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Come To Guantanamo & See The Iguanas: Snowden Files Offer Glimpse Inside NSA Culture

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Water skiing in the morning, supervising the torture of a prisoner of the global war on terror in the afternoon — that’s just a typical day for National Security Agency personnel.

That’s one of the many glimpses of National Security Agency life found in newly released documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks, which reveal the NSA’s intimate involvement with Guantanamo Bay interrogations and the Iraq War, as well as the dramatically increased demand for intelligence after 9/11.

On May 16, The Intercept released 166 new documents from the thousands leaked by Snowden, comprising a partial archive of an internal electronic newsletter called SIDtoday.

In an introduction to the release, Peter Maass describes the publication as resembling a “small-town newsletter” for the Signals Intelligence Directorate, one of the most important departments within the NSA. SIDtoday opens a window into the NSA’s internal corporate culture, and because they were written purely for NSA employees, the documents include some surprisingly candid disclosures about employees’ actions around the world from an underground bunker in Belgium to Guantanamo Bay and the Middle East.

Inside The Fight To Protect Face-To-Face Visitation For Prisoners

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Establishment

When you’re behind bars, “there’s something psychologically uplifting about knowing someone is coming to visit you,” Jorge Renaud explained.

Renaud is an organizer with Grassroots Leadership and Texas Advocates for Justice who spoke with me by phone from Austin, Texas. He told me that unless you’ve been incarcerated, you can’t understand the emotional impact of a visit from a friend or loved one. His voice vibrated with emotion as he recalled those desperately needed visits, his tone expressing more than words could say.

This crucial connection with the outside world is endangered around the country, as more and more prisons and jails install video visitation systems. While the technology theoretically offers a new way to connect with prisoners—for those who can afford it—jails across the nation are also doing away with in-person visitation entirely, in favor of relying exclusively on these video visitations.

Maryland’s Green Party Senate Candidate Says It’s Time To ‘Build A Political Alternative’

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

A pediatrician and activist from Maryland who’s running for the U.S. Senate says it’s time for Americans to demand a voice in government.

“This seems like a really important time to start to build a political alternative that’s the opposite of what the two corporate parties are,” Margaret Flowers told MintPress News.

In January, a Gallup poll showed that fewer Americans identify with either major political party than at almost any other time in history. And voters seem increasingly interested in third-party candidates, with Google searches for both Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party seeing a marked increase in recent months.

“The Democratic and Republican parties are dying. They’re at the smallest stage that they’ve ever been and the majority of people are rejecting them, becoming independent or becoming members of other parties,” Flowers, who also occasionally contributes analysis and reporting to MintPress, said.

UPDATE: Uber & Lyft Cease Operations In Austin After Voters Reject Record-Breaking Electoral Campaign

Posted in Archive, Austin, Journalism, and MintPress News

Two big corporations with almost limitless bank accounts are bent on circumventing local law by buying a municipal election, according to their opponents.

Facing new regulations from the Austin City Council, Uber and Lyft, the popular ride-booking apps, brought the battle to the ballot box, launching a campaign to pass Proposition 1. Both drivers and paid petitioners canvassed widely for the issue last year, collecting thousands of signatures in order to trigger the election.

Based on the most recent electoral filings, Uber and Lyft have sunk over $8 million into Ridesharing Works For Austin, their joint PAC urging voters to vote in favor of Prop 1, the sole item on the ballot in the special election. By contrast, two smaller PACs opposed to the resolution, Our City Our Safety Our Choice PAC and Austin Unites, have raised less than $100,000 combined.

The election comes after months of negotiations between the City Council and the corporations, according toDelia Garza, a City Council member from Austin’s District 2. “Every time we tried to solve an issue they’d bring up, they’d move the ball,” she told MintPress News.

Forget Panama: Why Corporations And The Rich Love US Tax Havens

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The Panama Papers, a massive leak of secret financial data relating to the use of overseas tax havens, cast an uncomfortable spotlight on many political figures and world governments.

However, the 11.5 million documents contain few American names or corporations, leading some to speculate that the documents had been censored before release.

While Mossack Fonseca, the secretive “boutique” law firm that created the hundreds of offshore shell corporations revealed in the leak, may have simply served a primarily European clientele, there’s another reason that few American corporations have been found in the files: When a U.S. company wants to hide its earnings, it’s easier to create a tax shelter at home than to take its business abroad.

Several states, including Nevada, Delaware, and Wyoming, have corporate tax laws so lenient, they are effectively domestic tax havens. In these states, “it’s possible to create these shell corporations with virtually no questions asked,” said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington-based nonprofit, in a recent interview with The New York Times’ Patricia Cohen.

While shell corporations may have legal uses, they are most often used for “cloaking wrongdoing” from public and governmental scrutiny. Gardner described to Cohen that, “Aside from avoiding taxes, shell companies are routinely used by terrorist organizations to hide assets, by political donors to sidestep campaign finance laws and by criminals to launder money.”

The First Amendment Hasn’t Stopped Police From Harassing Copwatchers

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and Truthout

At a protest in downtown Denver, on April 29, 2015, a police officer stole Jessica Benn’s smartphone.

Benn had been filming her husband, Jesse, from the safety of the sidewalk as police arrested him. That was enough for her to be targeted and to have her property illegally seized.

“An officer just stepped up to me and grabbed it right out of my hand,” she told Truthout. “Right behind him was an officer in SWAT gear who then took me and pushed me up against a bus with a baton across my neck and held me there.”

Benn grew increasingly alarmed as the officer ignored her questions.

“It was very chaotic, people were yelling and getting arrested all around us, and the nature of the arrests were very violent. So at that point I was concerned about my safety and I told this officer that I was pregnant and could he please not hurt my stomach.”