Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 124

More facts emerge about the leaked smear campaigns

(updated below -  Update II)

As I noted on Friday, the parties implicated in the smear campaigns aimed at WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics have attempted to heap all the blame on HBGary Federal ("HBGary") and its CEO, Aaron Barr.  Both Bank of America and the Chamber -- the intended clients -- vehemently deny any involvement in these schemes and have harshly denounced them.  The other two Internet security firms whose logos appeared on the proposals -- Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies -- both issued statements terminating their relationship with HBGary and insisting that they had nothing to do with these plots.  Only Hunton & Williams and its partner, John Woods -- the central cogs soliciting these proposals -- have steadfastly refused to comment.

Palantir, in particular, has been quite aggressive about trying to distance itself.  They initially issued a strong statement denouncing the plots, then had their CEO call me vowing to investigate and terminate any employees who were involved, then issued another statement over the weekend claiming that "Palantir never has and never will condone the sort of activities that HBGary recommended" and "Palantir did not participate in the development of the recommendations that Palantir and others find offensive."  Such vehemence is unsurprising:  the Palo-Alto-based firm relies for its recruitment efforts on maintaining a carefully cultivated image as a progressive company devoted to civil liberties, privacy and Internet freedom -- all of which would be obviously sullied by involvement in such a scheme.

But as Salon's Justin Elliott reports, there are newly emerged facts which directly contradict Palantir's denials.  On Sunday night, Anonymous released an additional 25,000 emails from HBGary, and Forbes' Andy Greenberg was the first to make this discovery:

The emails also show that it was Barr who suggested pressuring Salon.com journalist Glenn Greenwald, though Palantir, another firm working with HBGary Federal, quickly accepted that suggestion and added it to the PowerPoint presentation that the group was assembling.

Greenberg is referring to this series of emails, first from HBGary's Barr -- addressed to Palantir's Matthew Steckman and Eli Bingham along with Berico's Sam Kremin (click image to enlarge):

This was the reply from Palantir's Steckman to that email:

Roughly 15 minutes later, Steckman sent another email to Barr:  "Updated with Strengths/Weaknesses and a spotlight on Glenn Greenwald...thanks Aaron!" -- indicating he had included the slide featuring this scheme.  So much for Palantir's insistence that they "did not participate in the development of the recommendations."  As Elliott noted, "Steckman's role in creating the slideshow -- which, it should be noted, also carries Palantir's logo -- would seem to contradict the company's" denials.

Last night, both Elliott and I sent emails to Palantir's General Counsel asking the company to reconcile this obvious contradiction.  In response, they issued a statement announcing that they "have decided to place Matthew Steckman, 26 year old engineer, on leave pending a thorough review of his actions."  They added that Palantir "was not retained by any party to develop such recommendations and indeed it would be contrary to Palantir's ethics, culture and policies to do so" (Elliott has posted Palantir's full statement).

So apparently, if Palantir's new version is to be believed, a 26-year-old engineer went off on his own and -- without any supervision or direction -- participated in the development of odious smear campaigns intended for two of the nation's deepest-pocket organizations (Bank of America and the Chamber), potential clients which the emails repeatedly emphasize would be very lucrative.  I'll leave it to others to decide how credible that version is, but I will note that several facts undermine it: 

First, another Palantir employee besides Steckman-- Eli Bingham -- was one of the recipients of Barr's original email proposing this smear campaign.  Second, this proposal was being developed immediately before (and for consideration at) a conference call that included Hunton & Williams' Woods, HBGary's Barr, a Berico official, and both Steckman and Bingham on behalf of Palantir (see the bottom email here); was a 26-year-old mid-level engineer the only Palantir official aware of what they were proposing to H&W in order to attract the Bank and the Chamber's business?  Third, there's no question -- as this article yesterday from The San Francisco Business Times documents -- that at least three Palantir employees (Steckman, Bingham and Ryan Castle) were all sent emails containing the proposals to smear critics of the Chamber of Commerce, including ThinkProgress.  That article notes that these newly released emails "suggest that staff at Palantir Technologies, a high-profile data analysis company co-founded by ex-PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, may have helped prepare a proposal for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to undermine a pro-labor publication called ThinkProgress with dirty tricks."  Whatever else is true, Palantir's knowledge of and involvement in these proposals is more extensive than it originally claimed, and extends beyond the 26-year-old scapegoat just placed on leave.

But the real party here which deserves much more scrutiny is Hunton & Williams -- one of the most well-connected legal and lobbying firms in DC -- and its partner John Woods.  Using teams of people scouring all the available emails, FDL has done its typically thorough job of setting forth all the key facts and the key players -- including from Booz Allen -- and Woods is at the center of all of it:  the key cog acting on behalf of the Bank of America and the Chamber.  It's Woods who is soliciting these firms to submit these proposals, pursuant to work for the Chamber and the Bank; according to Palantir emails, H&W was recommended to the Bank by the Justice Department to coordinate the anti-WikiLeaks work.

Despite being at the center of this increasingly disturbing scandal, Woods and H&W steadfastly refuse to comment to anyone.  As The New York Times noted on Saturday when reporting this story:  "A Hunton & Williams spokesman did not comment."  For a lawyer to be at the center of an odious and quite possibly illegal scheme to target progressive activists and their families, threaten the careers of journalists as a means of silencing them, and fabricate forged documents intended for public consumption -- and then steadfastly refuse to comment -- is just inexcusable.  Perhaps some polite email and telephone encouragement from the public is needed for Woods to account for what he and his firm have done.  In exchange for the privileges lawyers receive (including the exclusive right to furnish legal advice, represent others, and act as officers of the court), members of the Bar have particular ethical obligations to the public.  At the very least, the spirit -- if not the letter -- of those obligations is being seriously breached by a lawyer who appears to be at the center of these kinds of pernicious, lawless plots and then refuses to account to the public for what he did.

Given my involvement in this story, I'm going to defer to others in terms of the reporting.  But -- given the players involved and the facts that continue to emerge -- this story is far too significant to allow to die due to lack of attention.  Many of the named targets are actively considering commencing civil proceedings (which would entail compulsory discovery) as well as ethical grievances with the relevant Bar associations.  As the episode with Palantir demonstrates, simply relying on the voluntary statements of the corporations involved ensures that the actual facts will remain concealed if not actively distorted.  The DOJ ought to investigate this as well, but for reasons I detailed on Friday, that is unlikely in the extreme.  Entities of this type routinely engage in conduct like this with impunity, and the serendipity that led to their exposure in this case should be seized to impose some accountability.  That this was discovered through a random email hack -- and that these firms felt so free to propose these schemes in writing and, at least from what is known, not a single person raised any objection at all -- underscores how common this behavior is.

Yesterday, I did a 20-minute interview with Sam Seder about this case and its significance, which can be heard on the player below (the transcript is here); see also, these important new facts discovered by Marcy Wheeler.  I also recorded a 30-minute discussion yesterday with MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan, which he will post later today (I'll provide the link when he does), and I'll also be on MSNBC at roughly 4:00 pm EST discussing this and related matters. 

 

 

UPDATE:  The Guardian now joins The New York Times in reporting on this story, and supplies some new, interesting details (and, naturally, Hunton & Williams failed to respond to requests to comment). 

 

UPDATE II:  Writing in Wired, Nate Anderson of Ars Technica has a truly superb account of what happened here, with a focus on the responsibility and knowledge of the executives at the implicated firms.  The whole article should be read, but here's a sample:

By October 2010, Barr was under considerable stress. His CEO job was under threat, and the e-mails show that the specter of divorce loomed over his personal life.

On Oct. 19, a note arrived. HBGary Federal might be able to provide part of "a complete intelligence solution to a law firm that approached us." That law firm was DC-based powerhouse Hunton & Williams, which boasted 1,000 attorneys and terrific contacts. . . .

