Federal prison regulations violate constitutional rights

Ed Hightower

A commentary in Crain’s Chicago Business last week by law professor David M. Shapiro shed light on a new regulation by the federal Bureau of Prisons that severely limits inmates’ contact with family members, clergy, consular officials and other visitors. The rule sets guidelines for the bureau’s Communications Management Units (CMUs) and allows them to isolate inmates, limit their access to educational materials, religious activities, and media contact.

“Communications Management Unit” is the Orwellian title given to two federal prisons, one in Terre Haute and the other in Marion, Illinois, which operate much like the infamous CIA black sites, holding inmates virtually incommunicado in degrading and illegal conditions.

Shapiro, a clinical assistant professor of law at the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, sketches the history of CMUs, beginning with the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and the subsequent bipartisan attacks on democratic rights.

In 2005, the Justice Department established the Correctional Intelligence Initiative , a program designed to counter the alleged threat of Islamic radicalization in federal prisons. In 2006, the Bureau of Prisons purged the shelves of religious libraries available to prisoners of certain texts, including books by the medieval Jewish philosopher, physician and scholar, Maimonides.

The Bureau conducted its book purge under the banner of the Standardized Chapel Library Project, which employed a secret panel of supposed religious experts to create an approved list of 150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources covering 20 religions, while providing no funding to prisons to obtain any of them. At the same time, the Bureau of Prisons directed chaplains to remove all unapproved texts and other media. This meant the dismantling of large collections of books and media in some cases, donated by religious institutions and private parties.

At the same time, Shapiro writes, the bureau has enacted other rules attacking the bedrock democratic right to legal counsel, by allowing federal agents to snoop on communications between prisoners and their attorneys. This unconstitutional practice makes the right to counsel meaningless, as prisoners can expect to be punished for reporting abusive conditions, not to mention having their legal strategies passed on to prosecutors, giving the latter an unfair and illegal advantage in judicial proceedings. Shapiro writes that federal prisons in New York state and Florence, Colorado, have allowed this type of snooping.

Physical treatment of prisoners in federal facilities has also mimicked that of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the CIA black sites, with prolonged shackling, stress positions, and solitary confinement used as punishment.

The Bureau of Prisons created the CMU facilities between 2006 and 2008 to house inmates purportedly posing a threat to national security. Any inmate at a federal prison can be transferred to a CMU for any reason, without judicial review. Once inside, prisoners have virtually no contact with the outside world, making it almost impossible to expose the conditions they face.

Officially, the bureau detains only prisoners posing a national security threat, without regard to past behavior, political or religious belief. In reality, more than two-thirds of CMU inmates are Muslims, even though Muslims comprise just six percent of the total federal prison population. According the to Center for Constitutional Rights, CMUs house inmates with little or no disciplinary history. Instead, CMU inmates tend to be either Muslims or political activists of some sort, including prisoners’ rights advocates.

CMU inmates cannot physically interact with any visitors, including their children or spouses.

Likewise, inmates can only have three 15-minute phone calls per month (the bureau originally proposed a single 15-minute call per month) Other federal inmates get 300 minutes per month.

Contact of any kind is limited to: “immediate family members, US Courts, federal judges, US Attorney’s Offices, Members of US Congress, the Bureau, other federal law enforcement entities, and the inmate’s attorney,” according to the regulation.

Written contact can be limited to six double-sided pieces of paper per week to and from a single recipient. In person visits can be limited to four one-hour visits per month (the bureau proposed just one initially). Total visitation time allowed is one quarter of the amount allowed for inmates in federal “supermax” facilities.

CMU inmates have little or no access to job training and other rehabilitative programs available to other federal inmates. In addition, some CMU inmates are completely isolated even from other inmates.

The new Bureau of Prison regulations on the CMUs went into effect on February 23.

The publication notes for the regulations paint the new measures in rosy colors: “These regulations represent a ‘floor’ beneath which communications cannot be further restricted.”

As in other aspects of the war on democratic rights, the US government is at great pains to provide an example of how such inroads on basic legal principles further any interest in securing the country against terrorism.

Far from protecting the population from terrorism, the new CMU regulations serve two related functions: first, to intimidate, incarcerate and torture opponents of US imperialist policies and second, to limit the chance of exposing torture at these domestic GITMOs by sealing inmates off from the outside world.

Three New York men charged in alleged terror plot

Bill Van Auken

US prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have charged three men from Brooklyn, New York with the crime of attempting and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization for allegedly seeking to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The charges made public after Wednesday’s arrest of the three—all immigrants from former Soviet republics of Central Asia—makes clear that the case, like virtually all so-called “homegrown terrorism” prosecutions carried out since the September 11, 2001 attacks, was put together largely through the activities of a paid FBI confidential informant who pretended to be a terrorist sympathizer.

Arrested were Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, and Abror Habibov, 30, both citizens of Uzbekistan, and Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, who is a citizen of Kazakhstan. All three are legal permanent residents of the US. Juraboev worked at a gyro shop, while Saidakhmetov worked repairing cellphones and selling kitchenware at mall kiosks run by the third man, Habibov.

According to its version of events, the FBI initiated its investigation based on postings that it found from Saidakhmetov and Juraboev on an Uzbek language website. These included an August 2014 posting alleged to have been made by Juraboev, using a pseudonym, in which he inquired whether shooting US President Barack Obama and being in turn shot and killed would qualify someone as a martyr. He allegedly went on to state that, while he would like to travel to Syria to join ISIS, he had no means to do so. He is said to have acknowledged that he likewise had no means of attacking Obama.

The federal complaint goes on to claim that FBI agents visited Juraboev’s Brooklyn apartment, where he is said to have freely handed over his cellphone and openly espoused agreement with ISIS. It is likewise claimed that Juraboev named Saidakhmetov as someone who shared his views.

Saidakhmetov, according to the FBI’s claims, posted a comment on the Uzbek website expressing enthusiasm over an ISIS video.

