US government harassed Castro with a fake Twitter service

[seemslikeadream]

US government harassed Castro with a fake Twitter service
Federal aid agency wanted to 'renegotiate the balance of power between state and society' in Havana
By Amar Toor on April 3, 2014 04:59 am Email @amartoo

The US government covertly created a Twitter-like text messaging service aimed at fueling political unrest in Cuba and evading the communist nation's strict internet filters, according to an investigative report published today by the Associated Press. The ZunZuneo program — named after the slang term for the song of a Cuban hummingbird — was financed and operated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is charged with delivering humanitarian aid money to poor nations.

The idea was to build up a large social network through targeted text message blasts, allowing Cubans to communicate with one another free of charge and beyond the reach of the country's tightly regulated internet, while enabling US officials to feed them information from the outside world. Using a list of phone numbers obtained from a worker at Cubacel, Cuba's state-owned telecommunications company, USAID and its team of contractors began by blasting out texts about "non-controversial content" like soccer and music. Once ZunZuneo's network reached a critical mass, they would begin sending out more politically charged texts, in the hopes that they would spark demonstrations against the regime of Raúl Castro and "renegotiate the balance of power between state and society," as one USAID document reads.

"THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT."

ZunZuneo abruptly disappeared in mid-2012, when USAID says the project ran out of funding, but at its peak it had more than 40,000 subscribers — mostly young Cubans whom officials considered the most likely to pursue political change. The agency used a network of shell companies under a Cayman Islands bank account to cover its tracks and evade Cuban intelligence, and used fake banner ads to make it seem like a legitimate business. USAID also used targeted text message polls to gather intelligence on ZunZuneo users.

"There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement," reads a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord, one of ZunZuneo's contractors, which was obtained by the AP. "This is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the service and to ensure the success of the mission."

US law requires presidential authorization for any covert federal operation, though USAID declined to say whether the Obama administration was aware of ZunZuneo. US-Cuba relations have improved since Raúl Castro took over for his ailing brother Fidel in 2008. The island nation has implemented market-based reforms in recent years, and the Obama administration lifted some travel bans and spending regulations in 2011. But the longstanding US economic embargo remains very much in place, and Cuba continues to impose some of the world's strictest regulations on domestic internet use.

An archived screenshot of the now-defunct ZunZuneo website.

USAID ultimately sought to distance itself from the project, fearing that it would be exposed as a government initiative, and reportedly asked Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey for funding. Dorsey met with a State Department official, records show, though he declined to comment to the AP.

US REPORTEDLY TAPPED JACK DORSEY FOR FUNDING

Eventually, the program proved unsustainable, as USAID and its contractors continued to pay steep texting fees while running the risk of being exposed. And despite the operation's questionable legality, USAID says its Cuba programs are within both the law and its humanitarian mission.

"USAID is a development agency, not an intelligence agency, and we work all over the world to help people exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms, and give them access to tools to improve their lives and connect with the outside world," USAID spokesman Matt Herrick told the AP. "In the implementation, has the government taken steps to be discreet in non-permissive environments? Of course. That's how you protect the practitioners and the public. In hostile environments, we often take steps to protect the partners we're working with on the ground. This is not unique to Cuba."

[FourthBase]

Nice idea, horrible self-defeating way of doing it. Hilarious to watch the media spook assets insist that USAID is not a spy agency. Tip for anti-communist maneuvers in the future: When trying to show up totalitarianism, don't be ironically totalitarian in the process.

But I'm assuming no one here objects to the basic notion of trying to sneak internet access to people whose government strictly limits all access to the outside world? Uh, right? Honestly, I could not give the faintest of a Fuck that either Castro would be "harassed" in such a way, so the fact that THAT wound up being the angle of the thread title says way more about SLAD than it does about the story itself. SLAD, are you suggesting we should leave Raul alone?



There were hundreds of other iterations of the story to use.
A multitude of other titles.

[JackRiddler]

objects to the basic notion of trying to sneak internet access to people whose government strictly limits all access to the outside world

I do, based on who is doing it, how they are doing it, and why.

