the interview on CNN. “Our responsibility now is to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Zuckerberg added that he would be open to testifying before Congress.

“What we try to do is send the person at Facebook who will have the most knowledge,” Zuckerberg said. “If that’s me, then I am happy to go.”

In an earlier interview with Recode, he admitted that opening up the Facebook network to third-party developers a decade ago was a mistake.

“Frankly, I just think I got that wrong,” he said.

“There was this values tension playing out between the value of data portability—being able to take your data and some social data, the ability to create new experiences—on one hand, and privacy on the other hand,” he explained. “I was maybe too idealistic on the side of data portability, that it would create more good experiences—and it created some—but I think what the clear feedback from our community was that people value privacy a lot more.”

A #DeleteFacebook hashtag is building momentum as people consider deleting their Facebook accounts, though removing the ubiquitous social media platform for good could pose a challenge.

“I don’t think we’ve seen a meaningful number of people act on that, but, you know, it’s not good,” Zuckerberg told The New York Times. “I think it’s a clear signal that this is a major trust issue for people, and I understand that. And whether people delete their app over it or just don’t feel good about using Facebook, that’s a big issue that I think we have a responsibility to rectify.”

Now, we’ll see what steps Facebook takes to protect user data.

Fox Commentator Leaves Network, Calling it ‘Propaganda Machine’

Longtime Fox News commentator Ralph Peters left the network Tuesday, and in an email to colleagues called the channel a “propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.” He added that he is “ashamed” to have been associated with it.

Peters regularly appeared on Fox News and Fox Business Network for nearly a decade. He was formerly a lieutenant colonel in the Army, serving in infantry and military intelligence units in Southeast and Central Asia, Russia, Burma (now Myanmar) and Pakistan.

His farewell email, published by Buzzfeed, reads:

Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts—who have never served our country in any capacity—dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller—all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations—I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Peters said he never intended for the farewell email to be made public but felt the need to speak up because he believes Fox’s hosts are “hurting the country.”

“It’s not complicated,” he continued. “It may sound corny to say I took an oath as an officer, but it’s true. I just feel for their selfish reasons, they’re doing damage to the country.”

Fox issued a reply to Peters, stating: “Ralph Peters is entitled to his opinion despite the fact that he’s choosing to use it as a weapon in order to gain attention. We are extremely proud of our top-rated prime-time hosts and all of our opinion programing.”

Peters replied: “If I’m seeking attention why the [expletive] did I just quit Fox and the chance to speak to millions every day?”

Many Twitter users have pointed out the irony of Peters quitting Fox News based on its content, given that he himself has made many controversial and questionable remarks. One example is calling President Barack Obama a “total pussy” on the air in 2015 at Fox Business Network, a comment for which he was briefly suspended. He also called Obama’s Syria strategy “inept, ineffective, and cowardly” and described the then-president as a “terrified little man in a great big job he can’t do.”

The left praising Ralph Peters right now is odd…here’s Ralph Peters describing Obama back in 2015. pic.twitter.com/SUI7eTQQxB

— Nick Short

Fed Raises Key Rate; Foresees Two More Hikes This Year

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate Wednesday in a vote of confidence in the U.S. economy’s durability while signaling that it plans to continue a gradual approach to rate hikes for 2018 under its new chairman, Jerome Powell.

The Fed said it expects to raise rates twice more this year. And it increased its estimate for rate hikes in 2019 from two to three, reflecting more optimistic expectations for growth and low unemployment.

In a statement after its latest policy meeting, the Fed said it boosted its key short-term rate by a modest quarter-point to a still-low range of 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent. It also said it will keep shrinking its bond portfolio. The two moves mean that many consumers and businesses will face higher loan rates over time.

Taken together, the Fed’s actions and forecasts suggest a belief that the economy remains sturdy even nearly nine years after the Great Recession ended.

The Fed’s latest rate hike marks its sixth since it began tightening credit in December 2015, after having kept its benchmark rate at a record low near zero for seven years to help nurture the economy’s recovery from the recession. Wednesday’s action was approved 8-0, with the Fed avoiding any dissents at the first meeting Powell has presided over as chairman since succeeding Janet Yellen last month.

Bond yields rose and stocks held on to most of their gains after the Fed’s announcement, which was widely expected. But by the time stock trading had ended, the Dow Jones industrial average was down modestly, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a benchmark for mortgages and other loans, was up only slightly.

Economists said its decision to raise rates despite some recent sluggish data in areas like consumer spending showed that the Powell-led Fed has faith in the economy’s resilience.

“The Fed has more confidence in the economy’s underlying momentum and appears to be more determined to normalize interest rates,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo.

Vitner predicted that the central bank will end up raising rates four times this year despite its forecast for three.

Some investors had speculated that Powell might move to impose his mark on the Fed by signaling a faster pace of rate hikes for 2018. But the Fed’s new economic forecasts, which include a median projection for the path of future increases, made no change to its December projection for three hikes this year.

If the Fed does stick with its forecast for three rate increases this year and three in 2019, its key policy rate would stand at 3.4 percent after five years of credit tightening. Wednesday’s forecast put the Fed long-term rate — the point at which its policies are neither boosting the economy nor holding it back — at 2.9 percent.

