News Releases

The BBC reports in “UN’s Del Ponte Says Evidence Syria Rebels ‘Used Sarin’” that Carla Del Ponte, a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, stated that the investigation has so far found that nerve gas appeared to be “used by the opponents, by the rebels. And we have no indication at all that the government, the authority of the Syrian government, had used chemical weapons.” See full BBC report, including video of Del Ponte.

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at illinois.edu
Boyle is a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and most recently author of Destroying Libya and World Order. He said today: “I have worked personally with Carla Del Ponte. She has an enormous amount of credibility. By the logic of Obama’s ‘red line’ should he now enter the U.S. on the side of the Syria government?”

“In fact, as is true for almost every previous invocation of the doctrine of so-called ‘humanitarian intervention’ in modern history going all the way back to the mid-19th century, the application of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine to Syria is based upon outright lies, propaganda and half-truths — as with all the baseless accusations over the last several weeks regarding the Syrian government using nerve gas and calls for U.S. military intervention. The Israeli strikes on Syria are obvious violations of international law. None of this of course excuses any violation of international human rights law that might have been committed by the Assad government.”

MATTHEW LEE, matthew.lee at innercitypress.com, @innercitypress
Lee covers the UN for Inner City Press and just wrote the piece “Syria Rebels Used Sarin, UN’s Del Ponte Strongly Suspects.”

REESE ERLICH, rerlich at pacbell.net
Available for a limited number of interviews with major media, Erlich is a freelance foreign correspondent who reports for GlobalPost and CBC, among others. He said today: “The rebels might have used sarin in order to justify U.S. intervention. … The current crisis has nothing to do with chemical weapons and everything to do with breaking the stalemate. As with Libya, sectors of the Obama administration, Israel and others, are ginning up a crisis to justify military intervention. Why would Assad use chemical weapons now and give the US an excuses to attack? Israel’s attacks, using the excuse of destroying Hezbollah missiles, are actually aimed at putting pressure on Obama to attack Syria.”

The Guardian reported Sunday: “President Barack Obama came under increased pressure on Sunday regarding his discussion of a ‘red line’ over Syria’s possible use of chemical weapons, amid accusations that his apparent promise of a trigger for further U.S. action had been written in ‘disappearing ink.’

“Appearing on Fox News, the Republican senator John McCain suggested that to most minds such a line had been crossed. Referring to Israeli air strikes on targets close to Damascus over the weekend, McCain said: ‘Apparently the Syrians and Iranians have crossed a red line with the Israelis.’”

Reuters reports that Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television: “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals. … According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated. … This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”

TIME reports: “President Barack Obama named prominent venture capitalist Tom Wheeler as his nominee to be the new chairman of the Federal Communication Commission.”

NICHOLAS JOHNSON, mailbox at nicholasjohnson.org
Johnson was a commissioner of the FCC and now teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law. He said today: “President Obama’s choice of Tom Wheeler as FCC chair is bizarre. Sure, he was a major campaign contributor — even a bundler of others’ large checks. But being appointed FCC chair is not like becoming an ambassador to a small country — the usual reward for financial support.

“There is no single independent regulatory commission that comes close to the impact of the FCC on every American’s life. That’s why Congress, in creating it, characterized its mission as serving ‘the public interest’ — an expression used throughout the Act.

“Wheeler’s background is as a trade association representative for companies appearing before the Commission, a lobbyist in Congress for other FCC customers, and a venture capitalist investing in and profiting from others whose requests he’ll have to pass on. He has no record, of which I am aware, of challenging corporate abuse of power on behalf of consumers and the poor.

“This is not the kind of FCC chair Congress had in mind when creating the agency, nor what those in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party had in mind when voting for Obama. Where is our ‘Hope’? Where is the ‘Change’?

“The business community has been doing very well at the FCC. They don’t really need any additional help from Wheeler. Parents, children, the poor, rural residents, small business, minorities, women and consumers have not done so well. They do need help.

“Nor does Wheeler’s membership on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board bode well for those who believe Americans’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights should be getting at least as much attention as the government’s perceived need to engage in even more secret snooping.

“He’s not all bad. Rumor has it that he’s kindly toward small children and dogs. I’m just not sure that’s enough.”

The Chicago Tribune reports today: “Making official what many Democrats have expected for weeks, President Obama plans to nominate Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker, a longtime political supporter and heavyweight fundraiser, as his new Commerce secretary on Thursday morning.

“Pritzker’s nomination could prove controversial. She is on the board of Hyatt Hotels Corp., which was founded by her family and has had rocky relations with labor unions, and she could face questions about the failure of a bank partly owned by her family.