Who is doing it: a government that has been at war with Cuba (for all the wrong reasons) for 55 years, and thus provides a legitimate pretext for Cuban censorship (even if that censorship remains wrong and is actually done for illegitimate reasons). If the U.S. government wants to help the Cuban people, the only moral thing they could do would be to end the blockade, provide apologies, open their archives of past policy, and pay reparations, thus removing their perpetual threat to the Cuban people (and the pretext for censorship). The U.S. government has no more standing to take any action on behalf of Cubans than a rapist does to secretly act in ways he believes will benefit his victim.

How: covertly, deceptively, manipulatively of the very people whom they are supposedly helping, with a plan that was harebrained and contemptuous of the right of the services's users to know what they're actually being involved in (and that potentially endangers the users in ways they didn't bargain for). You'll agree there are other ways, no?

Why: in the hope of imposing a new Cuban government that might no longer limit communications access (to those who will be able to afford it in the new order), but harms its people in other ways: e.g., by transferring their wealth to Miamians with property claims dating back to 1959 and imposing a neoliberal regime that doubtless will begin with overturning everything good the present regime has accomplished. This is the same government that (to stick to recent examples in the region) backed a military coup against the democratic government of Honduras and is stirring up violence against the democratic government of Venezuela.

And you left out the part where the U.S.G. decided it was okay to screw the users of the service for budgetary reasons. They set it up to "help" these people, then abandoned them, like with so many proxies of covert operations in the past, and once again confirming what their own values are.

[FourthBase]

Basic notion. The way it was done in this particular case was, yes, atrocious.
The why and the who? Don't really care, as long as people become less unfree.
This particular scheme was not an example of that. But I can imagine one.

[seemslikeadream]

Re: Hear ye, hear ye! A request for links on Tony Blair
Postby FourthBase » Tue May 14, 2013 9:27 am
Shared.

With this note:

[Tinfoil note: USAID frequently is just a synonym for "CIA"]


semper occultus wrote:

It's still a special relationship: Tony and Cherie Blair's charities given nearly £1m by US while old friend Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State

Cherie Blair's charity given £405,000 from US when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State

Further £550,000 awarded to Tony Blair's charity in 2011

Taxpayer watchdog demands investigation into transfer of money

Criticised that financial awards given to old friends could have been biased

By Daniel Bates In New York
PUBLISHED: 17:33, 12 May 2013 | UPDATED: 07:35, 13 May 2013
Comments (75) Share
..http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... State.html

Tony and Cherie Blair have come under fire after it emerged that their charities have been given nearly £1m from the American government’s foreign aid budget.
A US taxpayer watchdog has demanded an investigation because the grant was awarded whilst Mrs Blair’s good friend Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and would have been responsible for the cash.
In December Mrs Blair’s woman’s charity was given a total of £405,000 from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The money is on top of the £550,000 that the African Governance Initiative, one of Tony Blair’s charities, was given in 2011.
Both Mr and Mrs Blair have denied that their relationship with Mrs Clinton - forged when he was Prime Minister - had anything to do with the awards.
But around a month after the money was given to Mrs Blair’s charity Mrs Clinton stepped down from her post ahead of an expected Presidential run in the 2016 US election.
A spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, a US campaign group, said: ‘More oversight and transparency is needed, if not a re-examination of the existence of these programmes.

USAID is under the Department of State’s direction and is vulnerable to shifting with the political winds, and has been loose with taxpayer dollars in the past.’
The £405,000 for the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women will go to help women in the African countries of Tanzania, Ghana and Rwanda, according to its latest accounts, which were published last week.
The money will supposedly be used for an ‘innovative project’ to launch businesses related to mobile telephones.
The grant has swelled the coffers at Mrs Blair’s charity which has an income of £1.8m a year and has £1.5m in the bank.
The good fortune marks a turnaround from when she launched it in 2008 and had to put in £250,000 of her own money as a loan.


A spokesman for the charity said: ‘The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women followed exactly the same application process as any other organisation applying for a grant from USAID.'
Dr Maura O'Neill, USAID chief innovation officer, added: ‘USAID knew that if the world is to lift more people out of poverty so they could have a prosperous, healthy and just life, women are key.
‘We partnered with the foundation to close this gender-access gap and spur the growth of female entrepreneurs using mobile technologies.’

