MEDIA ROOTS – US Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden have asked the National Security Agency to reveal an estimate of how many Americans the agency has spied on through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  In 2008, FISA was expanded to allow the wiretapping of phone and e-mail communications without a warrant, and there is virtually no oversight of its wiretapping operations.  The NSA’s ironic response to the Senators’ request: revealing that information would be a “violation of privacy.”

I interview Ginger McCall, director for EPIC’s Open Government program about FISA privacy concerns and EPIC’s Freedom of Information Act request, revealing the Department of Homeland Security’s official list of absurdly innocuous words they search for when they spy on social media networks.

Abby Martin

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Ginger McCall, director for EPIC’s Open Government Program on NSA hypocrisy.

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US NEWS – Wyden, who has earned a reputation as an aggressive advocate for privacy, is pushing NSA as the Senate debates the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a bill that allows the government to wiretap individuals outside of the U.S. and any communication they might have, even if they engage with American citizens.

But NSA says it cannot reveal how many Americans might be affected because the effort would be too great an undertaking.

“Obtaining such an estimate was beyond the capacity of [the] office and dedicating sufficient additional resources would likely impede the NSA’s mission,” the inspector general of the intelligence community told Wyden in a Monday letter.

The NSA inspector general also concluded that revealing even an estimate of the number of Americans under surveillance would “violate the privacy of U.S. persons.”

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Photo by flickr user ListentotheMountains

MEDIA ROOTS — The ‘Fair Share of the Common Heritage’ is a philosophical economic principle that every sentient being—human and non-human—has a right to a fair share of the wealth derived from the earth’s natural resources and humankind’s accumulated cultural knowledge. 

This includes all of the planet’s natural resources that human beings need to survive, as well as the technological inventions that help to progress the evolutionary consciousness of our global society.

The main crisis facing “the Commons” is the corporate privatization of resources integral to life, such as water.

Some have heard of the phrase the ‘Tragedy of the Commons,’ a theory put forth by ecologist Garrett Hardin that describes how private property is a better way to ecological preservation. According to Hardin, humans are incentivized to act in their own self-interest and will ultimately compete, abuse and deplete a resource they share in common. However, Hardin’s concept was based on many theoretical assumptions. 

Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win a Nobel prize in Economics, has poked holes in Hardin’s theory with her trailblazing global Commons research. Via the Guardian:

“Ostrom studied what makes collective action work in irrigation systems, pastures, forests and fisheries all over the world. Co-operation to manage key resources is not automatic, but neither is the “tragedy of the commons”. Respect for collective property rights is crucial to providing the necessary incentives for people to maintain resources.” Policies of nationalising or privatising the commons have too often eroded the incentives or authority of local users to manage their resources. Ostrom showed that giving communities scope to set their own rules (PDF), ones adapted to local conditions, is important. Outsiders’ technical and local knowledge plays a role, but people are more likely to monitor and enforce rules they have had a say in setting.”

Most importantly, we shouldn’t get entrapped in the barriers of language or be imprisoned to preconceived terminology when we consider the concept of the Commons. Like Ostrom’s research shows, a combination of ideologies are put into practice that differ from community to community to manage and share the Commons.

What do you think? Get the dialogue started.

Writing, Photography and Video by Abby Martin

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Abby Martin interviews Project Censored board members about the ‘Fair Share of the Common Heritage,’

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“We do not have this personal ownership, per se, of one thing over another or ownership isn’t used in a heirarchical capacity.” — Mickey Huff, Director, Project Censored. 

“The basic resources that we rely upon, but also things like DNA, those basic things that nature passes on from generation to generation that we have in common,” Kenn Burrows, Professor of Holistic Studies.

http://www.fairsharecommonheritage.org

MEDIA ROOTS — Abby Martin of Media Roots and RT extends meaningful and challenging questions to the iconic hip hop artist and activist Immortal Technique, who notes what “seems to be a meticulous strategy to keep anything that is thought-provoking out of the mainstream.”

Like other renegades, such as artists like Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Morrissey and Paul Mooney, independent recording artist Immortal Technique delivers a potent interview on an array of sundry topics.  They discuss music, conspiracy, politics, culture and the evolution of consciousness throughout the extended thirty minute interview for RT TV.

Messina

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RT — Hip-hop artist Immortal Technique is a self-described social guerrilla.  Felipe Coronel is the real name of the Peruvian-born, Harlem-raised political activist who raps about politics, religion and racism.  Since the genesis of the OWS movement, Tech has been an active voice for the cause, and on July 10 a documentary will be released showing his everyday life.  He now joins us with more on his beliefs and his work.