At a news conference after the meeting, Powell said the Fed hasn’t lowered its forecasts for growth because of the Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But he said the Fed’s regional bank presidents have heard concerns from businesses about the consequences of the tariffs.

“Trade policy has become a concern going forward for that group,” the chairman said, referring to business leaders.

But among the Fed officials who met in Washington this week, Powell said, “there’s no thought that changes in trade policy should have any effect on the current outlook.”

Powell’s first news conference ended 15 minutes earlier than the roughly hour-long sessions Yellen typically held, primarily because he kept his answers shorter. Powell said he might choose to hold a news conference after each of the Fed’s eight meetings each year, up from four now, but that he hadn’t yet decided.

Wednesday’s statement showed only minor changes from the text the Fed had issued in January after Yellen’s final meeting. The statement described economic activity as rising at a “moderate rate,” a slight downgrade from January, when the Fed described the economy as rising at a “solid rate.”

The statement did not mention the extra government stimulus that has been added since the Fed’s most recent economic forecast in the form of a $1.5 trillion tax cut and a budget agreement that will add $300 billion in government spending over two years.

But the Fed’s new forecast does envision somewhat stronger economic growth compared with its previous estimate: It raises the estimate to 2.7 percent growth this year, up from 2.5 percent in the December projection, and 2.4 percent in 2019, up from 2.1 percent.

Those higher estimates may reflect the expected impact of the additional government spending. But they fall far short of the 3 percent annual growth that the Trump administration has argued will be achieved with the implementation of its economic program.

The U.S. unemployment rate, now at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, is expected to keep falling to 3.8 percent at the end of this year and 3.6 percent at the end of 2019, which would be the lowest rate in a half-century. The Fed expects inflation, which has run below its 2 percent target for six years, to stay at 1.9 percent this year and reach 2 percent in 2019.

A healthy job market and a steady if unspectacular economy have given the Fed the confidence to think the economy can withstand further increases within a still historically low range of borrowing rates.

___

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

Will GOP Leaders Ever Stand Up to Trump?

It’s not your imagination. Donald Trump’s occupancy of the White House is every bit as insane, corrupt and dangerous as you might fear. Witness this jaw-dropping message to the sitting president of the United States from the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency:

“When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America … America will triumph over you.”

I have met John Brennan, who headed the CIA for four years under Barack Obama. To say he is not given to hysterics is a gross understatement. His picture ought to be next to the word “sober” in the dictionary. Yet there he was on Saturday morning, using Twitter to tear into the supposed leader of the free world with language normally reserved for the tinhorn dictators of obscure kleptocracies.

What set Brennan off was the administration’s decision to fire Andrew McCabe from his job as deputy director of the FBI just two days before he would have qualified for full pension benefits. Trump had been tweeting with cartoon-villain glee over the dismissal, doubtless because he saw it as furthering his campaign to discredit any witness who might offer damning evidence against him in the Russia probe.

Trump ran the same dishonest routine on fired FBI director James Comey, and he’s also trying his best to sully the sterling reputation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Oval Office has seen pettiness before, and it has seen venality, but it has never seen anything like Trump.

On Sunday, my Washington Post colleague Ruth Marcus reported that the president required senior officials to sign non-disclosure agreements much like the one his lawyers are using in an effort to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels about the affair she says she had with Trump. Such agreements are probably not enforceable in the context of White House service, many legal experts say, but the intent may be to intimidate the signers into silence with the threat of costly litigation.

Read that last paragraph again. We have to discuss attempts to squelch free speech and the public’s right to know, strong-arm tactics of intimidation, furtive sex and a porn star in order to write about an office held by men such as Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Such decadence is par for the course. Last week, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson—from an office held by Jefferson, Madison and Monroe—by means of a tweet. Either Trump went out of his way to humiliate Tillerson, or he was too cowardly to dismiss the man face-to-face. It doesn’t really matter which.

There is no “on the other hand” in our current predicament. If Trump were on some kind of learning curve, we’d see some evidence by now. If anything, he is getting worse—perhaps because he senses that the Mueller investigation is closing in, perhaps because he is just hopelessly overwhelmed by the job. At this point, I suppose it’s a good thing that he spends so much time watching Fox News, playing golf and calling old cronies for emotional support. Maybe it’s better that he wallow in self-absorption rather than actually try to run the government, since he has no idea how to make things better but is eminently capable of making them worse.

The Constitution gives Congress the tools it needs to deal with this situation, but Republicans in both the House and Senate refuse to use them. There could be constraints — legislation protecting Mueller from being fired, for example. There could be oversight — hearings into the havoc Trump’s cabinet is wreaking on government agencies, such as Tillerson’s decimation of the senior foreign service or EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s war against climate science. There could be investigations — not just into Russia’s election meddling but into the many apparent and potential conflicts of interest involving Trump’s far-flung real estate and branding empire.

If Trump does try to fire Mueller, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should get much of the blame. They have given Trump no reason to believe they will ever stand up to him.

Fortunately, the Constitution gives ultimate power to you and me. With every outrageous, shocking and depressing week, the November election becomes more important. The Trump presidency will keep going from bad to worse, and it is our responsibility to use our votes to make it stop.

Do We Get to Dictate How Other Countries Operate?

Trump campaigned on his alleged opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Now his State Department is defending it.

