USA continues move toward Authoritarian State-Run Capitalism

U.S. Admits Surveillance Violated Constitution At Least Once

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/surveillance-spirit-law/

by Spencer Ackerman

The head of the U.S. government’s vast spying apparatus has conceded that recent surveillance efforts on at least one occasion violated the Constitutional prohibitions on unlawful search and seizure.

The admission comes in a letter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassifying statements that a top U.S. Senator wished to make public in order to call attention to the government’s 2008 expansion of its key surveillance law.

“On at least one occasion,” the intelligence shop has approved Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to say, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that “minimization procedures” used by the government while it was collecting intelligence were “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Minimization refers to how long the government may retain the surveillance data it collects.  The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is supposed to guarantee our rights against unreasonable searches.

Wyden does not specify how extensive this “unreasonable” surveillance was; when it occurred; or how many Americans were affected by it.

In the letter, acquired by Danger Room (.pdf), Wyden asserts a serious federal sidestep of a major section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

That section — known as Section 702 and passed in 2008 — sought to legalize the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance efforts. The 2008 law permitted intelligence officials to conduct surveillance on the communications of “non-U.S. persons,” when at least one party on a call, text or email is “reasonably believed” to be outside of the United States. Government officials conducting such surveillance no longer have to acquire a warrant from the so-called FISA Court specifying the name of an individual under surveillance. And only a “significant purpose” of the surveillance has to be the acquisition of “foreign intelligence,” a weaker standard than before 2008.

Wyden says that the government’s use of the expanded surveillance authorities “has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law” — a conclusion that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence does not endorse. 

The office does not challenge the statement about the FISA Court on at least one occasion finding the surveillance to conflict with the Fourth Amendment. Danger Room initially misunderstood the letter to mean that its author, top intelligence official Kathleen Turner, made the statements she was merely informing Wyden he could to issue publicly without revealing classified information.

But this is a far cry from how Director of National Intelligence James Clapper typically describes the new FISA law. When the law was up for reauthorization this spring, Clapper wrote to congressional leaders to say its renewal was his “top priority in Congress,” (.pdf) as the law “allows the Intelligence Community to collect vital information about international terrorists and other important targets overseas while providing robust protection for the civil liberties and privacy of Americans.”

Suspicions about abuse of the government’s new surveillance powers are almost as old as the 2008 expansion of the law. In 2009, citing anonymous sources, the New York Times reported that “the N.S.A. had been engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic,” if unintentional. The Justice Department told the Times that it had already resolved the problem.

But as the American Civil Liberties Union noted in a May letter to lawmakers, “There is little in the public record about how the government implements” the expanded law. An ACLU Freedom of Information Act request discovered that the Justice Department and intelligence bureaucracy refer to “compliance incidents” (.pdf) in their internal accounting of the new surveillance — which seemed to suggest difficulty staying within the broadened boundaries of the law. (Full disclosure: My wife works for the ACLU.)

Wyden has been a lonely congressional voice against renewing the government’s broadened surveillance powers. Last month, he quietly used a parliamentary maneuver to stall the renewal after it passed a key Senate committee.

Wyden’s argument was that the government had not fully disclosed the extent of its new surveillance powers. 

It argued to Wyden that it is “not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority of the [FISA Amendments Act].” Separately, the National Security Agency insisted that it would violate Americans’ privacy even to tally up how many Americans it had spied upon under the new law.

[...]

Democracy is the Enemy: here's one reason

Sheldon Adelson gave half of June donations to pro-Romney super PAC

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/casino-magnate-sheldon-adelson-gave-half-june-donations-210441246.html

by Chris Moody

Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney's campaign for president, raised about $20 million in June, more than three times the amount pulled in by the main super PAC behind President Barack Obama's re-election bid.

Just under half of the donations came from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, who each donated $5 million apiece to the effort.

The group also received gifts of $1 million or more from a handful of sources, including Boston-based private equity leader John W. Childs, Texas-based real estate investor Harlan Crow and businessman Bill Koch. 

Foster Friess, who supported former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's Republican primary bid, gave $200,000.

So far this calendar year, Restore Our Future has raised $52 million and has $23 million left in cash on hand, according to financial disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission Friday. The June haul is a significant boost from May, when the group raised $4.9 million.

Priorities USA Action, which supports Obama, took in $6.1 million in the same month.

Welcome to the Anthropocene

Welcome to the Anthropocene from WelcomeAnthropocene on Vimeo.

We Need Centralization without Totalitarianism: here’s one reason

http://climatepolitics.wordpress.com/

by Johannes Urpelainen, Ph,D.

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled “Expertise and Credibility in Climate Change,” reports the results of an analysis of the expertise of climate scientists. The results are not particularly surprising:

1) Among scholars who publish regularly on climate, an overwhelming majority accept anthropogenic global warming.

2) Most of the scholars who contest anthropogenic global warming have a less credible scientific record than those who accept.

While this should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the debate on climate science, I doubt it will convince the skeptical public. 