The FBI also presented a transcript of an alleged phone conversation between the two discussing how they could reach Syria via Turkey based on what they had learned on web sites. Both, according to the federal complaint, expressed a lack of knowledge of the area and concern over the border being “heavily guarded.”

By late September, the FBI sent in its paid confidential informant. The complaint states that the FBI makes no claims as to the “credibility of the CI [confidential informant],” but was using him solely for the purpose of introducing the conversations that he secretly recorded.

On this basis, the extent of the role played by the informant is left largely in the shadows. From what the FBI reveals of the secretly taped conversations, however, it appears that he took the lead in turning Internet fantasies of the two younger men into a plan to reach Syria.

On its report on their appearance Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, theNew York Times stated: “As they were led into court, the youthfulness of Mr. Juraboev and Mr. Saidakhmetov was striking. Both had shaggy brown hair and broad faces. Mr. Saidakhmetov wore a green hooded sweatshirt, jeans and red hightop sneakers, and Mr. Juraboev a knit cap, a gray hooded shirt and jeans.”

The confidential informant, clearly an older individual, set out to solve the problems that the two younger men said were keeping them from going to Syria. For example, Saidakhmetov said that his mother had his passport and wouldn’t give it to him. The informant then said he would fill out a new passport application for the youth and forge his signature. As part of the FBI “sting” operation, he helped stage an appointment earlier this month at the immigration offices in New York City to have Saidakhmetov’s photograph and fingerprints taken, purportedly for the passport.

Similarly, the informant dissuaded the two younger men when they spoke about possibly flying back to their home countries and then making their way to Turkey, telling them that they should purchase tickets direct to Istanbul.

Saidakhmetov then purchased a plane ticket to Turkey, scheduling his flight for February 25 to supposedly fly there together with the FBI’s paid informant. He was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York before boarding the plane. Juraboev, who had purchased a ticket to Istanbul for the end of March, was arrested at his Brooklyn apartment.

Habibov, who is charged with having paid for Saidakhmetov’s ticket, was arraigned in a Jacksonville, Florida federal court. All three men face up to 15 years in prison and were held without bail.

On the same day as the arrests, just before they were announced, FBI Director James Comey delivered a speech in Washington announcing that the agency had “homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state.” No doubt the vast majority are unfolding under similar circumstances, with the FBI’s paid undercover agents guiding hapless suspects into crimes that would never have existed otherwise.

In New York, the city’s police commissioner, William Bratton, declared: “This is real. This is the concern about the lone wolf inspired to act without ever going to the Mideast. Or the concern of once they get to the Mideast [acquiring] fighting skills, capabilities and then attempting to return to the country.” The assertion that the case is “real” is no doubt driven by the knowledge of all those involved that it is in fact a carefully constructed “sting” operation designed to entrap the accused.

Adam Perlmutter, the lawyer representing Saidakhmetov, blasted the prosecution, declaring that the charges against his client and the two other men “highlight everything that is wrong in how the Justice Department approaches these cases.” He added that Saidakhmetov was “worked over extensively by a confidential informant, according to the complaint.”

The defense attorney told reporters that the “US government needs to find another way to approach Muslim men who could be radicalized.” Describing the government’s tactics as “ham-fisted,” he continued, “There is no attempt to intervene, to speak, to explore, to understand. There’s just the rush to prosecution, to arrest and to conviction.”

Perlmutter added that both of the two younger men were “detained by the FBI” and interrogated without the presence of a lawyer.

There is a clearly discernible motive behind the government’s tactics of entrapping such individuals in carefully constructed terror “sting” operations. These operations, which account for all but a handful of terror prosecutions over more than a decade, serve the dual purpose of justifying war abroad and police state measures at home, all in the name of a never-ending “war on terrorism.”

The New York Times cited “intelligence sources” as estimating that 150 Americans have traveled or tried to reach Syria or Iraq to join ISIS. What of course neither the so-called newspaper of record nor the prosecution admit, however, is that for the most part the government turned a blind eye to these trips even as its closest allies in the region—Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia—funneled arms and money to ISIS and similar Islamist militias as part of the US-backed war for regime change in Syria. All of this has unfolded under the supervision of the CIA.

If criminal prosecutions are to be organized for providing material support and resources to terrorist organizations in Syria, they would most appropriately begin with top US officials in the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon, rather than trolling for youth on the Internet.

Obama Justice Department: No federal charges to be filed in Trayvon Martin slaying

Thomas Gaist

The Obama Justice Department announced Tuesday that it will not press federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for the February 2012 slaying of unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin.

Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement declaring that “a comprehensive investigation found that the high standard for a federal hate crime prosecution cannot be met under the circumstances here.”

Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, criticized the decision in comments to reporters following the announcement, which came on the eve of the third anniversary of the killing of the 17-year old in the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community in Sanford, Florida.

“[Zimmerman] took a life, carelessly and recklessly, and he shouldn’t deserve to have his entire life walking around on the street free. I just believe that he should be held accountable for what he’s done,” Fulton said.

Pointing to the recent exoneration of police officers who killed unarmed youth and workers in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City, Fulton said, “We have grand juries and special grand juries; they’re making a decision to not even arrest a person.”

Zimmerman, a self-appointed vigilante with aspirations to join the police or the military, stalked Martin as he returned from purchasing snacks at a nearby convenience store before shooting the youth less than 100 yards from the home where Martin’s father was staying.

“This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something… these assholes, they always get away,” Zimmerman can be heard to say on a recording of a phone call to police taken just prior to the killing.

Police arrived on the scene just minutes after the call ended, where they found Martin lying unresponsive on the ground near Zimmerman, who was still holding the weapon used to kill the youth.

Police and local prosecutors initially refused to arrest or charge Zimmerman. After widespread protests, Zimmerman was eventually charged with manslaughter and second-degree murder.

