PressTV: ‘US experiencing significant uprising’
October 7, 2011
Guardian: Israel government ‘reckless and irresponsible’ says ex-Mossad chief
June 3, 2011
Meir Dagan attacks Binyamin Netanyahu for aggression towards Iran, and for failing to make any progress with the Palestinians
The former head of Israel’s spy service has launched an unprecedented attack on the country’s current government, describing it as “irresponsible and reckless”, and has praised Arab attempts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Meir Dagan stepped down as the head of Mossad six months ago but has gone on the offensive in a series of briefings with journalists and public appearances because he feels that Israel’s security is being mismanaged by Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister.
One newspaper quotes him as saying that he, as head of Mossad, Yuval Diskin, the head of Sin Bet – the internal security agency, and Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the army, could prevent Netanyahu and Barak from making mistakes but all three have left their positions and have been replaced by men chosen by the current government.
“I decided to speak because when I was in office, Diskin, Ashkenazi and I could block any dangerous adventure. Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi [Netanyahu] and Barak,” said Dagan.
Upon leaving his post, Dagan publicly warned against Israel attacking Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In his latest comments, he said that if Israel attacks Iran, it will find itself at the centre of a regional war that would endanger the state’s existence. Dagan’s intervention is dangerous for Netanyahu because it comes from the right wing of Israeli opinion rather than the left, where the prime minister would expect criticism.
Dagan has been in charge of aggressive Israeli actions abroad in recent years, that have included assassinations in Lebanon, Syria and Dubai and an air attack on a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria. He also criticised Israel’s failure to offer any initiative to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians .
The absence of any workable plan, he said, will leave Israel in a dangerous and weak situation if the Palestinians push for UN recognition of a state later this year.
Dagan also endorsed Saudi Arabia’s peace plan which offered Israel normal relations with all Arab countries if it reaches a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Leading columnist Ari Shavit summarised Dagan’s point of view in the Ha’aretz newspaper: “Dagan is extremely concerned about September 2011. He is not afraid that tens of thousands of demonstrators may overrun the settlements. He is afraid that Israel’s subsequent isolation will push its leaders to the wall and cause them to take reckless action against Iran.”
Ben Caspit of the Maariv newspaper wrote: “He is one of the most rightwing militant people ever born here … who ate Arabs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“When this man says that the leadership has no vision and is irresponsible, we should stop sleeping soundly at night.”
Dagan was quoted in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth describing Netanyahu and Barak as “irresponsible and reckless individuals”.
Dagan’s criticism of Netanyahu comes when the prime minister is enjoying popular support following his trip to Washington and his speech to Congress.
Opinion polls suggest that Netanyahu has a nine-point lead over his nearest challenger and his Likud party is the most popular in the country.
Full Story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/03/israel-government-reckless-mossad-chief
NPR: Inside The United States’ Secret Sabotage Of Iran
May 9, 2011
First in a three-part series
For years, the United States has been trying to stop Iran’s nuclear program and change what it says is Iran’s bad behavior in the Middle East and beyond.
The United States has used economic sanctions, censure by the United Nations, diplomatic engagement and the threat of military action to accomplish these goals — all with little or no success.
At the same time, other, unacknowledged activities have been under way. They have included cyberattacks, assassinations and defections. As it turns out, these efforts have had some success.
‘A Covert War’
Covert action is meant to stay just that — covert, clandestine, in the shadows.
And in Iran, it did, for quite some time. But in the last year, much has become known about intelligence operations in Iran, says Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who is now an analyst with the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.
“There’s little doubt that there’s a covert war under way against Iran,” he says. “There are at least two players in it: the United States and Israel.”
And often, it appears, those players work together.
That was especially true with the Stuxnet worm. The computer virus, apparently developed in Israel with the help of the CIA, was launched in 2009. Sometime the following year, the worm found its way into the computers that control Iran’s most important nuclear facility, the uranium enrichment operation at Natanz.
The worm told the gas centrifuges that enrich uranium to spin too fast. Many broke and destroyed other centrifuges — nearly a thousand of them.
The impact of the worm spread even wider, says Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California who writes for the website Tehran Bureau.
“In fact, not only it destroyed a thousand centrifuges at Natanz — it also forced the government to actually shut down the enrichment facility for a few days,” Sahimi says.
