Robert Parry - The Enduring Secrets of Watergate

Three times in May 1972, burglars working for President Richard Nixon's reelection committee tried to enter the Watergate complex, an elegant new building situated along the Potomac River. Their target was the Democratic National Committee.

For the Watergate burglars, the third try was the charm. Armed with an array of burglary tools, two of the Cuban-Americans on the team -- Virgilio Gonzalez and Frank Sturgis -- entered the building through the B-2 garage level. They climbed the stairs and taped open the doors behind them. Reaching the sixth floor where the DNC offices were located, Gonzalez made quick work of the door lock and the burglars were finally inside.

"The horse is in the house," they reported over a walkie-talkie back to team leaders across Virginia Avenue at a Howard Johnson's hotel. The leaders included G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who had devised the spying plan called Gemstone, and E. Howard Hunt, an ex-CIA officer and part-time spy novel writer.

At word that the break-in had finally succeeded, Liddy and Hunt embraced. From a balcony at the Howard Johnson's, James McCord, another former CIA officer and the security chief for the Committee to Re-elect the President known as CREEP, could see the burglars' pencil flashlights darting around the darkened offices.[1]

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/05/22/the-enduring-secrets-of-watergate/

David Rosen - The Terrifying Ways Google Is Destroying Your Privacy

In 1999, Scott McNealy, the former head of Sun MicroSystems, reportedly declared, "You have zero privacy anyway....Get over it." He unintentionally let the proverbial cat out of the bag of the digital age. 

In 2009, McNealy’s assessment was confirmed by Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. In an interview with NBC's Mario Bartiromo, he proclaimed, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Schmidt’s words have become Google’s new mantra. Welcome to 21st-century corporate morality. 

Now, a decade-plus later, McNealy’s prophetic words have take on a far more sinister significance than he probably intended. They are increasingly becoming the operating assumption of the digital corporate state. Whether going online, using a PC, smartphone, tablet or digital TV, users can no longer assume they have any privacy. In fact, users should assume they have absolutely no privacy.

McNealy's and Schmidt's words both speak to a fundamental change in the definition of privacy. Once upon a time not so long ago, a sealed letter or a personal telephone conversation was considered private, protected communications. Those days are over. 

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/155479/the_terrifying_ways_google_is_destroying_your_privacy

Mural Found On Walls a First for a Maya Dwelling; Painted Numbers Reflect Calendar Reaching Well Beyond 2012

A vast city built by the ancient Maya and discovered nearly a century ago is finally starting to yield its secrets. Excavating for the first time in the sprawling complex of Xultún in Guatemala's Petén region, archaeologists have uncovered a structure that contains what appears to be a work space for the town's scribe, its walls adorned with unique paintings -- one depicting a lineup of men in black uniforms -- and hundreds of scrawled numbers. Many are calculations relating to the Maya calendar.

One wall of the structure, thought to be a house, is covered with tiny, millimeter-thick, red and black glyphs unlike any seen before at other Maya sites. Some appear to represent the various calendrical cycles charted by the Maya -- the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars, reports archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, who led the exploration and excavation.

"For the first time we get to see what may be actual records kept by a scribe, whose job was to be official record keeper of a Maya community," Saturno said. "It's like an episode of TV's 'Big Bang Theory,' a geek math problem and they're painting it on the wall. They seem to be using it like a blackboard."

The discovery is reported in the June issue of National Geographic magazine and in the May 11 issue of the journal Science.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510141953.htm

John Feffer - America the Serial Killer

Everybody loves Dexter. He’s handsome. He’s helpful. He works at the Miami Metro Police Department, and he’s very good at his job as a blood-splatter analyst. Oh, did I mention that he moonlights as a serial killer? Don’t worry: he only kills bad guys. That’s part of the code that Dexter’s adoptive father, himself a police officer, passed down to his son. As a child who had watched his mother die a horrendous death, Dexter couldn’t overcome the murderous impulses that surged within him. His father, channeling those impulses in the only constructive way he could think of, created a better monster of his son’s nature: a serial killer of serial killers.

