MEDIA ROOTS — Seeds are at the very core of the public commons as the first link in an essential food chain.  Throughout the 20th century, the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto perverted intellectual property laws to corner the world’s seed supply.

By allowing the food supply to be attached to the bottom line of a corporation, the world places its future in the hands of a corrupt few.  Abby Martin of Media Roots and RT explores the multinational corporation’s sordid past of corruption and toxicity and their current scandalous dealings.

 Abby Martin reports on Monsanto’s corruption and current dealings for RT TV

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Abby Martin explores Monsanto’s scandalous legacy in depth for RT TV

The Monsanto Corporation has a nefarious public record that extends beyond the genetically modified seed industry.  It is responsible for the controversial artificial sweeteners saccharin and aspartame that are used in more than 6,000 consumer foods and beverages; dioxin based herbicides like 245-T/24-D (Agent Orange) that directly killed and maimed millions of Vietnamese; banned pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) responsible for the death of millions of marine animals, birds of prey and amphibians; deadly polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) discharged into rivers and landfills at the expense of human health; and Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) to unnaturally increase the milk yield in lactating cows.

In particular, the American legacy of PCBs is horrifying as witnessed by Pittsfield, Massachusetts when locals were given PCB-contaminated material to use as fill.  General Electric released millions of pounds of PCB-contaminated waste from capacitor manufacturing plants in the Hudson River.  In North Carolina, 240 miles of road was sprayed with more than 30,000 pounds of PCB-contaminated oil, during the infamous “midnight dumping.”  Finally, in Anniston, Alabama, the site of a Monsanto chemical factory for 50 years was exposed as the most toxic city in America after it was discovered Monsanto had been dumping high concentrations of PCBs into local tributaries.

This blatant poisoning of the public commons as massive and wicked as it seems pales in comparison to allowing a company with this sort of record to control and modify the food supply.  Monsanto expanded its share of the worlds seed supply with its $1.4 billion acquisition of Seminis Incorporated, the world’s largest developer, grower and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds in 2005.  Two years later, Monsanto purchased the Delta and Pine Land Company for $1.5 billion, staking its position as a major player in the cotton seed business and the demonic terminator gene designed to increase farmer dependency on seed suppliers.  Additionally, the corporation also purchased the Dutch De Ruiter Seed company to establish itself alongside DuPont as the world’s largest supplier of seeds. 

In addition to the sick and dying humans, animals and plants in the wake of Monsanto’s bottom line, the company has a legacy of legal troubles across the globe.  Suing and being sued is merely a business expense to be countered by penetrating political and regulatory systems.  Former Monsanto employees are firmly entrenched in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and even the Supreme Court.  Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto attorney, ruled in favor of genetically modified crops in the J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. case.  Linda Fisher rotated from EPA bureaucrat, to Vice President of Monsanto, to Vice President of DuPont.  Michael Taylor was an FDA commissioner, Monsanto attorney and recently passed backed through the revolving door as President Barack Obama’s Food Safety Czar in the FDA.

Monsanto maintains a stranglehold on the American government by deploying lobbyists to coerce legislators into doing what regulators cannot. This includes an emphasis on resisting the overwhelming public cry to label genetically modified foods, avoid responsibility for colony collapse disorder wreaking havoc on global bee populations and deterrence of any effort to institute independent government led testing of genetically modified seeds and food. While Monsanto maintains a motto of “Improving Agriculture, Improving Lives,” its true intentions were summed up by Monsanto’s director of corporate communication Phil Angell in 1998 when he explained, “Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA’s job.”

Chris Martin for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user foto 3116

MEDIA ROOTS — The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is the next looming threat to internet freedom, as the American government continues its relentless siege of the digital domain.  Coming on the heels of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA, CISPA sounds more like the final name in a quartet of lovable Disney characters as opposed to draconian internet legislation.  However, this latest incarnation appears to be the internet’s biggest foe to date.  If CISPA becomes law, the risk to civil liberties is greater than all the previous bills combined.