Among the issues raised in the case was Florida’s reactionary “stand your ground” law, one of a raft of measures across the US aimed at promoting law-and-order vigilantism. The law was initially cited by prosecutors in justifying their decision not to bring charges against Zimmerman, and was later referred to by the judge in his trial.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Zimmerman was acquitted of both charges after a month-long trial. Prosecutors conducted the trial in an ineffectual manner, with police officers called by the prosecution barely concealing their sympathy for the killer.

Race was likely a factor in the killing of Martin. However, in an effort to obscure the social and class dynamics underlying the events in Ferguson, the Democratic Party and Obama administration have worked aggressively to frame the incident entirely in racial terms.

The federal civil rights investigation terminated this week was announced as part of these political maneuvers by the White House, which aimed to dissipate popular anger and channel the protest movement behind the Democratic Party.

This political operation was aided by the professional practitioners of identity politics, including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, along with the various “left” groups that orbit around the Democratic Party. Obama’s race was cited as part of efforts to present the federal government as an instrument for achieving justice in the Zimmerman case.

While the decision not to charge Zimmerman for violating Martin’s civil rights does not come as a surprise, it is clearly a calculated political move on the part of the Obama administration. The announcement means an end to any possibility of holding Zimmerman criminally accountable, thus encouraging the type of vigilantism that led to Martin’s death.

The announcement also comes in the wake of media reports that the administration will not bring civil rights charges against Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. An official announcement on that investigation is expected soon.

USW blocks way forward for striking oil workers

Jerry White

With the strike by US oil workers nearing the end of its fourth week, the leadership of the United Steelworkers union has tied the hands of strikers in the face of the intransigence of the energy conglomerates, which have dug in for a drawn out fight. Workers are engaged in a critical battle over safety provisions, impossibly long work schedules, and the continued erosion of their living standards, yet their struggle has been sabotaged by the USW, which has limited the strike to only 6,500 of the 30,000 workers it organizes in the oil industry.

Workers on the picket line at BP-Husky refinery just outside Toledo, Ohio

In a “Letter to USW Oil Workers,” texted to strikers on Thursday, USW President Leo Gerard made no attempt to explain this crippling policy, let alone how the union plans to respond to companies, which according to Gerard, have “adamantly refused to bargain in good faith.” Last week the USW rejected the seventh insulting proposal from lead industry bargainer Shell and the companies have basically walked away from negotiations determined to concede nothing particularly since the current strike has had minimum impact.

Gerard paints a picture of intransigent employers who have stonewalled any proposals to improve safety, agreeing to “meet and discuss” these issues only to give “the impression that they are actually bargaining.” The companies have “shut down discussion” about contracting out work and overtime and fatigue standards, he says while grueling schedules keep workers from their families and imperil their lives. Fires are an almost weekly occurrence and 27 oil workers have recently lost their lives, Gerard says, yet “equipment is old and in need of maintenance, but the company considers [it] too costly to take off line and fix properly because it might slow production.”

The union’s proposals for a minor reduction in huge out-of-pocket health care costs “is not even pennies on a dollar, but they insist they will not budge on this matter.” The multi-billion dollar industry has also resisted any improvement in wages.

Finally, Gerard says, the oil companies are trying to run their struck facilities with people “who are unfamiliar with the processes and equipment,” which “is arrogant and dangerous, and a threat to our communities.”

Pickets at BP-Husky refinery

Having said all of this—which is no doubt true—Gerard does not say he will call out all 30,000 oil workers on strike, let alone appeal to support for solidarity action by auto workers, teachers, dockworkers and others who make up the five million workers with expiring contracts this year. Not a chance. On the contrary, Gerard makes it clear the union will not alter its policy an iota, even though this has led oil workers to a dead end.

Instead, in the most slavish manner, Gerard begs the oil bosses to “recognize” that “we are an efficient and productive workforce.” Leaving aside the fact that Gerard is not part of this workforce—instead he makes $217,000 plus perks from sitting on various corporate and government boards—the oil companies are well aware of how much profit they squeeze from workers—and they want even more!

Even as oil workers are facing the fight of their lives, the USW opposes any struggle that would upset relations with its corporate “partners” and the Obama administration. Instead it is looking to establish more “labor-management safety committees” and an agreement on a minimal number of USW workers the oil companies will employ. The latter is so the USW bureaucracy can tell its accountants how much dues money it can rely on to fund the bloated staff of 900 officials at its Pittsburgh headquarters.

The one matter Gerard seems to have accomplished this week at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Atlanta was an apparent truce in the turf battle with North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) over dues money in the refinery business.

While Gerard admits that the oil corporations have ignored the recommendations of these various safety committees he nonetheless asks for more. That is because such committees—rather than protecting the lives and limbs of oil workers—offer a path to a lucrative career for corrupt union officials.

In one example, the World Socialist Web Site has learned that Matt Plas, a former USW Process Safety Representative at the BP Husky refinery was hired by management as an Environmental Specialist in the months leading up to the strike. He is now making a great deal of money as part of the strikebreaking operation at the BP Husky refinery. Holed up inside the refinery for 19 straight days, in housing set up by the company to accommodate scabs, Plas reportedly stated that the oil companies are preparing for a five-month strike.

The USW has continuously operated behind the backs of workers, ignoring their demands for a national strike of all 30,000 refinery workers and seeking a sellout deal to end the strike and preserve the interests of the union apparatus. Top USW and AFL-CIO officials have maintained close communication with the Obama administration which, fresh from threatening to break a strike by West Coast dockworkers, wants the oil strike shut down before it becomes a catalyst for a much wider struggle by the working class.

In contrast to the USW, on the picket lines and at oil refineries around the country, workers remain determined to beat back the corporations. One worker at the BP Husky refinery in Toledo, where 350 workers are striking, said representatives from the International USW were coming to a union meeting Thursday night to discuss the strike. “The first thing I am going to ask them,” he said, “is why isn’t this a full national strike?”