The other essential rule of Dexter’s code: don’t get caught. He is very precise in the way he dispatches his victims, and he will do almost anything to evade detection. Dexter works for the law, but his second job is most definitely above the law.

During its six seasons on Showtime, the popular TV show Dexter has asked a vexing moral question: can a person do good by doing bad? Let’s throw in one more twist. Sometimes Dexter makes mistakes and kills people who don’t fit his definition of Really Bad. He must then wrestle with his (rudimentary) conscience and, more importantly, try to resolve the paradoxes of his father’s code. One last painful element of the Dexter story: his efforts to wipe out bad guys occasionally endanger and even lead to the death of his own nearest and dearest. Dexter has a serious problem, in other words, with blowback.

Read More:

http://www.fpif.org/articles/america_the_serial_killer

Mike Feder - Act Now!

Listen to Mike weekly at 4pm on Monday's with "The Turning Point" and at 1pm on Thursday's with "Occupied Territory." Both at Eastern Time.

With those bizarre wonder-drug ads in magazines and on TV, I thought this little satire might provide some needed relief.

Are You Suffering?

When you look in the mirror, do you only see a frown? Does life seem grim, empty and meaningless? Have you been asking yourself: What happened to that old energy, that zest for life? Can I ever get it back?

Yes, you can!

Now you can leave all that doubt, worry and discomfort behind. Now you can just be you again.
Because now there is... SMILIZENE.

Do you have a throbbing or aching sensation in your limbs and extremities; frequent or painful urination; asthma, chest pains, rapid or slow hearbeat; inability to concentrate or follow simple directions; insomnia; recurrent nightmares; sudden attacks of anxiety or depression; an increasing sense of isolation, unreasonable suspicions of loved ones or total strangers; distorted or suicidal thinking, and an overall sense of unease about your life, accompanied by mild dyspepsia?

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-feder/prescription-drug-warnings_b_1511554.html

Robert Parry - How the US Press Lost Its Way

Editor's Note: From May 10 to May 12, journalist Robert Parry participated in a conference entitled, "From the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks: A Transatlantic Conversation on the Public's Right to Know," sponsored by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies in Heidelberg, Germany.

The conference consisted of media figures, legal scholars and freedom-of-information advocates -- and included Neil Sheehan, the New York Times correspondent who got the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg; and Barry Sussman, the Washington Post editor who oversaw the newspaper's coverage of the Watergate scandal.

Parry spoke on the last day and offered the following observations:

Much of this conference has focused on the glory days of American journalism in the 1970s. And rightly so. My talk, however, will deal with the more depressing question of why things then went so terribly wrong.

First, let me say it's been an honor to be at this conference, especially with Neil Sheehan and Barry Sussman, who played such important roles exposing serious crimes of state in the early to mid-1970s. That was a time when U.S. journalism perhaps was at its best, far from perfect, but doing what the Founders had in mind when they afforded special protections to the American press.

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/05/15/how-the-us-press-lost-its-way/

Dawn Lim - Darpa Wants to Master the Science of Propaganda

Mark Twain once tried to distinguish between the storyteller’s art and tales that a machine could generate. He observed that stringing “incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities,” was the province of the American storyteller. A machine might imitate simple formulas behind yarns, but never quite master them.

The Pentagon’s freewheeling research arm is hoping to prove Twain wrong. Darpa is asking scientists to “take narratives and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion.” The idea is to detect terrorists who have been indoctrinated by propaganda. Then, the Pentagon can respond with some messages of its own.

The program is called “Narrative Networks.” By understanding how stories have shaped your mind, the Pentagon hopes to sniff out who has fallen prey to dangerous ideas, a neuroscience researcher involved in the project tells Danger Room. With this knowledge, the military can also target groups vulnerable to terrorists’ recruiting tactics with its own counter-messaging.

