William K. Black — Prosecutors for the Petrocrats Try to Imprison the Media

Sheriff Bill is on North Dakota's case.

New Economic Perspectives
Prosecutors for the Petrocrats Try to Imprison the Media
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC
See also

Doug Krejci’s effort to use the University of Iowa’s 2008 flood footage for an upcoming documentary is being blocked by state officials who say copyright overrides public records.
The rare argument, if successful, could not only impede Krejci’s effort to raise public awareness of the disaster but also dismantle the state’s public records law, government transparency experts claim.

“It’s just bizarre,” said Adam Marshall, an attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a First Amendment advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. “It can’t be the case that copyright law enables every state entity to withhold every single record they generate. That would totally eviscerate the public records laws.”

DesMoines Register
University of Iowa claims copyright law to block use of flood video
Jason Claywort

Robert Mackey — Ecuador Cuts Internet Access for Julian Assange to Preserve Neutrality in U.S. Election

Correa is not neutral himself. "I want Hillary to win."

The Intercept
Ecuador Cuts Internet Access for Julian Assange to Preserve Neutrality in U.S. Election
Robert Mackey

Zero Hedge
Ecuador Admits Censoring Assange Over "U.S. Election"; Denies "Yielding To Pressure From Other States"

Free Thought Project — BREAKING: RT’s Bank Accounts Frozen, Assange’s Internet Cut In Apparent Move to Silence West’s Critics

Desperation takes hold. The sunshine is too much.

Free Thought Project
BREAKING: RT’s Bank Accounts Frozen, Assange’s Internet Cut In Apparent Move to Silence West’s Critics

The "state actor" that cut off Assange's internet access was apparently Ecuador. Speculation is that the US pressured President Correa. Ecuador uses the USD and is a currency user in the dollar zone.

Zero Hedge
Wikileaks Provides An Update On The Assange Internet Outage

Jeff Cox — Fed economist: We talk too much to public with 'limited attention span'

When it comes to communicating with the public, the Federal Reserve may find it just talks too much.

That at least is the view of Dallas Fed economist Antonella Tutino, who believes "the public's limited attention span" makes lengthy and complicated Fed statements a detriment to effective communication.

"A central bank should be concerned about overwhelming the private sector with too many details in its pronouncements," Tutino said in an analysis on the branch's website. "In so doing, it runs the risk that the less-than-fully engaged public may misinterpret the statements, leading to an unintentional and counterproductive response."

Indeed, the Fed has experienced a communication gap with the public and the markets as it has tried to normalize policy after the extraordinary measures it took during the financial crisis.…

CNBC
Fed economist: We talk too much to public with 'limited attention span'
Jeff Cox

Constantin Gurdgiev — 10/4/16: The Real 'Panamas' Of Tax Havens... Are Not In Central America

A lot of what is already known is now in the spotlight owing to the Panama papers.

True Economics

10/4/16: The Real 'Panamas' Of Tax Havens... Are Not In Central America
Constantin Gurdgiev

Norman Solomon — Assange and Democracy’s Future

Democracy rests on citizens getting real facts and applying rational analysis. The ability of governments, including the U.S. government, to suppress facts and thus manage perceptions represents the opposite, a power over the people that WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange threatened, says Norman Solomon.

Why Assange, Snowden, Manning and other investigative journalists and government whistleblowers like them are patriotic heroes rather than the traitors and criminals the US government makes them out to be. It was people like this that dared to confront the King of England and his army in declaring independence

Consortium News
Assange and Democracy’s FutureNorman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy

Christos Koulovatianos and John Tsoukalas — Why debt sustains corruption in Greece and vice versa

It's the rent, stupid.

vox.ue
Why debt sustains corruption in Greece and vice versa
Christos Koulovatianos, Professor in Macroeconomics, University of Luxembourg, and John Tsoukalas, Associate Professor (Reader) in Macroeconomics, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow

Brian T. Watson — Make this go viral: Dear Mr. President

Dear President Obama:

We know that you will see this letter. Although you certainly don’t have a subscription to The Salem News — where this letter first appeared — we are counting on the many vehicles of social media to make our letter go viral — and thus to be brought to your attention.

We are a collection of millions of Democrats, Republicans, independents, Greens, and many other persuasions, and we are joining our diverse voices together in an unusual act of solidarity to request that you take action to reduce the role of money in politics.
Specifically, we request that you issue an executive order that will require all federal contractors to disclose their political spending. That spending would include all contributions — including those now legally hidden — to officials in the executive or congressional branches. It would also include all lobbying of the two branches.

Corporations spend more than $1 billion a year donating to and lobbying Congress and the federal government, and they receive an average of almost $1 trillion a year in contracts. If the monetary relationships between corporations and Congressmen become exposed, we citizens will be able to clearly see the corruption, and perhaps will react against it.

