Thursday, August 26, 2021

Planned Expansion of Facial Recognition by US Agencies Called 'Disturbing'

"Face surveillance is so invasive of privacy, so discriminatory against people of color, and so likely to trigger false arrests, that the government should not be using face surveillance at all," said one privacy advocate.


A live demonstration uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition at the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES 2019 in Las Vegas on January 10, 2019.
 (Photo: David McNew/AFP/Getty Images)


JULIA CONLEY
COMMON DREAMS
August 26, 2021


Digital rights advocates reacted harshly Thursday to a new internal U.S. government report detailing how ten federal agencies have plans to greatly expand their reliance on facial recognition in the years ahead.

The Government Accountability Office surveyed federal agencies and found ten have specific plans to increase their use of the technology by 2023—surveilling people for numerous reasons including to identify criminal suspects, track government employees' level of alertness, and match faces of people on government property with names on watch lists.

The report (pdf) was released as lawmakers face pressure to pass legislation to limit the use of facial recognition technology by the government and law enforcement agencies.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (D-Ky.) introduced the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act in April to prevent agencies from using "illegitimately obtained" biometric data, such as photos from the software company Clearview AI. The company has scraped billions of photos from social media platforms without approval and is currently used by hundreds of police departments across the United States.

The bill has not received a vote in either chamber of Congress yet.

The plans described in the GAO report, tweeted law professor Andrew Ferguson, author of "The Rise of Big Data Policing," are "what happens when Congress fails to act."
 

Six agencies including the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), Defense (DOD), Health and Human Services (HHS), Interior, and Treasury plan to expand their use of facial recognition technology to "generate leads in criminal investigations, such as identifying a person of interest, by comparing their image against mugshots," the GAO reported.

DHS, DOJ, HHS, and the Interior all reported using Clearview AI to compare images with "publicly available images" from social media.

The DOJ, DOD, HHS, Department of Commerce, and Department of Energy said they plan to use the technology to maintain what the report calls "physical security," by monitoring their facilities to determine if an individual on a government watchlist is present.

"For example, HHS reported that it used [a facial recognition technology] system (AnyVision) to monitor its facilities by searching live camera feeds in real-time for individuals on watchlists or suspected of criminal activity, which reduces the need for security guards to memorize these individuals' faces," the report reads. "This system automatically alerts personnel when an individual on a watchlist is present."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the government's expanded use of the technology for law enforcement purposes is one of the "most disturbing" aspects of the GAO report.

"Face surveillance is so invasive of privacy, so discriminatory against people of color, and so likely to trigger false arrests, that the government should not be using face surveillance at all," the organization told MIT Technology Review.

According to the Washington Post, three lawsuits have been filed in the last year by people who say they were wrongly accused of crimes after being mistakenly identified by law enforcement agencies using facial recognition technology. All three of the plaintiffs are Black men.

A federal study in 2019 showed that Asian and Black people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified by the technology than white men. Native Americans had the highest false identification rate.

Maine, Virginia, and Massachusetts have banned or sharply curtailed the use of facial recognition systems by government entities, and cities across the country including San Francisco, Portland, and New Orleans have passed strong ordinances blocking their use.

But many of the federal government's planned uses for the technology, Jake Laperruque of the Project on Government Oversight told the Post, "present a really big surveillance threat that only Congress can solve."
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In First for Australia, Court Orders Government Agency to Take Climate Action

One nonprofit said the decision in a case brought by bushfire survivors "should send a chill through the state's most polluting industries, including the electricity and commercial transport sectors."


Residents look on as flames burn through bush on January 4, 2020 in Lake Tabourie, Australia. (Photo: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images)
COMMON DREAMS
August 26, 2021

In a case brought by bushfire survivors against an Australian state's environmental regulator, a court found Thursday that the government agency must take action to address the climate emergency—a first-of-its kind and potentially precedent-setting ruling for the fire-ravaged nation.

"This is a great day for environmental justice."
—Chris Gambian, Nature Conservation Council

"It's a really big win," said Elaine Johnson, director of legal strategy at the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), which represented Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action (BSCA). "It means [the New South Wales agency] has to do something to ensure there is protection against climate change."

"The next 10 years are really critical," Johnson told The Sydney Morning Herald, which noted that the ruling comes in the wake of a major United Nations climate report about what the future could hold without a global course correction. "We need rapid and deep emissions cuts."



Though the government of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has long faced pressure to take bolder climate action and a federal court in the country found in May that Environment Minister Sussan Ley has a duty to protect children and the environment from the climate emergency, Johnson said Thursday's decision was the first in Australia to find that a government agency is required to address the global crisis.