Another picketer drew attention to the issue of wages, which have stagnated over the last decade. “There has been a lot of talk about the economy rebounding, we aren’t seeing any of it though. It’s the rich that are making good. Our wages haven’t even kept up with inflation.”

Another striking worker drew the connection between conditions faced by oil workers and auto workers and denounced the imposition of two tier wages in the auto industry as a condition of the Obama administration bailout in 2009. “That never should have been done the way it was. Young workers should be able to work their way up to parity with older workers.”

Henry

Henry, a restaurant worker at Tony Packo’s Café—a well-known establishment near the BP-Husky plant—commented on the dangers in the industry. “I know they’ve got long hours of work and dangerous conditions. This is not just dangerous for them but also the surrounding communities. I used to live near a Sunoco refinery and there was some sort of explosion a while back. Everything got covered in oily ash. We lived a mile away and our house and car got covered. Living here we can always smell the exhaust from the refineries. I imagine the cancer rate is much higher here than in other areas.”

Reporters from the WSWS also spoke to workers at the Sunoco Oil Refinery at Gerard Point in Philadelphia. The USW worked with the Obama administration to help the private equity firm Carlyle Group acquire the refinery in Philadelphia and agreed to major concessions in 2012, including reductions in overtime pay.

A member of Operating Engineers union told the WSWS, “We are treated like second-class citizens. You get docked 15 minutes for clocking out a second early. I worked eleven hours today. It is supposed to be an eight and a half hour day but they want a lot of overtime. I worked 2,400 or 2,500 hours overtime last year. But they are cheap. I do a lot of digging and they tell me I don’t need a respirator. I put it on anyway. They don’t want to pay for it even though it doesn’t cost much.”

An electrical contractor protested working conditions inside the refinery, “They work us to death. Contract workers have union representation but not the USW. We work an eight and a half hour day but in reality it’s twelve hours, seven days a week. We have the 14th day off.” Asked if he would support a national oil strike, he said, “I have a family to feed but I would not cross a picket line.”

Syriza’s parliamentary group supports Greek austerity agreement

Robert Stevens

The parliamentary group of Greece’s governing Syriza party held a closed-door session Wednesday to discuss last week’s austerity agreement with the Eurogroup, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB).

The meeting of Syriza’s 149-strong caucus reportedly lasted between 10 and 12 hours and was addressed by Prime Minister and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras. Also speaking to the MPs were Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who negotiated the terms of Syriza’s abject February 20 surrender to the demands for continued austerity.

The meeting was called amid a developing crisis within Syriza’s ranks over the implications of the party’s repudiation of virtually its entire election manifesto. The various pseudo-left tendencies that belong to Syriza feel exposed by the rapidity with which it has shed its anti-austerity rhetoric, after millions of people voted in January’s general election for an anti-austerity platform.

Among those represented at the meeting was the Left Platform. An amalgam of Stalinists and pseudo-left elements, it seeks to conceal the central fact that Syriza is a bourgeois party representing the interests of sections of Greece’s ruling elite and the upper middle class. The Left Platform constitutes a substantial section of Syriza’s leadership. At the party’s 2013 first conference it won 30 percent of the overall vote and 60 seats on the central committee of the party.

Left Platform were the most enthusiastic supporters of Syriza’s coalition with the right-wing, xenophobic Independent Greeks (Anel), claiming Anel represents a progressive anti-austerity movement. Prior to January’s election, Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis paved the way for Syriza’s imminent collaboration with Anel, stating, “We will work with forces, which will responsibly be able to follow policy against the memoranda, policy in a progressive direction. This is the basis of our cooperation.”

Lafazanis, a veteran Stalinist, was handed control of the Ministry of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy following Syriza’s election victory. Since then he has spent most of his time claiming his tendency has “red lines” on privatisation that cannot be crossed. At the Wednesday meeting Lafazanis was still sounding off against a few privatisations, despite the Syriza-Eurogroup agreement categorically declaring, “To attract investment in key sectors and utilize the state’s assets efficiently, the Greek authorities will commit not to roll back privatisations that have been completed .” The document stipulated that privatisations already underway will be completed: “Where the tender process has been launched the government will respect the process, according to the law,” [Emphasis added.]

The Left Platform is not opposed to privatisations in principle. Among the few Lafazanis says he opposes are the sell-off of PPC, the electricity utility, and the power grid operator ADMIE. Even then this is only because no bids have as yet been received. On Wednesday Lafazanis said, “The tender for ADMIE will not go ahead. The companies have not submitted binding bids so it will not be completed. That is also the case with PPC.”

The reality is that Lafazanis’ posturing has not affected the sell-off of any of Greece’s state assets. This has reached farcical levels, with his threat to cancel the sell-off of the former airport site at Elliniko. Syriza Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis has endorsed the Elliniko privatisation as well as the sale of 14 regional airports, with just a few technical changes to the agreements to be finalised.

Tsipras used the caucus meeting to demand his critics finally put up or shut up, saying, “I want to know whether you agree or disagree with the deal. If there is someone who will vote against it, I want them to say so now.”

The caucus meeting summed up what Syriza’s most loyal opposition actually amounts to. In the event, reportedly only around 10 MPs voted against the deal, while another 20 voted “present” (abstained). Among those abstaining was Lafazanis. Another source said as few as five deputies voted against the deal.

Tsipras & Co. have the measure of the Left Platform and the other pseudo-left forces with the party and maintain close relations with them. Alekos Flabouraris, a long-time mentor and supporter of Tsipras, said that 18 Syriza members abstained or voted against but that if it went to a vote in parliament only three or four of the party’s MPs would vote in opposition.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting Varoufakis held a late-night discussion with Lafazanis in the Greek parliament’s café. The extent of Lafazanis’s dissent at the caucus meeting was to bleat, “There are parts of the [Eurogroup-Syriza government] letter that are reminiscent of the lenders’ language, not ours.”

