Google’s Project Nightingale: The largest transfer to date of private medical data to the tech giant

Benjamin Mateus

Last week, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Ascension Healthcare, the second-largest healthcare provider in the US, has partnered with Google in a venture called Project Nightingale to transfer personal health data on millions of patients to the giant technology company’s cloud-based platforms, the largest trove of such information to date.

On the same day that the Journal broke the news, the two entities released a joint press statement confirming their relationship, which involves personal medical data from the entire spread of Ascension, a Catholic network of 2,600 hospitals, clinics, and other medical outlets, spanning 21 states involving more than 50 million medical records. Secret negotiations began a year ago, and thus far 10 million medical files have been uploaded with completion of the transfer scheduled for March 2020. Both companies have assured compliance with government regulatory processes.

What has many critics concerned about the project is the secretive manner in which the negotiations had been conducted and the unprecedented nature of the size and type of information being shared. At no time did Ascension or Google attempt to inform the doctors or their patients or obtain their consent.

A Google office at night

Data sharing between healthcare and technology companies has typically occurred with de-identified data or, in other words, data stripped of all identifying information such that it can’t be traced back to the individual in question.

However, in this case the records being transferred include the names of patients, personal data such as addresses, employer, and medical record numbers. These are tied to their health history, which can include data like their medication list, physiological characteristics, genetic tests, their sexual and psychological reports, and other studies such as various imaging and special procedures such as echocardiograms or colonoscopies, and sundry blood tests. Google will have access to sensitive surgical reports and detailed pathology review of tissues. Accidental breach of the data or intentional covert sharing of the most intimate and private information can have devastating impact on the lives of millions of people.

For the past two decades Google has been facing accusations of repeated privacy violation to include a recent settlement that requires Google and YouTube to pay $136 million to the Federal Trade Commission and $34 million to the State of New York for allegedly violating Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule by targeting advertisement on their children channels.

Google has also been cited for collaborating on patient data transfers with the Royal Free National Health Service Foundation Trust in the UK, DeepMind Technologies (acquired by Google in 2014), and the University of Chicago Medical Center at the University of Chicago where data was not properly de-identified.

Google has also allied with the military, providing them with artificial intelligence software that provides the US military and intelligence community the ability to prosecute their endless wars in the Middle East. The intimate relationship that exists between the giant technology company and the state should give serious concerns about the potential for how this data could be used against the working class. The National Security Agency has been collecting records of phone calls and text messages of millions of Americans. It is certainly conceivable that with Google’s ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) development these formidable tools will even further enhance the state’s repressive capacity.

The coordinated Wall Street Journal reporting on the behind the scene negotiations in conjunction with the release of the press statement by Google and Ascension are characteristic of a damage-control release of information to buffer public concerns and criticism. The tone of the Journal articles is matter of fact and superficial, lacking substantive analysis despite the potentially catastrophic and massive violation of patient privacy involved in this enterprise.

Last week also saw the Guardian reporting on an anonymous whistleblower who works on Project Nightingale. The paper did not make public the content of the whistleblower’s documents other than stating, “Among the documents are the notes of a private meeting held by Ascension operatives involved in Project Nightingale. In it, they raise serious concerns about the way patients’ personal health information will be used by Google to build new artificial intelligence and other tools.”

In a video the whistleblower expressed troubling concerns that the operations have been kept hidden from patients and the public at large. Unlike previous efforts by healthcare organizations to transfer de-identified data to technology companies, the data transfer with all the personal details included will be accessible to more than 150 Google staff and could potentially, through negligence or intent, be hacked or released. At stake are serious violations of federal rules on data privacy and breach of sensitive patient information that have yet to be challenged.

A video released by the whistleblower that supposedly detailed the “confidential outlines of Project Nightingale” has since been removed by Daily Motion, a French-based video-sharing technology platform, citing a breach of its terms of use.

Following these reports, lawmakers have jumped in the fray, suggesting the arrangement between Google and Ascension runs contrary to federal privacy rules regarding medical records. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) was created to stipulate how personally identifiable information had to be maintained by the healthcare and insurance industries to protect them from fraud and theft.

Senator Mark Warner (Democrat, Virginia) has been one of a handful of legislators decrying the largest effort so far by a technology company to enter the healthcare industry.