The three firms [HBGary, Berico and Palantir] needed a name for their joint operation. One early suggestion: a "Corporate Threat Analysis Cell." Eventually, a sexier name was chosen: Team Themis.. . .

Team Themis decided to ask for $2 million per month, for six months, for the first phase of the project, putting $500,000 to $700,000 per month in HBGary Federal's pocket.

But the three companies disagreed about how to split the pie. In the end, Palantir agreed to take less money, but that decision had to go "way up the chain (as you can imagine)," wrote the Palantir contact for Team Themis. "The short of it is that we got approval from Dr. Karp and the Board to go ahead with the modified 40/30/30 breakdown proposed. These were not fun conversations, but we are committed to this team and we can optimize the cost structure in the long term (let's demonstrate success and then take over this market :) )."

The leaders at the very top of Palantir were aware of the Team Themis work, though the details of what was being proposed by Barr may well have escaped their notice. Palantir wasn't kidding around with this contract; if selected by H&W and the Chamber, Palantir planned to staff the project with an experienced intelligence operative, a man who "ran the foreign fighter campaign on the Syrian border in 2005 to stop the flow of suicide bombers into Baghdad and helped to ensure a successful Iraqi election. As a commander, [he] ran the entire intelligence cycle: identified high-level terrorists, planned missions to kill or capture them, led the missions personally, then exploited the intelligence and evidence gathered on target to defeat broader enemy networks" . . . .

But before H&W made a decision on Chamber of Commerce plan, it had another urgent request for Team Themis: a major U.S. bank had come to H&W seeking help against WikiLeaks (the bank has been widely assumed to be Bank of America, which has long been rumored to be a future WikiLeaks target.)

"We want to sell this team as part of what we are talking about," said the team's H&W contact. "I need a favor. I need five to six slides on Wikileaks -- who they are, how they operate and how this group may help this bank. . . ."

After the Anonymous attacks and the release of Barr's e-mails, his partners furiously distanced themselves from Barr's work. Palantir CEO Dr. Alex Karp wrote, "We do not provide — nor do we have any plans to develop -- offensive cyber capabilities . . . ." Berico said (PDF) that it "does not condone or support any effort that proactively targets American firms, organizations or individuals. We find such actions reprehensible and are deeply committed to partnering with the best companies in our industry that share our core values. Therefore, we have discontinued all ties with HBGary Federal."

But both of the Team Themis leads at these companies knew exactly what was being proposed (such knowledge may not have run to the top). They saw Barr's e-mails, and they used his work. His ideas on attacking WikiLeaks made it almost verbatim into a Palantir slide about "proactive tactics."

Anderson has written the definitive account thus far about the facts showing the involvement of each of these companies, and I encourage everyone to read his whole article.

Standard Washington cowardice

In late 2008, former federal prosecutor Neil Barofsky was appointed to oversee the Treasury Department's administration of the $700 billion Wall Street/TARP bailout, and in that position, he has easily been one of the most impressive and courageous political officials in Washington.  A life-long Democrat who donated money to the Obama campaign, he vigilantly fought for his independence  as TARP watchdog and has been relentless in his criticism of Treasury officials and especially Tim Geithner.  The Washington Post reports today that Barofsky is resigning from his position, and the otherwise routine article by reporter Bradley Dennis contains this passage:

[Barofsky] quickly emerged as an aggressive overseer, viewed as a much-needed cop monitoring for waste and fraud within TARP by some lawmakers and watchdog groups, and, by Treasury officials and financial-industry representatives, as a self-promoter whose overreaching investigations scared some needy banks away from participating in the federal aid program. . . .

In his sometimes scathing reports to Congress, Barofsky showed little reluctance in criticizing administration officials on everything from how their lack of transparency was fueling "anger, cynicism and distrust" to how their foreclosure prevention efforts had fallen well below expectations.  Barofsky was particularly hard on the government's bailout of insurance giant American International Group, saying that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- which was led at the time by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner -- "refused to use its considerable leverage" and instead paid AIG's trading partners in full on the firm's debts.

Such criticisms did not sit well with Treasury officials, many of whom believed Barofsky's conclusions were overstated and aimed primarily at drawing media attention.

"We're fine with critics," said one Treasury official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak more candidly. "[But] he's been consistently wrong about a lot of big things."

Just ponder the utter cowardice and lack of professionalism needed to produce this passage.  First, some aide to Timothy Geithner wanted to publicly slam Barofsky on his way out the door, but lacked the courage to attach his name to the criticism.  So he told this Post reporter that he'd be willing to provide a derogatory quote about Barofsky, but only if he could hide behind anonymity when doing so.  Barofsky has stood behind his public criticisms by putting his name on his reports and appearing unmasked in interviews, but this Geithner lackey is too afraid to do that.  So he demands that the Treasury Department be allowed to malign him while hiding behind the Post's protective shield.

Then, the Post reporter, so desperate to include criticism of Barofsky for the sake of "balance" and in order to curry favor with the administration, agrees to channel the insults about Barofsky while concealing the identity of this Treasury critic -- for absolutely no good journalistic reason.  Remember, this isn't some powerless whistle-blower granted anonymity to expose wrongdoing by someone in power.  It's the opposite:  Barofsky is on his way out, and this official is still at Treasury, undoubtedly doing the Secretary's bidding.  Worse, the criticism is completely uninformative; it's just an unspecific insult claiming that Barofsky has "been consistently wrong about a lot of big things" without identifying a single alleged error.  So anonymity is granted to allow a powerful government official to publicly malign someone in the most unaccountable manner possible. 

Then, the Post editor assigned to this article decides that this is a proper use of anonymity -- despite the Post's history of humiliations due to excessive anonymity, its supposed policy of granting it only in rare and justifiable cases, and the repeated warnings by its own Ombudsman that its promiscuous use of anonymity is rapidly eroding its "credibility" even with its own readers:

For decades, ombudsmen have complained about The Post's unwillingness to follow its own lofty standards on anonymous sources. Readers, who care about the quality of The Post's journalism, persistently object to anonymity they see as excessive and incessant. The problem is endemic. Reporters should be blamed. But the solution must come in the form of unrelenting enforcement by editors, starting with those at the top.

The only possible conclusion is that they don't care in the slightest about the "lofty standards" to which they so pompously claim to adhere.  They're far more interested in currying favor with high-level political officials by allowing them to malign and smear whomever they want -- even in the most gossipy and substance-free ways -- without a shred of accountability.  Episodes like this one are extremely common in Washington political and media circles, which is why they're periodically worth noting.  The level of cowardice required of a high-level political official to publicly smear someone this way while hiding their identity, and the level of shoddiness and eager-to-please subservience required for reporters and editors to enable that, is just remarkable.  But that's who runs Washington's political and media institutions, and that explains much about what it produces.  Episodes like this one are a healthy reminder of that.

New information emerges on anti-WikiLeaks plot

Here's an update on the unfolding story of the trio of technology firms that hatched a plan to attack WikiLeaks and their supporters in the press -- including Salon's Glenn Greenwald. The plan was apparently prepared at the behest of Hunton and Williams, a large law firm working for Bank of America, which is worried because it is reportedly the subject of a future WikiLeaks document release.

The plan (.pdf) was outlined in a slideshow prepared by the three security firms; it was obtained and released online by the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers known as Anonymous. One of the three firms, Palantir Technologies, just announced that it has put an engineer who was involved in the project on leave "pending a thorough review of his actions." 

When this story broke last week, Palantir was quick to deny any involvement in the anti-WikiLeaks plan and to sever ties with one of the partner firms, HBGary, that had masterminded the plan. One of several provocative items in the plan said that Greenwald's public support for WikiLeaks needed "to be disrupted."