“With a personal fortune estimated at $1.85 billion, Pritzker is listed by Forbes magazine among the 300 wealthiest Americans”

DENNIS BERNSTEIN, dennisjbernstein at gmail.com
Bernstein reported extensively on the sub-prime scandals that saw bank failures in 2008 and 2009. He wrote the piece “Obama’s Sub-Prime Conflict” for Consortiumnews.com.

He said today: “Penny Pritzker played fast and loose with the American Dream. Her pioneering sub-prime operations, out of Superior Bank in Chicago, specifically targeted poor and working class people of color across the country. She ended up crashing Superior for a billion dollar cost to tax payers, and creating a personal tragedy for the 1,400 people who lost their savings when the bank failed. Pritzker, whose family controls Hyatt Regency Hotels, is in the top one percent of the one percent. Her extreme wealth and privilege has not only made her virtually untouchable by law enforcement, but will now allow her to cleanse her sordid sub-prime banking record by becoming the first woman Secretary of Commerce.” Bernstein, an award-winning investigative reporter, is the host and executive producer of “Flashpoints,” a daily news magazine syndicated on Pacifica Radio.

TIM ANDERSON, timanderson6575 at yahoo.com
Anderson, a Chicago-based specialist in banking regulation who reported on much of the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, has closely examined the collapse of Superior Bank and the role of the Pritzker family. His papers include “A Gross Violation of Implied Trust by the Guardians of Superior Bank: OTS, FDIC, House Banking and the Media.” He has been cited by various media on these issues, including the Wall Street Journal in “A Top Obama Fund-Raiser Had Ties to Failed Bank.”

If Pritzker were to become Commerce Secretary, it would make her the wealthiest person in a cabinet that’s mostly made up of millionaires. See breakdown in the Washington Post.

Several current Obama administration officials will be attending a conference on Friday sponsored by Corporate Crime Reporter titled “Neither Admit Nor Deny: Corporate Crime in the Age of Deferred Prosecutions, Consent Decrees, Whistleblowers & Monitors.” Government officials scheduled to speak include Mythili Raman, the acting head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. The new SEC co-director of enforcement — Andrew Ceresney — is scheduled to be making his first public appearance and statement.

RUSSELL MOKHIBER, russellmokhiber at gmail.com
Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, which is organizing the conference. He just wrote the piece “The Failure to Prosecute Corporate Crime Undermines U.S. Justice,” for Reuters, which states: “Imagine you are driving down the highway at 90 mph where the posted speed limit is 55 mph. As a result of your speeding, you lose control of your vehicle. And you cause a wreck that kills people. Here’s a sure bet: you will be convicted of a crime. You will admit wrongdoing. And you will be punished.

“Now suppose a corporation engages in illegal activity while operating a coal mine. And that illegal activity leads to the death of 29 of its workers. Here’s another sure bet: that corporation will not be convicted of a crime. And it will not be punished.

“The reality is that we live in a two-tier criminal justice system in America, with one level for corporations and one for living, breathing humans. The coal mine corporation is a real one, Massey Energy. In April 2010, a huge explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 workers.

“In December 2011, the U.S. Labor Department issued a 972-page report concluding that ‘unlawful policies and practices’ were the “root cause of this tragedy.” The company had a long history of skirting the law and in the Upper Big Branch case kept two sets of books ‑ one for internal use, which identified workplace hazards at the mine, and one to show law enforcement, which didn’t. …

“But on the same day that the Labor Department issued its report, the Justice Department decided to instead enter into a ‘non-prosecution agreement’ with the company. The company was not required to admit to wrongdoing.

“The two most important law enforcement entities in Washington — Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission — have taken a kid-glove approach to the corporate criminal activity that arguably inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined.” Also see the recent article in Corporate Crime Reporter: “Ralph Lauren Gets Not One, But Two FCPA Non Prosecution Agreements.”

Also speaking at the conference will be David Uhlmann, former chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and currently a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. In a forthcoming Maryland Law Reviewarticle titled “Deferred Prosecution and Non-Prosecution Agreements and the Erosion of Corporate Criminal Liability,” Uhlmann argues that the Justice Department “must amend its corporate prosecution policies to curtail the misuse of deferred and non-prosecution agreements.”

Uhlmann continues, “If it fails to change course, the Department will further erode the concept of corporate crime, undermine the rule of law, and breed cynicism about our criminal justice system.”

Also, see: Ralph Nader “Boston, Texas and Corporate Criminal Justice.”

President Obama was questioned today about the hunger strikers at Guantanamo: “as you probably are aware, there’s a growing hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay among prisoners there. Is it any surprise, really, that they would prefer death rather than have no end in sight to their confinement?”