Healthcare in the United States is a multi-trillion-dollar industry where technology giants have been attempting to position themselves to compete for lucrative contracts against outmoded and inefficient processes that have led to rising costs. The medical technology field has seen Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft competing to capture larger shares of the market with forays into medical research, electronic medical record systems, logistics, and transportation as well as the use of apps and software to track variety of ailments and conditions.

Legislators have called for a moratorium on Project Nightingale until further investigations into the nature of these arrangements can be conducted. According to Senator Warner, “Allowing already-dominant technology platforms to leverage their hold over consumer data to gain entrenched positions in the health sector is a worrying prospect.” However, according to The Hill, experts in healthcare policy do not consider the partnership to be a HIPPA violation, as the 1996 law allows for a broad definition of “business associate” and makes an exception for data used for quality improvements.

Given the rising cost of healthcare and the need for critical operating revenues, the present collaboration between Ascension Healthcare and Google intends to use artificial intelligence to more rapidly read and analyze electronic health records to capture all pertinent diagnoses and compete in the tightening market of healthcare delivery. As the New York Times noted, “Already, the two organizations are testing software that allows medical providers to search patient’s electronic health records by specific categories and create graphs of the information, like blood test results over time.”

Significantly, Project Nightingale has been a bonanza for Google and its AI programs. Engineers require large troves of accurate data to sift through in order to improve predictions in their AI algorithms. Access to Ascension’s data files linked to real names and identifications will allow them to prospectively analyze their predictions and develop “total” profiles on people which can be used for the most nefarious purposes, from firing workers for breaches of company “health practices” to developing health files which can be used to persecute political opponents.

Former top military official wins Sri Lankan presidential election

K. Ratnayake

The Sri Lankan Election Commission announced yesterday that Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) candidate Gotabhaya Rajapakse had won Saturday’s presidential election.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse, an ex-army colonel and brother of former President Mahinda Rajapakse, was Sri Lankan defence secretary between 2005 and 2014. He has been hailed by a section of the Sri Lankan ruling elite, the military and Sinhala racists for his ruthless prosecution of the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which ended in May 2009. He is also widely hated for his brutal suppression of workers’ struggles and government critics, including journalists.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse (AP Photo)

The SLPP candidate received 6.9 million or 52 percent of the total votes, much of his support from rural areas. Sajith Premadasa, the candidate of the pro-US ruling United National Party (UNP), received 5.5 million votes or about 42 percent of the total ballot. About 82 percent of registered voters participated in the Saturday’s ballot, one of highest in a Sri Lankan election.

The election was held amid deep hostility towards President Maithripala Sirisena and the ruling UNP-led government, and their implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) austerity demands. Many voting for the SLPP candidate did so as a protest against the UNP government but with no confidence in any of Rajapakse’s election promises that he will alleviate declining social conditions.

The election of Gotabhaya Rajapakse, however, far from improving the lot of ordinary working people will see the intensification of the austerity program of the present government and the ruthless suppression of opposition by workers, young people and the poor.

During the campaign, Rajapakse boasted of his role in ending the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 and is being hailed as the “strongman” needed to bring stable government. As defence secretary, he presided over the slaughter of at least 40,000 Tamil civilians and is directly implicated in war crimes. He is also responsible for the military-sponsored death squads that carried out hundreds of ex-judicial killings and “disappearances,” including of opposition politicians, critics and journalists.

Rajapakse’s election marks a sharp shift towards autocratic forms of rule and the dispensing with basic constitutional and legal norms. As president, he will inevitably turn to the same criminal methods in dealing with the working class, as he and his brother employed against their political opponents and the Tamil population during the war.

The SLPP whipped up anti-government opposition, following the ISIS-backed National Thowheeth Jamma’ath terrorist attacks on April 21, which killed nearly 300 people, by claiming that the government had weakened the intelligence apparatus.

In an attempt to divert social tensions along communal lines, Gotabhaya Rajapakse promoted anti-Muslim sentiment, claiming Sri Lanka faced a new Islamic terrorist threat, and alleging that “LTTE terrorism is being revived.”

Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s election campaign centred on his agitation for greater “national security” to defeat terrorism. Its real purpose is to build up the military and intelligence apparatus against the working class. This reactionary agenda was shared by UNP candidate Premadasa and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which also called for strengthening national security during the election campaign.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Muslim parties called on Tamils and Muslims to spurn Gotabhaya Rajapakse and vote for the UNP candidate. While the TNA and the Muslim parties are discredited, the Tamil and Muslim population overwhelmingly rejected Rajapakse who was defeated in every district in the North and the East.

Significantly, Rajapakse will hold his swearing-in ceremony tomorrow at Anuradhapura, which is venerated by the Buddhist establishment and Sinhala racists. The city is the location of the ancient kingdom of legendary King Dutu Gamunu who ruled the area after defeating a Tamil king.

As soon as Premadasa conceded defeat and resigned as deputy party leader, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he would hold discussions with the new president about whether to dissolve the parliament or sit in the opposition. Several government ministers, including for finance and international trade, have already resigned.

SLPP leader Mahinda Rajapakse issued a statement yesterday declaring that he hoped the ruling UNP “would honour the election mandate.” He indicated that priority should be given to sorting out the “complications created by the 19th amendment to the constitution” after the new president is sworn in.

The former president also declared that measures would be taken to “rebuild the economy from the bottom upwards and to introduce constitutional and legal reforms to achieve this objective.”

In other words, the SLPP and Gotabhaya Rajapakse want the UNP-led government to resign and new parliamentary elections to be held to establish a new regime to implement its right-wing, anti-working class agenda.

The so-called “complications created by 19th amendment” is a reference to the limited measures introduced by the UNP-led government to curtail some the president’s powers. While not openly stated, future legal reform and constitutional change will be used to shift the country towards authoritarian forms of rule.

Saturday’s election was held amid a deepening political and economic crisis of the government and the ruling elite and rising struggles of the working-class against austerity. Every faction of the ruling elite is seeking the establishment of police-state rule. Having won the presidential elections, the SLPP will begin implementing such measures.

Mahinda Rajapakse’s reference to “rebuild[ing] the economy from the bottom upwards” is also significant. Sri Lanka is mired in mounting debt and confronts an economic down turn.

In the name of solving the crisis, the IMF has demanded sweeping economic reforms, including privatisation of state-owned enterprises and the slashing of welfare programs. While the IMF wants the fiscal deficit cut to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2020, this year’s deficit has risen to 5.6 percent of GDP. Early this month, the Sri Lanka Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy warned there will be “basically a Greece-like scenario,” if those targets were not achieved.

The SLPP was established by a faction of the President Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) two years after the ousting of Mahinda Rajapakse in the 2015 election, amidst mass opposition. Appealing to Sinhala chauvinism, it has rallied support from a layer of Buddhist monks and racist forces, including the fascistic Bodu Bala Sena, and sections of the military hierarchy.

The pseudo-left and trade unions, who politically disarmed workers during the election, helped create the conditions that brought Gotabhaya Rajapakse to power by promoting the right-wing UNP, which also has a long history of anti-democratic methods of rule.

In this election, the fake left Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), which functions as an appendage of the UNP government, called for a vote for UNP candidate Sajith Premadasa claiming this would to stop the “fascist” Gotabhaya. Similarly, the United Socialist Party (USP) indirectly backed Premadasa declaring that the main task is stopping “fascist Gotabhaya.”

During the recent wave of strikes and protests by Sri Lankan workers over wages and conditions, the trade unions backed the UNP-led government. Another fake left outfit, the Frontline Socialist Party limited and politically isolated workers struggles, claiming the industrial action could pressure the government and the companies to grant concessions.

These formations all opposed the Socialist Equality Party’s struggle for the independent mobilisation of the working class against every faction of the ruling class and to fight for workers’ and peasants’ government to implement socialist policies. The trade unions and fake left have thus helped strengthen the ruling elite as it moves to dictatorial forms of rule.

The SEP was the only party contesting the election on the basis of an international socialist program, against imperialist war, austerity and attacks on democratic rights. The SEP campaign was well received by many workers and youth with our candidate receiving 3,014 votes across the island. While small, this is a class-conscious vote for socialism.

Sooner, rather than later, the working class will come into direct conflict with incoming President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government. In order to defeat the attacks workers must base themselves on an international socialist program. We urge workers and youth to join us and build the SEP as the revolutionary party needed for this struggle.