Only Built 4 Cuban Tweets

By Joshua Keating


The must-read U.S. foreign policy story of the day is undoubtedly the AP’s extensive investigation into USAID’s efforts to create a social media project aimed at destabilizing the Cuban government.


This was back in 2010, a time when everyone was still abuzz about the “Twitter revolutions” in Moldova and the Philippines as well as the role the Internet played in Iran’s 2009 Green Movement. Just a few months earlier, Hillary Clinton had, in her now-famous Newseum speech, called for “a coordinated response by all governments, the private sector, and the international community” to promote Internet freedom.

With all this as a backdrop, USAID evidently thought it a good idea to help facilitate the creation of a barebones “Cuban Twitter,” which ran on cellphone text messaging to avoid Internet censors. It was thought that if the program caught on, it could help activists form “smart mobs” to protest the Cuban government.

ZunZuneo, Cuban slang for the sound a hummingbird makes, drew users in with noncontroversial messages on topics like “soccer, music, and hurricane updates.” At its peak, ZunZuneo had 40,000 users—none of whom were aware they were using a service developed by the U.S. government.

This lack of transparency is what separates the project from projects like Voice of America, or Radio Martí, which everyone is aware are U.S. government stations, or other U.S.-supported efforts to help activists circumvent Internet censors.

There’s also the fact that the ZunZuneo team was apparently using the service to gather data on Cubans without their knowledge. For instance, when the Colombian rock star Juanes played a concert in Havana in 2009, the service sent out blasts asking respondents whether they thought “two popular local music acts out of favor with the government” should be onstage. One hundred thousand people responded—unaware that they were essentially participating in a U.S. government poll.

ZunZuneo fizzled out in 2012 when the project ran out of money—to the bafflement of many of its Cuban users. This Facebook page seems to be the only remnant of it left online.

Given that U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba is where logic goes to die, the story shouldn’t be all that surprising. (For the last six years, the U.S. government has spent more than $24 million flying a plane around Cuba broadcasting propaganda that no one is able to hear.) But this one’s still a doozy.

Without ever really accomplishing anything of note, ZunZuneo manages to give rhetorical ammunition to leaders like Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who see U.S. social networks as agents of the U.S. government (Twitter’s Jack Dorsey was apparently approached about funding the project but did not comment in the AP’s article), and those like Vladimir Putin who say USAID aims to destabilize the countries where it works, and could make the Cuban government reconsider its decision to allow more cellphone and Internet access. (Although maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing in the long run for the Cuban opposition?)

I also imagine the Chinese companies behind programs like WeChat can’t wait for the next time U.S. regulators raise concerns about their services being infiltrated by Chinese intelligence.

[seemslikeadream]

Re: The Chechens' American friends Chechens & 9/11

The EyeOpener- Who is Graham Fuller

Wednesday, 8. May 2013

ImageIn the days of hysteria immediately following the Boston bombing, an unlikely media darling emerged. Ruslan Tsarni, the alleged bombers’ uncle, known to the press as “Uncle Ruslan,” gained notoriety for the ferocity with which he denounced his own nephews and their alleged Islamic radicalism. It isn’t hard to see why the press focused so closely on “Uncle Ruslan.” He said precisely what the so-called “authorities” wanted to hear about the suspects in precisely the way they wanted to hear it. However, far more interesting than the sudden popularity of “Uncle Ruslan” is his background and ties to other organizations.

Lately, a real narrative has begun to emerge from the background noise of the Boston bombing story that paints a very different picture from what we have been told. We have the uncle of the bombing suspects emerging as a media darling for his denunciation of the brothers, who just so happens to have worked with USAID and was living and working at the home of a top CIA official, Graham Fuller, who has actually advocated “guiding the evolution of Islam” to destabilize Russia and China in Central Asia. Now we have several of the pieces of the puzzle that Edmonds’ predicted in the past few weeks falling into place: that the bombers were likely being run by the CIA; that the event would bring focus on radical terrorism who have hitherto been painted as “freedom fighting allies” of the US; and that the case may be used as leverage to make new inroads on the Syria standoff between Washington and Moscow.