President Obama: “Well, it is not a surprise to me that we’ve got problems in Guantanamo … I continue to believe we’ve got to close Guantanamo. … I don’t want these individuals to die. … Obviously the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can. But I think all of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this? Why are we doing this? … We can handle this.

“I am going to go back at this. … I am going to reengage with Congress that this is not in the best interest of the American people.” See video.

CARLOS WARNER, carloswarnerlaw at gmail.com, @Carlos_Warner
Warner is an attorney with the Federal Public Defender of the Northern District of Ohio. He represents 11 Guantanamo prisoners. He said today: “I applaud President Obama’s remarks — he hasn’t mentioned Guantanamo in years — but the fact is that Congress has very little to do with it. NDAA as written allows the President to transfer individuals if it’s in the national security of the United States. The President’s statement made clear that Guantanamo negatively impacts our national security. The question is not whether the administration has the authority to transfer innocent men, but whether it has the political courage to do so.”

PATRICIA DAVIS, MATTHEW DALOISIO, daloisio at earthlink.net
Davis and Daloisio are with Witness Against Torture. Daloisio said today: “Obama can appoint a senior government official to shepherd the closure of the prison, and vest that person with sufficient authority to resolve inter-agency squabbling and get the job done.

“It’s more than one thousand days since Obama had promised Guantanamo would be closed and 83 days into a hunger strike. We have people, cleared to be released years ago, saying: ‘I do not want to kill myself. My religion prohibits suicide. But I will not eat or drink until I die, if necessary, to protest the injustice of this place. We want to get out of this place. It is as though this government wishes to smother us in this injustice, to kill us slowly here, indirectly, without trying us or executing us.’ (Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi.)

“Now, President Obama responds to what is a crisis, with ‘we can handle this’? Why, lacking any proposed concrete steps, should we — or more importantly those starving for justice — believe him?”

JEREMY VARON, jvaron at aol.com
Varon, also with Witness Against Torture, said: “We first heard of the hunger strike about six weeks ago when the U.S. military was denying it was even taking place. Our goal as Witness Against Torture was to build awareness that it was happening, engage in all kinds of solidarity and citizen action work, from vigils to fasting to demos to calls to White House and military to, so far, one direct action. We have seen the story move from the far margins to the headlines. …

“The hunger strike at Guantanamo is the latest, tragic reminder that Guantanamo must close. Keeping men there indefinitely — without charge or trial and even when deemed no threat by the U.S. government itself — is morally unacceptable and politically unsustainable. The Guantanamo nightmare must end now.”

See in The Hill: “President Obama Must Act to Close Guantanamo.”

The Syracuse Post-Standard reports (see video): “About 30 people were arrested outside the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base [Sunday] afternoon during a protest against the use of unmanned aerial drones.

“The arrests came at the end of a series of workshops and rallies held in Syracuse this weekend and organized by the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars.

“[The] rally attracted more than 250 people who … marched in a funeral like process to the gates of the base, home to the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard. The unit operates unmanned, armed drones thousands of miles away. The drones are used for intelligence gathering and bombing ground targets.” Also see pictures of the protests from the Post-Standard.

CAROL BAUM, carol at peacecouncil.net
Baum is with Syracuse Peace Council. She is currently available for a limited number of interviews as she is working on obtaining the release of detained protesters who agree to post bail, which Baum notes, runs as high as $3,500. The group released a statement: “People who participated in the demonstration, including some who were arrested, came from all over the country to raise an outcry against the proliferation of drone strikes abroad.” The group stated that drone strikes violate both U.S. and international law.

The statement continued: “Demonstrators also object to the militarization of the police and the growing domestic use of drones. The protesters raised the issue that drone use globally makes Americans unsafe because of the blowback effect.”

JOHN HAMILTON, (607) 280-5191, yes2yay@yahoo.com
A member of Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, Hamilton said today: “Drones are being used to do extra-judicial killings. They’re outside the law. It’s like lynching. It’s saying the law is too good for these people. Now, most of us are horrified at our country’s history of lynching, but this is what we’re doing. Except, it’s worse since so many of the victims of drone strikes are children and other civilians. That’s why we held up pictures of children and other civilians killed by U.S. drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.”

Last week, Congress had the first hearings on drones. The Obama administration refused to send a representative. One of those who testified was Farea Al-Muslimi, whose village in Yemen was recently struck by a U.S. drone strike. See video.

Additional background: “Living Under Drones” report, written by academics at NYU and Stanford.