Here's where a new wrinkle in the story comes into play. Anonymous has now published a new batch of thousands emails hacked from executives at HBGary. And the emails appear to contradict Palantir's claim that it had nothing to do with developing the anti-WikiLeaks plan.

Here's what Palantir, which also apologized personally to Greenwald, said in a statement sent to reporters over the weekend:

Palantir did not participate in the development of the recommendations that Palantir and others find offensive.

Palantir was NOT retained by any party to develop such recommendations and indeed it would be contrary to Palantir ethics, culture and policies to do so.

That's a pretty airtight denial. But now let's look at an email exchange between HBGary executive Aaron Barr and Matthew Steckman, an engineer at Palantir (who has now been put on leave). On the morning of Dec. 3, Barr wrote Steckman:

From: Aaron Barr

Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 8:32 AM

To: Matthew Steckman

Cc: Eli Bingham; BERICO-Sam.Kremin

Subject: Re: first cut

One other thing. I think we need to highlight people like Glenn Greenwald. Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH transition and helped wikileaks provide access to information during the transition. It is this level of support we need to attack. These are established proffessionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals. Without the support of people like Glenn wikileaks would fold.

Aaron

At 8:39, Steckman replies:

I like the strengths/weaknesses highlights. Going to add those in, I'll add a "spotlight" on Glenn too.

Matthew Steckman

Palantir Technologies | Forward Deployed Engineer

And then at 8:52 Steckman wrote:

Updated with Strengths/Weaknesses and a spotlight on Glenn Greenwald...thanks Aaron!

Matthew Steckman

Palantir Technologies | Forward Deployed Engineer

The text of Barr's email was turned into bullet points and put on the slide about Greenwald in the anti-WikiLeaks planning document, which Steckman was apparently in charge of putting together. "It is this level of support we need to attack" from Barr's email became "it is this level of support that needs to be disrupted" on the slide.

In any case, even if he was merely assembling Barr's ideas, Steckman's role in creating the slideshow -- which, it should be noted, also carries Palantir's logo -- would seem to contradict the company's statement that "Palantir did not participate in the development of the recommendations that Palantir and others find offensive."

Asked about all this, a Palantir spokesman sent over a statement:

Palantir is a data integration software company based in Silicon Valley. We make data integration software that is as useful for fighting food borne illness as it is to fighting fraud and terrorism. Palantir does not make software that has the capability to carry out the offensive tactics proposed by HBGARY. Palantir never has and never will condone the sort of activities recommended by HBGARY. As we have previously stated, Palantir has severed all ties with HBGARY going forward. To ensure that we are in complete compliance with our company's ethics and standards we have decided to place Matthew Steckman, 26 year old engineer, on leave pending a thorough review of his actions. Palantir was not retained by any party to develop such recommendations and indeed it would be contrary to Palantir's ethics, culture and policies to do so.

Journalists angry over the commission of journalism

(updated below)

Over the weekend, The Los Angeles' Times James Rainey mocked CNN's Anderson Cooper for repeatedly using the word "lie" to describe the factually false statements of Egyptian leaders.  Though Rainey ultimately concluded that "it's hard to find fault with what Cooper had to say" -- meaning that everything Cooper identified as a "lie" was, in fact, a "lie" -- the bulk of Rainey's column derided the CNN anchor for his statements ("Cooper's accusations of 'lies' and 'lying' got so thick on Wednesday's show that the host seemed to be channeling comic (and now U.S. Sen.) Al Franken's 2003 book, 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them'").  Rainey also suggested that the harsh denunciations of Mubarak's false statements were merely part of "Cooper's pronounced shift toward more opinion-making in recent months . . . trying to adopt the more commentary-heavy approach of [CNN's] higher-rated competitors, Fox and MSNBC."  To Rainey, when a journalist calls a government lie a "lie," that's veering into "commentary-heavy opinion-making" rather than objective journalism (h/t Mediaite).

Yesterday, Cooper's CNN colleague, media critic Howard Kurtz, sounded the same criticism but went even further.  On his Reliable Sources program, Kurtz showed a video clip of Cooper and then posed the following question to guest Christopher Dickey of Newsweek:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: What we heard were the same lies we've heard from [Mubarak] and his regime for more than two weeks now. What we heard is a man who clearly believes that he is Egypt. He kept repeating this lie that this is all some sort of foreign interference.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: Chris Dickey, Anderson Cooper repeatedly using the word lies. Now I think most journalists would agree with him, perhaps most Americans would agree with him. But should an anchor and correspondent be taking sides on this kind of story?

To Kurtz, when a journalist accurately points out that a powerful political leader is lying, that's "taking sides," a departure from journalistic objectivity, something improper.  In reply, Dickey agreed with that assessment, noting that "part of the soul of [Cooper's] show is to take sides" and be "committed to a certain vision of the story."  Like Rainey, Dickey was forced to acknowledge that all of the statements Cooper identified as "lies" were actually lies, and thus magnanimously decreed:  "I think Anderson can be forgiven for using that word in that context."  Kurtz then patronizingly noted:  "And of course, Anderson Cooper was repeatedly punched in the head when he was covering the demonstrations" -- as though his departure from good journalistic objectivity can at least be understood here (though of course not justified) because of the emotional trauma he suffered.

Rainey, Kurtz and Dickey all have this exactly backwards.  Identifying lies told by powerful political leaders -- and describing them as such -- is what good journalists do, by definition.  It's the crux of adversarial journalism, of a "watchdog" press.  "Objectivity" does not require refraining from pointing out the falsity of government claims.  The opposite is true; objectivity requires that a journalist do exactly that:  treat factually false statements as false.  "Objectivity" is breached not when a journalist calls a lie a "lie," but when they refuse to do so, when they treat lies told by powerful political officials as though they're viable, reasonable interpretations of subjective questions.  The very idea that a journalist is engaged in "opinion-making" or is "taking sides" by calling a lie a "lie" is ludicrous; the only "side" such a journalist is taking is with facts, with the truth.   It's when a journalist fails to identify a false statement as such that they are "taking sides" -- they're siding with those in power by deceitfully depicting their demonstrably false statements as something other than lies.

This warped reasoning is one of the prime diseases plaguing establishment political journalism in the U.S.  Most establishment journalists are perfectly willing to use the word "lie" for powerless, demonized or marginalized people, but they genuinely believe that it is an improper breach of journalistic objectivity to point out when powerful political officials are lying.  They adamantly believe that such an activity -- which is a core purpose of political journalism -- is outside the purview of their function.  The one who put this best was NBC News' David Gregory when he vigorously defended the American media from criticisms (voiced at the time by former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan) that they failed to do their job in the run-up to the Iraq War:

I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role.

That these establishment journalists believe that pointing out the lies of powerful political leaders is "not their role" -- indeed, is a violation of the rules that govern what they do -- explains a large part of the failings of both America's media class and its political class.  Ironically, David Gregory is ultimately right that doing this is "not his role"; he's not paid by NBC News and its owners to alert the American citizenry to lies told by the U.S. Government (i.e., he's not paid to be an adversarial journalist).  He's there to do the opposite:  to vest those lies with respect and depict them as reasonable statements to be subjectively considered along with the truth.  But it's in these moments when they are so candid about what their actual role is -- or when they attack people like Cooper for the rare commission of actual journalism -- that they are at their most (unintentionally) informative.

All this said, I'd be much more impressed with Cooper if he used such language for the lies told by American political leaders (rather than reviled, weakened Middle East dictators on their way out of power).  As journalist and Communications Professor Marc Cooper told Rainey:

But it begs a monster question: Is CNN permitted to call only foreign leaders liars? How refreshing it would be to see that same piercing candor directed at American politicians when they overtly lie.