Exactly 15 years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday, in response to a question about President Trump calling President Putin of Russia, “We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate.”

That prompted a back and forth at the beginning of the State Department briefing, which I followed up on toward the end of the Q and A there:

SAM HUSSEINI: Earlier in your discussion with Matt [Lee of the AP] about the U.S. doesn’t dictate to other countries. It’s the 15th anniversary of the Iraq war, and of course, the —

HEATHER NAUERT: I don’t think that I said—I don’t think that I said to Matt that we don’t dictate to other countries.

HUSSEINI: It might have been him. I wasn’t sure.

NAUERT: I think Matt said that.

HUSSEINI: Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

LEE: I was quoting the —

NAUERT: Yeah, yeah, he —

LEE: — the White House spokeswoman.

NAUERT: Yeah.

HUSSEINI: Should the U.S. apologize for regime change operations from meddling in elections in multiple countries through many means over the years?

NAUERT: That is a big question. You’re asking me about the entire history of the United States—should we apologize? That’s the question?

QUESTION: Well, let’s start with the Iraq War.

NAUERT: Should we apologize for our government all around the world?

HUSSEINI: No, no.

NAUERT: I think that the United States government does far more good —

HUSSEINI: Are you asking me to clarify?

NAUERT: — than we ever do bad. And certain people in the United States and in other countries have a look or have the perspective that America does more harm than good. I’m the kind of American that looks at it from the other way around. We do far more good.

HUSSEINI: Most Americans are opposed to the Iraq War. Should the U.S. government apologize for things that were put out by that podium, people who are in this administration who fabricated information to start the Iraq War?

NAUERT: Look —

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

NAUERT: — I get what you’re getting at. You want to be snarky and take a look back.

HUSSEINI: No, I don’t want to be snarky. I want to get real.

NAUERT: No, hold on, and take a look—OK, and take a look back —

HUSSEINI: I want to get real.

NAUERT: — at the past 15 years. And Iraq is certainly a country that has been through a lot.

HUSSEINI: Yes.

NAUERT: I’ve been to Iraq. Many of you have been to Iraq in covering what has taken place there, OK.

HUSSEINI: I’m being anything but snarky.

NAUERT: Let me finish, OK. They’ve faced a lot of challenges. Right now, the most significant challenge there is ISIS, and the United States remains there at the invitation of the Iraqi government to fight and take on ISIS. I want to commend the Iraqi government for something—that is, for the past 15 years, that they have had a history of free and fair elections over 15 years. That is remarkable given where they were under the regime of Saddam Hussein. I recall having met Iraqis at that time—and this dates back to 2004, 2005—and certainly everyone that I had talked to, an Iraqi citizen had had a family member that was killed in some sort of horrific fashion or disappeared and was never heard from again. I mean, that is something that as an American, when you start talking to citizens, and that is their experience, that is something that’s very difficult for the average American to understand, because that is simply the way of life there.

The United States has a strong relationship with the government of Iraq. I’m going to look forward from this podium in this room. We have a good relationship with the government of Iraq. I’m not going to look back at this point, OK?

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

HUSSEINI: So no responsibility for —

NAUERT: Go right ahead.

HUSSEINI: — the bloodshed of —

NAUERT: Go right ahead.

QUESTION: A follow-up question —

HUSSEINI: — or anything else?

Full video at State Department website at about 32:15.

Peru’s President Offers Resignation Amid Political Turmoil

LIMA, Peru — Embattled President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has offered his resignation to Peru’s congress ahead of a scheduled vote on whether to impeach the former Wall Street investor on corruption charges, according to a presidential aide.

Kuczynski announced his decision in a televised address to the nation.

If congress accepts the resignation, power would transfer to Vice President Martin Vizcarra, who is serving as Peru’s ambassador to Canada.

Pressure has been building on Kuczynski to resign after the shock revelation Tuesday of secretly-shot videos in which several of the president’s allies were caught allegedly trying to buy the support of a lawmaker to block the conservative leader’s impeachment.

The videos deepened a bitter political crisis playing out just three weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Peru for a regional summit.

The videos presented by the main opposition party purportedly show attempts by Kuczynski’s lawyer, a government official, and the son of former strongman Alberto Fujimori, trying to convince the lawmaker to back the president in exchange for a hand in state contracts in his district.

Kenji Fujimori led a group of rebellious lawmakers in December who defied his sister Keiko’s leadership of the Popular Force party to narrowly block Kuczynski’s removal. Days later, Kuczynski pardoned the feuding siblings’ father from a 25-year jail sentence for human rights abuses committed during his decade-long presidency.

A new impeachment vote is scheduled to take place Thursday and Kuczynski had once again been scrambling for support — a task made harder by the release of the videos, which fueled calls from some of Kuczynski’s allies and members of his cabinet for the president to immediately resign.

“What we’ve seen in the videos is embarrassing,” Congressman Salvador Heresi, one of a handful belonging to Kuczynski’s party, said on Twitter, threatening to join the opposition and vote for impeachment if Kuczynski didn’t resign.

Keiko Fujimori, who has publicly distanced herself from her father, accused Kuczynski of orchestrating the alleged vote-buying scheme. On Twitter she regretted her younger brother’s appearance in one of the videos, which she said harkened back to “practices that have caused so much damage to Peru and our family.”

