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Tuesday, August 3, 2021

RSN: Jeremy Scahill | Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Is a Truth-Teller in a Time of Systemic Deceit and Lethal Secrecy

 


 

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03 August 21

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Daniel Hale. (photo: Jesselyn Radack)
Jeremy Scahill | Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Is a Truth-Teller in a Time of Systemic Deceit and Lethal Secrecy
Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept
Scahill writes: "Daniel Hale is a man of tremendous conscience, courage, and moral clarity."

Hale should be pardoned and released, and the government should pay him restitution.


ince the arrest and indictment of Daniel Hale on charges that he leaked the documents that formed the basis for The Intercept’s series “The Drone Papers,” as well as documents about the government’s secret watchlisting system, I have wanted to speak publicly about this unjust prosecution. However, due to security concerns, legal advice, and a desire not to hinder, in any way, Hale’s defense or to aid the government in its disgraceful prosecution, I have been unable to do so. Now that the circumstances have changed, I am able to share some aspects of my thoughts. In doing so, I am speaking only for myself and not for The Intercept or anyone else.

Daniel Hale is a man of tremendous conscience, courage, and moral clarity. It is an abomination that this brave whistleblower has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after being convicted of exposing the horrors of the U.S. drone assassination programs, the killing of civilians, and the Kafkaesque “terror” watchlisting system run by the government.

President Barack Obama’s Justice Department did not prosecute Hale, but the Trump administration dug up the case and threw the book at Hale in an obvious ploy to stanch leaks about President Donald Trump and his corrupt administration. The indictment Trump’s prosecutors crafted was a dishonest piece of political propaganda intended to criminalize Hale and attack the freedom of the press.

The initial threat of decades in prison against Hale was a cudgel deployed by prosecutors in an effort to break Hale’s spirit and to frighten other prospective whistleblowers. That President Joe Biden’s Justice Department continued this prosecution instead of dropping the Trump administration’s case serves as an ominous reminder that the war on whistleblowers is a permanent fixture of the U.S. system. The use of the Espionage Act by successive administrations to prosecute whistleblowers is an affront to basic liberties and the constitutional rights of the accused, as it prevents people of conscience from presenting a real defense before a judge or jury. Its use to target dissent, independent journalism, and whistleblowing is an authoritarian weapon masquerading as a law, and it should be abolished.

In 2013, Daniel Hale and I were separately invited to speak at a public forum alongside a Yemeni American activist in Washington, D.C., about drone strikes and the murderous U.S. war in Yemen. As I listened to Hale speak that day, he struck me as a deeply moral person who was profoundly grappling with the role he had played in a lethal global system of assassination. I found him to be a thoughtful, sincere, caring person with an inherent degree of selflessness and honesty rare in our society. Hale appeared to be viscerally struggling with the nature of the work that he had done on behalf of the U.S. government and the horrors he had witnessed.

The Trump Justice Department indictment against Hale was anemic in its “evidence” and replete with innuendo and circumstantial events dishonestly crafted and presented as a substitute for facts. The government spied on Hale and manipulated his communications to paint a grossly distorted picture of his character and motivations that served the prosecutors’ campaign to railroad him.

It has been particularly disheartening to see people purporting to support Hale repeating Trump Justice Department assertions as established fact. There have been a lot of lies told about what happened in this case — in the Trump Justice Department indictment, by the prosecutors, on social media, and, unfortunately, in some news reports. Contrary to what the judge and prosecutors in this case stated and implied, it is evident that Hale was not motivated by trying to impress a journalist or anyone else. Hale was motivated by love of his fellow humans and by a deep and abiding sense of duty — duty to protect the innocent and the defenseless, as well as dedication to a sense of morality none of his detractors come close to matching. He is a noble teller of truths in a time of systemic deceit and lethal secrecy.

Among the “crimes” that Hale was convicted of are the following: revealing that, at times, nearly nine out of 10 people killed in so-called targeted strikes by the U.S. are not the intended targets; exposing the complicity of top U.S. government officials in a secret kill chain that decides who should be assassinated by drone strike; exposing that the U.S. government officially labels unknown people it kills as “enemies killed in action” unless they are posthumously proven to have been civilians; and exposing the secret watchlisting rulebook used to label people, including U.S. citizens, as “known or suspected terrorists” without evidence that they did anything wrong.

Daniel Hale should be pardoned and released, and the government should pay him restitution for the trauma it has inflicted on him for daring to speak out, at great personal risk, for the victims of wars and extrajudicial assassinations funded by U.S. taxpayers. He deserves the gratitude of good people everywhere for his courage, bravery, and sacrifice. It is a grave injustice that a man who blew the whistle on the killing of civilians is in jail and that those who murder them receive medals or appear as pundits on cable news.