Summing up the deal Thursday Bloomberg News wrote, “[G]reece has diluted at least five of its key electoral promises in the face of implacable German-led opposition to its stance. There’s been no extension of the country’s debt repayment timetable; Greece is still a ward of the troika, even if its guardians now go by a different name (they’re now referred to as the ‘institutions’); there’s no rollback of the previous government’s economic reforms; cash allocated to the domestic banking system won’t be diverted to alleviating economic hardship; and the need to achieve a sensible budget surplus has been acknowledged.”

Syriza is committed to the immediate imposition of austerity, and a sharp confrontation with the working class, under conditions where billions of euros in foreign debts fall due in days. Some €1.6 billion is due to be paid to the International Monetary Fund in March. On Wednesday Varoufakis said Athens would be seeking emergency finance in the form of the €1.9 billion in profits from Greek bonds held by the European Central Bank and would look into issuing short-term debt in the form of Treasury bonds (T-bills). However, the Eurogroup agreement stipulated that the €1.9 billion in bond profits can only be disbursed at the end of the four months agreed by Athens and on condition that it implement agreed to austerity.

Varoufakis said, “The ECB could simply hand over this money to the IMF as partial repayment. The ECB recognizes that this is money we are owed. This is not borrowed money, it’s an overpayment to the ECB.”

In a later interview with CNBC, Varoufakis said the financial markets “can be confident that Europe is going to find a way of dealing with the cash flow problem. Can you imagine allowing the eurozone to fragment over a few billion euros?”

None of this is acceptable to Germany, whose position that Greece must impose the austerity programme to the letter has only hardened since last week’s agreement. On Wednesday Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told German radio, “The question now is whether one can believe the Greek government’s assurances or not. There’s a lot of doubt in Germany—that has to be understood.” He said later, “Greece will not get a single penny until it complies with its obligations.”

Regarding any changes to the privatisation programme agreed with the Eurogroup, the ministry’s spokesman Martin Jäger said any changes to would “have to be closely agreed” to with all Greece’s creditors.

On Friday the German parliament is to vote on the Eurogroup agreement.

Record global stock prices reflect growth of financial parasitism

Nick Beams

This week has seen global stock prices approach record highs under conditions where the German government took the unprecedented step of issuing bonds at a negative yield. The two interrelated developments point to an explosive growth of financial parasitism.

World equity markets are close to their highest levels in history, as measured by the FTSE All-World Index. The FTSE 100, Britain’s index of leading shares, surpassed its previous high, achieved at the end of 1999 on the eve of the bursting of the dot.com share market bubble, to join Wall Street’s Dow and the German DAX in record territory.

This is an extraordinary phenomenon given that large areas of the global economy, most notably Europe and Japan, are either stagnant or in recession; China and the so-called “emerging markets,” which have been the main centre of global growth, are slowing down; and the much-vaunted US growth is still below historical trends.

All of the major reports on the state of the world economy in the recent period—from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development—have downgraded previous growth projections and warned that the economy is increasingly characterised by a vicious cycle.

Investment has fallen to historic lows because of the lack of demand and profit opportunities. The decline in investment is leading, in turn, to a further decline in demand and profit expectations.

Notwithstanding these powerful trends, the stock markets continue to power on, providing a graphic demonstration of the degree to which the accumulation of wealth by global financial elites has become divorced from the actual process of production.

One of the main factors boosting Wall Street in recent days was the estimation, following the testimony by US Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to the US Congress, that the central bank was in no hurry to start lifting official interest rates, ensuring that the flow of cheap money into financial markets would continue.

European markets also took heart from Yellen’s remarks and were boosted as well by the approach of the European Central Bank’s money-printing “quantitative easing” (QE) program, slated to begin next week.

In addition, they were warmed by the news that the European Union and the financial oligarchy it represents had obtained the Syriza-led Greek government’s abject capitulation, including the renunciation of the pseudo-left party’s election promises to fight the EU’s austerity program. The Greek developments, ensuring the further impoverishment of the Greek working class, was a source of satisfaction not only because of its implications for Greece, but also for the message they sent across Europe that any demand for an end to austerity would meet the same fate.

The emergence of negative bond yields, underscored by the German government’s issuance of five-year notes at a negative rate, signifies that the bond market is being transformed into a gigantic Ponzi scheme, in which the ability to make money depends on the continuous flow of new cash—largely emanating from central banks—into the financial system. It is increasingly operating according to the “bigger fool” principle. While it may be considered foolish to invest in a high-priced bond that offers a negative yield, speculators bet that there is an even bigger fool who will buy the bond when its price rises even further.

When negative yields first made their appearance, it was thought they were a transitory phenomenon, the result of the search for a “safe haven” for cash. But now they are becoming a permanent feature of the financial landscape.

Besides Germany, five-year bonds issued by Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Austria, as well as corporate bonds issued by Nestlé and Shell, have come with negative yields.

The immediate impetus for the growth in negative yields is the decision by the European Central Bank to begin bond purchases from March 1 at the rate of €60 billion per month for at least the next 16 months.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Divyang Shah, a global strategist at IFR Markets, said: “It should not be ruled out that, once the ECB QE program begins, we will see German 10-year yields trade through zero and into negative territory.” Swiss 14-year bonds were already trading at negative yields, so such an outcome could not be ruled out, he said, adding that “instead of safe haven-related demand we have QE-related demand.”

The yield on the German 10-year bond yesterday touched a record low of 0.28 percent, with 10-year yields in France, Portugal and Spain also falling to record levels.

The truly explosive growth of financial parasitism, expressed in the negative yield phenomenon, is highlighted by data compiled by JPMorgan Chase. It estimates that in the past year alone the value of negative-yielding bonds in Europe has escalated exponentially—from $20 billion to $2 trillion, a hundred-fold increase. It is calculated that at least one-third of all European bonds now show negative yields. Nothing remotely resembling this has been seen in economic history.