Why did South Korea Walk Out of the GSOMIA?

Sandip Kumar Mishra

The military intelligence-sharing pact between South Korea and Japan, called the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), is going to expire on 23 November 2019. As per Article 21 of GSOMIA, any party can walk out of the agreement with a three-month notice, which, in this case, was given by South Korea to Japan on 22 August.

There have been several unsuccessful bilateral attempts between the South Koreans and the Japanese to resolve the issue involving meetings and delegation visits at the highest levels of government. The latest meeting was between South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and Japanese Defence Minister Taro Kono in Bangkok on 17 November. In all of these exchanges, both parties have just stated their respective positions without showing any sign of flexibility. What really led to the breakdown of this agreement?

It is important to consider the context, causes, and consequences of the termination of GSOMIA. Equally, it must be remembered that in the larger picture of bilateral security relations between Japan and South Korea, GSOMIA has a very small role to play. South Korea has similar agreements with around 30 countries, and most of these are largely inactive. In the case of the South Korea-Japan GSOMIA, which was concluded in November 2016, there has reportedly been insignificant critical information-sharing so far. In fact, if bilateral political relations continue to be strained, there is any case very little chance of them contributing to any substantial intelligence-sharing. However, if relations improve, such sharing can be made possible even without GSOMIA. In addition, both countries are part of the Trilateral Information Sharing Agreement (TISA) with the US, through which important intelligence is shared indirectly.

The real context of the termination of the agreement by South Korea thus are issues that are found outside of it, that is, a deterioration of relations with Japan on concerns such as dealing with North Korea, comfort women, compensation to forced Korean labourers, and South Korea's removal from Japan's 'white list'.

South Korea is unhappy with what it sees as Shinzo Abe's spoiler role by insisting on a tough approach to North Korea, or by disproportionately highlighting the abductees' issue, when the Moon Jae-in administration has made several attempts at engagement with Pyongyang and worked to bring the Trump administration on board. The Moon government is also not on board with what Japan considers the final and conclusive agreement on comfort women, of November 2015, and seeks its renegotiation.  

The recent bilateral salvo began with a demand for compensation to Korean forced labour by courts in South Korean in October-November 2018. Japan says that such compensation was already provided to the South Korean government on the basis of the 1965 agreement. South Korea's argument is that this compensation was a judicial decision that the government does not have a say in. In fact, in June 2019, Seoul proposed the established of a joint fund to provide said compensation, but this was rejected by Tokyo. Japan removing South Korea from its 'white list' on the grounds of some Japanese exports being leaked to Iran, UAE, and North Korea deepened the bilateral rift. The trade war between the two countries has escalated into public outrage in both Japan and South Korea, which has had a severe impact on their people-to-people exchanges as well. In this context, the Moon administration's decision to terminate GSOMIA is a strategic move to put it in a bargaining position with Japan.

Another strategic South Korean calculation motivating the termination is directed west, towards the US. To continue with the GSOMIA, which is also in the US' interest, Seoul would like Washington to consider: one, more flexibility in its position on North Korea; two, that full cost-sharing with the US for their troops stationed in South Korea is unreasonable; and three, the possibility of limiting or restraining Shinzo Abe's aggressive approach towards South Korea.

South Korea’s decision to terminate the agreement is not a hasty one. Through it, it seeks to address what it sees as unhelpful approaches adopted by the US and South Korea towards regional security. If its objectives are achieved, this will be an important milestone for South Korean foreign policy. If no change is achieved, GSOMIA's termination by itself is unlikely to have any significant consequences.

Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarships 2020/2021 in Canada for Researchers

Application Deadline: Students must apply through a university’s internal selection process, and each university sets its own deadlines.
The final deadline for universities to submit their nominations is 22nd January 2020

To be taken at (country): Canadian Universities

Accepted Subject Areas: Social Sciences and Humanities related studies, preferably one of the following:

• Human Rights and Dignity
• Responsible Citizenship
• Canada and the World
• People and their Natural Environment

