National Security

Treating Child Refugees As National Security Threats

April 3, 2015 Laura Carlsen, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Children, National Security, Refugees

When the crisis of unaccompanied minors migrating to the United States burst onto the front pages last summer, it seemed at last the U.S. government would come to grips with its legacy of disaster amid the current havoc in Central America. The United Nations documented that most of the children were fleeing violence — violence caused in part by the failure to restore constitutional order following the Honduran coup of 2009 and the unfinished peace processes after the dirty wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, where Washington propped up right-wing dictatorships for years. The governments of those three countries — known as the Northern Triangle — certainly share some of the blame for the mass exodus, which is not as new or unprecedented as the press made out when it sounded the alarm.

Obama Absurdly Declares Venezuela A Security Threat

March 11, 2015 Mark Weisbrot, www.america.aljazeera.com Educate! Democracy, National Security, usa, Venezuela

Yesterday the White House took a new step toward the theater of the absurd by “declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela,” as President Barack Obama put it in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. It remains to be seen whether anyone in the White House press corps will have the courage to ask what in the world the nation’s chief executive could mean by that. Is Venezuela financing a coming terrorist attack on U.S. territory? Planning an invasion? Building a nuclear weapon? Who do they think they are kidding? Some may say that the language is just there because it is necessary under U.S. law in order to impose the latest round of sanctions on Venezuela.

How The Government Outsourced Intelligence To Silicon Valley

February 26, 2015 Robert Scheer, www.truthdig.com Educate! National Security, Surveillance, Technology, Wars and Militarism

For years, the outsourcing of defense and intelligence work was, with good reason, controversial in political circles. But in the last years of Bill Clinton’s administration, the president authorized the CIA’s creation of the first US government–sponsored venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, designed to invest in cutting-edge Silicon Valley companies. The firm, named after Ian Fleming’s fictional character “Q,” who masterminds James Bond’s spy gadgets, was founded on September 29, 1999, when the intelligence agencies came to realize they couldn’t produce the technology required to make sense of the vast amount of data they had acquired. The firm’s mission is to “identify, adapt, and deliver innovative technology solutions to support the missions of the Central Intelligence Agency and broader US community.”

Canadian Police Documents: Carbon-Free Movement A Security Threat

February 18, 2015 Shawn McCarthy, www.theglobeandmail.com Resist! Canada, Environment, National Security, Social Change, Violence

In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence. “There is a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels,” concludes the report which is stamped “protected/Canadian eyes only” and is dated Jan. 24, 2014. The report was obtained by Greenpeace.

India: Leaked Intelligence Report Calls NGOs Threat

July 12, 2014 Paromita Pain, www.occupy.com Resist! Activism, GMO, India, National Security, NGO

What do oil and reports have in common? They can both sometimes leak and cause great unrest. In India last month, a furor erupted over a leaked intelligence bureau (IB) report which claimed that NGOs and civil society organizations like Greenpeace were a threat to national security. Other organizations named in the report included the Indian Social Action Forum, Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, Popular Education and Action Centre, Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, India For Safe Food and Navdanya. Not surprisingly, all of the organizations are involved in mobilizing Indians to demand a GMO- and nuclear-free future. The Navdanya GMO Free Campaign, for example, is leading the country's movement against the planting of GMO crops in the country.

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