Had Anderson Cooper used such harsh language to describe the statements of someone universally despised in American mainstream political circles (an American Enemy -- such as, say, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez), it would likely have gone unnoticed.  But here, Cooper used such language to condemn one of America's closest and most cherished allies, and it was thus gently deemed a departure from journalistic propriety.  But had Cooper said such things about a leading American political official, then a true journalistic scandal would have erupted.  Declaring the statements of an American political leader to be a lie is one of the most rigidly enforced taboos in American journalism.  That this hallmark of real journalism is strictly prohibited -- "It's not our role," explained the Meet the Press host -- tells one all there is to know about the function which most establishment journalists fulfill.

 

UPDATE:  To be clear -- in response to a few comments and emails:   the important point is not whether something is labeled a "lie" -- whether that word is used (although it should be when appropriate and clear); what matters is that factually false statements are clearly designated and documented as such, not treated as merely "one side of the story" deserving neutral and respectful airing on equal footing with the truth.

The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters

There's been a very strange episode being written about the past couple of days involving numerous parties, including me, that I now want to comment on.  The story, first reported by The Tech Herald, has been been written about in numerous places (see Marcy Wheeler, Forbes, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Matt Yglesias, Reason, Tech Dirt, and others), so I'll provide just the summary. 

Last week, Aaron Barr, a top executive at computer security firm HB Gary, boasted to the Financial Times that his firm had infiltrated and begun to expose Anonymous, the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers that had launched cyber attacks on companies terminating services to the whistleblowing site (such as Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, Amazon and others).  In retaliation, Anonymous hacked into the email accounts of HB Gary, published 50,000 of their emails online, and also hacked Barr's Twitter and other online accounts. 

Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary -- in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies -- on how to destroy WikiLeaks.  The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm, Hunton & Williams.  News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat.  The NYT article described that the bank's "counterespionage work" against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistle-blower site, along with the hiring of "several top law firms" and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials).  The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America's highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.

The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal -- including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; "creat[ing] concern over the security" of the site; "cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters"; and a "media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities."  Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks. 

One section of the leaked report focused on attacking WikiLeaks' supporters and it featured a discussion of me.  A graph purporting to be an "organizational chart" identified several other targets, including former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8 Lee, Guardian reporter James Ball, and Manning supporter David House.  The report claimed I was "critical" to WikiLeaks' public support after its website was removed by Amazon and that "it is this level of support that needs to be disrupted"; absurdly speculated that "without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold"; and darkly suggested that "these are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause."  As The Tech Herald noted, "earlier drafts of the proposal and an email from Aaron Barr used the word 'attacked' over 'disrupted' when discussing the level of support."

In the wake of the ensuing controversy caused by publication of these documents, the co-founder and CEO of Palantir Tech, Alex Karp, has now issued a statement stating that he "directed the company to sever any and all contacts with HB Gary."  The full statement -- which can be read here -- also includes this sentence:  "personally and on behalf of the entire company, I want to publicly apologize to progressive organizations in general, and Mr. Greenwald in particular, for any involvement that we may have had in these matters."  Palantir has also contacted me by email to arrange for Dr. Karp to call me to personally convey the apology.  My primary interest is in knowing whether Bank of America retained these firms to execute this proposal and if any steps were taken to do so; if Karp's apology is genuine, that information ought to be forthcoming (as I was finishing writing this, Karp called me, seemed sincere enough in his apology, vowed that any Palantir employees involved in this would dealt with the way they dealt with HB Gary, and commendably committed to telling me by the end of the week whether Bank of America or Hunton & Williams actually retained these firms to carry out this proposal).

* * * * *

My initial reaction to all of this was to scoff at its absurdity.  Not being familiar with the private-sector world of internet security, I hadn't heard of these firms before and, based on the quality of the proposal, assumed they were just some self-promoting, fly-by-night entities of little significance.  Moreover, for the reasons I detailed in my interview with The Tech Herald -- and for reasons Digby elaborated on here -- the very notion that I could be forced to choose "professional preservation over cause" is ludicrous on multiple levels.  Obviously, I wouldn't have spent the last year vehemently supporting WikiLeaks -- to say nothing of aggressively criticizing virtually every large media outlet and many of their leading stars, as well as the most beloved political leaders of both parties -- if I were willing to choose "career preservation over cause."

But after learning a lot more over the last couple of days, I now take this more seriously -- not in terms of my involvement but the broader implications this story highlights.  For one thing, it turns out that the firms involved here are large, legitimate and serious, and do substantial amounts of work for both the U.S. Government and the nation's largest private corporations (as but one example, see this email from a Stanford computer science student about Palantir).  Moreover, these kinds of smear campaigns are far from unusual; in other leaked HB Gary emails, ThinkProgress discovered that similar proposals were prepared for the Chamber of Commerce to attack progressive groups and other activists (including ThinkProgress).  And perhaps most disturbing of all, Hunton & Williams was recommended to Bank of America's General Counsel by the Justice Department -- meaning the U.S. Government is aiding Bank of America in its defense against/attacks on WikiLeaks.

That's why this should be taken seriously, despite how ignorant, trite and laughably shallow is the specific leaked anti-WikiLeaks proposal.  As creepy and odious as this is, there's nothing unusual about these kinds of smear campaigns.   The only unusual aspect here is that we happened to learn about it this time because of Anonymous' hacking.  That a similar scheme was quickly discovered by ThinkProgress demonstrates how common this behavior is.  The very idea of trying to threaten the careers of journalists and activists to punish and deter their advocacy is self-evidently pernicious; that it's being so freely and casually proposed to groups as powerful as the Bank of America, the Chamber of Commerce, and the DOJ-recommended Hunton & Williams demonstrates how common this is.  These highly experienced firms included such proposals because they assumed those deep-pocket organizations would approve and it would make their hiring more likely.

But the real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power.  I've written many times about this issue -- the full-scale merger between public and private spheres --  because it's easily one of the most critical yet under-discussed political topics.  Especially (though by no means only) in the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized.  There is very little separation between government power and corporate power.   Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former.  The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did.  It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that:  corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.

That's what this anti-WikiLeaks campaign is generally:  it's a concerted, unified effort between government and the most powerful entities in the private sector (Bank of America is the largest bank in the nation).  The firms the Bank has hired (such as Booz Allen) are suffused with the highest level former defense and intelligence officials, while these other outside firms (including Hunton & Williams and Palantir) are extremely well-connected to the U.S. Government.  The U.S. Government's obsession with destroying WikiLeaks has been well-documented.  And because the U.S. Government is free to break the law without any constraints, oversight or accountability, so, too, are its "private partners" able to act lawlessly.  That was the lesson of the Congressional vesting of full retroactive immunity on lawbreaking telecoms, of the refusal to prosecute any of the important Wall Street criminals who caused the 2008 financial crisis, and of the instinctive efforts of the political class to protect defrauding mortgage banks.  

The exemption from the rule of law has been fully transferred from the highest level political elites to their counterparts in the private sector.  "Law" is something used to restrain ordinary Americans and especially those who oppose this consortium of government and corporate power, but it manifestly does not apply to restrain these elites.  Just consider one amazing example illustrating how this works. 

After Anonymous imposed some very minimal cyber disruptions on Paypal, Master Card and Amazon, the DOJ flamboyantly vowed to arrest the culprits, and several individuals were just arrested as part of those attacks.  But weeks earlier, a far more damaging and serious cyber-attack was launched at WikiLeaks, knocking them offline.  Those attacks were sophisticated and dangerous.  Whoever did that was quite likely part of either a government agency or a large private entity acting at its behest.  Yet the DOJ has never announced any investigation into those attacks or vowed to apprehend the culprits, and it's impossible to imagine that ever happening.

Why?  Because crimes carried out that serve the Government's agenda and target its opponents are permitted and even encouraged; cyber-attacks are "crimes" only when undertaken by those whom the Government dislikes, but are perfectly permissible when the Government itself or those with a sympathetic agenda unleash them.  Whoever launched those cyber attacks at WikiLeaks (whether government or private actors) had no more legal right to do so than Anonymous, but only the latter will be prosecuted. 