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Abby Martin:  “Something you rarely see these days in the MTV-generated music industry mainstream: hip hop with a message of raw truth.  Felipe Coronel, better known as Immortal Technique, is a Peruvian-born, Harlem-raised hip hop artist and political activist, a self-described social guerilla.  Tech’s views about politics, religion, classism, and racism are expressed poetically and powerfully through his lyrics.  And some of his albums pack more historical relvance than an entire school history book.  To maintain control over his work, Tech has never signed with a label, which gives him ultimate freedom of expression.  He’s a vocal supporter of many political movements and struggles for justice.  Since the Occupy Wall Street movement started last year, he’s been an active voice of support for the cause.  And now a new documentary coming out July 10 gives us an intimate look at his life, music, and activism.  Here’s a sneak peek.”

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MEDIA ROOTS – Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange and I got the chance to confront Senator Rand Paul about some of the questions thousands of his supporters have about his endorsement for Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Luke spots the Senator walking outside and questions him about his endorsement, just days after Mitt was spotted at the Bilderberg Group, according to the London Guardian. He also brings up his previous interview he had with pre-Senate Paul where Paul said that the Bilderberg Group had malintentions and that Goldman Sachs should be audited.  Romney has received over half a million dollars from Goldman Sachs for his 2012 campaign. I then follow up inside the Senate building and ask him why he is supporting a candidate that endorses all the policies Rand claims he is against.

Abby

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Rand Paul Confronted about Romney Endorsement

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MEDIA ROOTS – Daniel Klaidman, former editor for Newsweek magazine, recently produced a slick and pandering ‘anti-war’, pro-drone, pro-Obama video on the ‘liberal’ website The Daily Beast.  The segment insinuated that Muslims in Pakistan are grateful for US drone strikes, even when they kill innocent people.  

A portion of the clip humanizes drone operators, saying that sometimes they linger for hours, even days, to make sure they have the right target, illustrating how in one instance an operator waited until a father was finished playing with a child before bombing him to death. Interestingly enough, other reports show the exact opposite–that drones actually target innocent people, and mourners of the dead.  Not only do the strikes target innocent civilians, but the reason the administration can tout such low civilian casualties from the strikes is because they automatically consider every military aged male in a strike region to be a combatant.

The video also makes the claim that tribal Muslims fear the Pakistani ‘anti al-Qaeda’ tactics far more than they do US drones.  Klaidman must have missed the petition from Pakistani families filed early this year pleading for the US to halt drone warfare in their country.

In this new Orwellian era, where black is white and up is down, a video production style normally reserved for Robert Greenwald, a prolific anti-war filmmaker (who also seems to have softened his approach towards Obama as compared to Bush), with a dash of video music artist Michel Gondry, has been employed to promote the idea of robotic ‘targeted assassinations’.  Overall message from this piece of propaganda: C’mon guys, just trust the President and let him do his job! He’s a good guy who means well, just like you and me!  Forget about the eradication of habeus corpus or that old fashioned concept of “proving” guilt before murdering groups of people and calling it a day.

Written by Robbie and Abby Martin

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Pro-Drone Propaganda on the Daily Beast

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Abby Martin reports on Klaidman’s pro-drone video on RT TV

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SALON – How is it remotely justifiable — using the standards of “objective journalism” that these media outlets incessantly invoke — for Newsweek to produce a video that has little purpose other than to justify, glorify, and defend Obama’s drone attacks on other countries? Is this not one of the most glaring examples ever demonstrating that “objective journalists” like Newsweek‘s Daniel Klaidman are barred from expressing opinions — unless the opinion expressed is that the actions of the U.S. Government are justified and noble? That’s why Chris Hedges was forced out of The New York Times for opposing the attack on Iraq while John Burns was venerated and made the chief war correspondent after he supported that attack: opinions are perfectly permissible from American journalists only to the extent that they defend official actions. In what conceivable way is it the proper role of Newsweek and its national security “reporters” to produce melodramatic agitprop which vigorously takes the U.S. Government’s side in ongoing, highly divisive political controversies?

Then there’s the content itself. Klaidman (now in the midst of promoting his new book based on ample access generously providedby Obama officials) pretends to speak on behalf of — or to read the minds of — drone opponents by claiming that what really motivates opposition is the weapon’s unique “pinpoint” precision, its “almost supernatural effectiveness.” Actually, what motivates opposition are totally different and very significant facts that Klaidman completely ignores because it would spoil the creepy and uplifting message of that video — Embrace the drone. Love the drone. Become one with the drone — little things like this (“Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals”), and this (“The boy, 16, sitting with me in these photos was protesting against deadly US drone strikes… Three days later he was killed – by a US drone, says Jemima Khan”), and this (“Anwar al-Awlaki’s family speaks out against his [16-year-old American] son’s death in airstrike”), and this (“In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for al-Qaeda”), and this (Obama administration “counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants”)

Continue Reading Glenn Greenwald At Salon.