Even the Supreme Court, in its controversial Citizens United decision, said that increased disclosure rules would be wise so that citizens can see if “elected officials are in the pocket of so-called moneyed interests.”

We understand that your order would not address all of the troublesome sources of money in politics. But it would be a substantive and useful start....

The Salem News
Watson: Make this go viral: Dear Mr. President
Brian T. Watson

Ray McGovern — The Mystery of Ray McGovern’s Arrest

On Oct. 30, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was arrested for trying to attend a public speech by retired Gen. David Petraeus. McGovern had hoped to ask Petraeus a critical question during Q-and-A but was instead trundled off to jail, another sign of a growing hostility toward dissent, McGovern says.

Consortium News
The Mystery of Ray McGovern’s Arrest
Ray McGovern | former CIA analyst and anti-war activist

Dan Froomkin — Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Senate Torture Inquiry

Ouch.

The Intercept
Panetta Says Rahm Emanuel Cussed Him Out for Cooperating With Senate Torture Inquiry
Dan Froomkin

John Nichols — Defend Journalism That Speaks Truth to Power: From Ferguson to Washington

“A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both,” declared James Madison, the author and champion of the Bill of Rights. “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

This is still the essential truth of an American experiment that can only be advanced toward the equal and inclusive justice that did not exist in Madison’s time by a broadly informed and broadly engaged citizenry. When journalists are harassed, intimidated, threatened and detained, the basic premise of democracy — that the great mass of people, armed with information and perspective, and empowered to act upon it, will set right that which is made wrong by oligarchs — is assaulted.

Where assaults on the gatherers and purveyors of popular information occur, those assaults must be challenged immediately. Social media and then mainstream media did just that after Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post writer Ryan Reilly were arrested, detained and then released without charges or an explanation by police in Ferguson, Missouri, as they were reporting on the tensions that developed after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed in a police shooting. The detention of reporters is merely one illustration of the seriousness of the broader battering of civil liberties and civil rights in Ferguson, a battering so severe that Amnesty International has made the unprecedented move of deploying human rights observers to the city.

Moyers & Company
Defend Journalism That Speaks Truth to Power: From Ferguson to Washington
John Nichols

See also Katherine Fung, James Risen: Obama Is 'Greatest Enemy To Press Freedom In A Generation' at Huffington Post.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd spoke to Risen for her Sunday column"Where’s the Justice at Justice?"


"How can he [Obama] use the Espionage Act to throw reporters and whistle-blowers in jail even as he defends the intelligence operatives who 'tortured some folks,' and coddles his C.I.A. chief, John Brennan, who spied on the Senate and then lied to the senators he spied on about it?" Dowd wrote.

Risen had one word to describe Obama's actions: "hypocritical."

"A lot of people still think this is some kind of game or signal or spin," he told Dowd. "They don’t want to believe that Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistle-blowers. But he does. He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation."

"How can he [Obama] use the Espionage Act to throw reporters and whistle-blowers in jail even as he defends the intelligence operatives who 'tortured some folks,' and coddles his C.I.A. chief, John Brennan, who spied on the Senate and then lied to the senators he spied on about it?" Dowd wrote.
Risen had one word to describe Obama's actions: "hypocritical."
"A lot of people still think this is some kind of game or signal or spin," he told Dowd. "They don’t want to believe that Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistle-blowers. But he does. He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation."

Bill Mitchell — Information is dangerous for neo-liberals

Chiefly about the situation in Australia but applicable pretty across the board in Neoliberal Land, where the play book is essentially the same. In the US it's even worse, where certain advocacy within the right of free expression can get one on a no-fly list, or labeled as a suspected terrorist for intelligence to surveil. This extends to whistleblowers and the press. As communications channels expand with technological innovation, so do governments' attempts to control and even subvert them.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Information is dangerous for neo-liberalsBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia

John Napier Tye — Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans

Even after all the reforms President Obama has announced, some intelligence practices remain so secret, even from members of Congress, that there is no opportunity for our democracy to change them….

The Washington Post
Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans
John Napier Tye

(h/t Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism)

John Napier Tye served as section chief for Internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from January 2011 to April 2014. He is now a legal director of Avaaz, a global advocacy organization.

David Cay Johnston — Thanks to WikiLeaks, public can debate alarming new trade deal

WikiLeaks last week again pierced the veil of official secrecy that surrounds global trade negotiations. The peek it gave us should alarm everyone.

Big Business and national governments wanted to conceal the terms of the proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) while keeping consumers, unions, environmentalists and the vast majority of businesses in the dark. Thanks to WikiLeaks, they failed.