That was last year. Computer security companies got wind of it, in part because it may also have affected companies and equipment outside of Iran. And the story became public.
Other Viruses On The Way?
Computer security experts believe the original worm was programmed to mount multiple attacks. That may have occurred, but only up to a point, says David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
“This idea of multiple destruction was built into the planning of the program, and Iran thwarted it just by the simplest of steps — which is panic and shut down everything until you get a sense of what’s going on,” he says.
Iran may have had to buy new computers to replace those that were affected, and it can’t be sure that new computers won’t be sabotaged.
In fact, nothing that Iran buys on the international market that could be used in its nuclear program is safe from sabotage, Sahimi says.
“To say the least, probably the uncertainty whether there is a virus somewhere that they haven’t detected, that causes a lot of problems for them,” he says.
Sabotaging Equipment
Among those problems, the Russians who are finishing the Bushehr nuclear reactor — Iran’s first — stopped their work to ascertain whether it had been infected with the worm.
And this worm isn’t the first instance of sabotage, Albright says.
“It’s one of many efforts that I think are under way to try to constrain Iran from being able to basically, in a sense, either outfit its centrifuge program or to try to actively disrupt it and break things,” he says.
Among the parts of the centrifuges that have been sabotaged, according to Albright, are motors and vacuum pumps. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered equipment at Iran’s nuclear facilities that had passed through one of the U.S. national laboratories, Albright says.
“So you had a case where the U.S. government, at least, what it was doing was buying equipment on the open market and apparently modifying it in some way,” he says.
Then the equipment was apparently delivered to front companies that in turn sold it to Iran.
It could have been used for sabotage, or if it was bugged equipment, it could provide information on the location of secret nuclear facilities in Iran.
Building Paranoia
In any case, Iran’s leaders are certainly worried about what they might face next, says Riedel of the Brookings Institution.
“One of the benefits of these kind of programs is that over time it builds paranoia and fear inside the Iranian nuclear program — that they have to be extremely careful that anything they buy may turn out to be a self-destructive pill once it’s ingested inside the Iranian program,” Riedel says.
In fact, just last week, one of Iran’s key nuclear officials disclosed that another computer virus had hit Iran.
The Iranians are calling it the “Stars” virus. They say they have taken care of it.
So far its existence has not been confirmed by computer security specialists outside of Iran. Nevertheless, the effort to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, through cyberattacks or other methods, is certain to continue.
Full Story: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/135854490/inside-the-united-states-secret-sabotage-of-iran
NPR: Hamas Foreign Minister: We Accept Two-State Solution With ’67 Borders
May 17, 2011
Hamas’ Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad told NPR’s Robert Siegel that the Islamic political party has accepted a two-state solution that respects the 1967 borders.
Robert asked Hamad in a very straight forward way: “If Israel were to accept a two-state solution in which Palestine would be in Gaza and the West Bank and have its capital in Jerusalem, is that an acceptable aim that Hamas is striving for or is that in and of itself insufficient because there would still be a state of Israel?”
“Look, we said, frankly, we accept the state and ’67 borders. This was mentioned many times and we repeated many times,” said Hamad.
In an analysis piece by the Associated Press, they point out that Hamas’ more moderate stance may be genuine:
Both Hamas officials and outside analysts say the group has learned some bitter lessons during its four years in power in Gaza. The impression is that Israel’s blockade, which caused widespread hardship in the crowded territory, a blistering Israeli military offensive two years ago and the uprisings throughout the Arab world have all factored into its thinking.
Hani Masri, a Palestinian commentator who sometimes mediates between Hamas and its secular rival, Fatah, said Hamas realized that to lead the Palestinians, it needs “acceptance by the international community, particularly the West.”
In his interview with Robert, Hamad did criticize Israel. He said the ball is now in its court and it needs to decide whether it’s willing to accept a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem and whether it’s willing to “evict” its settlers in Palestinian territory.
“We are just fighting against occupation,” Hamad said. “We are figting to liberate our homeland. This our ambition.”
New York Times: Obama Sees ’67 Borders as Starting Point for Peace Deal
May 19, 2011
President Obama, seeking to capture a moment of epochal change in the Arab world, began a new effort on Thursday to break the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, setting out a new starting point for negotiations on the region’s most intractable problem.