She was alluding to her father’s longtime spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, who was known to secretly record himself paying cash bribes to media moguls, military officers and politicians in efforts to gain leverage over potential rivals and boost his almost unlimited power.

The videos released Tuesday portray the president’s allies trying to lure lawmaker Moises Mamani to their side with promises of lucrative contracts.

In one exchange, Freddy Aragon, the head of the government agency regulating firearms, tells Mamani that he stands to pocket 5 percent of future public works projects authorized by the executive branch in his district. In another, Kuczynski’s lawyer hands the waffling lawmaker the transportation minister’s cell phone.

“Those who’ve voted in favor of impeachment have all the doors closed to them,” Kenji Fujimori tells Mamani in one of the recordings.

Following the release of the videos, the government fired Aragon, dismissing his apparent misconduct as that of a low-ranking official.

“The government doesn’t buy people in Congress. That’s impossible,” said Prime Minister Mercedes Araoz, adding that Kuczynski’s removal would be a humiliating blow for Peru’s international reputation as it prepares to host Trump and regional leaders for the Summit of the Americas. “It’s true that everyone knocks on our door, they call and they even send us messages about their pet projects. But that’s a common practice because they are representing their districts.”

Kenji Fujimori said the tapes had been heavily edited to obscure the truth, and lashed out at his sister for “acting like a delinquent” in allegedly ordering the recording of his private conversations.

Amid all of the political intrigue, Peru’s chief prosecutor said he would open a criminal probe into the videos.

Kuczynski is accused of lying as president about $782,000 in payments his consulting firm received a decade earlier from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Odebrecht is at the center of Latin America’s biggest graft scandal, having admitted to paying some $800 million in bribes to officials across Latin America, including $29 million to politicians in Peru.

The release of the videos came the same day as Kenji Fujimori announced he will start a new political party to compete in 2021 presidential elections.

Even the party’s name, Change 21, seemed destined to deepen the siblings’ split, harkening back to the elder Fujimori’s Change 90 campaign that in 1990 ushered the then-outsider into Peru’s top office.

___

Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia

Senators Press on Safeguarding 2018 Ballots

WASHINGTON—With the 2018 elections already underway, senators chided the current and former secretaries of Homeland Security on Wednesday for not more strongly warning the American public about past Russian intrusions in state election systems and for a lack of urgency to protect balloting this year.

Kirstjen Nielsen, President Donald Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security, testified alongside Jeh Johnson, secretary under former President Barack Obama, as the Senate intelligence committee launched an effort to protect the country’s election security after Russian agents targeted election systems in 21 states ahead of the 2016 general election. There’s no evidence that any hack in the November 2016 election affected election results, but the attempts rattled state election officials and prompted the federal government and states to examine the way votes are counted.

Senators on the panel have criticized both administrations for not moving quickly enough to stem the Russian threat, and continued to do so at the hearing. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, critiqued Nielsen’s opening statement, which described a series of efforts the department had already announced.

“I hear no sense of urgency to really get on top of this issue,” Collins said, noting that 2018 elections are already underway.

Collins noted that many state election officials have remained without security clearances, making it harder for the department to share information with them.

To speed up communications and intelligence sharing, the department has been working to grant security clearances to up to three election officials in each state. Nielsen said Wednesday that just 20 of those officials have been granted full clearances.

“We are doing our best to speed up the process,” Nielsen said, adding that the department has a policy in place to provide information on immediate threats to state and local election officials even if clearances have yet to be granted.

Communication and intelligence sharing by the federal government has been a key concern among state and local election officials. Those officials complained that it took the federal government nearly a year to inform them whether their states had been targeted by Russian hackers.

Collins, who has introduced legislation with other members of the committee to improve election cybersecurity, also pressed Johnson, asking if he should have issued stronger warnings in 2016 as it became clear that Russians were trying to intrude into the systems.

Johnson defended the way he alerted state and local election officials, noting that in the late summer and fall of 2016 he was repeatedly issuing public warnings for those officials to get cybersecurity assistance from the department.

“We were beating the drum pretty hard,” Johnson said.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, also lambasted the Obama administration’s response, saying it was not sufficient to warn the public “in any way, shape or form.”

Before leaving office, the Obama administration designated the nation’s election systems as “critical infrastructure,” on par with the electrical grid and water supply. That decision prompted alarm among state election officials, who expressed concern the federal government was trying to take over elections that have long been the jurisdiction of state and local governments. Johnson said he had considered the move earlier, but had backed off because of resistance to states.

Johnson also testified that during the 2016 election he contacted The Associated Press because he was worried about the possibility the news cooperative’s election results could be hacked. He said he called AP’s CEO Gary Pruitt about his concerns and came away satisfied that the company was taking appropriate precautions as it counted votes and analyzed results.

The hearing follows a Tuesday news conference in which committee members from both parties said government efforts to protect state and local elections from Russian cyberattacks haven’t gone far enough. Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they’ve seen indications Russian agents are preparing a new round of election interference this year.

Senators warned that it could be worse the next time around.

“What it looks like is a test,” said Maine Sen. Angus King of the 2016 hacking attempts.

The committee is recommending that states make sure voting machines have paper audit trails and aren’t capable of being connected to the internet. Senators also are pushing for better communication among the various U.S. intelligence agencies and federal, state and local governments.