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In addition to concerns about COVID safety, workers at Amazon have expressed frustration about impossibly high productivity expectations and are therefore starting to unionize. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
In addition to concerns about COVID safety, workers at Amazon have expressed frustration about impossibly high productivity expectations and are therefore starting to unionize. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

ALSO SEE: Amazon Warehouse Workers Could Get Second Vote on Forming Union


Citing Improprieties, NLRB Recommends Amazon Union Election Results Be Scrapped
Jay Greene, The Washington Post
Greene writes: "Amazon improperly pressured Alabama warehouse workers to vote against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and should hold a new union election, according to recommendations from a National Labor Relations Board hearing officer."
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Voters at a polling precinct. (photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
Voters at a polling precinct. (photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)


'Adventure in Never-Never Land': Maricopa County Defies State Subpoena Seeking to Expand GOP Ballot Review
Rosalind S. Helderman, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "'It is now August of 2021. The election of November 2020 is over. If you haven't figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate yet, I'm not sure you ever will.'"

lected leaders in Arizona’s largest county responded defiantly Monday to a new subpoena issued by the state Senate that sought local computer routers and internal logs to bolster a GOP-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election results.

Senate President Karen Fann (R) has said the items are needed to conclude the controversial audit of the election in Maricopa County, which private contractors have been conducting on behalf of the Senate since April.

County officials rejected her claim in a scathing letter.

“It is now August of 2021. The election of November 2020 is over. If you haven’t figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate yet, I’m not sure you ever will,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers (R) wrote in a letter to the Senate on Monday.

He added: “The Board has real work to do and little time to entertain this adventure in never-never land. Please finish whatever it is that you are doing and release whatever it is you are going to release.”

Earlier this year, the Senate used a subpoena to obtain the county’s nearly 2.1 million ballots and tabulating machines, and handed them over to a private company whose chief executive has echoed false claims that the election was stolen.

Fann has said the audit is intended to help improve the state’s election laws, but former president Donald Trump has suggested it could lead to the decertification of President Biden’s victory in the swing state. The ballot review has been largely financed by private groups touting Trump’s false claims that fraud tainted the outcome.

The Republican-led Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has said that the routers are used for county services other than elections, including the sheriff’s department, and that giving them to a private company could compromise security. What’s more, they said they are reluctant to assist an audit that they believe has been run ineptly and is undermining faith in democracy.

In his letter Monday, Sellers told the Senate that there was no “injection of ballots from Asia” nor “a satellite that beamed votes into our election equipment” — both unsubstantiated allegations advanced by Trump supporters.

“It’s time for all elected officials to tell the truth and stop encouraging conspiracies,” he added.

Sellers’s terse missive was accompanied by a separate five-page letter from a county lawyer, which raised various legal and practical objections to the subpoena.

Separately, a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems, whose election equipment is used in Maricopa, wrote to the Arizona Senate and raised legal objections to a subpoena it received last month seeking administrative passwords to the county’s voting software.

Both the county and Dominion argued that some of the Senate’s requests are now moot because the Senate’s contractor, a Florida-based company called Cyber Ninjas, concluded its review of the ballots last week and returned them to Maricopa’s custody.

In a statement, Fann noted that the county response indicated that some of what had been requested would be provided, including through a public information request the Senate had previously filed. “That is progress, and the final audit report will be better because of it,” she said.

As for other items, including the routers, she said the Senate was weighing its options, adding that it was “unfortunate” that the county and Dominion were resisting the subpoenas, saying their posture “breeds distrust.”

“We remain committed to ensuring election integrity as voter confidence is at the heart of what we set out to achieve in this endeavor,” she said. “Our constituents deserve no less.”

Fann has said that Cyber Ninjas is working on a report of its findings and plans to release it later this month, though she has warned that it will be incomplete if Maricopa does not cooperate and turn over the additional items.

The Senate’s options in the face of the county’s defiance are not clear. Fann could ask the Senate to hold the board in contempt, but she does not appear to have the votes to do so. The GOP holds only a one-vote majority in the state Senate, and a previous contempt vote in February failed after state Sen. Paul Boyer (R) said he was opposed. Since then, Boyer has become only more vocal in his opposition to the audit.

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Central American asylum seekers traveling to the U.S. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
Central American asylum seekers traveling to the U.S. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)


ACLU Reignites Title 42 Suit, Pushing Biden on Border Policy
Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill
Beitsch writes: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is reviving a lawsuit challenging the government's use of a public health authority to quickly expel people crossing the Southern border, preventing them from seeking asylum."

he American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is reviving a lawsuit challenging the government's use of a public health authority to quickly expel people crossing the Southern border, preventing them from seeking asylum.

The suit was filed against the Trump administration, and the ACLU agreed to stall it when President Biden was sworn into office.