A day before the arrival in Washington of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Obama declared that the prevailing borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — adjusted to some degree to account for Israeli settlements in the West Bank — should be the basis of a deal. While the 1967 borders have long been viewed as the foundation for a peace agreement, Mr. Obama’s formula of land swaps to compensate for disputed territory created a new benchmark for a diplomatic solution.
Mr. Obama’s statement represented a subtle, but significant shift, in American policy. And it thrust him back into the region’s most nettlesome dispute at a time when conditions would seem to make reaching a deal especially difficult.
The Israeli government immediately protested, saying that for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders would leave it “indefensible.” Mr. Netanyahu held an angry phone conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday before the speech, officials said, in which he demanded that the president’s reference to 1967 borders be cut.
Israeli officials continued to lobby the administration until right before Mr. Obama arrived at the State Department for the address. White House officials said he did not alter anything under Israeli pressure, though the president made changes in the text that delayed his appearance by 35 minutes.
Mr. Obama’s reference to Israel’s borders came toward the end of a somber, 45-minute address that sought to articulate an overarching framework for the disparate American responses to the Arab Spring, which has taken a dark turn as the euphoria of popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt has given way to violent crackdowns in Bahrain and Syria, a civil war in Libya and political stalemate in Yemen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/middleeast/20speech.html?_r=1&hp
The Vancouver Sun: Israeli journalist visiting Vancouver has tough words for home country
September 27, 2011
Salon: America has become a corporate police state
June 2, 2011
“Corporate Police State,” it’s a fraught — some might even say, overwrought — term. But in its purest, apolitical form, it simply describes the periodic commingling of state and corporate power to protect private interests.
In the American psyche, any discussion of that phenomenon typically brings one of three images to mind. There’s the Old Corporate Police State — the sepia-toned America of decades long past, a place where state militias murder striking mine workers on behalf of Gilded Age barons and Congress empowers the government to forcibly ban work stoppages that defy corporate executives’ wishes. There’s the Fictional Future Corporate Police State — that smoldering bombed-out world depicted in “Robocop,” “Fortress” and every other dystopian flick in Hollywood’s post-apocalyptic catalog. And there’s the Foreign Corporate Police State — think Dubai, Singapore, Monaco and every other lavish enclave defined by lots of rich people, lots of corporate headquarters, lots of heavily armed cops — and almost no civil liberties.
By imagining the Corporate Police State primarily as a historical, fictional or foreign monster, these snapshots encourage us to believe that this monster poses no threat to us in the here and now. They encourage us, in other words, to ignore the monster’s creeping advances in present-day America.
In just the last few years, the Corporate Police State has reared its head at every level of government.
States and municipalities, for instance, have toughened criminal penalties and immigration laws at the behest of the private prison industry; empowered Wall Street banks to not only collect taxes but levy additional tax penalties; and allowed energy companies to exploit so-called forced pooling statutes, thereby creating what one Republican governor calls a new power of “private eminent domain.” One state is now even considering making it a criminal act to share your Netflix password with friends and family, because that is cutting into Netflix revenues.
In Washington, D.C., the federal government just enacted a healthcare bill whose individual mandate forces citizens to purchase private insurance, and the Pentagon has developed a reliable pattern of using military power to occupy resource-rich countries — and then to privatize those resources at the barrel of a gun.
This same government, which has granted corporations the rights of “personhood,” has also used its power to let corporations avoid the responsibilities of personhood — effectively using state power to create a new privileged status that is above the law. For instance, federal statutes have trampled the concept of “equal protection” by deliberately exempting corporate interests from the laws the rest of us live under — laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act (which doesn’t apply to natural gas drillers) and antitrust statutes (which still don’t apply to private health insurers). Federal courts have used judicial power to limit corporations’ legal and financial liability for fraud and lawbreaking.
This modern Corporate Police State differs from what we call “corporatism” in that it is not merely about funneling public dollars to private interests à la the Wall Street bailout. Indeed, this new monster has bigger goals than the occasional bailout. It is all about using the government’s position as society’s supreme rule maker and law enforcer to create a fully- functioning corporate state — one that doesn’t just channel police power into crushing the occasional protest, but constructs an entire legal and military framework around preserving and expanding private profit. And, as we’re now seeing, that includes a radical reimagining of the U.S. Constitution.