And several of the pieces of this puzzle revolve around Graham E. Fuller, former National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia, a proponent of political Islam, an inspiration for the Iran-Contra affair, a character reference for CIA darling Fethullah Gulen, a former RAND analyst, and the father-in-law of the Boston bombers’ uncle.

Watch the Full Video Report Here:

Re: Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line
This link between missionary and intelligence for capitalistic infiltration operations goes way back. It was part of the internationalism with the Rockefellers. It's talked about in a book called Thy Will Be Done[4] about Rockefeller, Venezuela, and Latin American Oil, the Summer Linguistic Institute, World Vision and others. But they operated in this way for a long time.

They were paid by the CIA for a long time during the Vietnam war and went into SE Asia -- Cambodia and Laos. Throughout Vietnam they were given U.S. military equipment to use. They still maintain a budget under USAID, which was just (Agency for International Development), which was just a pass-over in order to give the CIA more cover. They ran operations through USAID. The current cover replacing that is the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), which is supposed to be how we're exporting democracy around the world.

But of course, we're exporting exactly the kind of corrupt democracy we have here, which is rigged and manipulated elections and press manipulation in order to keep in power or put in power the people that we want to be in those countries for the purpose of having our investments protected and milking what we can out of the resources and the labor available in any of those countries.

USAID Conservation Funds Used for Covert Ops in Africa

[FourthBase]

SLAD, are you blind?

Hilarious to watch the media spook assets insist that USAID is not a spy agency.

Were you attempting to actually make a point?

[seemslikeadream]

Bolivia's Morales Expels USAID For Allegedly Seeking To Undermine Government
By CARLOS VALDEZ and FRANK BAJAK 05/01/13 08:53 PM ET


LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales acted on a longtime threat Wednesday and expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development for allegedly seeking to undermine Bolivia's leftist government, and he harangued Washington's top diplomat for calling the Western Hemisphere the "backyard" of the U.S.

Bolivia's ABI state news agency said USAID was "accused of alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organizations."

In the past, Morales has accused the agency of funding groups that opposed his policies, including a lowlands indigenous federation that organized protests against a Morales-backed highway through the TIPNIS rainforest preserve.

In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for allegedly inciting the opposition. On Wednesday, he said Washington "still has a mentality of domination and submission" in the region.

"They surely still think they can manipulate here politically and economically," Morales said. "That belongs to the past."

While Morales did not provide evidence of alleged USAID meddling, funds channeled through it have been used in Bolivia and its leftist ally Venezuela to support organizations deemed a threat by those governments.

But there is not much aid left to cut.

As U.S.-Bolivian relations soured and Washington canceled trade preferences, total U.S. foreign aid to the poor, landlocked South American nation has dropped from $100 million in 2008 to $28 million last year. Amid mutual distrust on drug war politics, U.S. counter-narcotics and security aid are on track to all but disappear in the coming fiscal year for Bolivia, a cocaine-producing country along with Colombia and Peru.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called Morales' allegations "baseless" and said the purpose of USAID programs in Bolivia has been, since they began in 1964, "to help the Bolivian government improve the lives of ordinary Bolivians" in full coordination with its agencies.


"The current Bolivia portfolio consists of health and environment efforts and the overall size and scope of the mission is a shadow of what it once was," said Mark Lopes, USAID's deputy assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

An agency statement said the expulsion means the end of programs that have helped tens of thousands of Bolivians, particularly children and new mothers in underserved rural areas who have benefited from health, nutrition, immunization and reproductive services.

Analyst Kathryn Ledebur of the nonprofit Andean Information Network in Bolivia was not surprised by the expulsion, but by the fact that Morales took so long to do it after repeated threats, which she believes diminishes its political impact.

"USAID alternative development efforts tied to forced coca eradication provoked his mistrust," she said of Morales, a longtime coca-growers union leader before his December 2005 election as Bolivia's first indigenous president. Since U.S. assistance has "dwindled to a trickle," the financial impact will be limited as well, she said.