"It's breaking new ground," she told the newspaper, adding that other Australian states could soon face similar legal challenges.

The landmark ruling in favor of survivors of the 2019-20 bushfires and earlier seasons came from Brian Preston, chief judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales (NSW).

Preston ordered the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) "to develop environmental quality objectives, guidelines, and policies to ensure environment protection from climate change" in the Australian state.

Though Preston found that the EPA has not fulfilled its legal duty to ensure such protection, he said the agency "has a discretion as to the specific content of the instruments it develops" and his order "does not demand that such instruments contain the level of specificity contended for by BSCA, such as regulating sources of greenhouse gas emissions in a way consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels."




The EPA had argued that it has already "developed numerous instruments to ensure environment protection in many ways, some of which incidentally regulate greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane from landfill," according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In a statement, the agency—which has 28 days to appeal—said it was reviewing the decision.

"The EPA is an active government partner on climate change policy, regulation, and innovation," the agency statement said. "It is a part of the whole-of-government approach to climate change embodied by the NSW Climate Change Policy Framework and Net Zero Plan."

The statement also highlighted the EPA's involvement in "work that assists with and also directly contributes to" adaptation and mitigation measures, its support for industry "to make better choices," and its recently released "Strategic Plan and Regulatory Strategy."




Despite the judge's decision to limit the specificity of his order for the agency to act, his ruling was still welcomed by survivors, their legal representation, and climate campaigners around the world.

"This is a significant win for everyone who has been affected by bushfires," said BSCA president Jo Dodds, explaining that survivors have worked to rebuild their lives, homes, and communities that were devastated in recent years.

"This ruling means they can do so with confidence that the EPA must now also work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state," she continued. "Global warming is creating the conditions that can lead to hotter and fiercer fires, and all of us need to work to make sure we're doing everything we can to prevent a disaster like we saw during 2019 and 2020."

As Johnson put it: "The EPA has discretion as to what they do but they have to do something and it has to be meaningful."

"Greenhouse gases are the most dangerous form of pollution," she told The Guardian. "An obvious response to this order would be to control greenhouse gases in the same way they do other pollutants in the environment."





The nonprofit Nature Conservation Council said the court's decision "should send a chill through the state's most polluting industries, including the electricity and commercial transport sectors."

"Most people will be astonished to learn the EPA has until now not regulated greenhouse gases," said the council's chief executive, Chris Gambian. "But that will now have to change."

"This is a great day for environmental justice," he declared, crediting BSCA "for having the courage to launch this case" and EDO for their convincing arguments.

Calling human-caused climate change "the most significant challenge our society has ever faced," Gambian asserted that "allowing politicians to set greenhouse gas emission targets and controls rather than scientific experts has led us to the precipice."

"These decisions are far too important to left to the politicians. These are issues of science and should not be hijacked by the political process," he added. "We hope that today's decision results in the effective regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and gets the state on track to net zero well before 2050."
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Biden's Latest Loan Forgiveness Sparks Fresh Calls to Cancel All Student Debt

"Millions of borrowers are still waiting for President Biden to make good on his promise to provide widespread student loan cancellation, and the time to act is now."


The Biden administration is under pressure from lawmakers and borrowers to provide broader student loan debt relief. (Photo: Joe Brusky/Flickr/cc)

JESSICA CORBETT
COMMON DFREAMS
August 26, 2021

Borrowers and their allies renewed calls for the Biden administration to wipe out all federal student debt on Thursday after the U.S. Department of Education announced $1.1 billion in loan forgiveness for 115,000 people who left the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute chain before graduating.

Alexis Goldstein, Open Markets Institute's director of financial policy, called the development "a great step," tweeting that "it's a relief that many scammed former students of ITT Tech will be getting long overdue relief."

"Broad-based student debt cancellation is still needed. And doing so while payments are paused is the right time to do it," added Goldstein, referencing that federal student loan payments are paused through the end of January 2022 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Melissa Byrne, a Philadelphia-based progressive political strategist, also responded to the news on Twitter, asking: "Is this like biking with training wheels? Take off the training wheels and #CancelStudentDebt—all of it."

"You can't nickel and dime justice," Byrne also said, warning of moves that leave most borrowers behind.



The Associated Press explained that while "students are usually eligible for loan forgiveness if they attended a college within 120 days of its closure and were unable to complete their degrees," in this case the Education Department is extending that window back to March 31, 2008, several years before ITT Tech closed in 2016.

The department estimates that 43% of the affected ITT Tech borrowers are currently in default.