Last month in California, the Los Angeles Times reported that “the recording industry is pushing California’s lawmakers to approve legislation that would allow warrantless searches of companies that press copies of compact discs and DVDs.” The Democratic bill, which includes no “standard for suspecting that counterfeiting is occurring,” would “give law enforcement officials the power to enter manufacturing plants without notice or court orders.” As one legal expert told the Times: “We have the 4th Amendment that generally requires probable cause (and) this is a huge exception” — that’s right, a huge potentially precedent-setting exception designed not for national security or the common good, but for protecting private corporations’ profit.
Likewise, at the federal level, the New York Times this week reported that the FBI, wielding the Fourth Amendment-trampling Patriot Act, targeted a peaceful political activist with three years’ worth of round-the-clock surveillance. What caught Big Brother’s watchful eye? Was the activist cavorting with al-Qaida? Was he conspiring to commit mass murder? No, the Times reports that the FBI deployed its “anti-terrorism” apparatus specifically because the activist participated in a protest against Exxon Mobil — aka the Most Profitable Corporation in the World. And in case you thought that was an “isolated incident,” this revelation comes just a few years after the ACLU discovered that other similar “anti-terrorism” surveillance efforts have been aimed at animal rights and environmental activists who wage protests against private agribusiness and energy interests.
Meanwhile, in the wake of a cyberattack on private military contractor Lockheed Martin, the Wall Street Journal this week reported that the Pentagon may begin classifying cyberattacks that impact “commerce” (read: corporate profit) as official “acts of war” meriting military retaliation — no doubt, sans constitutionally mandated congressional authorization in this age of extra-constitutional power grabs. Yes, hackers who infiltrate, say, an energy company’s mainframe won’t just face prosecution anymore. Instead, as a military official boasted to the Journal: “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”
Granted, in outward appearance, this Corporate Police State still resembles the America we’ve come to know and love. It doesn’t yet look like the Ludlow Massacre, Abu Dhabi or post-apocalyptic Detroit under the iron fist of Omni Consumer Products.
But the operative word is “yet.”
Slate: Tennessee Makes Sharing Netflix Login a Crime
June 2, 2011
Starting next month it will be a crime in Tennessee to use a friend’s login to live-stream a movie from Netflix, even if that friend gives you permission to do so.
That’s because state lawmakers passed a new law this week that makes the state the first in the nation to make it illegal to use someone else’s subscription to online entertainment services like the on-demand video site, the Associated Press reports. The scope of the law, which will go into effect on July 1, remains unclear, but it also appears to extend to music sites like Rhapsody and other Internet media services.
The AP notes that the bill was aimed at computer hackers who sell passwords in bulk, and not necessarily others who simply share their password with a friend, relative or roommate. Nevertheless, the law makes the sharing of login information a crime that can result in jail time for anyone who violates it.
Under the law, stealing $500 or less worth of entertainment would be a misdemeanor that is punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of $2,500. Those who use stolen or borrowed logins to gain access to more than that would face a felony charge. It remains unclear how the cost of the stolen goods is calculated.
Backers of the law say that it is unlikely that police will go after Tennesseans who share their username with a friend or family member they share a house with, but it appears as though the law sets up a slippery slope for prosecution.
“What becomes not legal is if you send your resume and password to all your friends so they can get free subscriptions,” said Rep. Gerald McCormick, one of the bill’s sponsors.
The measure technically expands an existing law on the books used to prosecute people who steal cable television or leave restaurants without paying their tabs. But by adding “entertainment subscription service” to the list of things protected by that law, critics say the law could be used to go after people who share health club memberships or even magazine subscriptions.
Examiner: New car purchases starting in June will have a mandatory black box installed
May 25th, 2011
Beginning in June of 2011, all new cars manufactured and sold in the United States will be required to have a mandated black box device installed, which can be used to monitor several different physical and technical date points.
On May 24th, a report on the new regulatations to be implemented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) next month expands the program that in February was just in a consideration phase.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is expected to issue new regulations next month, that will require a black box style data recorder be fitted in all new cars.
Similar in concept to the familiar black boxes used in commercial aircraft for decades, the boxes are expected to record information about speed, seat belt use and brake application in the final seconds leading up to an accident, the data can be retrieved for later analysis. – Dvice.com
The installation and use of these black boxes can have infinite possibilities for local, state, and federal governments to monitor and record data for a number of other revenue programs that are currently under consideration. In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a proposal to institute a tax on mileage to help pay for the federal budget deficit. Additionally, local cities and counties can download information from these black boxes, and they can be used to issue driving citations after the fact in the case of speeding or not wearing a seat belt.