Senators are also urging state and local election officials to take advantage Homeland Security Department resources, such as comprehensive risk assessments and remote cyberscanning of their networks to spot vulnerabilities. As of last month, just 14 states had requested risk assessments and 30 had asked for remote cyberscans of their networks, according to Homeland Security officials. But even that was straining resources, since many of those risk assessments have not been completed.

The committee’s recommendations preview an election security report expected to be released in full in the coming weeks. It is the first of four reports planned as part of the panel’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The recommendations come as Congress is eyeing $380 million in state grants for election security in a wide-ranging spending bill expected to be unveiled as soon as Wednesday. The bill also contains $307 million for the FBI to go after Russian cyberattacks.

The top Democrat on the intelligence panel, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, has said he thinks the nation’s election security needs to be more robust, especially since Trump has not addressed the matter as an urgent problem.

“It’s pretty amazing to me we’ve had the director of the FBI, the director of national intelligence and the head of the NSA say in public testimony within the last month that they’ve received no direction from the White House to make election security a priority,” Warner said.

Nielsen defended Trump at the hearing, saying, “the line he is drawing is that no votes were changed. That doesn’t mean there’s not a threat.”

She added: “We think the threat remains high.”

 

The Right to Be Who You Are

Queer theorist and University of California, Berkeley, comparative literature professor Judith Butler published “Gender Trouble” in 1990. The book introduced the concept of “performativity,” the idea that gender isn’t something we are but an activity we do. Since she wrote the book, the whole idea of gender has changed radically, and some people, such as Columbia University gender studies professor Jack Halberstam, say that without her work we wouldn’t have the “version of genderqueer-ness” we have now.

Recently, Butler took part in “Radical Movements: Gender and Politics in Performance” in San Francisco, opening the festival with a program titled “Ordinary Practices of the Radical Body,” and talking with Monique Jenkinson, the only cisgender woman to win a major drag pageant.

At the end of 2017, Butler’s ideas provoked controversy at a conference titled “The Ends of Democracy” in São Paulo, where protesters burned her in effigy, shouting, “Burn the witch!”

Between meetings with her students at a Berkeley cafe, Butler talked with Truthdig about how her family constructed their identities in response to the movies, how movement is important to her, how there’s reason for optimism and why we have freedom and joy on our side.

Emily Wilson: You were part of this show about gender and movement. How is movement important to you?

Judith Butler: Monique contacted me, and she was great. She worked with me like you would with a tentative student, and she got me to talk about the place of movement in my life, which was wonderful. I have a sister who is a dancer and was trained in ballet and modern [dance] and went to Juilliard and now lives in Indonesia and does movement workshops. So I lived a good part of my life with a very serious dancer when I was a young person, and there was a lot of expression through movement in my family for whatever reason. And I think it was part of lesbian/gay/queer culture on the weekends—everybody’s dancing and there was a sort of revolutionary zeal to it at LGBTQ events in the ’70s and early ’80s. So it’s part of the culture I grew up with, and it’s been important. Also, as I started to think about gender, I was interested in how people moved, whether it was gesture or gait or expression or how they moved their face or arms. There were ways femininity or masculinity could be signified through subtle movements that weren’t easily classified.

EW: How did you develop your ideas about gender? What made you start thinking about it?

JB: My mother’s family brought silent movies to the city of Cleveland, and they owned a set of movie theaters when I was growing up. So we went to the movies quite often, and I also think as they were assimilating Jews, they took on personas from movies they were showing. They were learning how to be American by watching these films and also how to be glamorous. I think my grandmother modeled herself on Helen Hayes and my grandfather on Clark Gable and my mother, unfortunately, on Joan Crawford. So they were trying to live their lives and wear their clothes and perform their genders through some hyperbolic norms communicated through the movies. I became interested in how they constructed themselves. My mother’s preparation for the day was quite elaborate, putting on her face, and I think she was somewhat dismayed I didn’t do the same and couldn’t figure out why I was refusing this obvious path.

EW: What do you see as the most significant changes since you wrote “Gender Trouble”?

JB: Many things have happened, and there’s an enormous interest in gender in popular culture in the United States, so you can have the show “Transparent” or RuPaul or Chelsea Manning as a major figure. On one hand, there is that opening, and on the other hand, there are some pretty conservative people who don’t like that opening. We saw that in the legal case to shut down bathrooms marked for transgender people. Who could be opposed to having bathrooms marked for trans people? There’s a lot of homophobia, and we see homophobic violence all the time. There was just something on the news about a guy who killed his friend who he said came on to him. So if the question is, is it still possible that somebody who is gay would be killed simply for being gay, then the answer is yes, and it happens all the time. Many countries are still unwilling to accept bi or lesbian or gay or trans people. It’s still very much a basic struggle in this world.

EW: Did the protesters in Brazil shock you?

JB: I wasn’t even talking about gender. I was convening a conference on democracy, asking whether we could still think about the goals of democracy. I did know there’s a right-wing Christian movement against what they call gender ideology. I had been exposed to that in France and Switzerland, but I didn’t know how passionate it was and how well organized it was through social media. There were about 75 of them, and there were about 150 people opposing them. I didn’t actually see the demonstration. I was doing yoga inside. I was pretty strongly protected, but I do think it was frightening. Having one’s image burnt in effigy is something people do to witches or satanic characters, and whatever this gender ideology is, they think it’s from the devil.