The reason is that in addition to the most obvious interpretation of these facts — scientific expertise leads individual scholars to accept the strong evidence for climate change — alternative "theories" may resonate with skeptics:

1) Perhaps skeptics are systematically not allowed to publish in journals, so that they seem less experienced than other scholars?

2) Perhaps the public pressure to accept anthropogenic global warming is particularly heavy among top scientists?

3) Perhaps the authors of the study are themselves supporters of anthropogenic global warming, and thus use data selectively to make their case?

This brings us to the deeper problem with climate science and the media: it does not matter much how credible the evidence for climate change is, as long as influential special interests continue to benefit  from  contesting it. Almost any fact regarding the credibility of climate science can be explained away using a conspiracy theory, and individuals who are already inclined towards rejecting science are probably also inclined towards accepting such conspiracy theories. Thus, deeper institutional changes may be necessary to improve the public understanding of climate science.

Adding Iron to Ocean Would Backfire, Study Suggests

By Charles Q. Choi

http://www.livescience.com/11112-adding-iron-ocean-backfire-algae-study-suggests.html

Fertilizing the oceans with iron — a tactic that "geoengineers" have proposed to fight global warming — could inadvertently spur the growth of toxic microbes, warn scientists who analyzed water samples from past iron-fertilization experiments.

Toxin-producing algae that thrive on iron and can contaminate marine life are more widespread than suspected, the researchers said.  The finding could impact proposed iron-fertilization projects.

"This work definitely reveals a wrinkle in those plans," said researcher Kenneth Coale, director of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California.  "It is much easier to break an ecosystem than it is to fix one."

To combat rising levels of carbon dioxide — a "greenhouse gas" that traps heat from the sun — some researchers have suggested seeding the oceans with iron. That, they say, would help spur the growth of the marine plants known as phytoplankton that naturally suck carbon dioxide from the air. [Should We Geoengineer Earth's Climate?]

However, recent findings suggest that even a massive phytoplankton bloom would result in only a modest intake of carbon dioxide. Now Coale and fellow researcher Mary Silver find that iron-fertilization projects could also trigger rapid growth of harmful algae.

"Large areas of the ocean have very little iron in them — that's why the waters there are so clear and blue, because these plants can't live there to cloud the waters," said  Silver, a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It's the same as you see with plants in a garden — if they don't have enough nitrogen and phosphorus, they can't grow. If these ocean plants don't have any iron, they can't grow."

Algae known as Pseudo-nitschia generate toxic domoic acid. These diatoms occur regularly in coastal waters, and when their populations boom, the toxin can contaminate marine wildlife, poisoning the birds and marine mammals that feed on polluted fish, and closing shellfish and sardine fisheries.

These algae were once thought limited to coastal waters. Now researchers find they are common in the open sea as well.

"There was nothing in the science journals suggesting that such toxin-producing algae are so widespread in the open sea, nor documenting that they can get very abundant," Silver told LiveScience.

Normally, Pseudo-nitschia cells are sparse in the high seas, "so they don't have much effect," Silver said. "But these species are incredibly responsive to iron, often becoming dominant in algal blooms that result from iron fertilization. Any iron input might cause a bloom of the cells that make the toxin."

In 2007, on a research cruise to study iron chemistry in the Gulf of Alaska, Silver and her colleagues often discovered Pseudo-nitschia in samples collected at sea. Analyses back in the lab revealed the associated toxin was present, too.

Silver then teamed up with Coale to analyze old water samples collected during two iron-fertilization experiments conducted in 1995 and 2002.

"We thought the toxin would have broken down, but it was still there," Silver said.

The researchers also investigated water samples from three expeditions in the North Pacific independent from the iron-fertilization experiments. Their analysis indicated that waters throughout the Pacific naturally contain Pseudo-nitschia linked with neurotoxin.

Oceanic blooms of this algae probably occur due to iron deposited by volcanic eruptions, dust storms and other airborne sources, Silver said.

"It is a natural phenomenon and likely has been for millions of years," Silver said. "But those are sporadic occurrences. To do iron enrichment on a large scale could be dangerous, because, if it causes blooms of Pseudo-nitschia, the toxin might get into the food chain, as it does in the coastal zone."

"We should have viable strategies to remove carbon from the atmosphere," Coale told LiveScience. "Iron fertilization is still one option in our toolbox, but now the label on the box must read, 'Caution, may produce harmful algal blooms.'"

The scientists detailed their findings online Nov. 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Big changes coming 20-30 years from now; here's one reason

My fellow Americans: WAKE UP!

Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs

By JASON DePARLE

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?_r=1

WASHINGTON — Benjamin Franklin did it. Henry Ford did it. And American life is built on the faith that others can do it, too: rise from humble origins to economic heights. “Movin’ on up,” George Jefferson-style, is not only a sitcom song but a civil religion.

But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement “up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.” 

National Review, a conservative thought leader, wrote that “most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility.” Even Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who argues that overall mobility remains high, recently wrote that “mobility from the very bottom up” is “where the United States lags behind.”

Liberal commentators have long emphasized class, but the attention on the right is largely new.

“It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much mobility as most other advanced countries,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.”