While the concept of installing a black box in new automobiles has several good points in assisting law enforcement and emergency services as to the location and circumstances of an accident or road emergency, policies currently underway by many municipalities and states show that public safety personnel are now being used more as revenue collectors than as first responders to incidents as they occur.
In addition, current mobile devices outside the automobile black box such as androids and tom-toms are being used by law enforcement to retrieve data on customer travel.
That’s a theoretical problem, a real problem is the fact that the data is being used to setup police revenue sources such as speed cameras. A Dutch firm has openly admitted that they use TomTom customer data to setup speed traps. So this anonymized data is actually being used to cost you money for something that isn’t actually dangerous as currently implemented (in other words speed limits aren’t actually a safety limit but an arbitrarily selected number). – blog.christopherburg.com
Selling the public on safety for new policies and provisions, while using the programs to create new revenue streams is becoming more the norm than simply isolated incidents. When the tax on cigarettes became enlarged under the guise of helping users stop the addiction, expanding the tax soon turned into the first concession by local legislatures when they needed new money for programs. Add to this, the creation of red-light and speed devices on local streets and highways to monitor safety quickly became massive revenue streams for municipalities.
With mandatory black boxes being installed in all new cars sold in the US starting next month, the public needs to be aware of the potential these devices can have as means to collect revenue for states and the federal government outside the reported use by the NHTSA as a safety device.
Huffington Post: Congress to Palestinians: Drop Dead
May 24, 2011
If anyone had any doubt about whether the Palestinians would declare a state in September, they can’t have them now.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to Congress that essentially was a series of insults to Palestinians and every insult was met by applause and standing ovations.
In fact, Netanyahu’s appearance itself was an insult.
In the entire history of the United States, only four foreign leaders have addressed joint sessions of Congress more than once.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, America’s great ally, addressed Congress three times during World War II. President Nelson Mandela was honored for destroying apartheid and freeing South Africa. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was recognized for opening negotiations with the Palestinian people.
And now Netanyahu. For what?
In his entire term in office he has done nothing but reject every request by the United States that he take some action (like freezing settlements) to promote Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In the history of Israel, there has been no prime minister as hardline on Palestinian rights and as indifferent to the wishes of the United States as Netanyahu.
So why was he invited to address a rare joint session?
He was invited because the new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives wanted to demonstrate, loudly and clearly, that Congress will not support President Barak Obama in the event that he tries to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
And that is exactly what the Netanyahu appearance today did demonstrate. The prime minister unambiguously stated that he had no intention of making peace with the Palestinians.
He began by saying that, in point of fact, there is no occupation, stating, that “in Judea and Samaria [the term Israeli right-wingers use for the West Bank], Israelis are not foreign occupiers” but the native inhabitants. (He cited Abraham and Isaiah from the Bible!)
He said he might consider giving up some of that land but not an inch of Jerusalem. Additionally, he said that Israel would retain most settlements and insist on a military presence in the Jordan Valley (thereby ensuring the any State of Palestine would be locked in on both sides by Israel).
He said that Israel would never negotiate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas, whether democratically elected or not. He declared that not a single Palestinian would be allowed to return to Israel; not even a symbolic return would be acceptable to him.
There is little reason to elaborate. Netanyahu today essentially returned to the policies that Israel pursued before Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat agreed on mutual recognition and the joint pursuit of peace.
And the worst part is not the appalling things Netanyahu said, but how Congress received them. Even Netanyahu’s declaration that there is no Israeli occupation was met with thunderous applause with the Democrats joining the Republicans in ecstatic support. Every Netanyahu statement, no matter how extreme, was met with cheers.
Netanyahu was also applauded wildly when he invoked Palestinian terrorism over and over again, even seeming to lump his former “partner,” President Mahmoud Abbas with people who “educate their children to hate, {who} continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.”
His bottom line, which Congress fully bought, was that all Palestinians are terrorists who haven’t earned a state. And probably never will.
Congress cheered and cheered and when Netanyahu was finished, they climbed over each other to touch the hem of his garment.