"For years, ITT hid its true financial state from borrowers while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school," U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement Thursday.

"Today's action continues the department's efforts to improve and use its targeted loan relief authorities to deliver meaningful help to student borrowers," he said. "At the same time, the continued cost of addressing the wrongdoing of ITT and other predatory institutions yet again highlights the need for stronger and faster accountability throughout the federal financial aid system."

The administration's latest move brings the total amount of loan cancellation approved since January—when President Joe Biden took office—to $9.5 billion, which has benefited more than 563,000 borrowers, according to the department.

Eileen Connor, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, welcomed the "good news" but also said that "the exact reasoning used by the department in expanding this look back period also demonstrates why all ITT loans need to be canceled."

Noting that "one of ITT's notorious scam tactics" was talking students into "multiple degrees and a mountain debt," Connor pointed out that it has been five years since the chain shut down in the face of "overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing, yet the department still has not addressed the more than 700,000 borrowers with over $3 billion in fraudulent debt from ITT."




Connor's call for additional action from the Biden administration was echoed by Abby Shafroth, staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center's Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.

Shafroth said that though the new relief action "will make a tremendous difference in the lives of the many borrowers who withdrew from ITT once they realized that the school had sold them a bill of goods," it still "left out hundreds of thousands more ITT students who were subject to the same misconduct."

"The department should use its existing authority to cancel all federal student debt taken out to attend ITT," she added. "And the department should not stop there—ITT is hardly the only school that took advantage of the federal student loan system and ITT students are hardly the only borrowers who have suffered from a broken student loan system. Millions of borrowers are still waiting for President Biden to make good on his promise to provide widespread student loan cancellation, and the time to act is now."

Thursday's move came a week after the Biden administration canceled $5.8 billion in federal student debt held by over 300,000 people with severe disabilities—a decision that, as Common Dreams reported, also sparked calls for broader loan forgiveness.

The administration's piecemeal approach to the nation's student debt crisis has led some to ask, as Eric Levitz wrote last week for Intelligencer, "Has Biden abandoned wide-scale student-loan forgiveness?"

Acknowledging the Education Department's ongoing review of the president's authority on the matter, Levitz posited that "blanket loan forgiveness remains possible. But in all likelihood, the Biden presidency will yield only small-bore reforms that deliver relief to specific kinds of borrowers, while most will carry on bearing the burdens of America's inefficient, scam-ridden system of higher education."

Biden, who campaigned on canceling up to $10,000 in student loan debt, has resisted pressure from progressive lawmakers—led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)—to make that figure $50,000.

The trio continues to push the president on the issue, with Warren tweeting Thursday morning that "after the 2008 financial crisis, young people were shoved into a weak job market and plunged even deeper into student debt. Many never recovered financially. We must do better this time and #CancelStudentDebt."

U.S. to forgive loans for 100,000 students who went to ITT Tech

Move impacts anyone who attended an ITT school between 2008 and 2016 but didn't graduate

The Associated Press · 
The headquarters of the parent company behind the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute are seen in Indianapolis, Ind., on May 21, 2012. Prior to its closure, ITT Tech lied about its financial health and misled students into taking on debt they couldn't repay, according to the U.S. Department of Education. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)

The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday it will forgive student debt for more than 100,000 borrowers who attended colleges in the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute chain but left before graduating.

In a rarely used move, the agency said it will erase federal loans for borrowers who left the for-profit colleges during an eight-year window before their 2016 closure. During that period, the department said, ITT Tech lied about its financial health and misled students into taking on debt they couldn't repay.

The action will offer $1.1 billion US in loan forgiveness to 115,000 borrowers who attended ITT Tech, which had 130 locations across 38 U.S. states, but did not operate in Canada.

About 43 per cent of those borrowers are in default on their student loans, the department said.

"For years, ITT hid its true financial state from borrowers while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

Students are usually eligible for loan forgiveness if they attended a college within 120 days of its closure and were unable to complete their degrees. But for ITT Tech, the Education Department is extending the window back to March 31, 2008.

That date, the agency said, is when ITT Tech's executives disclosed a scheme to hide the truth about the company's finances after the loss of outside funding. It led ITT Tech to shift more costs to students, the department said, and it prevented the company from making investments to provide a quality education.

ITT Tech shut down in 2016 after being hit with a series of sanctions by the Obama administration.

Under the new action, eligible borrowers will automatically get their loans cleared if they did not attend another college within three years of the school's closure. Those who went to another college but did not earn degrees may be eligible but must apply for discharges, the agency said.