One of its immediate effects is to destroy the financial modus operandi of pension funds and insurance companies. Throughout their history, they have invested in government debt in order to secure a steady and safe rate of return over the long term, often under legal requirements to do so. However, this strategy is increasingly unviable, and in order to meet their commitments, they are being forced to make riskier investments or join the bond market speculation.

The rise of financial parasitism has decisive economic and political implications. As the whole of economic history demonstrates, and the events of the past decade have again revealed, the maintenance of this house of cards cannot continue indefinitely.

A major bankruptcy, produced by a sudden shift in the value of one or another of the major currencies, for example, (such as took place earlier this year with the dramatic leap in the value of the Swiss franc), a corporate default, a sudden shift in sentiment due to an interest rate rise, or one of any number of seemingly accidental events can trigger a chain reaction that brings the entire rotten financial edifice crashing down.

Furthermore, because trillions of dollars have been injected into the financial system by central banks over the past six years, the consequences have the potential to be even more serious than those that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

The consequent closures, sackings and mass unemployment and the intensification of the assault on social services will fuel the eruption of social and political struggles that will be met with an immediate and ruthless response from the financial oligarchy. That is the lesson of Greece.

Acutely aware that they have no economic solution to the crisis of the profit system, the ruling elites in every country have spent the past six years boosting police and security forces to deal with the inevitable outbreak of mass struggles.

The international working class must likewise make its own preparations. They centre on the fight for an independent socialist and internationalist program aimed at the overthrow of the financial oligarchy, and the construction of a revolutionary party to lead this struggle.

Chicago’s Abu Ghraib

Andre Damon

In April 2004, the world was shocked and horrified by the release of photographs of sadistic torture carried out by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Detainees at the prison, most of them locked up for opposing the US military occupation, were beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and killed.

At the time, the World Socialist Web Site explained that the crimes revealed in the photos and the psychology underlying them could be understood only in relation to the brutality of social relations in the United States, together with the dirty colonial aims of the war itself.

The WSWS further warned that “such a military, accompanied by a growing army of professional ‘civilian’ mercenaries, represents a danger not only to oppressed peoples in the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere, but to the democratic rights of the population in the US.”

A decade later, this assessment has been fully borne out. On Tuesday, theGuardian newspaper revealed the existence of what it describes as a “black site” on the West Side of Chicago, where police detain, beat and torture prisoners, while keeping their whereabouts secret from their families and attorneys.

The newspaper writes: “The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.”

Among those detained at the facility was Brian Jacob Church, one of the “NATO 3” who were entrapped by Chicago police in 2012 in connection with protests against the US-led military alliance, which was meeting in Chicago.

Church was taken to the secret facility and handcuffed to a bench for 17 hours. Along with two other protestors, he was set up by police on terrorism charges and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.

Vic Suter, another participant in the protests, said that she was taken to the facility and interrogated while shackled to a bench for eighteen hours before she was allowed to see a lawyer.

The Guardian writes that detainees taken to the facility report having been beaten and otherwise tortured by police. In 2013, one detainee was found unconscious in an interview room at the facility. He later died.

On Thursday, the Intercept corroborated the Guardian’s account, interviewing another torture victim at the facility who was handcuffed across a bench and hit in the face and groin until he agreed to provide false testimony to police.

The revelations follow the report last week by the Guardian that Richard Zuley, one of the lead torturers at the Guantanamo detention center, used similar techniques to secure false confessions from murder suspects when he was a detective with the Chicago Police Department.

Chicago has a long history of police violence. It is also the political home of Barack Obama and has been run since 2011 by Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former White House chief of staff.

The Obama administration, far from repudiating the horrific and criminal actions of its predecessor, has deployed the apparatus of police violence ever more directly against the American people. A series of events has marked the ever more open application within the borders of the United States of the murderous methods of the “war on terror” tested out and perfected in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

· In September 2010, the Obama administration ordered raids on the homes of leaders of the Anti-War Committee and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Minneapolis and Chicago on charges of “providing material support to terrorism.”

· In May 2012, Chicago police arrested the “NATO 3,” charging them with conspiracy to commit terrorism.

· In March 2013, US Attorney General Eric Holder declared that the president had the right to kill American citizens without a trial or any legal due process, including within the borders of the United States.

· Just one month later, in April 2013, the city of Boston was placed under de facto martial law following the Boston Marathon bombings, with residents told to “shelter in place” while armored vehicles and helicopters patrolled the streets and police carried out warrantless house-to-house searches.

· In June 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report entitled “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing.” The ACLU reported that the Defense Department had transferred $4.3 billion in military hardware, including armored vehicles, helicopters, and belt-fed machine guns, to local police departments.

· In August 2014, the authorities responded to protests against the police murder of unarmed teenager Michael Brown with a military/police crackdown. Hundreds of peaceful protesters were arrested, shot with rubber bullets or exposed to tear gas, and over a dozen members of the press were detained.

The Obama administration is presently seeking a new Authorization for Use of Military Force, nominally to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but with no geographical boundaries defined. On Wednesday, three Brooklyn residents were arrested in connection with this new war on ISIS, clearly raising the potential for this second “war on terror” to become an occasion for police-military operations within the US “homeland.”

These developments express the growing convergence of militarism abroad with an attack on democratic rights within the US. What tie these two processes together are the class interests of the financial aristocracy and the criminal methods it employs in the defense of its wealth and power.

In pursuit of these aims, the ruling class seeks to mobilize the most backward and reactionary sections of the population, including sadistic prison guards and fascist-minded police detectives. But the ultimate responsibility for these crimes rests with forces at the highest levels of the state.

It is worth recalling that late last year the Senate released a report implicating the Bush administration in a brutal torture regime carried out at Guantanamo and CIA “black site” torture centers throughout the world. Far from anyone being held accountable for these crimes, those who ordered and carried them out have defended their actions, while the Obama administration has sought to block any prosecution of those responsible.

The actions of the ruling class express the basic character of American capitalism, which is based on parasitism, fraud, criminality and an economic order in deep decline. The American ruling class has no response to the crisis of its system and the inevitable growth of social opposition other than violence and repression.