Read More:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/darpa-science-propaganda/#more-59786

Robert Crawford - No Secret Why CIA is Now Romanticizing 'Harsh Interrogation' Techniques

José Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, used these words in a "60 Minutes" interview last Sunday to defend the use of water-boarding and other "harsh interrogation" techniques on suspected terrorists. His self-assurance recalls the observation of General Taguba, the lead investigator into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, that "the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Rodriguez’s new book, Harsh Measures is an undisguised justification of CIA torture.

Interviewer Leslie Stahl offered only mild push-back. The broadcast exemplifies the normalization of the monstrous, the transmutation of the radical and stunning reality of U.S. torture into a reasonable topic of "debate." There was no mention of the absolute, no-exceptions-permitted prohibition of torture under the Torture Convention and the Geneva Conventions; no mention of the U.S. Anti-Torture Statute or War Crimes Act; no acknowledgment that the so-called "torture memos," written in secret by the Bush administration and immediately rescinded by the Obama administration, were intended (in the words of a CIA official) as a "golden shield" against criminal prosecution.

Rodriguez claimed that 92 CIA videos of "harsh interrogation" methods were destroyed in order to protect interrogators from Al Qaeda reprisals, but the U.S. government can and regularly does hide the identity of Americans when releasing documents to the public. Missing from the "60 Minutes" exchange was any mention that the CIA was under court order to preserve the tapes, and that their destruction constituted a possible obstruction of justice. The entire discussion unfolded without any mention of the law.

Since Stahl omitted another critical question, I will ask it here: Why now? Why a CIA authorized book justifying CIA torture? There are two possible explanations. First, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) will soon release its long-awaited report on CIA torture. The report is expected to find no convincing evidence that harsh interrogation techniques led to any breakthroughs in the fight against terrorism. We should not be surprised if the CIA might want to preempt this inconvenient finding. How many will heed a report released by Senate Democrats compared to the high-profile interview and book tour of a tough CIA veteran pushing the romance of "dark-side" fixes to America’s security problems?

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/12-4

Danny Schechter - The Axis of Indifference in the Media World

Listen to Danny's show "The News Dissector" every Friday at 2pm (Eastern Time)

Foreign correspondents have always been revered within journalism. That's why covering Iraq or other wars are assignments so many reporters cultivate. Many see them as a ticket up the media pecking order.

Being "under fire" promise excitement, danger and -- let's face it, on TV -- precious "face time." Going overseas is often a route to more visibility and better jobs at home on the strength of your "bravery" -- war reporting can be the macho oxygen of ambition.

Just as covering a turbulent world is attractive in the ranks, up in the suites of media power, "foreign news" is, according to Michael Wolff, a 'nostalgist's beat' said to turn off American audiences and tune them out. That's why decision makers shutter bureaus and redefine news of the world as 'news of American power in the world'. (They also realize financial savings by doing so, of course.)

Read More:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-schechter/foreign-reporting-future_b_1511648.html

Meghann Myers - Grant to boost use of food stamps at farmers markets

Farmers markets are a popular source of reasonably priced fresh produce, but across the country many accept only cash or checks – a big problem for low-income shoppers using food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to change that.

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan this week announced a $4 million grant for states to help implement wireless technology that will allow more farmers markets to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps.

Markets need wireless Internet or land-line connections in order to accept payments from customers using government benefits, a system known as Electronic Benefits Transfer. The system isn’t always available for outdoor markets in parks or parking lots, and small markets often can’t afford to set up the technology.

Two years ago, Jeff Dabbelt of Lexington Farmers Market in Lexington, Ky., set up a machine on his own to accept EBT payments. “I had to convince my directors that it was going to be worth the additional cost,” he said.

Last year, the market brought in $14,000 from EBT cards, Dabbelt said.

Read More:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/10/148443/grant-to-boost-use-of-food-stamps.html