But the ACLU is now moving forward again, signaling frustration with the new administration's use of Title 42 to block asylum seekers due to COVID-19.

The filing with the U.S. District Court in D.C. said the months of negotiations between the government and a number of outside advocacy groups has “reached an impasse.”

“We gave the Biden administration more than enough time to fix any problems left behind by the Trump administration, but it has left us no choice but to return to court. Families’ lives are at stake,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney on the case, said in a release.

The new litigation posture puts increased pressure on the Biden administration to draft a replacement policy.

Biden administration officials have for months defended their use of Title 42, even as the administration has suggested it may lift the policy in phases.

The government exempts children and some families from Title 42 but it is still widely used to expel single adults who seek to cross the border. In June, the Biden administration used Title 42 to expel more than 104,000 migrants at the southern border, more than 55 percent of the nearly 189,000 people who attempted to cross.

“ICE is concerned that the loss of Title 42 could create additional pressure on our immigration system,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Tae Johnson told lawmakers in May, nodding to the ACLU's suit. He called the rule “critical” to maintaining social distance in border facilities.

“I don’t think it’s a situation where it’s going to just be lifted electively. We would be mandated by some sort of court order to lift it,” he added later.

The White House referred The Hill to the Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House late last month extended travel restrictions along the U.S.-Mexico border citing the pandemic, another move that would make it difficult to walk back Title 42.

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday also resumed “fast track” flights for “certain families who recently arrived at the southern border, cannot be expelled under Title 42, and do not have a legal basis to stay in the United States.”

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'Water privatization will lead to rate hikes on households already struggling to afford their water bills.' (photo: iStock)
'Water privatization will lead to rate hikes on households already struggling to afford their water bills.' (photo: iStock)


Dear Congress: Say No to Water Privatization in the Infrastructure Bill
218 Organizations, In These Times
Excerpt: "We urge you to reject this proposed water privatization scam. Do not compromise on water."

Water costs have soared in recent years as federal funding for water infrastructure has shrunk. Privatization is the last thing we need.

ear Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sanders, and House Budget Committee Chairman Yarmuth:

We, the undersigned 218 organizations, oppose the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework that promotes privatization, and we urge you to reject it and water privatization in all its forms and fight for a bold, uncompromising infrastructure package that provides real federal funding at the level our communities urgently need.

The outline of the latest bipartisan infrastructure framework would promote a slew of privatization activities. The proposed financing sources for new investment include public-private partnerships, private activity bonds and asset recycling.

That provision promotes a Wall Street takeover of essential services like public water. It is dangerous for the public and undermines public access to essential water services.

Water privatization is an incredibly expensive financing option. Privatization through public-private partnerships, private investment schemes or asset recycling is not a source of new funding, but an expensive and high-risk way to finance water projects. The typical water public-private partnership carries a cost of capital that can be five times the cost of the low interest bonds available to municipal water systems.

Water privatization will lead to rate hikes on households already struggling to afford their water bills. Because the private entity recovers its financing costs and profit through user bills, privatizing water and sewer systems lead to considerable rate hikes for households and local businesses. Already, nearly one in three U.S. households struggles to afford their water and sewer bills, and households nationally have accrued billions of dollars of water debt during the pandemic. They cannot afford the price of privatization.

The problem at hand is that local government utilities rely almost exclusively on water bills to cover the cost of infrastructure projects because of the loss of federal support for water infrastructure. Federal funding has fallen by 77% in real terms since its peak in 1977. Local governments cannot continue to raise their water rates to levels that are increasingly unaffordable for households. Our public water utilities have a funding problem, not a financing problem. Privatization would only exacerbate the main problem facing our public water utilities.

Water privatization is not a viable or just solution for rural, small or disadvantaged communities. Private companies focus on profit maximization and avoid areas where per-household costs are high, the customer base has less wealth and bill collection problems can abound. A private company will acquire such a system if the system is contiguous to its existing network and if it can redistribute the costs across its other service areas. Because water rates are regressive, this type of subsidization is inequitable and disproportionately burdens working- and middle class families across communities.

Water privatization can trap communities in expensive deals. Public-private partnerships that involve private financing are usually 30 to 40 years long, and they are extremely difficult to exit early. After taking office, the new municipal services director in Bayonne, N.J., posed as his first question: how do we get out of the city’s water concession contract? He was told the city would have to repay the $150 million concession fee that it no longer has. Since entering into a decades-long concession deal in 2012, Bayonne has experienced rate hikes of 50% despite promises of rate stabilization. According to the Hudson Reporter, a board of education trustee recently told the new city council, “You didn’t sign the contract, and neither did the citizens of Bayonne, but everyone is suffering because of it.” Similarly, Middletown, Penn., was unable to exit its water concession deal, and attempted to stop surcharges in court and lost.