Ledebur said Morales was also upset that USAID money reached lowland regional governments he accused of trying to overthrow him in 2008. Lopez said all agency democracy-promotion programs in Bolivia ended the following year.

In a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, The Associated Press asked USAID for descriptions of the Bolivian recipients of grant money. The response did not go into detail but did include such items as $10.5 million for "democracy-building" awarded to Chemonics International in 2006 "to support improved governance in a changing political environment."

A related USAID brochure said components of the three-year "Strengthening Democratic Institutions" program included "teaching basic citizenship principles and skills" in all of Bolivia's nine states, including the lowlands opposition stronghold of Santa Cruz.

A similar program in Venezuela, bearing the same name, was described by then-U.S. ambassador to Caracas William Brownfield in a November 2006 diplomatic cable as being aimed at countering attempts by that country's late president, Hugo Chavez, to centralize power and suppress civil liberties.

The cable, classified as secret, was published by WikiLeaks, and the program was administered by USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives, whose web page says it operates "in priority countries in crisis."

Morales made Wednesday's announcement to a crowd outside the presidential palace during a rally to mark International Workers' Day.

Morales told the crowd that he "laments and is condemning" U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's remark, in April 17 testimony to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that "the Western Hemisphere is our backyard. It's critical to us."

Many Latin Americans, leftists in particular, are sensitive to descriptions of their nations as a "backyard," or other phrases that could imply hegemonic designs, especially in light of Washington's 20th-century history of backing repressive regimes in the Americas.

"The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire and that's why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia," Morales told the crowd, turning to his foreign minister, David Choquehuanca and ordering him to inform the U.S. Embassy.

Ventrell, the State Department spokesman, dismissed the criticism as misdirected. "It's about us being neighbors," he said, echoing President Barack Obama's 2009 statement that the U.S. considers its Latin American neighbors "equal partners."

Morales has been especially vocal lately in his rejection of Washington's support for a full recount of the results of April 14 elections in Venezuela.

Chavez's hand-picked heir, Nicolas Maduro, won that election by fewer than 250,000 votes in balloting that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles was stolen from him by a government criticized by international human rights groups as repressive.

Morales was an especially close ally of Chavez, who died of cancer in March, leaving the ALBA alliance of leftist Latin American nations that includes Bolivia without a dominant voice.

Bolivia' Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that Morales can run for a third consecutive term in December 2014. It interpreted the country's 2009 constitution, which set a two-term limit, as not being retroactive.

Morales won re-election by a landslide in 2009 and his approval rating was 55 percent in a January opinion poll, the latest available.

___

Associated Press writer Carlos Valdez reported this story in La Paz and Fran Bajak reported from Lima, Peru. AP writers Matthew Lee and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

[seemslikeadream]

Bolivia's Morales Expels USAID For Allegedly Seeking To Undermine Government
By CARLOS VALDEZ and FRANK BAJAK 05/01/13 08:53 PM ET


LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales acted on a longtime threat Wednesday and expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development for allegedly seeking to undermine Bolivia's leftist government, and he harangued Washington's top diplomat for calling the Western Hemisphere the "backyard" of the U.S.

Bolivia's ABI state news agency said USAID was "accused of alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organizations."

In the past, Morales has accused the agency of funding groups that opposed his policies, including a lowlands indigenous federation that organized protests against a Morales-backed highway through the TIPNIS rainforest preserve.

In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for allegedly inciting the opposition. On Wednesday, he said Washington "still has a mentality of domination and submission" in the region.

"They surely still think they can manipulate here politically and economically," Morales said. "That belongs to the past."

While Morales did not provide evidence of alleged USAID meddling, funds channeled through it have been used in Bolivia and its leftist ally Venezuela to support organizations deemed a threat by those governments.

But there is not much aid left to cut.