Borrower advocates have been urging the Biden administration to broaden loan relief for students who attended shuttered for-profit colleges. The nonprofit Student Defense applauded the department's move and said the same should be done for students who attended other for-profit chains.

"There are countless others who attended other predatory institutions who are still waiting. We hope the Department will continue to implement our recommendations to make things right for all of them, too," Alex Elson, vice president of Student Defense, said in a statement.

It is the latest in a series of loan discharges targeting specific groups of students. In June, the Biden administration erased more than $500 million in student debt for borrowers who were defrauded by ITT Tech. That decision centred on claims that the company made exaggerating its graduates' success in finding jobs.

Earlier this month, Cardona announced he would automatically forgive student loans for 300,000 Americans with severe disabilities that leave them unable to earn significant incomes.

But the Biden administration also faces growing pressure to pursue wider student debt forgiveness. Some Democrats in Congress are calling for the White House to use executive action to erase $50,000 for all student loan borrowers.

Biden has suggested such action needs to come from Congress, but he has asked the Education and Justice departments to study the topic. Earlier this month, Cardona said that study is still underway.

The Education Department has the authority to extend the window for loan forgiveness in cases of school closures, but the power has not often been used. After the closure of the Corinthian Colleges for-profit chain in 2015, the Obama administration widened the window back to June 20, 2014.

Biden has approved $9.5 billion in student loan cancellations this year for defrauded and disabled students


By Katie Lobosco, CNN
 Thu August 26, 2021


Washington (CNN)The Department of Education said Thursday that it will cancel $1.1 billion in student loan debt for some students who attended the now-defunct for-profit ITT Technical Institute -- bringing the total amount of loan discharges approved under President Joe Biden to $9.5 billion.

The majority of that debt is held by permanently disabled borrowers who have long been eligible for loan forgiveness but who have not applied. The Department of Education is making the cancellation automatic by using federal data to identify borrowers who qualify. The change will impact 320,000 borrowers, eliminating $5.8 billion in debt starting in September.

Much of the other debt relief will benefit victims of for-profit college fraud, many of whom have been waiting years for the Department of Education to process their forgiveness claims. The most recent action will automatically cancel the debt borrowed by 115,000 students who left ITT Tech without completing their program after March 2008.

About 43% of those borrowers are currently in default on their loans, the Department of Education said. The move was made after a new review of the problems at ITT Tech found that these borrowers attended the school during a period of time when the school misled students into taking out private loans that were allegedly portrayed as grant aid and engaged in widespread misrepresentations about the state of the institution's financial health.

A backlog of defrauded students await relief

"Today's action continues the Department's efforts to improve and use its targeted loan relief authorities to deliver meaningful help to student borrowers," said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a statement.

"At the same time, the continued cost of addressing the wrongdoing of ITT and other predatory institutions yet again highlights the need for stronger and faster accountability throughout the federal financial aid system," he added.

The Biden administration already approved about $1.5 billion in student debt
 cancellation earlier this year for other former for-profit college students. Under law, borrowers who were defrauded by their college can apply for debt relief. The forgiveness process was simplified during the Obama administration when big for-profit colleges like Corinthian and ITT Tech shuttered.

But the Trump administration allowed for a backlog of more than 100,000 forgiveness claims. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made it clear that she thought the rule was "bad policy" that puts taxpayers on the hook for the cost of the debt relief without the right safeguards in place and made changes to limit its reach.

There are many borrowers who are eligible for debt relief that could still be waiting, according to Student Defense, a nonprofit group that advocates for students' rights and has been calling on the Department of Education to speed up the process.

"Thanks to Secretary Cardona and President Biden, thousands of former ITT students will finally get the relief they've been owed for far too long. At the same time, there are countless others who attended other predatory institutions who are still waiting," said Student Defense Vice President Alex Elson in a statement.

Democrats push for broader debt cancellation

Key Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are pressuring Biden to go further and broadly cancel up to $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower.

It would be an unprecedented move, but a memo from lawyers at Harvard's Legal Services Center and its Project on Predatory Student Lending says the Department of Education has the power to do so.

Biden, who said during the presidential campaign that he would support canceling $10,000 per borrower, has repeatedly resisted the pressure since taking office, arguing that the government shouldn't forgive debt for people who went to "Harvard and Yale and Penn." As of now, he has directed Cardona to write a memo on the executive branch's legal authorities to cancel debt.

Biden recently extended the pandemic-related pause on federal student loan payments another four months until January 31.

Borrower balances have effectively been frozen for more than a year, with no payments required on federal loans since March 2020. During this time, interest has stopped adding up -- saving the average borrower about $2,000 over the first year -- and collections on defaulted debt have been on hold.