Record utility shutoffs in New York

Steve Filips

Utility shutoffs in New York State have risen by double digits in 2014, driven by a dramatic rise in electricity and fuel prices, adding further proof that millions of people are struggling with basic necessities five years into the so-called economic recovery.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) reports that as of November 30, over 1.2 million residential customers were more than 60 days behind in their bills, and that nearly 277,000 residential electric and gas customers had their service disconnected for non-payment in 2014.

Last winter rates shot up during the record cold and the spike in fuel costs, but have not come down correspondingly since the fall in oil and gas prices.

National Grid, which provides gas and electric service to much of upstate New York, terminated service for over 62,000 customers during the first 10 months of 2014, up 25 percent from all of 2013. Statewide, terminations are up 14 percent in 2014 over the previous year. In June and July 2014, National Grid was terminating 80 customers an hour.

In the comment section on an article last month on Syracuse.com about National Grid’s 25 percent increase in shutoffs, one worker wrote, “...Their bills are overwhelming (we are a family of 8), so we worked out payment arrangements to help with a $495 electric bill from this winter. When my husband switched jobs—leaving us without a paycheck for almost a month—they absolutely refused to help us in any way, shape, or form. Thankfully my parents helped us out.”

Once service has been disconnected it is very difficult to have it restored. In addition to having to pay all past due amounts, families are forced to pay an assortment of late fees, collection fees, disconnection fees and reconnection fees. On top of this, interest of 18 percent is charged on all past due amounts. Often the interest and fees total more than the outstanding debt. Making things even more difficult, utilities demand huge security deposits on top of all other payments.

The PSC does not report it, but tens of thousands of residents remain without service in the current frigid winter, and service cutoffs are continuing.

New York State, like most states, has changed its laws, which used to prohibit disconnections during the winter months. Instead, utilities must attempt to contact an adult in the home. If they determine that health or safety would be jeopardized, the customer is referred to a local social service agency, but service is still cut off after 15 business days.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, New York has consistently had some of the highest utility costs in the entire nation. For example, National Grid charged its residential customers $316 million in March 2014, a 56 percent increase from the previous March.

The burden of these costs has been borne by the working class, while some corporations have received massive subsidies as incentives to relocate or remain in New York.

New York Utility Project (NYUP), a consumer advocacy group, states that, “New York’s industrial customers’ rates are 11% lower than the national average, while New York’s residential rates are more than 60% higher than the national average.”

PSC chairperson Audrey Zilberman, in a press release last winter, explained, “The unusually cold weather that has gripped the region has caused energy supply prices to surge in New York State and throughout the Northeast.” This has led to the current shutoffs and has further strained the finances of struggling families.

The high rates being charged residential customers also exposes the lie that deregulation and privatization of the utilities lead to lower rates and better service.

The New York Power Authority (NYPA), a quasi-public agency that has 16 electric generating facilities, once provided low cost energy to residential customers, but has since allocated that energy mostly to corporations.

The largest subsidy is for $5.6 billion for a 30-year sweetheart deal between NYPA and Alcoa, which has an aluminum smelting facility in Massena, New York. This amounts to a 40 percent discount off the wholesale electric rates.

For 2013 the non-profit agency raked in income of $228 million, which was $56 million more than the prior year and was attributed to the higher electric prices.

The NYPA was founded during the Depression by then-governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It manages the Niagara Falls hydroelectric project, which is the fourth largest hydroelectric facility in the US.

The PSC is also considering the agreement reached this past weekend between Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) and Chicago-based Exelon Corporation to maintain operations at the Ginna power plant. Exelon claims this plant is unprofitable. The agreement will mean that RG&E customers will see their bills increase by over 4 percent to subsidize Exelon’s profits.

Those workers who can least afford the sky-high utility rate increases are being forced to go without basic necessities, or to risk their lives utilizing dangerous alternatives in an effort to keep the lights on or stay warm.

Chicago mayor forced into runoff election

Kristina Betinis

In the Chicago municipal elections February 24, Democratic mayor and former Obama administration official Rahm Emanuel failed to win the more than 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a runoff on April 7.

Despite the intervention of President Obama into the mayoral race at a publicity event last week, Emanuel earned just 45 percent of the vote, compared to 34 percent for Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

Three candidates ran well behind Emanuel and Garcia, taking roughly 21 percent of the vote. Of that, 12 percent went to millionaire businessman Willie Wilson, who is African American. He sought votes from city Republicans, openly supporting the new Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, who has launched a frontal assault on Illinois workers, particularly public employees.

The election was a political debacle for both Emanuel and Obama as popular support for the Democratic Party continues to drop amid expanded wars, deepening recession, continued austerity and rising levels of police violence.

Even more than the vote for Garcia, a long-time Democratic Party hack, mass abstention expressed the hostility of Chicago working people to the whole political structure. Voter turnout fell to an abysmal 34 percent, only slightly higher than the 2007 record low of 33 percent, when Mayor Richard M. Daley was reelected for a sixth term against token opposition.

The remarkably low voter turnout reflects widespread political alienation and opposition to the Democratic Party in Chicago, which has ruled the city for more than 80 years. The candidates who ran against Emanuel postured as political alternatives, but did not put forward any significant policy differences.

The elections took place on the same day an exposé was published on the Chicago police department’s secret prison detention center, or “black site,” where prisoners have been held without legal representation, and tortured and killed by police. (See, “Chicago Police Department operates “black site” interrogation compound”)

The enormous social anger at Emanuel’s policies, largely continuing those of his predecessor, Richard M. Daley—including the closure of 50 elementary schools and multiple public mental health clinics, the denial of the basic needs of the working class for jobs, affordable housing, quality health care and education and public transportation—cannot and does not find any expression in the city’s perfunctory election rituals.

To the extent that there are divisions in the Chicago political establishment, this reflects concerns that Emanuel ’ s arrogant personality and thinly-veiled hostility to the working class reveals too much about the real social relations in the city, and the lack of democracy that exists in the US more broadly.