That's the same dynamic that causes the Obama administration to be obsessed with prosecuting WikiLeaks but not The New York Times or Bob Woodward, even though the latter have published far more sensitive government secrets; WikiLeaks is adverse to the government while the NYT and Woodward aren't, and thus "law" applies to punish only the former.  The same mindset drives the Government to shield high-level political officials who commit the most serious crimes, while relentlessly pursuing whistle-blowers who expose their wrongdoing.  Those with proximity to government power and who serve and/or control it are free from the constraints of law; those who threaten or subvert it have the full weight of law come crashing down upon them.

* * * * *

What is set forth in these proposals for Bank of America quite possibly constitutes serious crimes.  Manufacturing and submitting fake documents with the intent they be published likely constitutes forgery and fraud.  Threatening the careers of journalists and activists in order to force them to be silent is possibly extortion and, depending on the specific means to be used, constitutes other crimes as well.  Attacking WikiLeaks' computer infrastructure in an attempt to compromise their sources undoubtedly violates numerous cyber laws.  

Yet these firms had no compunction about proposing such measures to Bank of America and Hunton & Williams, and even writing them down.   What accounts for that brazen disregard of risk?  In this world, law does not exist as a constraint.  It's impossible to imagine the DOJ ever, ever prosecuting a huge entity like Bank of America for doing something like waging war against WikiLeaks and its supporters.  These massive corporations and the firms that serve them have no fear of law or government because they control each.  That's why they so freely plot to target those who oppose them in any way.  They not only have massive resources to devote to such attacks, but the ability to act without limits.  John Cole put it this way:

One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything that empowers the little people or that threatens the wealth and power of the plutocracy must be destroyed. There is a reason for these clowns going after Think Progress and unions, just like there is a reason they are targeting Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald, Planned Parenthood, and Acorn. . . .

You have to understand the mindset- they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth isn't enough. They want it all.  Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. . . . And they are well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations dedicated to running cover for them . . . .

I don't even know why we bother to hold elections any more, to be honest, the game is so rigged. We're a banana republic, and it is just a matter of time before we descend into necklacing and other tribal bullshit. 

There are supposed to be institutions which limit what can be done in pursuit of those private-sector goals.  They're called "government" and "law."  But those institutions are so annexed by the most powerful private-sector elites, and so corrupted by the public officials who run them, that nobody -- least of all those elites -- has any expectation that they will limit anything.  To the contrary, the full force of government and law will be unleashed against anyone who undermines Bank of America and Wall Street executives and telecoms and government and the like (such as WikiLeaks and supporters), and will be further exploited to advance the interests of those entities, but will never be used to constrain what they do.  These firms vying for Bank of America's anti-WikiLeaks business know all of this full well, which is why they concluded that proposing such pernicious and possibly illegal attacks would be deemed not just acceptable but commendable.

The Tea Party and civil liberties

It's long been clear that the best (and perhaps only) political hope for civil liberties in the U.S. is an alliance that transcends the standard Democrat v. GOP or left v. right dichotomies.  Last night's surprising (and temporary) failure of the House to extend some of the most controversial powers of the Patriot Act -- an extension jointly championed by the House GOP leadership and the Obama White House -- perfectly illustrates why this is true.

The establishments of both political parties -- whether because of actual conviction or political calculation -- are equally devoted to the National Security State, the Surveillance State, and the endless erosions of core liberties they entail.  Partisan devotees of each party generally pretend to care about such liberties only when the other party is in power -- because screaming about abuses of power confers political advantage and enables demonization of the President -- but they quickly ignore or even justify the destruction of those liberties when their own party wields power.  Hence, Democratic loyalists spent years screeching that Bush was "shredding the Constitution" for supporting policies which Barack Obama now enthusiastically supports, while right-wing stalwarts -- who spent years cheering on every Bush-led assault on basic Constitutional limits in the name of Terrorism -- flamboyantly read from the Constitution during the Obama era as though they venerate that document as sacred.  The war on civil liberties in the U.S. is a fully bipartisan endeavor, and no effective opposition is possible through fealty to either of the two parties.

For most civil liberties incursions over the last decade, there's been at least some glimmer of opposition on the Left -- exemplified by people like Russ Feingold in the Senate and the Congressional Black Caucus and Dennis Kucinich in the House.  But they've been easily overwhelmed by the civil-liberties-hating mainstream of the Democratic Party, and particularly hampered by the lack of any meaningful partners on the Right (where Ron Paul has been a solitary voice on such matters).  What has been most needed -- and most harmfully non-existent -- is some minimal amount of intellectual honesty and consistency from America's conservatives, whose rhetoric of "limited government" and "individual rights" has translated into nothing other than lockstep support for ever-increasing government power and a highly authoritarian political mindset.  It is that dynamic that has marginalized civil liberties advocacy -- and rendered civil liberties erosions inevitable -- no matter which party is in control.

There are so many examples proving how true that is, but just look at the current "controversy" over extension of these Patriot Act provisions.  The three provisions set to expire -- the "roving" wiretaps, the authority to surveill individuals with no connection to Terrorist groups (the "lone wolf" provision), and the power to obtain "any tangible items" (the "library records" power) -- have a long history of serious abuse.  These provisions were supposed to be temporary, emergency measures hastily enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attack with virtually no oversight.  Even the Congress acting in the immediate aftermath of those attacks realized how extreme they were, and thus imposed "sunset provisions" requiring their expiration and renewal after several years.  But every time they've been considered in the past 10 years, they've been extended with the full support of both parties, without any added oversight provisions or limits; not even incontrovertible evidence of systematic abuse has generated any meaningful opposition.

This has been just as true in the GOP Congress and the Democratic Congress, and with both Bush and Obama in the White House.  Yesterday, on the very same day that the Obama White House demanded that Egypt repeal its 30-year-old "emergency law," it also demanded enactment of the House GOP's proposal to extend America's own emergency law -- the Patriot Act -- for three more years with no new oversight (the White House actually wants a longer extension than the House GOP is willing to support).  Meanwhile, in the Senate, Pat Leahy has introduced a bill to impose some very mild and inadequate safeguards on these Patriot Act powers (some of which the DOJ has voluntarily accepted), but those efforts are being thwarted by the Democrats' Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, Dianne Feinstein -- easily one of the most implacable enemies of civil liberties in the Congress and one of the most loyal servants of the National Security State which enriches her husband; just as she did last year, Feinstein has demanded a full extension of the Patriot Act with no reforms of any kind. 

Put another way, the reform-free extension of the Bush-era Patriot Act is jointly assured by the most important Democratic power brokers (the Obama White House and Feinstein) and the Congressional GOP leadership.  That's the same bipartisan dynamic that has repeated itself over and over for the last decade as civil liberties in the U.S. have steadily eroded. 

* * * * * 

But what happened last night highlights the potential to subvert the two-party stranglehold on these issues -- through a left-right alliance that opposes the Washington insiders who rule both parties.  So confident was the House GOP leadership in commanding bipartisan support that they put the Patriot Act extension up for a vote using a fast-track procedure that prohibits debate and amendments and, in return, requires 2/3 approval.  But 26 of the most conservative Republicans -- including several of the newly elected "Tea Party" members -- joined the majority of Democratic House members in voting against the extension, and it thus fell 7 votes short.  These conservative members opposed extension on the ground that more time was needed to understand whether added safeguards and oversight are needed.

The significance of this event shouldn't be overstated.  The proposed Patriot Act extension still commanded support from a significant majority of the House (277-148), and will easily pass once the GOP leadership brings up the bill for a vote again in a few weeks using the standard procedure that requires only majority approval.  The vast majority of GOP members, including the leading Tea Party representatives, voted for it.  The Senate will easily pass it.  And the scope of the disagreement even among the Democrats opposing it is very narrow; even most of the "no" votes favor extending these provisions, albeit with the types of tepid safeguards proposed by Leahy.  So in one sense, what happened last night -- as is true for most political "victories" -- was purely symbolic.  The White House will get what it wants.