As U.S.-Bolivian relations soured and Washington canceled trade preferences, total U.S. foreign aid to the poor, landlocked South American nation has dropped from $100 million in 2008 to $28 million last year. Amid mutual distrust on drug war politics, U.S. counter-narcotics and security aid are on track to all but disappear in the coming fiscal year for Bolivia, a cocaine-producing country along with Colombia and Peru.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called Morales' allegations "baseless" and said the purpose of USAID programs in Bolivia has been, since they began in 1964, "to help the Bolivian government improve the lives of ordinary Bolivians" in full coordination with its agencies.


"The current Bolivia portfolio consists of health and environment efforts and the overall size and scope of the mission is a shadow of what it once was," said Mark Lopes, USAID's deputy assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

An agency statement said the expulsion means the end of programs that have helped tens of thousands of Bolivians, particularly children and new mothers in underserved rural areas who have benefited from health, nutrition, immunization and reproductive services.

Analyst Kathryn Ledebur of the nonprofit Andean Information Network in Bolivia was not surprised by the expulsion, but by the fact that Morales took so long to do it after repeated threats, which she believes diminishes its political impact.

"USAID alternative development efforts tied to forced coca eradication provoked his mistrust," she said of Morales, a longtime coca-growers union leader before his December 2005 election as Bolivia's first indigenous president. Since U.S. assistance has "dwindled to a trickle," the financial impact will be limited as well, she said.

Ledebur said Morales was also upset that USAID money reached lowland regional governments he accused of trying to overthrow him in 2008. Lopez said all agency democracy-promotion programs in Bolivia ended the following year.

In a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, The Associated Press asked USAID for descriptions of the Bolivian recipients of grant money. The response did not go into detail but did include such items as $10.5 million for "democracy-building" awarded to Chemonics International in 2006 "to support improved governance in a changing political environment."

A related USAID brochure said components of the three-year "Strengthening Democratic Institutions" program included "teaching basic citizenship principles and skills" in all of Bolivia's nine states, including the lowlands opposition stronghold of Santa Cruz.

A similar program in Venezuela, bearing the same name, was described by then-U.S. ambassador to Caracas William Brownfield in a November 2006 diplomatic cable as being aimed at countering attempts by that country's late president, Hugo Chavez, to centralize power and suppress civil liberties.

The cable, classified as secret, was published by WikiLeaks, and the program was administered by USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives, whose web page says it operates "in priority countries in crisis."

Morales made Wednesday's announcement to a crowd outside the presidential palace during a rally to mark International Workers' Day.

Morales told the crowd that he "laments and is condemning" U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's remark, in April 17 testimony to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that "the Western Hemisphere is our backyard. It's critical to us."

Many Latin Americans, leftists in particular, are sensitive to descriptions of their nations as a "backyard," or other phrases that could imply hegemonic designs, especially in light of Washington's 20th-century history of backing repressive regimes in the Americas.

"The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire and that's why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia," Morales told the crowd, turning to his foreign minister, David Choquehuanca and ordering him to inform the U.S. Embassy.

Ventrell, the State Department spokesman, dismissed the criticism as misdirected. "It's about us being neighbors," he said, echoing President Barack Obama's 2009 statement that the U.S. considers its Latin American neighbors "equal partners."

Morales has been especially vocal lately in his rejection of Washington's support for a full recount of the results of April 14 elections in Venezuela.

Chavez's hand-picked heir, Nicolas Maduro, won that election by fewer than 250,000 votes in balloting that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles was stolen from him by a government criticized by international human rights groups as repressive.

Morales was an especially close ally of Chavez, who died of cancer in March, leaving the ALBA alliance of leftist Latin American nations that includes Bolivia without a dominant voice.

Bolivia' Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that Morales can run for a third consecutive term in December 2014. It interpreted the country's 2009 constitution, which set a two-term limit, as not being retroactive.

Morales won re-election by a landslide in 2009 and his approval rating was 55 percent in a January opinion poll, the latest available.

___

Associated Press writer Carlos Valdez reported this story in La Paz and Fran Bajak reported from Lima, Peru. AP writers Matthew Lee and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Concerns in Pakistan that USAID Officials Are CIA Spies
In the Wake of Raymond Davis, Suspicion Abounds
by Jason Ditz, April 29, 2011
Print This | Share This
Raymond Davis was presented to the Pakistani government as a technical support worker for the US Consulate in Lahore, so it came as quite a surprise when, in the wake of his arrest on double-murder charges, he turned out to be the de facto CIA head for Pakistan.