The relief is even more significant for those who work in the public sector and may be eligible for loan forgiveness after 10 years. They are still receiving credit toward those 10 years of required payments as if they had continued to make them during the pandemic, as long as they are still working full time for qualifying employers.





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Ilhan Omar to Joe Biden: Pardon Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale

The Minnesota Democrat argued that the information Hale leaked "has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program."


Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks during a press conference in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 20, 2021. (Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON
COMMON DREAMS
August 26, 2021


Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota sent a letter Thursday calling on President Joe Biden to grant a full pardon to former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale, who was sentenced to nearly four years in prison last month for leaking classified documents that helped expose the horrors inflicted by the U.S. drone assassination program.

"I believe that the decision to prosecute Mr. Hale was motivated, at least in part, as a threat to other would-be whistleblowers."
—Rep. Ilhan Omar

Omar argued that "there are several aspects of Mr. Hale's case that marit a full pardon," including the fact that the trove of documents he leaked to a journalist—widely believed to be The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill—"has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program and informed the public debate on an issue that has for too many years remained in the shadows."

Among the many revelations from Hale's document leak were the details of one drone-strike operation in Afghanistan, a nation from which the U.S. is currently withdrawing troops after two decades of disastrous war and occupation. According to the documents, nearly 90% of the people killed during one five-month period of the operation were not the intended targets.

During a court appearance last month, Hale said the document leak "was necessary to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs." In March, Hale pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, which has long been used by both Democratic and Republican administrations to target journalists and whistleblowers.

In her letter to Biden on Thursday, Omar noted that Hale "took full responsibility for his actions" and that "his motivation, as outlined in his deeply moving letter to the judge in his case, was profoundly moral."

Omar was referring to an 11-page handwritten letter Hale sent to the judge presiding over his case shortly before he was sentenced to 45 months in prison.

"How could it be considered honorable of me to continuously have laid in wait for the next opportunity to kill unsuspecting persons, who, more often than not, are posing no danger to me or any other person at the time?" Hale wrote. "How could it be that any thinking person continued to believe that it was necessary for the protection of the United States of America to be in Afghanistan and killing people, not one of whom present was responsible for the September 11th attacks on our nation?"

Omar's call for a presidential pardon for Hale comes just over a month after the Biden administration launched its first drone strike in Somalia, the Minnesota Democrat's home country.

"Although the investigation of Mr. Hale's leaks began under the Obama administration, the Obama Department of Justice declined to prosecute him," Omar wrote. "It wasn't until 2019, under President [Donald] Trump, that he was indicted."

"We are all well aware of the severe consequences of the Trump administration's chilling crackdown on whistleblowers and other public servants who they deemed insufficiently loyal," she continued. "I believe that the decision to prosecute Mr. Hale was motivated, at least in part, as a threat to other would-be whistleblowers."

"I strongly believe that a full pardon, or at least a commutation of his sentence, is warranted," Omar added. "It is for precisely these cases, where the letter of the law does not capture the complex human judgments in difficult situations, that your pardon authority is at its most useful."

Read the full letter:


Dear President Biden:

I am writing to strongly encourage you to use your authority to pardon Daniel Everette Hale, who was sentenced to 45 months in prison on July 27, 2021, after pleading guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act.

Mr. Hale served as an intelligence analyst in the Air Force, and after his service, became one of the most outspoken critics of the drone program in which he had participated. In doing so, he joined a proud American tradition of veterans advocating for peace after their service was complete.

I take extremely seriously the prohibition on leaking classified information, but I believe there are several aspects of Mr. Hale’s case that merit a full pardon.

Although the investigation of Mr. Hale's leaks began under the Obama administration, the Obama Department of Justice declined to prosecute him. It wasn't until 2019, under President Trump, that he was indicted. We are all well aware of the severe consequences of the Trump administration's chilling crackdown on whistleblowers and other public servants who they deemed insufficiently loyal. I believe that the decision to prosecute Mr. Hale was motivated, at least in part, as a threat to other would-be whistleblowers.

Mr. Hale's release of information related to the drone program did not put any individual in danger. The information, while politically embarrassing to some, has shone a vital light on the legal and moral problems of the drone program and informed the public debate on an issue that has for too many years remained in the shadows. This information also provided concrete benefit to the legal efforts of Americans seeking to protect their Constitutional rights against secretive and arbitrary watchlisting practices.