I think if you believe God established men and women, and that they are bound together through marriage, and that reproduction should happen in heterosexual marriage alone, and if the concept of gender says the category of man and woman change through time and maybe some people don’t fit in either one of those categories, you’re contesting biblical authority. That was never my aim, but yes, I’m contesting biblical authority. They’re right to be angry with me (laughs).

But that means they’re against reproductive technology, they’re against abortion, they’re against trans rights, they’re against feminism, they’re against single mothers, they’re against feminism. These all represent struggles to gain greater freedom and equality. This group wants to take us back to heterosexual reproduction only in marriage and very strict rules about what a man is and what a woman is. It is a real opposition, and we are on opposite sides. That is correct. Except, I would say, there are some fabulous Christian groups that are gay affirmative and trans affirmative and care about the poor and justice for the oppressed. So their version of Christianity is not everyone’s version.

EW: I saw a short interview you did after what happened in Brazil, and you said that the feminist, gay and trans world the conservatives want to destroy is too powerful, and it will win because it has freedom and joy on its side. Can you say more about that?

JB: There was an editor in Sao Paulo who said, “Look, things are really terrible, Trump is president, the white nationalists are assuming power, they’re frightened in Brazil of rising authoritarianism—what hope is there? It’s all so bleak.” I said I felt there was reason for optimism, and people do want to be free, and there’s a desire for freedom. I don’t know if that’s really true, but I liked saying it. It felt free to say it. Maybe it was more, “I hope this is true,” or, “Let this catch fire.”

There are people trying to make us go back, like in Brazil. People want to shut down the trans or gay community, or human rights achievements, but that’s an enormous moment. They’re not going to shut it down, but they will make it hard. If you look at the number of killings [of] women or trans people or gay people in Brazil, it’s very frightening, it’s horrific. But it’s a very strong movement, and a lot of people are struggling and making headway in culture and the arts and education and politics and human rights. It’s ongoing—it’s definitely ongoing.

[Editor’s note: On March 14, Marielle Franco, a lesbian politician in Brazil, was was assassinated. Her murder has made her a human rights icon.]

EW: Are you interested in conversations with conservatives?

JB: I gave a talk on free speech and academic freedom, and somebody from the audience said, “Why aren’t there conversations between people on the left and more conservative people?” I said I was happy to debate people with conservative viewpoints. I cited the James Baldwin/William Buckley debate that I thought was really quite incredible. But it’s hard to get people to debate who are serious about debate and not just trying to bludgeon you with their viewpoint or mock you for having your viewpoint, but where people really go to the heart of the issue and think together about what their differences are and why they have them.

I’m actually willing to debate almost anyone. I think I would draw a line with Nazis or white nationalists—I think I’m not going to give a platform to somebody whose views are so beyond the pale. It doesn’t make any sense. But there are conservatives I’m more than happy to debate with. Maybe we differ on fiscal policy or have a different idea of what freedom is, but that could be interesting.

Trump-Putin Call Sparks an Uproar Over Leaks

WASHINGTON—The tempest over President Donald Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin quickly grew on Wednesday into an uproar over White House leaks, sparking an internal investigation and speculation over who might be the next person Trump forces out of the West Wing.

The White House said in a statement it would be a “fireable offense and likely illegal” to leak Trump’s briefing papers to the press, after word emerged that the president had been warned in briefing materials to refrain from congratulating the Russian president on his re-election. Trump he did so anyway during a Tuesday conversation.

Aides had included guidance in Trump’s talking points for the call to Putin stating: “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” a senior administration official said Wednesday, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official had not been authorized to discuss internal matters.

The document had been accessible only to a select group of aides, two officials said. They also said there now is an internal probe of leak but provided no other details. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. The White House is not formally acknowledging the veracity of the presidential guidance first reported by The Washington Post.

The statement Wednesday about a possible firing was an unusual threat by the White House. Other leaks of classified material — including partial transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders — have not garnered specific warnings of termination or criminal action. It was not clear whether the document in question was classified, but it was included with other classified papers.

It also was unclear whether Trump, who prefers oral briefings, had read the talking points prepared by his national security team before Tuesday’s call. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster briefed the president in person before the conversation in the White House residence.

The leak further cast doubt on McMaster’s longevity in the top foreign policy post: The guidance for Trump had been prepared by his staff. Trump has been moving toward replacing McMaster on the advice of Chief of Staff John Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, but has not settled on timing or a successor.

Trump’s call of congratulations to Putin drew bruising criticism from members of his own party even before the revelation that he was advised against it.

“An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and has pressed the Trump administration to respond aggressively to Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday he wouldn’t comment specifically on Trump’s action, but he told CNN, “I think Putin’s a criminal. What he did in Georgia, what he did in Ukraine, what he did in the Baltics, in London…That’s a criminal activity. I wouldn’t have a conversation with a criminal.”

The call was the latest indicator of Trump’s personal reluctance to publicly criticize Putin. The White House said Trump did not raise Russia’s meddling in the U.S. elections or its suspected involvement in the recent poisoning of a former spy in Britain in the call with Putin. Trump also said he and Putin might meet “in the not too distant future” to discuss the arms race and other matters.