He wasn’t alone. The Davis fallout led Pakistani spy agencies to determine that the US indeed had hundreds of active CIA operatives working in the nation above and beyond the officially reported ones working with the government.

Now, Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau has turned its eyes toward USAID, the official US government aid agency. There is concern, according to reports, that the various USAID “corruption” scandals surrounding inefficient projects are evidence that the agency is being used as cover for CIA activities.

The US has denied the allegations, and surely a US government agency needs no ulterior motive to be monstrously inefficient. Still, it brings more unwelcome attention to the agency at a time when it is arguing that its programs are “vital” to the war effort in various nations, and a time when its funding is under growing scrutiny.

[seemslikeadream]

SLAD, are you blind?

[FourthBase]

Good for Bolivia.

Still has zero bearing on whether it is a fundamentally good or bad thing to provide internet access to people whose governments restrict it harshly. Good, by the way, is the answer, no matter who or why, provided that the how is not itself an attempt to establish just another type of anti-democratic control. Airdropping millions of untraceable smartphones in tiny parachutes, with zero other strings attached and zero other propaganda involved: Good, or bad? GOOD, again, the answer would OBVIOUSLY be good. Even if the CIA itself dropped them, with some devious vision in mind? Yep, even then. Because the act itself would begin and end with the increased access, the increased freedom. Obviously, just the same, the presence of a spook agenda demands the utmost vigilance against the manipulation certainly being attempted, whatever the next step is. But, tell me, who the fuck else is going to think to try to hook up Cuban people with something like that? Not the Cuban government! So, who? Should no one? You're cool with Cubans being forcibly deprived of the internet access that you take for granted? Why? Because you're a pinko and you can't bring yourself to criticize your own team, lol? What is it?

[seemslikeadream]

WEEKEND EDITION APRIL 4-6, 2014

The Hummingbird Tweet: An Espionage Tale
USAID Caught Using Tweets to Try and Overthrow a Government
by ALFREDO LOPEZ
For two years, starting in 2010, the United States Agency for International Development ran a social networking service — similar to Twitter — for the Cuban people. Its long-term objective was to forment popular revolt against the government and de-stabilize the country.

They called it “ZunZuneo” (Cuban slang for a hummingbird’s “tweet”) and launched it under absolute secrecy about who was really running it. “There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement,” according to a 2010 memo from one of the companies supposedly running the service. “This is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the service and to ensure the success of the mission.”

The “mission” was to reach a critical mass of Cuban users by offering tweets on sports, entertainment and light news over the service and signing recipients up through word of mouth — you call a phone number and your phone is hooked up. With that critical mass in place, the tweets would start getting more political: inspiring Cuban citizens to organize “smart mobs” — mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice to spark a kind of a “Cuban Spring” or, as one USAID document put it, “renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.”

At one point there were 40,000 Cubans getting ZunZuneo tweets but the project was abandoned in 2012 when the initial funding ran out and the people who own the real Twitter refused to take it on.

The story, an investigative report by the Associated Press, is probably not surprising to most people in this country. After the NSA revelations, what could possibly surprise us? And besides, it would not be the first time that USAID was found doing the nefarious work of the CIA at undermining governments. But it is an embarrassing revelation about how our government is using the Internet and about how “hot” the Cold War remains.

There are also some serious legal issues.

One of the main organizers of the project — Joe McSpedon of the USAID — met with officials from a variety of fronting “sponsor companies” to launch the project in 2009-2010.

From the start, the program’s objective was clear: to de-stablize the government of Cuba, and destabilizing governments is something the United States is proficient at. There are few areas of the world whose history doesn’t include an attempt, often successful, by United States to overthrow a government. In fact, in Venezuela, Ukraine and various parts of Africa, South America and the “Middle East”, such efforts are currently ongoing. In most of these cases, the propaganda-preparing and deceit-dispensing USAID plays a central role.