Finally, Mr. Hale pled guilty and took full responsibility for his actions. His motivation, as outlined in his deeply moving letter to the judge in his case, was profoundly moral. As you frequently say, the United States should lead not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example. I implore you to read Mr. Hale's letter to the judge in full, and I believe you will agree that he was motivated by the same thing. Acknowledging where we've gone wrong, and telling the truth about our shortcomings, is not only the right thing to do, but also an act of profound patriotism.

The legal question of Mr. Hale's guilt is settled, but the moral question remains open. I strongly believe that a full pardon, or at least a commutation of his sentence, is warranted. It is for precisely these cases, where the letter of the law does not capture the complex human judgments in difficult situations, that your pardon authority is at its most useful.

I thank you for your consideration of this important matter, and I stand ready to continue the conversation. I look forward to your prompt response.
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'We're Staying': Line 3 Opponents Camp at Minnesota Capitol to Protest Oil Pipeline

"The cops are gathered here by the hundred and the governor's brand new fence glimmers in the background, but our spirit is resolved."


Demonstrators protest the Line 3 pipeline on the grounds of the Minnesota capitol building on August 25, 2021. (Photo: RootsAction)

JAKE JOHNSON
COMMON DREAMS
August 26, 2021


With Enbridge on the verge of completing its multibillion-dollar Line 3 pipeline, thousands of Indigenous leaders and environmentalists brought their protests against the sprawling tar sands project to the grounds of the Minnesota state capitol building on Wednesday to demand that lawmakers intervene before the dirty oil starts flowing.

Roughly 2,000 demonstrators—including Indigenous leaders who marched over 250 miles along the pipeline's route—rallied at the capitol Wednesday afternoon and hundreds stayed through the night as Minnesota police officers guarded the building's perimeter, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence installed in anticipation of the protest.

"The cops are gathered here by the hundred and the governor's brand new fence glimmers in the background, but our spirit is resolved," the Resist Line 3 Media Collective tweeted as pipeline opponents prepared to camp on the lawn of the capitol building. "We're staying."


Part of a "Treaties Not Tar Sands" week of action against Line 3, Wednesday's demonstration came after the Minnesota Supreme Court let stand state regulators' decision to greenlight construction of the massive oil project, leaving the movement with dwindling legal options. If completed, the pipeline will have the capacity to carry around 750,000 barrels of tar sands oil each day from Alberta, Canada to Wisconsin, traversing hundreds of bodies of water and wetlands along the way.

With the pipeline on track to be operational as soon as next month, water protectors are vowing to ramp up their opposition. To date, around 900 people have been arrested for engaging in civil disobedience at anti-Line 3 protests, which have frequently been met with violent police crackdowns.

"We're here in ceremony. We’re here to assert our treaty rights and our right to exist and our right to clean water," Nancy Beaulieu, a founder of the Resilient Indigenous Sisters Engaging Coalition, said during the rally Wednesday. "Line 3 violates our treaty and all the treaties along the Mississippi because the water flows. This is a people's problem, this is not just a Native issue here."

The U.S. portion of the near-complete Line 3 project involves the replacement of more than 300 miles of existing pipeline, which is part of a system that extends 1,097 miles.

First approved during the Trump administration, the pipeline has won the backing of the Biden Justice Department, which filed a legal brief defending the project in June—outraging environmental leaders who said the move ran counter to the Biden administration's promise to treat the climate crisis as an existential emergency.


Tim Walz, Minnesota's Democratic governor, has also voiced support for completion of the Line 3 project, despite warnings that it poses a threat to tribal lands and waters as well as the climate, with its contribution to the nation's planet-warming carbon emissions. One estimate suggests the Line 3 expansion project could have the equivalent climate impact of 50 new coal-fired power plants.

"There has already been much suffering, and it's only gonna get worse," Sam Strong, secretary of the Red Lake Nation, warned the crowd gathered at Minnesota's capitol building. "But we do have an opportunity to make a difference, we do have an opportunity to show the world a better way to live."

Winona LaDuke, executive director of the Indigenous-led environmental group Honor the Earth, told the Associated Press that Minnesota police "have arrested 800, almost 900 people all for a Canadian corporation to make a buck in the middle of climate chaos."

"It's poor policy and it's worse practice," said LaDuke, "and we're here to ask the governor why he continues with such egregious policies and how we're going to change that."

In a tweet late Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) expressed solidarity with the Line 3 opponents "protesting for a livable planet, and for our future in Minnesota."

Last week, Omar joined Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and dozens of other members of Congress in calling on the Biden administration to immediately suspend the federal Clean Water Act permit allowing the construction of Line 3 and "undertake a thorough review" of its predecessor's permitting process.