It was as if Congress thought that no Palestinians or other Arabs (or Muslims) would be watching. It was as if it believes that it can shout its lungs out for Netanyahu (and thereby secure those campaign contributions from AIPAC), without any consequences to U.S. policy and national interests in the Arab world.
But Congress is wrong. The message it sent to the Middle East today, to the whole world, in fact, was that Palestinians cannot count on the United States to ever play the role of “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Even if President Obama was inclined to, Congress would stop him. And AIPAC, using the leverage its campaign contributions gives it, would hold Obama’s feet to the fire too. As far as Congress is concerned, Palestinians do not exist. They have no rights, to a state least of all.
And that is why Palestinians have no choice but to unilaterally declare a state in the fall. They cannot count on America. As David Ben Gurion understood when he went to the General Assembly to achieve recognition of Israel, a small, powerless people must take its destiny into its own hands.
The good news is that, although Congress is in Netanyahu’s pocket, the Obama administration isn’t. Netanyahu insulted the President at the White House last Thursday and then again in the halls of Congress by eliciting support for policies Obama rejects. And the administration is furious.
That means that although Palestinians can and should ignore Congress, the White House and State Department are still in play. Yes, they will both go along with Netanyahu, but, probably, without much enthusiasm.
And they can send a signal to our allies that although the United States cannot openly oppose Bibi’s policies because of Congress — and AIPAC’s control of it — the allies can. The Palestinians should not give up on Obama or on Secretary of State Clinton either who cannot abide Netanyahu and made sure she was out of the country to escape being present for his speech.
And so we can look forward to a unilateral declaration of statehood in September. The Israelis who refuse to negotiate with stateless Palestinians will have no choice but to negotiate with the state whose land it is occupying. And those negotiations, state to state, may produce peace and the “two states for two peoples” that most Palestinians and Israelis aspire to. In any case, it’s the only hope. (Note: according to a new report by the editor of the Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz, there is no way the United States can use a veto to block UN recognition of the Palestinian state, a point the Israelis have missed but is not lost on the Palestinians).
Palestinians should thank Prime Minister Netanyahu and, even more, the United states Congress for making their choice so much easier. Together they helped create the Palestinian state today. And that is a very good thing.
Americans, however, should be deeply ashamed of their Congress.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
M.J. Rosenberg is Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. Previously, he worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPACs weekly newsletter Near East Report. From 1998-2009, he was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum.
Full Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/congress-to-palestinians-_b_866565.html
Huffington Post: Members of Congress Get Abnormally High Returns From Their Stocks
May 24, 2011
Members of the House of Representatives considerably outperform the stock market in their personal investments, according to a new academic study.
Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call “significant positive abnormal returns,” with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually.
What’s their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both.
A study of senators by the same team of researchers five years ago found members of the higher chamber even better at beating the market — outperforming it by about 10 percent, an amount the academics said was “both economically large and statistically significant.”
“Being one of 435, as opposed to one of 100, is likely to result in a significant dilution of power relative to members of the Senate,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University, noted that the circumstances are ripe for abuse.
“In the course of performing their normal duties, members of Congress have access to non-public information that could have a substantial impact on certain businesses, industries or the economy as a whole. If used as the basis for common stock transactions, such information could yield significant personal trading profits,” they wrote.
At the same time, House rules don’t require them to divest themselves of common stocks when they assume office, don’t prevent them from trading freely while in office — and don’t require them to recuse themselves from votes that could affect their own interests.
The House ethics manual clearly states that “all Members, officers, and employees are prohibited from improperly using their official positions for personal gain” and members must disclose their holdings annually.
But the House’s official position is that demanding that members either divest themselves of potential conflicts or recuse themselves when there is a conflict is “impractical or unreasonable” because it “could result in the disenfranchisement of a Member‘s entire constituency on particular issues.”
Ever since 2006, a small coterie of Democrats has been trying to officially prohibit members of Congress and their staffs from using non-public information to enrich their personal portfolios.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was most recently re-introduced in March by Reps. Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) and Tim Walz (Minn.). It has not been heard from since.
The study found some significant difference based on party membership and seniority, with the Democratic sample beating the market by nearly 9% annually, versus only about 2% annually for the Republican sample.
And representatives with the least seniority considerably outperformed those with more seniority.
Full Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/23/epic-cover-letter_n_865569.html