But while it shouldn't be overstated, there is a real significance here that also shouldn't be overlooked.  Rachel Maddow last night pointed out that there is a split on the Right -- at least a rhetorical one -- between what she called "authoritarian conservatives" and "libertarian conservatives."  At some point, the dogmatic emphasis on limited state power, not trusting the Federal Government, and individual liberties -- all staples of right-wing political propaganda, especially Tea Party sloganeering -- has to conflict with things like oversight-free federal domestic surveillance, limitless government detention powers, and impenetrable secrecy (to say nothing of exploiting state power to advance culture war aims).   Not even our political culture can sustain contradictions as egregious as (a) reading reverently from the Constitution and venerating limits on federal power, and then (b) voting to vest the Federal Government with extraordinary powers of oversight-free surveillance aimed at the American people.   This was the contradiction which Dennis Kucinich smartly exploited when challenging the Tea Party to join him in opposing the Patriot Act's extension:

The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution. Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization.

There is precedent for this type of alliance on this and other issues.  Early on in the Bush years, a bill to repeal Patriot Act abuses was co-sponsored by Kucinich and Ron Paul, and supported by the ACLU.  A bill to audit the Federal Reserve was opposed by most of official Washington but enacted by a left-right alliance.  Some of the earliest and most outspoken opposition to Bush civil liberties radicalism -- and the war in Iraq -- came jointly from the Left and from the Cato Institute.  Religious Right groups scared of federal government oppression have long joined with the ACLU and others in opposing some civil liberties incursions, such as the Patriot Act.   Controversy over things like TSA patdowns and the corrupt way the Wall Street bailout was manufactured came from both the Right and the Left.  The fact that it's Tea Party Sen. Rand Paul willing to question the value of American financial and military assistance to other nations (including to Israel) -- while Democrats attack him for that brave position -- further underscores the potential here.  And in other nations -- such as Britian -- one finds a genuine left-right alliance against the political establishment's relentless assaults on civil liberties. 

Both liberal and conservative ideology can and should sustain popular opposition to ongoing reductions in civil liberties.  It's the political establishment -- regardless of the party to which it belongs -- that is incentivized to seize always-greater levels of power in the name of Security.  So many (though not all) of our most consequential political disputes are far more about insider v. outsider than they are Democrat v. GOP:  a simplistic dichotomy used to keep the populace divided over trivial disputes and thus too fractured to resist the corruption and repression of the bipartisan ruling class.  That's why I've long written and spoken about the need for such an alliance as a bulwark against further civil liberties abuses (for the crux of my argument, see the third question and answer in my 2010 interview with The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf).  

* * * * * 

Despite my belief that such an alliance is both tenable and necessary -- and last night's Patriot Act vote underscores that fact -- I'm ultimately quite pessimistic about its ability to produce any meaningful benefits in the near future.  That's because there are far too many impulses among ostensibly "limited government" conservatives which conflict with -- and ultimately negate -- any possibility for meaningful civil liberties defenses. 

In those rare cases when there has been real opposition on the Right, it has been grounded in a fear that they will be subjected to the abuses they oppose.  Christian groups were petrified that Patriot Act powers would be used by federal officials to disrupt their religious liberty.  Anger over TSA patdowns occurred on the Right only because good white Christian Americans (rather than dark American Muslims) were being inconvenienced.  And the newfound right-wing concern for the Constitution stems from the belief that Obama (unlike Bush) will use the Executive Branch's ability to transgress Constitutional limits in a way that harms conservatives.  It's very self-interested -- and unprincipled -- advocacy:  they suddenly discover their distrust of government power and belief in liberty only when they perceive that their own interests are endangered.  That's better than never discovering it -- indeed, the Democrats' failure to meaningfully oppose Bush's seizure of radical power, even if only on self-interested grounds, will redound to their eternal shame -- but such erratic interest in civil liberties makes for a very unreliable and ultimately counter-productive alliance.

Worse, other impulses in that movement render support for civil liberties abuses inevitable as long as they're directed at other people.  The nativism, the anti-Muslim bigotry, the blinding American exceptionalism, the fear-based eagerness to support anything in the name of Security, and the instinctive reverence for GOP political authority all ensure widespread support among the Right -- even those factions incessantly marching under the banner of "limited government" -- for the vast majority of authoritarian assaults on civil liberties.  There has been some principled, strong opposition among some libertarian and "paleoconservative" factions on the Right, but those factions are far too small to make much of a difference.  For the vast majority of American conservatives -- including the self-proclaimed limited government Tea Party movement -- the instincts that generate support for authoritarian policies easily overwhelm the instincts against it. 

Last night's unexpected Patriot Act vote illustrates the tantalizing promise of such an alliance.  Things would be vastly improved on the civil liberties front if the American Right was even minimally faithful to the political principles they claim to support.  But the nature of that movement means that last night's vote is far more of an isolated aberration than anything likely to change the bipartisan dynamic in a positive way.  Indeed, the very weak status of civil liberties in the U.S. is compellingly illustrated by the fact that an alliance with this deeply unprincipled and authoritarian movement is one of the few viable means for stemming the tide of the erosion.

Obama's man in Cairo

The New York Times, today:

Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt says he does not think it is time to lift the 30-year-old emergency law that has been used to suppress and imprison opposition leaders. He does not think President Hosni Mubarak needs to resign before his term ends in September. And he does not think his country is yet ready for democracy.

But, lacking better options, the United States is encouraging him in negotiations in a still uncertain transition process in Egypt. . . . The result has been to feed a perception, on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, that the United States, for now at least, is putting stability ahead of democratic ideals, and leaving hopes of nurturing peaceful, gradual change in large part in the hands of Egyptian officials -- starting with Mr. Suleiman -- who have every reason to slow the process.

Lisa Hajjar, Al Jazeera English, today:

Suleiman has long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism, his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran -- and he has long been the CIA's main man in Cairo. . . . In the mid-1990s, Suleiman worked closely with the Clinton administration in devising and implementing its rendition program; back then, rendition involved kidnapping suspected terrorists and transferring them to a third country for trial. . . .

Under the Bush administration, in the context of "the global war on terror", US renditions became "extraordinary", meaning the objective of kidnapping and extra-legal transfer was no longer to bring a suspect to trial -- but rather for interrogation to seek actionable intelligence.  The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites -- and others were turned over for torture -by-proxy to other regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt's torturer-in-chief. At least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt -- Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib -- was reportedly tortured by Suleiman himself.

WikiLeaks cable, posted from U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, August 29, 2008:

[Israeli defense official David] Hacham said the Israeli delegation was "shocked" by Mubarak's aged appearance and slurred speech. Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however, and noted that a "hot line" set up between the [Israeli Ministry of Defense] and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use. Hacham said he sometimes speaks to Soliman's deputy Mohammed Ibrahim several times a day. Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated. (Note: We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.)  

Given the long-obvious fact that the Obama administration has been working to install Suleiman as interim leader as a (dubious) means of placating citizen anger, the above-referenced NYT article today offers a long and detailed profile of the new Egyptian "Vice President."  Unfortunately, the paper of record wasn't able to find the space to inform its readers about Suleiman's decades-long history as America's personal abducter, detainer and torturer of the Egyptian people, nor his status as Israel's most favored heir to the Mubarak tyranny (though the article did vaguely and euphemistically acknowledge that "the United States has certainly had long ties with Mr. Suleiman" and that "for years he has been an important contact for the Central Intelligence Agency"). 