He said that during their hoped-for meeting the two men would likely discuss Ukraine, Syria and North Korea.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s call and noted that President Barack Obama made a similar call at the time of Putin’s last electoral victory.

“We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate,” Sanders said.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called the leak a “bigger outrage” than Trump’s congratulations for Putin. “If you don’t like President resign, but this ongoing pattern of duplicity holds potential for serious damage to the nation,” he said on Twitter.

Russia has received global condemnation after Britain blamed Moscow for the recent nerve agent attack that sickened Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Russia has denied the accusation.

Trump’s call came at a period of heightened tension after the White House imposed sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 U.S. election and other “malicious cyberattacks.” Sanders insisted that the administration has scolded Putin at the appropriate times.

“We’ve been very clear in the actions that we’ve taken that we’re going to be tough on Russia, particularly when it comes to areas that we feel where they’ve stepped out of place,” she said.

The Kremlin said in a statement that Trump and Putin spoke about a need to “coordinate efforts to limit the arms race” and for closer cooperation on strategic stability and counterterrorism.

“Special attention was given to considering the issue of a possible bilateral summit,” the Kremlin statement said.

No details were released about the timing or location of a possible meeting with Putin, which would be the third since Trump took office in January 2017. They met on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany last summer and again more informally at another gathering of world leaders in Vietnam in November.

Putin received calls from a number of other foreign leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Many others, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, sent congratulatory telegrams.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this story.

Illegal Wars: The New American Way

[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons. …

—S.J. Res. 23 (107th): Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), Sept. 18, 2001

The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary … in order to … defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq. …

—H. J. Res 114 (107th): Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, Oct. 18, 2002

It’s all so obvious to a detached observer. Nonetheless, it remains unspoken. The United States of America is waging several wars with dubious legal sanction in domestic or international law.

The U.S. military stands astride the Greater Mideast region on behalf of an increasingly rogue-like regime in Washington, D.C. Worse still, this isn’t a Donald Trump problem, per se. No, three successive administrations—Democratic and Republican—have widened the scope of a global “war” on a tactic (terror), on the basis of two at best vague, and at worst extralegal, congressional authorizations for the use of force (AUMF). Indeed, the U.S. is veritably addicted to waging undeclared, unwinnable wars with unconvincing legal sanction.

Despite 17 years of fighting, dying and killing, there have been no specific declarations of war. Instead, one president after another, and hundreds of derelict-in-their-duty congress members, have simply decided on their own that a vague resolution, rubber-stamped while the rubble in New York was still smoking, authorizes each and every conflict in which America’s soldiers—and many more civilians—continue to die. This AUMF authorized the president to kill or capture those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, but, well, few of America’s current adversaries had anything to do with that.

If that doesn’t seem sufficient, Washington points to the only other congressional framework for perpetual war, the long-ago discredited war resolution, which sanctioned George W. Bush’s deceitful conquest of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But Saddam is dead and his regime gone, replaced by a U.S.-imposed chauvinist Shiite government which is now (tenuously) sovereign in Baghdad.

The specific circumstances surrounding that war resolution have passed.

So, you ask, how can, for example, war in Yemen or Somalia, be justified on the resolution’s account? Because the policy elites don’t care about logic or rational deduction, that’s why. It’s a convenient ruse, and they assume we’re not paying attention.

And the rest of us, well, we stay mostly silent, wrapped up with trying to earn a living in America’s new Gilded Age, its vastly unequal economy, and remain distracted by fancy handheld computer technology. They, the ones who act in our name—liberal and conservative policymakers alike—count on your apathy. They don’t want you to scratch off the veneer of legality and question the basis of each individual forever war in the Mideast. That would be inconvenient, but it is exactly what true citizens must do.

Let’s take a quick regional tour of some of America’s various shooting wars, and critically examine their legal sanction as it relates to the two existing AUMFs.

● How about we begin with the next massive quagmire awaiting the U.S. military in the Mideast: Syria. Almost no one realizes that the U.S. is now the proud owner of approximately one-third of Syria. Sure, we rent it out to various allied, mostly Kurdish militias, but it’s U.S. air power and a few thousand ground troops which make that possible. America got into Syria, ostensibly, to combat Islamic State—a truly brutal group.

Still, strictly speaking, there was no Islamic State in 2001, and there weren’t any Syrians among the 9/11 hijackers. Now, one might argue that Islamic State is a spinoff of al-Qaida, which did attack the United States. Careful though—by 2014, Islamic State had split from the local al-Qaida franchise (the Nusra Front), and the two had become warring rivals. More confusing still, while one could argue the 2001 AUMF covers al-Nusra, the U.S. has rarely attacked it and, indeed, sometimes armed and supplied Islamist elements affiliated with the group. What a twisted legal web Washington has spun.

Still, there the U.S. military now stands, responsible for the hopes, dreams, sustenance and well-being of millions of Syrians. Its troops aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, either. Before Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was canned, he announced that U.S. “troops will remain in Syria”—essentially indefinitely—“to ensure that neither Iran nor President Bashar al-Assad of Syria will take over [these] areas.”