"This pipeline's dangerous effects on the environment, surrounding communities, and Tribal groups will be irreversible," said Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "The Biden administration must immediately suspend Line 3's Clean Water Act permit and conduct a full environmental impact statement."
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Another Canadian diplomat reports Havana syndrome 'attack'

“One would think the top priority would be to find out what it is that is potentially putting all of our international staff everywhere in the world at risk and defend against it."

IT WAS, THEY DID A STUDY, IT WAS INCONCLUSIVE!

Author of the article: Elizabeth Payne
Publishing date: Aug 25, 2021 • 

A high-ranking Canadian diplomat in Cuba was flown home for assessment earlier this year after experiencing neurological symptoms consistent with Havana syndrome. The man, who the lawyer described as “high-ranking,” had only been posted in Cuba for a short time before the incident in February.
 PHOTO BY DESMOND BOYLAN /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A high-ranking Canadian diplomat in Cuba was flown home for assessment this year after experiencing an attack consistent with Havana syndrome.

The February 2021 incident is the most recent evidence that mysterious neurological symptoms continue to affect Canadian diplomats in Cuba, even as the government suggests the attacks have stopped.

The diplomat is the latest to join a $28-million lawsuit against the Canadian government. He accuses it of trying to “sweep things away quietly and carry on as if there is nothing to see here. What is being done is simply not good enough.”

He spoke to the Citizen on the condition of anonymity.

The latest Canadian case comes amid growing reports of Havana syndrome affecting U.S. personnel around the world. This week, during a trip through Asia, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s flight to Vietnam was delayed amid a report that two U.S. diplomats there had been evacuated following incidents alleged to be Havana syndrome. U.S. investigations have concluded Havana syndrome was the result of targeted energy attacks.

Before his posting, the Canadian diplomat was sent to Dalhousie University’s Brain Repair Centre in Halifax, where he underwent tests on his brain and cognitive functions. Baseline testing is now routine for Canadian diplomats heading to Cuba since Canadian diplomats experienced concussion-like symptoms of Havana syndrome beginning in 2017. The pandemic and other issues meant testing on his ears and eyes could not be completed.

The diplomat was assured there was no reason to worry; there had been no confirmed cases of Havana syndrome involving Canadian diplomatic staff in Cuba since 2018.

“I thought, all right, then things are fine. It has been almost three years since things happened. There is no apparent reason for concern.”

But, once he was there, things looked different. The first time he met his colleagues, at a Christmas party, one made a comment about his own Havana syndrome incident in 2019. And then the diplomat began hearing about other “incidents” involving consular staff since 2018, none of which was recognized as a confirmed case of Havana syndrome by the department of Global Affairs Canada.

“I had no idea. The department did not tell me about them.” The diplomat said he began feeling that the department of Global Affairs “had been withholding and hiding information and being rather dishonest about the reality there and the risks.”

He spent part of his posting in Cuba trying to get more information about what had been going on and how it was being managed, including trying to clarify what constituted a confirmed case of Havana syndrome as opposed to an incident.

That came to a stop at 8:15 a.m. on Feb. 19.

He was in the bathroom of his quarters before work when his right ear suddenly began reverberating. “It was like a ringing, but there was no sound.” It lasted about a minute, then stopped. He raced to the front door to see if anyone was outside. He saw no one.

His symptoms worsened over the following days. Sounds were distorted, he experienced an echoing in one ear along with ear pressure and acute pain. He developed headaches and concussion-like symptoms. The headaches and pain in his ear and right side of his head became worse. Within days he was flown out of Cuba and was on his way to Halifax for assessment.

He again underwent testing. He was unable to complete a balance test without tipping over and doctors saw inconsistency in his brain waves. But, in the end, they were unable to make a determination about whether it was a case of Havana syndrome. They obtained some more information, and the diplomat is still waiting for an answer.

He has no doubt that it was Havana syndrome.

In the meantime, he sought out a physiotherapist who treated what he diagnosed as a percussive force such as a targeted energy device that had likely hit the diplomat behind the right ear. The treatment significantly reduced his symptoms, but symptoms including vertigo and vision issues continue to emerge.

The diplomat said the message he received from colleagues when he arrived in Cuba was: “We are all on our own, so take care of yourself because Global Affairs is not going to.

“It is a perfect storm of privacy, security and bureaucratic inertia all coming together to make sure things don’t happen.”

Lawyer Paul Miller, who represents the diplomats and families suing the government for $28 million, says the latest case mirrors those experienced earlier by Canadian and U.S. diplomats in Cuba who were diagnosed with Havana syndrome.