Suleiman's repression and brutality -- on behalf of both the U.S. and Mubarak -- has been well-documented elsewhere (The New Yorker's Jane Mayer was the first to flag it after the Egyptian uprising, while ABC News recounted how he once offered to chop off the arm of a Terrorist suspect to please the CIA; see also the above-linked Al Jazeera Op-Ed, which provides additional details of Suleiman's personal taste for overseeing torture).  As I noted yesterday, there's a case to be made for the Obama administration's support of Suleiman; it's the same case used to justify our 30-year active propping up of Mubarak, along with the dictators of Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, and so many other places (and "torture-by-proxy" seems still to be an important part of U.S. policy in the region).  But whatever one's views are on that conduct, no discussion of the U.S.'s current pro-Suleiman policy -- and certainly no purported media profile of Suleiman -- is complete without at least some mention of his status as Mubarak's torturer-in-chief and domestic oppressor, and of the Israelis' deep desire to see him rule Egypt.  Does anyone dispute the central relevance of those facts?

Today's Times article does a decent job of conveying how unwilling Suleiman is to bring about anything resembling a real transition to democracy, how indifferent (if not supportive) the Obama administration seems to be about that unwillingness, and how dangerously that conduct is fueling anti-American sentiment among the protesters.  But the fact that American policy has "changed" from imposing Mubarak on that country to imposing someone with Suleiman's vile history and character belongs at the forefront of every discussion, especially ones purporting to examine who he is.  Praising Suleiman for his "valued analysis" and commitment to fighting The Terrorists while neglecting to mention these other critical facts -- as today's NYT article does -- is misleading on multiple levels.  

The Egyptian mirror

One of the most revealing journalistic genres is the effort by establishment media outlets to explain to their American audiences why Those Other Countries -- usually in the Middle East -- are so bad and awful and plagued by severe political and societal corruption (see here and here for examples).  This morning, The New York Times has a classic entry, as it unironically details how Egypt is a cesspool of oligarchical favoritism and self-dealing.  The article focuses on Ahmed Ezz, a close friend of Hosni Mubarak's son who has exploited his political connections to corner much of the nation's steel market, triggering growing resentment by the public.  Along the way, we learn several disturbing things about Egypt, including this:

For many years, Mr. Ezz has represented the intersection of money, politics and power . . . . Public resentment at the wealth acquired by the politically powerful helped propel the uprising already reshaping the contours of power along the Nile. . . . Hosni Mubarak's Egypt has long functioned as a state where wealth bought political power and political power bought great wealth.

Can you believe that "in Hosni Mubarak's Egypt," private wealth translates into great political power and vice-versa?  What is it like, wonders the curious and concerned Times reader, to live in a country like that?  No wonder there's an uprising. 

How many American politicians with a national platform over the last thirty years have failed to convert their political standing into great personal wealth?  Perhaps only those who began their political careers with great wealth.  Ex-Presidents and their wives and top aides are routinely lavished with many millions of dollars from media companies and other corporations for books, speeches and other services (Obama didn't even wait to become President to capitalize on his political celebrity), while a large portion of ex-members of Congress and administration officials with any real power feed at the trough of corporate largesse in exchange for peddling their influence.  It would literally be impossible to list all the top officials from both parties who have quickly converted their political influence into vast personal wealth over the past two decades; it'd be much quicker to list the few who haven't.  

And that's to say nothing of the virtually limitless political power automatically wielded by those with great  private wealth, who own America's government institutions and literally write most of its laws.  As the NYT taught us today, "Hosni Mubarak's Egypt has long functioned as a state where wealth bought political power and political power bought great wealth."  We also learn this about Egypt:

While hard facts are difficult to come by, Egyptians watching the rise of a moneyed class widely believe that self-dealing, crony capitalism and corruption are endemic, represented in the public eye by a group of rich businessmen aligned with Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, as well as key government ministers and governing party members. . . . On paper, the changes [in the 1990s] transformed an almost entirely state-controlled economic system to a predominantly free-market one. In practice, though, a form of crony capitalism emerged, according to Egyptian and foreign experts.

So apparently, what happens in Egypt is that they pretend to have a free-market economic system, but in reality, the very rich are able to influence the government for special favors that enhance their private-sector wealth and power.  How could the people there have put up with that for so long?  But it gets worse:

Exacerbating tensions, Egypt's oligarchs flaunted their wealth. They built grandiose homes in the desert outside Cairo and along the country's coasts. They drove brand-new Mercedes-Benzes down derelict Cairo streets with police escorts.

A tiny segment of the population not only becomes wealthier as a result of its political influence, but increasingly flaunts that wealth while the vast majority of the nation suffers.  No country could possibly sustain political stability for long under those conditions.  Worse still, the entrenched inequality extends (in Egypt) to the legal sphere as well:

Over the next few years, as Mr. Ezz took on important responsibilities in the governing party, allegations mounted that he was using his position to enrich himself and defend his near-monopoly on the steel business. Professor Selim said complaints brought against Mr. Ezz with the Egyptian Competition Authority were dismissed . . . Even without formal sanctions, the public took a dim view of Mr. Ezz's business dealings, which were faulted -- rightly or wrongly -- as raising construction costs in Egypt. . . . Political analysts said that the focus of investigations now, including Mr. Ezz, is at best selective, intended not to punish corruption, but to address public grievances without actually changing the system.

Even the most flagrant corruption and illegality result in no accountability for the Egyptian elite.  Still, public anger at least results in some prosecutions against rich and well-connected people such as Ezz, but when that happens, it's designed only to placate public rage in order to preserve the system of entitlements and prerogatives, not to change it.  With a status-quo-perpetuating system of justice like that (over there in Egypt), the only wonder is that it took this long for them to rise up.  Thankfully, Times readers don't live in a country were such endemic problems reign.

* * * * *

None of this is to say that such matters are not newsworthy when they take place in other countries; they are.  And obviously the domestic political repression in Egypt does not compare to what one finds in the U.S.  But there are two points about these types of articles worth making. 

The first is that they have the effect of manufacturing the appearance that such problems exist only Over There, but not here.  One would never, ever find in The New York Times such a sweeping denunciation of the plutocratic corruption and merger of private wealth and political power that shapes most of America's political culture.  Just like "torture"-- which that paper has no trouble declaring is used by Egypt's government but will never say is used by ours -- such systematic corruption can exist only elsewhere, but never in America.   That's how this genre of Look Over There reporting is not just incomplete but outright misleading:  it actively creates the impression that such conditions are found only in those Primitive Foreign Places, but not here.

The second point is how adeptly the media morality narrative has been managed from the start of the Egypt crisis.  Any foreign story that interests the American media for more than a day requires clear villains and heroes.   What made the Egypt story so rare is that the designated foreign villains are usually first separated from the U.S. before being turned into demons; it's fine to vilify those whom we have steadfastly supported provided the support is a matter of the past and can thus be safely ignored.  Thus were Saddam Hussein, the former Mujahideen (now known as The Terrorists) and any number of Latin American and Asian tyrants seamlessly turned into Horrible, Evil Monsters despite our once-great alliances with them; the fact that it happened in the past (albeit the very recent past) permitted those facts to be excluded. 

But so intertwined are the U.S. and Mubarak -- still -- that such narrative separation was impossible.  Not even American propaganda could whitewash the fact that the U.S. has imposed Hosni Mubarak's regime on The Egyptian People for decades.  His government is not merely our ally but one of our closest client regimes.  We prop him up, pay for his tools of repression, and have kept him safe for 30 years from exactly this type of popular uprising -- all in exchange for his (a) abducting, detaining and torturing whom we want, (b) acting favorably toward Israel, and (c) bringing stability to the Suez Canal.