The draft agreement WikiLeaks released on June 19 is fresh, written in May. It is a model of secret law, blatant in its disregard for transparency, democratic process and history. Its opening page says the terms are to remain secret for five years after negotiations formally end or the proposed new rules take effect. Talks to refine that agreement were to resume Monday in Geneva.

Even the secrecy-shrouded Trans Pacific Partnership that President Barack Obama and his Big Business allies want to ram through Congress without changes and only perfunctory debate does not include a five-year veil of secrecy after adoption. WikiLeaks has released a portion of TPP draft documents to the public.

It is impossible to obey a law or know how it affects you when the law is secret. And that is what this agreement would be, a new rulebook for trade in services — principally banking, insurance and trusts.

The 18-page draft agreement involves 50 nations, which produce more than two-thirds of officially measured global economic activity. That means the consequences of the new rules would be enormous, especially for those living in the more than 140 countries not taking part in the talks. Whether people can get loans or buy insurance and at what prices as well as what jobs may be available will be affected by any new trade rules.

Al Jazeera America
Thanks to WikiLeaks, public can debate alarming new trade deal
David Cay Johnston

Glenn Grennwald — As Europe erupts over US spying, NSA chief says government must stop media

With General Alexander calling for NSA reporting to be halted, US and UK credibility as guardians of press freedom is crushed

The Guardian
As Europe erupts over US spying, NSA chief says government must stop media
Glenn Grennwald

Democracy, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights out the window in an exchange of liberty for "security"?

This is what happens when military general officers are appointed to civilian posts in government. The military mind is incompatible with democratic governance.

 

Timothy Karr — What Ted Cruz Doesn’t Want You to Know (via Moyers & Company)

What Ted Cruz Doesn’t Want You to Know (via Moyers & Company)

By now it seems pretty clear that Senator Ted Cruz has a plan to occupy the White House. But he doesn’t want people to know too much about it. And he definitely doesn’t want you to know about the special interests that have already begun to bankroll…

---

"Can't See The Wisdom For The Cleverage."

Commentary by Roger Erickson

This is so laughably clever (of savant insiders) that it's obviously dumb (to outsiders).

"Can't see the wisdom for the cleverage." That's my new mantra. I'm referring to group-wisdom vs individual-cleverness of course. Those two concepts work on entirely different levels. The first may not be either detectable or decipherable to the latter, no matter how heroic the intellect or work ethic combined in any given individual. No more so than one human neuron can perceive what a human CNS collectively can.

Multinationals beach tax bills in Spanish shells

"A rented office overlooking a dusty rail track near Madrid’s airport was until recently the workplace of what would appear to be the most productive worker in all of Spain.

From here a single employee presided over a company that from 2009 to 2011 made €9.9bn of net profits, all while earning an annual salary of only €55,000.

The person was working for ExxonMobil Spain SL, a holding company for the world’s largest oil group by value, which for several years used a relatively unknown part of Spanish tax law to transfer billions of euros from foreign subsidiaries to the US, helping to significantly reduce its tax bill."


Read more at the links please, or I'll be exiled or in jail as long as Ed Snowden and Bradley Manning, simply for sharing with all what some of us already know.


ps: Didn't Lew Platt of HP once say that “If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times as profitable.” So why can't the human species know what the human species knows? Wouldn't WE be far more than just 3x better off for it? What part of social doesn't our supposedly advanced species yet understand?

If none of us are as smart as all of us, then it's surely also true that mistrusting any of us is never as dangerous as mistrusting all of us? To paraphrase, trusting only some of us is never as adaptive as trusting all of us simultaneously? There's safety in group transparency and group knowledge? Will I go to jail - or disappear - just for saying so?  If you really think so, then please copy this little text and distribute it, somewhere in posterity. :)

NSA staff don't yet look where the sun don't shine ... do they? :(

The Guardian — Alan Grayson's requests for NSA information – read the correspondence

Emails show how Democratic congressman Alan Grayson repeatedly asked to meet John C Inglis, the deputy director of the NSA, but was continually rebuffed

The Guardian (UK)
Alan Grayson's requests for NSA information – read the correspondence

Makes one wonder what else the US government is hiding behind the wall of national security and the surveillance state.

Thomas Hedges — Imprisoned CIA Whistle-Blower: “Everyone Is Corrupt, I’ve Come to Learn”

Rotten to the core.

It's especially concerning that people like John Kiriakou are being used as warnings to intimidate other potential whistleblowers. This is the Obama version of "transparency" — Orwellian double-speak.

AlterNet

Imprisoned CIA Whistle-Blower: “Everyone Is Corrupt, I’ve Come to Learn”
Thomas Hedges | Salon

Washington's Blog Everything You Wanted to Know about Spying … But Were Afraid to Ask

Spying, the big picture

Link roundup

Washington's Blog
Everything You Wanted to Know about Spying … But Were Afraid to Ask