“There is no other explanation for it, considering he can identify the time and date of the attack and the symptoms are the same as every other case.”

The injuries in Havana syndrome have been described as concussion-like, but without physical trauma.

The U.S. has launched multiple investigations into the incidents that some have concluded were likely caused by attacks using radio frequency energy, such as microwave radiation.

But, since the initial cases were reported, the Canadian government has been quiet about any additional cases involving staff. This spring, the government held a briefing to talk about plans to expand its diplomatic footprint in Cuba after it reduced staff following the incidents, according to former diplomats.

Those who experienced Havana syndrome accuse the federal government of suppressing information about it. They say 25 additional people have been evaluated for possible brain injury since the initial cases.

The diplomats and families who suffer hearing, cognitive and balance issues among other things are suing the federal government, claiming it failed to protect them or take proper action to treat them and their families. Some say they feel like they have been abandoned.

The federal government is fighting the lawsuit.

“The lack of care, the lack of support from the government has been disgraceful,” Miller said. “They are throwing these people under the bus.”

In a statement, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock said the “health, safety and security of our diplomatic staff and their families is a priority.

“Global Affairs Canada takes seriously any potential risk to their safety. Global Affairs Canada maintains a strict security protocol to respond immediately to any unusual events affecting Canadian diplomats or their families posted abroad.”

The Canadian government has said it is continuing to investigate the cause.

The diplomat says that should be a priority.

“One would think the top priority would be to find out what it is that is potentially putting all of our international staff everywhere in the world at risk and defend against it. Instead, they are choosing to leave their people to fend for themselves. Why?”

epayne@postmedia.com


  1. CDC Report on the ‘Havana Syndrome’: Medical Mystery ...

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2021-02-02/cdc-report...

    2021-02-02 · Havana Syndrome Among Canadian Diplomats: Brain Imaging Reveals Acquired Neurotoxicity Dalhousie University, Department of Medical Neuroscience and Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and the Brain Repair Centre September 2019 Related Links. Medical Records Can’t Explain “Havana Syndrome," A Buried CDC Report 

  2. The Canadian embassy in Havana is seen in 2018. Both U.S and Canadian officials reported strange health symptoms somewhat similar to concussions starting in late 2016. (Canadian Press)

    ‘Havana syndrome’: Diplomats in Cuba likely victims of ‘pulsed’ microwaves

    By Marc Montgomery | 
    english@rcinet.ca
    Posted: Wednesday, December 9, 2020 11:21
    Last Updated: Friday, December 11, 2020 14:50

    It was a mysterious illness that struck Canadian and U.S. diplomats and some family members last year while they were posted to Cuba. It became known as the “Havana syndrome”. People reported suffering from headaches, nausea, dizziness, difficulty concentrating and other symptoms beginning in late 2016. Some also reporting hearing a buzzing or high pitched sounds. Some American diplomats in China reported similar symptoms

    U.S embassy staff were greatly reduced as a result but no-one was able to explain what was going on or why. Staffing at the Canadian embassy was reduced at a later date.

    Investigations by officials were carried out but could not initially determine a cause. A Canadian report in September 2019 suggested that it may be the result of pesticides used to fumigate against mosquitoes. Concern over mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus was high at the time with a campaign of fumigation being carried out,

    However, a new American study however suggests a more technological cause, that of “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy”.

    The report from the U.S National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) suggests in conclusion that, “After considering the information available to it and a set of possible mechanisms, the committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms, and observations reported by state department employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency energy,”

    No source of such possible energy, nor who may have been behind it was identified but the report noted that based on western and Soviet studies going back several decades indicate there is circumstantial evidence for the pulsed energy cause.

    The report suggested that the U.S. should take several precautions against possible future situations like this  while noting, “Even though it (the committee) was not in a position to assess or comment on how these [Department of State] cases arose, such as a possible source of directed, pulsed RF energy and the exact circumstances of the putative exposures, the mere consideration of such a scenario raises grave concerns about a world with disinhibited malevolent actors and new tools for causing harm to others”,

    It did not entirely rule out psychological and social factors as exacerbating or as possible contributions to the symptoms in some cases.

    It did rule out the theory of pesticide contamination as the cause for the American diplomats, but did suggest that might also have contributed to the symptoms.

    The report concerned only U.S. embassy personnel.

    A group of five Canadian diplomats and their families is suing the Canadian government saying the Canadian government kept its staff ‘in harm’s way’ while American staff were being evacuated.  A lawyer for the group said the Americans did not interview any of the Canadians during their investigation. The lawsuit is still before the courts

    Additional information-sources


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