This concern found expression in the Garcia campaign, which focused in part on associating Garcia with an earlier era in Chicago politics, the tenure of Harold Washington, the city’s first and only African American mayor, in office from 1983 to 1987. On this thirty-year-old association—and not on Garcia’s current record of supporting cuts to pensions and health benefits on the Cook County board—his campaign will aim to curry favor with African American and Hispanic voters against Emanuel in the April run-off election.

Chicago Teachers Union vice president Jesse Sharkey, a leading member of the International Socialist Organization, discussed the CTU’s support for Garcia with Chicago magazine Wednesday morning, saying, “Garcia will be the next mayor. Politics in Chicago has changed forever ... The CTU played an important role in getting Chuy to run.”

Not only did CTU leaders play a part in Garcia’s candidacy, support for him was pushed through the CTU’s house of delegates via a video endorsement by union president Karen Lewis, released ahead of any discussion on who the union would endorse. (See, “Chicago Teachers Union backs long-time Democratic party politician for mayor”)

Sharkey went on to say, “As the Democratic Party has governed to the right and taken on tax cuts for the wealthy and public coffers shrink, there’s a big space that has opened up to the left and candidates are saying, “My opponents are corporate Democrats.”

Sharkey is already working hard to bolster illusions in bourgeois politics, by insisting that the corrupt, sclerotic and frankly criminal political establishment can in some meaningful sense be pushed to the left.

“The reason that imperial leaders like Rahm, or George W., or the Daleys could get away with so much is not because people liked what they were doing,” he claimed. “It’s because they don’t think they can do anything about it. Once the little idea sinks in, that’s when you have 26,000 on the streets around the CTU strike; that’s when Harold Washington gets elected.”

Sharkey’s comments demonstrate the real attitude of groups like the ISO, which represent a privileged layer of the middle class. They support the Democratic Party by promoting illusions in the existence of “non-corporate” Democrats, while covering up the fundamental class nature of this big business party and all its representatives.

In testimony before US Congress, Fed chair signals likely delay in interest rate hike

Andre Damon

Speaking before Congress this week, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, stressing the need for “patience,” made clear to Wall Street that the US central bank might push back its time table for beginning to raise interest rates.

Referring to the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), Yellen reiterated her previous indication that the central bank would not increase the “target range for the federal funds rate for at least the next couple of FOMC meetings.”

That would make the Fed meeting this coming June the earliest date for a rise in the benchmark rate beyond the zero to 0.25 percent level that has prevailed since the end of 2008. In her testimony before the Senate and House banking committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, Yellen seemed to add a further condition for raising rates, suggesting a later date, when she added that the central bank would not raise rates until inflation rose to what it considered a more normal level of 2 percent.

Given the continuing prevalence of price deflation in the US and other countries, Yellen’s comment suggested an inclination to put off raising rates. US prices fell by 0.4 percent in December, according to the latest Labor Department report.

Yellen’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday prompted a stock rally, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing up by 92 points, or 0.5 percent, to a new record of 18,209. “Investors interpreted Yellen’s remarks on Tuesday as giving the Fed more flexibility to hike later than June,” declared Reuters, summing up the consensus response to Yellen’s appearance.

While US stocks were largely unchanged Wednesday, following Yellen’s testimony before the House committee, the FTSE all-world stock index closed at a new record high, reflecting both the enthusiastic response to Yellen’s comments and the abandonment by the newly-elected Greek government of its anti-austerity election program.

In the run-up to the Fed’s January policy report, a strong US dollar and falling global demand led major US corporations, including Microsoft, Caterpillar, Procter & Gamble and DuPont, to announce either reduced fourth-quarter earnings or curtailed 2015 forecasts. The rise of the dollar, driven by the disjuncture between US Fed plans to raise US interest rates and European and Japanese moves to slash their rates, was cited by corporate officials as a major factor in the fall in exports and earnings.

Yellen’s congressional testimony was, at least in part, a response to pressure from Wall Street and big business to signal a delay in any increase in US rates, a move that would tend to narrow the gap between the dollar and other major currencies.

Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee took Yellen’s appearance Wednesday as the occasion to grandstand against the Fed chair’s supposed left-wing bias, directing their fire at her comments last year that the growth of social inequality posed economic dangers and alleging that her meetings with the White House were inappropriate.

Defending the “independence” of the Federal Reserve from a proposal to subject its monetary policy to a congressional audit, Yellen took a no less right-wing position than her Republican critics, declaring that such a proposal would have prevented former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker from taking politically unpopular measures to end high inflation in 1979 and the early 1980s.

Volker, who was appointed Fed chairman by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, deliberately thrust the US into a recession in order to use mass unemployment as a bludgeon to drive down wages. His policies went hand in hand with the smashing of the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers strike and scores of other struggles by American workers, setting the stage for decades of attacks on workers’ living standards. For all of Yellen’s rhetorical invocations of social inequality, her move to associate her own policies with Volker’s made clear the interests she serves.

Her supposed defense of the “independence” of the Fed, moreover, was made in the context of the Fed’s continued functioning as a direct tool of the most powerful Wall Street interests.

The Democrats at the hearings for the most part praised Yellen, who, as both Fed chair and vice chair, has overseen the transfer of trillions of dollars to Wall Street. Among the few Democrats to voice any criticism of Yellen was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who quibbled about an obscure Federal Reserve official, general counsel Scott Alvarez, in order to posture as an opponent of the close relations between the Federal Reserve and Wall Street.

Warren made no mention of any of the Federal Reserve’s real crimes, from standing by as major financial institutions made billions of dollars selling toxic mortgage-backed securities before 2008 to the backdoor bailout of Goldman Sachs and other banks through the rescue of insurance giant AIG.

Warren strongly favored Yellen’s appointment in 2013, declaring that she would “make a terrific federal reserve chair.”