The New York Times reports in “Wealth Gap Among Races Widened Since Recession” that: “Millions of Americans suffered a loss of wealth during the recession and the sluggish recovery that followed. But the last half-decade has proved far worse for black and Hispanic families than for white families, starkly widening the already large gulf in wealth between non-Hispanic white Americans and most minority groups, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.

‘”It was already dismal,’ Darrick Hamilton, a professor at the New School in New York, said of the wealth gap between black and white households. ‘It got even worse.’”

KEVIN GRAY, kevinagray57 at gmail.com
Author of The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama, Gray just wrote the piece “Obama’s Economic Race Legacy,” which states: “From the start, President Barack Obama has shown little interest or loyalty in the issues that affect the poor, working class and people of color in the United States. For almost his entire first term he didn’t utter the words poor or poverty. Early on he reminded African Americans: ‘I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America…’

“So it’s not so surprising that Obama hasn’t done much of substance or impact to ease, let alone end, the depression in the black community. He’s been on the side of the banks and Wall Street since co-signing George Bush’s and Hank Paulsen’s TARP ‘too big to fail’ bank bailout at the expense of underwater homeowners and middle-class taxpayers. …

“As his economic race legacy unfolds, Obama’s recovery is worse than the George W. Bush recession for blacks. Overall median household income has fallen over $4,000 since he took office but black Americans have had a decrease in real income of over 11 percent. Unemployment is officially at 14-plus percent for blacks, nearly double that of the overall economy. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, black unemployment was 12.7 percent. The highest black unemployment rate during Obama’s time in office was 16.7 percent in August 2011. During the eight years of Bush black unemployment didn’t rise above 13 percent. The rate reached its highest point of the Bush presidency, 12.1 percent, in December 2008.

“Black youth unemployment is more than likely above 50 percent with entry level drugs sales as their seemingly only viable employment option. …

“At this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner, comedian Conan O’Brien joked: ‘Mr. President, your hair is so white, it could be a member of your cabinet.’ Black exclusion and disparities under Obama are now reduced to a joke. And Obama walks to the podium to rap music and makes Jay-Z jokes. And those in the bubble at the top laugh. As Bruce Dixon of the Black Agenda Report wrote: ‘When Barack Obama leaves the White House in January 2017, what will black America, his earliest and most consistent supporters, have to show for making his political career possible. We’ll have the T-shirts and buttons and posters, the souvenirs. That will be the good news. The bad news is what else we’ll have … and not.’

“At the very least, African Americans should mobilize to head off the erosion of their wealth invested in social security. They should demand that those that they send to the House and Senate protect that interest even in the face of a president all too willing to sell them out. He may be limited to two terms. They are not.”

MARGARET HU, mhu at law.duke.edu
Hu is an assistant professor at Duke Law School and author of the forthcoming article “Biometric ID Cybersurveillance” in the Indiana Law Journal. She said today: “Some members of Congress have argued that Comprehensive Immigration Reform should be delayed in light of the Boston bombing. Others will likely call for more surveillance measures through the proposed immigration reform legislation.

“More surveillance risks this problem: turning all U.S. citizens and all lawful immigrants into potential terrorist suspects. In fact, the bipartisan Senate comprehensive immigration reform proposal that was released last week already showed signs of multiple surveillance cancers, even before the bombing. The bill includes the significant expansion of various cybersurveillance and data surveillance (dataveillance) measures. For example, it significantly increases the use of drones for border security. It also increases biometric dataveillance and the likelihood that a universal biometric database would be needed to carry out new programs created by the bill. A universal digital photo database of all citizens and non-citizens, for example, could be used by the drone program (DHS and local law enforcement) for nearly invisible tracking.

“Specifically, Section 3102 gives $1 billion to the Social Security Administration to develop a ‘fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant, wear-resistant, and identity theft-resistant’ Social Security Card. Previous debates on immigration reform have explained that a ‘high-tech’ Social Security Card will resemble a credit card and will include biometric data (e.g., digital photo, maybe fingerprint and iris scans, and at least one member of Congress suggested DNA). Section 3103 states: ‘Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary [of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security] shall submit a report to Congress on the feasibility, advantages, and disadvantages of including, in addition to a photograph, other biometric information on each employment authorization document issued by the Department.’ In short, the bill incorporates multiple provisions that include a dramatic expansion of both biometric data collection protocols and biometric database screening protocols.

“To protect the foundational principles of a democratic society, we need less surveillance not more. Mass biometric data collection and suspicionless cybersurveillance measures that treat all Americans and immigrants like potential terrorist suspects won’t make us safer.”