That’s strange. Assad is a brutal monster, sure, but he remains the sovereign ruler of Syria, and, well, technically he didn’t invite the U.S. military into his country. That means, in a certain sense, that only Russia and Iran—purported American adversaries—have any legal sanction in Syria. So, to review, the U.S. military occupies the east of Syria, facing down and one mistake away from a war with Assad, Iran, Russia and Turkey. That sounds risky. Oh, and one more question, do the 2001 or 2002 AUMFs cover the U.S. killing of scores of Russian mercenaries? Because that happened, too, just last month.

● The world’s worst humanitarian disaster zone today is in the Arab world’s poorest country: Yemen. Here, U.S.-backed Saudi planes drop American bombs on Yemeni Houthi rebels from planes fueled in midair by the U.S. Air Force. Though the official count of civilian deaths seemed to stop at 10,000 in 2016, journalist and Yemen specialist Iona Craig, of The Intercept, told me this week on my podcast that the real number probably approaches 50,000.

That’s just the direct, war-related deaths. The bombing and Saudi—and arguably U.S. Navy—blockade also has kicked off a record-breaking cholera epidemic and a worsening famine. Children literally starve to death in Yemen. The Houthis, a Shiite sect from northwest Yemen, had nothing to do with 9/11 and hardly collaborated with Saddam’s Iraq. How, then, can we square U.S. complicity in Saudi terror-bombing with international or domestic law? Short answer: We can’t.

● In Somalia, where the U.S. military has maintained an on-again, off-again presence since 1993, the Air Force bombs and Navy SEAL commandos raid the native al-Shabab militants. A particularly nasty bunch ensconced in a nastier neighborhood, al-Shabab didn’t even exist in its current form in 2001, and certainly had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. With no known relationship to Saddam Hussein, it’s hard to see how these Islamist militiamen fall under either AUMF.

● hit the headlines in a big way last year when four Army Green Berets died in a vicious ambush. No one, it seemed, not even superhawk Sen. Lindsay Graham, knew we had any troops there. Apparently, that’s no longer a requirement for the places America sends its soldiers to kill and die. Heck, most Americans had to look up the country’s pronunciation and scramble to find the joint on a map.

Here, as in most foreign interventions in the African Sahel, the U.S. (and France) are being sucked into essentially local tribal, resource or ethnic conflicts that masquerade as transnational Islamism. These desert fighters had nothing to do with 9/11, the local Islamic State affiliate didn’t exist in 2001, and Niger is 3,000 miles or so from Saddam’s old haunt in Iraq.

On the bright side, the U.S. military was kind enough to grant retroactive “imminent danger” pay—a whopping $225 a month—for all the troops in Niger and Cameroon. You see, sometimes Washington doesn’t even know it’s in a barely sanctioned “imminent danger” situation, what used to be called a war, until after the fact.

● Finally, the boondoggle of all boondoggles, the original unwinnable war: Afghanistan. In this case, al-Qaida did once operate there and the broad contours of 9/11 were planned in Afghanistan. That was 2001. By 2002, al-Qaida was all but finished in Afghanistan and had fled to Pakistan and other regional locales. The war didn’t end though, not by a long shot. Seventeen years on, and the U.S. is again ramping up its longest war. Why? Because the stubborn Taliban that once harbored Osama bin Laden won’t surrender.

Honestly, though, let’s call it like it is: America’s chosen nemesis there—the Taliban—is, and essentially always was, a local actor with aspirations confined to landlocked Afghanistan. Most of these illiterate, destitute farm boys have never met any al-Qaida. Truth is, negotiations with the Taliban might convince these folks not to harbor al-Qaida-classic in the future. That wouldn’t serve the Taliban’s local interests, after all, and would bring on the continued wrath of U.S. bombers and commandos. To give a sense of how far off the rails U.S. policy has gone in Afghanistan, American planes started bombing ethnically Uighur Chinese militants last month. Tell me how that crew relates to either of our vague AUMFs? The whole notion is absurd.

* * *Across the Greater Mideast today, the U.S. is bogged down in a growing number of dubiously legal wars it can’t seem to win. One look at the strategic map tells a gloomy tale: The U.S. military, ensnared in country upon country, is unable to achieve victory and unwilling to prudently withdraw. The U.S. position in Syria and Iraq is tenuous as ever. American soldiers are surrounded by hostile adversaries and unreliable frenemies on all sides: Iran, Russia, Turkey, Assad and Hezbollah.

Matters are even worse than they appear. There’s no discernible strategy, folks. The U.S. holds a bad hand and is playing it badly. The American people hardly care, media coverage these days is all Russia, all the time, and Congress has these wars on autopilot. Furthermore, seen through foreign eyes—which matter, by the way—there’s a distinct gap between U.S. public pronouncements about liberty and sovereignty and America’s adherence to the international laws governing such ideals.

Behind the standard American-freedom rhetoric, and beneath the surface lies an unspoken truth: The USA flouts international law when it suits American interests and stretches domestic authorizations to their breaking point in the name of perpetual, doomed warfare. We the people are all complicit, until, that is, we demand that Congress do its constitutional duty and specifically approve (or shut down) the forever wars.

Democracy dies in the darkness exuded by the clouds of foreign wars. The fate of the republic—what remains of it—hangs in the balance.

The U.S. may be a republic or an empire. It may not be both. Now is the time for choosing.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.