U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) is the architect of CISPA, or H.R.3523.  Prior to his political calling, Rogers served as a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent.  Currently, he serves as the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  This latest effort to undermine the internet focuses less on intellectual property and does not burden private companies with policing their information flow.  Rather, CISPA makes a broader and more sinister reach for power by simply forcing companies to comply with new government regulations, in the name of cyber security.  As Andrew Couts of digitaltrends.com aptly points out, “Whereas SOPA and PIPA were bad for many companies that do business on the Internet, and burdened them with the unholy task of policing the Web (or face repercussions), this bill makes life easier for them; it removes regulations and the risk of getting sued for handing over our information to the law. Not to mention doing what the bill says it’s going to do: protecting them from cyber threats.”

CISPA aims to grant non-civilian agencies unrestricted access to all digital information.  So, it stands, the National Security Agency will benefit the most from the legislation.  If this initiative succeeds, the NSA will have access to emails, social media, library records, online banking and credit card information.  In a letter sent by opposition groups and a number of Democratic lawmakers to CISPA sponsors Mike Rogers and C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersburger (D-MA) these alarming implications are made clear. The letter says, “Without specific limitations, CISPA would, for the first time, grant non-civilian federal agencies, such as the National Security Agency, unfettered access to information about Americans’ Internet activities and allow those agencies to use that information for virtually any purpose.” 

Supporters of the bill say it will allow private companies to easily share customer communications related to “significant” cyber and national security threats with government agencies.  As long as the information meets these two criteria, government agencies can use it on a wide scale.  In turn, private companies would be shielded from lawsuits filed by customers.  A number of Silicon Valley companies have already pledged their support for the bill including: Facebook, Microsoft, Symantec and IBM. 

However, a vocal opposition has developed in an attempt to beat back CISPA.  U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) has been CISPA’s most notable opponent, calling it “Big Brother writ large.”  RT (formerly known as Russia Today), a cable news station with an American audience of 50 million, was one of the first media outlets to decry CISPA and to use the phrase “worse than SOPA.”  CISPA is particularly dangerous because it would void current privacy laws and create channels for companies to share digital information with government agencies without the need for court orders. 

In addition to this attack on internet privacy, the bill contains numerous other disturbing implications.  One is the erosion of barriers between the private sector, government and military.  Also, like so many bills of the post 9/11 era, the language is ambiguous.  The language describing what can be spied on and how that information can be used is extremely vague.  Moreover, if a private company violates your privacy, the ensuing legal battle to prove liability is a Herculean task.  A complete summary of CISPA’s threats to cyber privacy can be found at Time’s Techland section.

Despite widespread opposition to the legislation, the bill passed the House of Representatives on April 26, 2012.  Whereas SOPA and PIPA squared off Hollywood and Silicon Valley against one another, in a fight over piracy, CISPA goes beyond that and zeroes in on privacy.  As a result, there is much more widespread support for the bill in the tech-community.  Whereas SOPA, PIPA and ACTA would have placed the burden of cyber-policing onto companies, CISPA relieves them of this duty and places the onus government.  According to The Vigilant Citizen “Privacy and free speech are not exactly mutually exclusive. Loss of privacy threatens free speech, and the loss of free speech is inevitably a loss of privacy.” 

As the American government becomes more authoritarian and American people more paranoid, the battles fought over the privacy of the public digital domain will intensify.  Much like the government and the military-industrial complex dumping vast amounts of our America’s wealth into wars abroad, yielding questionable results, the government will continue its aim to control one of the last bastions of free speech.  Only time will tell how successful their surge will be.  Have the shut downs of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA taught Americans to remain vigilant and make their voices heard, or will CISPA prevail?

Learn more about what you can do here.

Adam Miezo for Media Roots, Edited by Eric Aragon

Photo by Rock1997