But some U.S. Congressional officials seemed to think this went further. Vermont Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Appropriations Committee’s State Department and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, called the program “dumb, dumb, dumb” today on MSNBC. He denied knowing anything of the program but said that, if he had, “I would have said, ‘What in heaven’s name are you thinking?’”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted that the government was only thinking of improving Cuban’s lives and had done everything “by the law”.

But that’s questionable. The program’s initial recruitment drive was based on a list of a half million Cuban cellphone users apparently stolen from Cuba’s most prominent cellphone company. An employee of that company apparently gave up the information to USAID. Those are stolen phone numbers and also involved an invasion of privacy, which is illegal under any law.

The USAID staffers also set up a series of “front” companies in Spain, Mexico and possibly other countries, to act as the new service’s sponsors. The service, with those companies displaying phony ads and messages on its website, then texted the half million stolen numbers with an offer to join up. That goes way beyond “false advertising” and is absolutely illegal in most countries, including the United States.

Finally, there is the intent of the program (the real reason that USAID wanted to hide its role). You can insult other leaders and even threaten them under international law, but you can not, ever, intervene to overthrow another country’s government. That the United States does this all the time only means that it’s breaking the law all the time.

The exposure of the Zunzuneo story is likely to lead to a new look at the role of USAID in other parts of the world where there are seemingly “popular” risings against elected governments, such as Ukraine and Venezuela.

The truth is that this Zunzuneo program actually addressed a real need, or at least took advantage of one. Cuban communications officials have been reluctant to open Internet access to the country. Then there are the problems of a still developing infrastructure (electricity and phone wires are still in scarce supply). Plus there is the lack of home computers, which only exascerbates the problem. With cell phones now available to many Cubans, the thirst for an information source over the Internet is increasingly being felt.

Which is one good reason many other Latin American leaders, some of them friends of Cuba, are advising the Cuban government to make connectivity a priority in their country. Without an on-line connection to the rest of the world, exploitative criminals like those at the USAID can make their moves.

[seemslikeadream]

Top 5 Things wrong with US AID Social Media Plot Against Cuba
By Juan Cole | Apr. 4, 2014 |

The US Agency for International Development established a microblogging platfrom similar to Twitter for Cubans. It used it to promote critical discussion of the government but also to gather private information of users. Covert operations are supposed to be approved by the White House but it is not clear this one was. The whole thing may have been illegal. Sen. Patrick Leahy said he knew nothing of the project and criticized the use of US AID as the agency to pursue it. He is right. Here’s what’s wrong with this picture:
1. The operation will make developing countries who need US economic aid chary about accepting it from USAID, since leaders will fear that the agency may be trying to overthrow them.
2. The US just gave fodder to conspiracy theories in places like Egypt, where the 2011 overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak is often blamed by the Egyptian Right wing on American covert intervention. Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey tried to ban Twitter over such suspicions of outside manipulation. The US is undermining pro-democracy movements among young people around the world.
3. Egypt, Russia and other authoritarian states have been prosecuting NGOs for accepting monetary aid from outside the country. This operation will confirm those countries in their suspicion of US government grants to rights groups, thus damaging the latter and strengthening paranoid policies in the Global South as well.
4. The US government had no business gathering personal data like cell phone numbers from its faux Twitter. The NSA has already deeply harmed the internet with its massive electronic surveillance, including of Americans residing in the US. The internet requires a certain amount of public trust to function and the US government is undermining it.
5. Cuba is not a significant challenger to the US at the moment compared to the spread of influence of al-Qaeda affiliates in northern Syria, center-west Iraq and Yemen. The US if anything is facilitating the extremist groups in Syria. These resources should have been directed at more dire security threats.
—–
Related video:
U.S. created ‘Cuba Twitter’ to sow unrest, reports AP

[FourthBase]

Cuban communications officials have been reluctant to open Internet access to the country.

That's one way to euphemize Communist repression.

[FourthBase]

How many members here are Cuban citizens living in Cuba?
Zero. The answer is zero, right? So, doesn't that strike you as...privileged?
Should wifi-rich leftists be so quick to scold any attempt to hook up Cubans?