And yet it's remarkable how self-righteously our political and media class can proclaim sympathy with the heroic populace, and such scorn for their dictator, without really reconciling our national responsibility for Mubarak's reign of terror.  Thanks to this Look Over There genre of reporting, we're so accustomed to seeing ourselves as The Good Guys -- even when the facts are right in front our noses that disprove that -- that no effort is really required to reconcile this cognitive dissonance.  Even when it's this flagrant, we can just leave it unexamined because our Core Goodness is the immovable, permanent fixture of our discourse; that's the overarching premise that can never be challenged.

Some leading American officials have been criticized for recent statements that have been too starkly pro-Mubarak.  Joe Biden was first when he decreed that Mubarak was "not a dictator" because "has been an ally of ours in a number of things" (as always in the American Foreign Policy world, whether someone is a democrat or a dictator is determined by how much they serve or defy America's will, not by how they acquired or use power; kudos to Biden for unintentionally being so candid about that).  Then Hillary Clinton -- who said in March, 2009 that "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family":  her very politically enriched family, that is --  appeared to defend Mubarak's ongoing rule.  Then, it was claimed that a State Department envoy, Frank Wisner, went off-script when he said Mubarak "must stay in office in order to steer those changes through."  And Dick Cheney just praised Mubarak as a good friend and ally.

But I empathize more with these pro-Mubarak political officials than with their American critics.  All Biden, Clinton, Wisner and Cheney are doing is reflexively giving voice to decades-old bipartisan U.S. foreign policy.  They're defending Mubarak because he has been -- and still is -- our close friend and client ruler.  He has loyally done our bidding, and in exchange, we've kept him in power and kept him close.  That's why it's a bit difficult to endure the sudden outburst of righteous contempt for Egypt's dictator.  We've eagerly sent our money and aid for decades to ensure that he wields power over Egyptians; all that's changed is that his true face has been exposed in a way that prevents us from turning away and denying what we support.  

The fact that we don't actually regret anything is compellingly demonstrated by Obama's efforts to ensure the empowerment of Egypt's new "Vice President," Omar Suleiman, who has been Mubarak's -- and our -- brutal domestic enforcer and oppressor for years.  Pragmatic arguments can of course be assembled to justify that support -- exactly the same way that support for Mubarak can be pragmatically justified.  And that's the point:  moral proclamations notwithstanding, we're not doing anything different with Egypt now.  We're doing what we've always done:  subjected the people of that region to hard-core oppression in order to advance what we perceive to be our interests (though, as 9/11 proved, that perception about self-interest is dubious in the extreme).  That behavior would almost be tolerable if we were at least honest about it, but pretending that we're so very inspired by the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people -- all while we have long acquiesced and still acquiesce in the extermination of those aspirations -- is a bit too much to withstand.  But as long as we can keep Looking Over There to those bad people and bad things, none of these contradictions will be particularly bothersome.

Guantanamo death highlights U.S. detention policy

A 48-year-old Afghan citizen and Guantanamo detainee, Awal Gul, died on Tuesday of an apparent heart attack.  Gul, a father of 18 children, had been kept in a cage by the U.S. for more than 9 years -- since late 2001 when he was abducted in Afghanistan -- without ever having been charged with a crime.  While the U.S. claims he was a Taliban commander, Gul has long insisted that he quit the Taliban a year before the 9/11 attack because, as his lawyer put it, "he was disgusted by the Taliban's growing penchant for corruption and abuse."  His death means those conflicting claims will never be resolved; said his lawyer: "it is shame that the government will finally fly him home not in handcuffs and a hood, but in a casket."  This episode illustrates that the U.S. Government's detention policy -- still -- amounts to imposing life sentences on people without bothering to prove they did anything wrong.    

This episode also demonstrates the absurdity of those who claim that President Obama has been oh-so-eagerly trying to close Guantanamo only to be thwarted by a recalcitrant Congress.  The Obama administration has sought to "close" the camp only in the most meaningless sense of that word:  by moving its defining injustice -- indefinite, due-process-free detention -- a few thousand miles north onto U.S. soil.  But the crux of the Guantanamo travesty -- indefinite detention -- is something the Obama administration has long planned to preserve, and that has nothing to do with what Congress has or has not done.  Indeed, Gul was one of the 50 detainees designated by Obama for that repressive measure.  Thus, had Gul survived, the Obama administration would have sought to keep him imprisoned indefinitely without any pretense of charging him with a crime -- neither in a military commission nor a real court.  Instead, they would have simply continued the Bush/Cheney policy of imprisoning him indefinitely without any charges.

There's one other aspect of this episode that warrants attention.  In its 2008 Boumediene decision, the Supreme Court struck down the provision of the Military Commissions Act which denied habeas corpus review to all detainees, and ruled that Guantanamo detainees at least have the right to a one-time review by a federal court as to whether there is credible evidence to justify their detention (a far less rigorous standard than the one that applies if they're charged with a crime and the state has to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt).  Gul had filed a habeas petition and it was fully argued before a federal court back in March -- 11 months ago.  The federal judge never got around to issuing a ruling. 

This happens quite frequently in our court system:  judges simply fail to act within anything resembling a reasonable period of time.  Gul was imprisoned for 8 years without a shred of due process (outside of internal Bush Pentagon "administrative reviews") and finally had his Constitutional right to obtain habeas review affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2008.  His habeas petition was fully submitted and orally argued almost a full year ago, yet even in the face of his prolonged, due-process-free imprisonment, the federal judge presiding over the case just never bothered to rule on his claims.  There's a well-known legal maxim that "justice delayed is justice denied," but this goes well beyond merely violating that.  Taking almost a full year -- at least -- to decide a habeas petition for someone who is languishing in indefinite detention for their ninth year is simply inexcusable.

Gul's death -- and what turned out to be his due-process-free life sentence -- is an important reminder of the heinous detention policies of the U.S.: not as a matter of the Bush/Cheney past, but very much the current U.S. posture as well.  The only difference is that there is no more partisan gain to be squeezed from the controversy, so it has blissfully disappeared into the harmonious dead zone of bipartisan consensus.

* * * * *

All of this finds a nice symbolic parallel in the Obama administration's apparent efforts to install Omar Suleiman as interim Egyptian leader; Suleiman is not only steadfastly pro-American and pro-Israeli, but was long the U.S.'s point man for renditions and the severe torture which  accompanied it.   This is what is meant when we hear repeatedly about what a stalwart "ally" the Mubarak government been in the "War on Terror":  they've dutifully detained and brutalized anyone we wanted.

Posting

Last week, I wrote that I had a bad flu and likely wouldn't be writing for at least a few days.  As it turns out, I don't have the flu, but rather dengue fever, combined with some still-unknown secondary problem.  I'd strongly prefer not to write about this but I had to cancel the series of speeches I was to give this week at various California colleges and, after notifying them of the reason, at least one of the event sponsors disclosed my condition to those inquiring about the event, so it's already been posted by well-intentioned people in various places.  Moreover, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out when writing about the illness that prevented him from blogging all last week, it's basically impossible to write everyday for years and then suddenly disappear without providing your readers with an explanation, as much as one might loathe writing about personal matters (as I do).

In any event, I've been in the hospital since Wednesday and will likely be here at least a few more days, so there won't be any postings for a little while longer.  Things aren't getting substantially worse, which is good, but they're not really getting better either, and until that happens, this lovely little hospital room will continue to be my home.  The wi-fi access provided by the hospital is both a blessing and a curse; I'd likely go even crazier than I am if I were confined here without it, but I'm neither permitted nor able to work at all, and there have been all sorts of things over the last week that I've had to fight not to write about -- like this (the video) and this and this and this and this and this.  Ultimately, though, a miserable medical condition combined with a frustrating uncertainty over its resolution makes resisting that temptation, and following the advice of one's doctors, rather easy.

Feel free to use the comment section here for all reasonable discussions.  And thanks to those who have emailed well wishes.  I haven't been able to answer any of those -- or virtually any of my other email over the last week -- but it is appreciated.