Water privatization is not a solution for our nation’s water needs. Water privatization can increase costs, worsen service quality and allow infrastructure assets to deteriorate. There is ample evidence that maintenance backlogs, wasted water, sewage spills and worse service often follow privatization. In fact, poor performance is the primary reason that local governments reverse the decision to privatize and resume public operation of previously contracted services.

Communities need real federal dollars spent on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. The most comprehensive funding solution on the table is the WATER Act (H.R.1352, S.916). The WATER Act would provide $35 billion a year to fully fund our water infrastructure at the level that is needed according to EPA needs surveys.

We urge you to reject this proposed water privatization scam and fight for a bold package that provides the support our communities need. Do not compromise on water.


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The Tekeze River flows though Tigray. (photo: Getty Images)
The Tekeze River flows though Tigray. (photo: Getty Images)


Dozens of Bodies Found Floating in River Between Ethiopia's Tigray and Sudan
Guardian UK
Excerpt: "A Sudanese official has said local authorities in Kassala province have found around 50 bodies, apparently people fleeing the war in neighboring Ethiopia's Tigray region, floating in the river between the countries over the past week."

Witnesses report some of the corpses had gunshot wounds or their hands tied amid escalating conflict in the region in recent weeks

 Sudanese official has said local authorities in Kassala province have found around 50 bodies, apparently people fleeing the war in neighbouring Ethiopia’s Tigray region, floating in the river between the countries over the past week.

Some bodies were found with gunshot wounds or their hands bound, and the official said on Monday a forensic investigation was needed to determine the causes of death. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media.

Two Ethiopian health workers in the Sudan border community of Hamdayet confirmed seeing the bodies found in the Setit river, known in Ethiopia as the Tekeze.

The river flows through some of the most troubled areas of the nine-month conflict in Tigray, where ethnic Tigrayans have accused Ethiopian and allied forces of atrocities while battling Tigray forces.

Tewodros Tefera, a surgeon who fled the nearby Tigray city of Humera to Sudan, told the Associated Press that two of the bodies were found on Monday, one a man with his hands bound and the other a woman with a chest wound. Fellow refugees have buried at least 10 other bodies, he said.

He shared a video of men appearing to prepare a shroud for a body floating face-down in the river.

Tewodros said the bodies were found downstream from Humera, where authorities and allied fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have been accused by refugees of forcing out local Tigrayans during the war while claiming that western Tigray is their land.

“We are actually taking care of the bodies spotted by fishermen,” Tewodros said. “I suspect there are more bodies on the river.”

While it was difficult to identify the bodies, one had a common name in the Tigray language, Tigrinya, tattooed on his arm, the surgeon said.

Another doctor working in Hamdayet who saw the bodies told the The Associated Press that some of the corpses had facial markings indicating they were ethnic Tigrayans. “I saw a lot of barbaric things,” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to reporters. “Some had been struck by an axe.”

Witnesses at the river told him they had not been able to catch all the bodies floating downstream because of the water’s swift flow during the rainy season, the doctor said.

An Ethiopian government-created Twitter account on Monday called the accounts of bodies a fake campaign by “propagandists” among the Tigray forces.

Fighting in Tigray broke out in November between Ethiopia’s federal forces and the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed, a 2019 Nobel peace prize winner, said his forces’ move into the region was in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps.

The conflict has killed thousands and sent tens of thousands fleeing into neighbouring Sudan.

Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, on Monday visited a refugee camp in Sudan hosting thousands of Ethiopians who fled the Tigray war. She next will visit Ethiopia to press the government to allow humanitarian aid to Tigray, a region of some 6 million people where the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade is unfolding. The US says up to 900,000 people now face famine conditions.

The UN food agency said it is working to provide food to Tigray through Sudan despite frayed ties between Khartoum and Addis Ababa.

Negotiations to access the blocked Tigray region have proved to be quite difficult, Marianne Ward, the World Food Program’s deputy country director in Sudan, said. She said WFP has already moved 50,000 tons of wheat to Ethiopia through Sudan.

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A firefighter during nighttime operations at the Bootleg Fire, near Klamath Falls, Oregon. (photo: U.S. Forest Service/AFP/Getty Images)
A firefighter during nighttime operations at the Bootleg Fire, near Klamath Falls, Oregon. (photo: U.S. Forest Service/AFP/Getty Images)


Wildfires Need Fuel to Burn. A Key Way to Get Rid of That Fuel Is to Set It Ablaze, Very Carefully.
Amanda Monthei, Zoeann Murphy, Lo Bénichou, Shikha Subramaniam and Dylan Moriarty, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "It's a clear, sunny spring morning in Seeley Lake, Mont., and 34 firefighters are gathering on a road east of town, drip torches in hand. They are here to set a fire, not stop one."
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