One reason for the mobility gap may be the depth of American poverty, which leaves poor children starting especially far behind. Another may be the unusually large premiums that American employers pay for college degrees. Since children generally follow their parents’ educational trajectory, that premium increases the importance of family background and stymies people with less schooling.

At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.

Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.

Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.

By emphasizing the influence of family background, the studies not only challenge American identity but speak to the debate about inequality. While liberals often complain that the United States has unusually large income gaps, many conservatives have argued that the system is fair because mobility is especially high, too: everyone can climb the ladder. Now the evidence suggests that America is not only less equal, but also less mobile.

John Bridgeland, a former aide to President George W. Bush who helped start Opportunity Nation, an effort to seek policy solutions, said he was “shocked” by the international comparisons. “Republicans will not feel compelled to talk about income inequality,” Mr. Bridgeland said. “But they will feel a need to talk about a lack of mobility — a lack of access to the American Dream.”

While Europe differs from the United States in culture and demographics, a more telling comparison may be with Canada, a neighbor with significant ethnic diversity. Miles Corak, an economist at the University of Ottawa, found that just 16 percent of Canadian men raised in the bottom tenth of incomes stayed there as adults, compared with 22 percent of Americans. Similarly, 26 percent of American men raised at the top tenth stayed there, but just 18 percent of Canadians.

“Family background plays more of a role in the U.S. than in most comparable countries,” Professor Corak said in an interview.

Skeptics caution that the studies measure “relative mobility” — how likely children are to move from their parents’ place in the income distribution. That is different from asking whether they have more money. Most Americans have higher incomes than their parents because the country has grown richer.

Some conservatives say this measure, called absolute mobility, is a better gauge of opportunity. A Pew study found that 81 percent of Americans have higher incomes than their parents (after accounting for family size). There is no comparable data on other countries.

Since they require two generations of data, the studies also omit immigrants, whose upward movement has long been considered an American strength. “If America is so poor in economic mobility, maybe someone should tell all these people who still want to come to the U.S.,” said Stuart M. Butler, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

The income compression in rival countries may also make them seem more mobile. Reihan Salam, a writer for The Daily and National Review Online, has calculated that a Danish family can move from the 10th percentile to the 90th percentile with $45,000 of additional earnings, while an American family would need an additional $93,000.

Even by measures of relative mobility, Middle America remains fluid. About 36 percent of Americans raised in the middle fifth move up as adults, while 23 percent stay on the same rung and 41 percent move down, according to Pew research. The “stickiness” appears at the top and bottom, as affluent families transmit their advantages and poor families stay trapped.

While Americans have boasted of casting off class since Poor Richard’s Almanac, until recently there has been little data.

Pioneering work in the early 1980s by Gary S. Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, found only a mild relationship between fathers’ earnings and those of their sons. But when better data became available a decade later, another prominent economist, Gary Solon, found the bond twice as strong. Most researchers now estimate the “elasticity” of father-son earnings at 0.5, which means that for every 1 percent increase in a father’s income, his sons’ income can be expected to increase by about 0.5 percent.

In 2006 Professor Corak reviewed more than 50 studies of nine countries. He ranked Canada, Norway, Finland and Denmark as the most mobile, with the United States and Britain roughly tied at the other extreme. Sweden, Germany, and France were scattered across the middle.

The causes of America’s mobility problem are a topic of dispute — starting with the debates over poverty. 

The United States maintains a thinner safety net than other rich countries, leaving more children vulnerable to debilitating hardships.

Poor Americans are also more likely than foreign peers to grow up with single mothers. That places them at an elevated risk of experiencing poverty and related problems, a point frequently made by Mr. Santorum, who surged into contention in the Iowa caucuses. The United States also has uniquely high incarceration rates, and a longer history of racial stratification than its peers.

“The bottom fifth in the U.S. looks very different from the bottom fifth in other countries,” said Scott Winship, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, who wrote the article for National Review. “Poor Americans have to work their way up from a lower floor.”

A second distinguishing American trait is the pay tilt toward educated workers. While in theory that could help poor children rise — good learners can become high earners — more often it favors the children of the educated and affluent, who have access to better schools and arrive in them more prepared to learn.

“Upper-income families can invest more in their children’s education and they may have a better understanding of what it takes to get a good education,” said Eric Wanner, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, which gives grants to social scientists.

The United States is also less unionized than many of its peers, which may lower wages among the least skilled, and has public health problems, like obesity and diabetes, which can limit education and employment.

Perhaps another brake on American mobility is the sheer magnitude of the gaps between rich and the rest — the theme of the Occupy Wall Street protests, which emphasize the power of the privileged to protect their interests. Countries with less equality generally have less mobility.

Mr. Salam recently wrote that relative mobility “is overrated as a social policy goal” compared with raising incomes across the board. Parents naturally try to help their children, and a completely mobile society would mean complete insecurity: anyone could tumble any time.

But he finds the stagnation at the bottom alarming and warns that it will worsen. Most of the studies end with people born before 1970, while wage gaps, single motherhood and incarceration increased later. Until more recent data arrives, he said, “we don’t know the half of it.”