CHARLES KERNAGHAN, BARBARA BRIGGS, bbriggs at glhr.org, @IGLHR
Kernaghan and Briggs are with the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. Kernaghan said today: “Our staff are on the ground. The garmentworkers saw the crack yesterday and refused to work. A Savar subdistrict officer came and told the owners that the building was unsafe. This morning the factory owners told the workers that ‘some cracks will not be a problem.’ They ordered the workers back to work. The factory collapsed an hour later.

“An eight-story building named Rana Plaza in the Savar neighborhood on the outskirts of Dhaka collapsed at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday. At least 105 garment workers are confirmed dead and the death toll is constantly rising. An estimated 1,000 workers have been injured, many badly in need of blood transfusions. There were approximately 2,500 workers in the Rana Plaza building, of whom 600 have been rescued. Many are still trapped inside.

“There were four garment factories in the eight story building: New Wave Style, Ether Tex, Canton Tech Apparel and New Wave Bottoms. The Children’s Place and Cato [fashions] are major clients of the collapsed factories.

“Our staff found worker ID cards in the rubble and are praying that the workers are safe. Bangladesh is tragically known for its lack of proper building codes combined with out-of-control graft. It is the workers who pay the ultimate price. Another 70 garment workers were killed in the same area in Savar in 2005 when another multiple story garment factory collapsed. Our Bangladesh staff is on the ground at the collapsed factory and we will continue to put out more updates.” See here for updates.

President Obama is scheduled to meet with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, this afternoon.

MESSAOUD ROMDHANI, mah.talbi at gmail.com
A human rights activist in Tunisia, Romdhani said today: “Qatar has played a pivotal role in the region. It’s acted as a go-between with the U.S. and the Muslim Brotherhood, it has used Al Jazeera and it has tried to mold the Arab uprisings by backing Salafism, a reactionary form of Islam.

“At the beginning of the Tunisian uprising, Al Jazeera played a generally positive role, but as soon as the dictator was deposed, Al Jazeera had a total shift to featuring more Islamic groups from Tunisia — giving them the platform. Al Jazeera also highlighted and fostered the uprisings in the Republics (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria) while downplaying them in the pro-U.S. monarchies (Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, Jordan, Morocco).

“All this is deforming the so-called Arab Spring, it’s leading to a Wahhabization of the region. Tunisia is a difficult place for such a thing, we used to have a moderate form of Islam, but the role of Qatar and Saudi Arabia is hurting that. Qatar is also playing a very bad role in Syria. We want the end of the dictatorship, but Qatar is pushing Syria to become like the Gulf states, which are obviously authoritarian. All this is very dangerous to democracy and human rights.” See video of Romdhani.

NICHOLAS McGEEHAN, mcgeehn at hrw.org, @NcGeehan
Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch, McGeehan said today: “Qatar has been relatively successful at projected an image of a progressive Gulf state, but if you scratch the surface, you find a very problematic situation.

“The national population is about 15 percent. Some 85 percent of the population is migrant workers. There could be another million migrant workers coming with all the construction going on in Qatar, especially with its 2022 World Cup bid.

“There are very serious abuses going in Qatar with the migrant workers — we’re not talking about insufficient compensation. We’re talking about extreme exploitation, about it resembling a form of labor that most of the world outlawed over a century ago for hundreds of thousands of workers from south Asia. If the U.S. is serious about addressing human trafficing, Qatar should be real a priority.

“Qatar hasn’t seen protests that have occurred in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia and the UAE, but its response to mild dissent hasn’t been encouraging. A poet got a life sentance, reduced to a 15-year sentence on appeal, for uploading a poem to the internet criticizing the Emir. That’s problematic in the extreme.

“We recently obtained a copy of a draft media law that provides for a very serious financial penalty for anyone publishing material damaging to Qatar — or the countries that surround it. So, for example, this would institutionalize Al Jazeera being able to critically report about other places, but not the Gulf sheikdoms.”

MICHAEL ROTHENBERG and TERRI CARRION, mrwalterblue at gmail.com
Rothenberg and Carrion are co-founders of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. They organized a petition signed by Sam Hamill, Sarah Browning, Philip Levine, Alice Walker, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other poets for the Qatari poet Mohammed Ibn Al Ajami. The petition states that his “crime” consisted of “reciting on November 16, 2011 a poem extolling the courage and values of the popular uprisings in Tunisia: ‘Oh revolutionary, sing the praises of the struggle with the blood of the people / in the soul of the free carve the values of revolt / and to those holding the shroud of the dead tell / that every victory also bears its ordeals.”

SAM HUSSEINI, samhusseini at gmail.com, @samhusseini
Husseini is communications director of the Institution for Public Accuracy.