About the Award:  The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship Program will help shape researchers into engaged leaders who are conscious of the impact of their research, connected to the realities of the communities in which they work, and open to non-conventional forms of knowledge. The Foundation is seeking candidates who are audacious, original, and forward-thinking.
The program will last for three years and will also provide generous support for Scholars’ doctoral work in the form of a stipend and a research and travel allowance.
In the first year of their term, Scholars will receive mandatory leadership training from the Foundation’s Mentors, who are leaders from across the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and Fellows, who are leaders in research and teaching, during Institutes of Engaged Leadership. The Institutes will take place in different provinces, territories, and foreign countries.
In the second year of their term, Scholars will work with Mentors and Fellows to collaboratively plan and participate in a public conference with a flexible format, to be created and led by the Scholars themselves.
The third and final year of the program will be dedicated to knowledge dissemination. Scholars will continue to work closely with Mentors and Fellows to share the lessons they have learned over their term with the Foundation. This activity could take many forms, from the publication of a book to a theatre production or a fundraising gala. It will be a chance to innovate and experiment in order to share knowledge and skills gained through the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation experience with a public audience.
The Foundation recognizes that leaders in Canada communicate fluently in English and French and is committed to supporting Scholars in improving their language skills and expects them to make the necessary efforts to become fluent in both official languages. The Foundation will also strive for robust representation of the diverse stakeholders, cultures, and communities that compose Canadian society in terms of gender, language, ethnicity, and region. The Foundation welcomes First Nations, Inuit, and Métis candidates.

Selection Criteria

• Academic excellence;
• Leadership experience and abilities;
• Thematic relevance of research to the Foundation’s themes;
• Public engagement;
• Desire to contribute to public dialogue and share knowledge;
• Communication skills;
• Desire to belong to a vibrant community made up of leaders from across sectors

The Foundation welcomes candidates embodying all forms of diversity, including but not limited to gender, ethnicity, language, region, and discipline. We encourage First Nations, Métis, and Inuit candidates.

Eligibility:

• You must be already accepted into or in year one, two, or three of a full-time doctoral program in the humanities or social sciences
• Your doctoral work must relate to at least one of the Foundation’s four themes: Human Rights and Dignity, Responsible Citizenship, Canada and the World, People and their Natural Environment
• Canadian citizens are eligible whether they are at a Canadian or an international institution
• Non-Canadians (permanent residents or foreign nationals) enrolled in a doctoral program at a Canadian institution are eligible

Selection:

1. Apply through your university’s internal selection process using the Foundation’s application portal.
2. If your university chooses to nominate you for the national competition, your application will be forwarded to the PETF and will undergo a rigorous review process.
3. Finalists will be invited to interviews with the selection committee.

Number of Awards: Up to 20 Scholars will be selected in 2020.

Value of Awards: If you are chosen as a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, you will receive:

• Membership in a community of other Scholars, Mentors, and Fellows, all of whom are leaders and change-makers in their respective disciplines and sectors;
• Leadership training from Mentors and Fellows;
• $40,000 per year for three years to cover tuition and reasonable living expenses; and
• Up to $20,000 per year for three years, as a research and travel allowance;

If you are chosen as a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, you must:

• Attend a community retreat and two Institutes of Engaged Leadership during the first year of your term;
• Collaboratively plan and participate in a conference event during the second year of your term;
• Work with other Scholars, Mentors, and Fellows on a creative knowledge sharing and dissemination project during the third year of your term;
• Work towards fluency in English and French with support from the Foundation;
• Actively engage and collaborate with the Foundation’s community of Scholars, Mentors, and Fellows; and
• Submit one research progress report per year.

Duration: 3 years

How to Apply: You must apply through a university’s internal selection process using the Foundation’s application portal. If your university chooses to nominate you for the national competition, your application will be forwarded to the PETF with a letter of nomination and will undergo a rigorous review process. Finalists will be invited to interviews with the selection committee.

1. Learn about your university’s internal selection process deadlines: Each university has a different internal deadline, so make sure that you apply on time.
2. Register: When the competition opens, register for an account on the Foundation’s application portal. You will receive a username and password by email within 4 business days of registering (please check your spam folder if you do not see it). If you already have an account from a previous scholarship competition, you can login using your existing login credentials or request a password reset.
3. Fill out the application: Once you log in, you can apply by completing the application form the “Ébauche / Draft” section of the portal. Please also fill out your contact information in the “Coordonnées / Contacts” section of the portal.
4. Get recommendation letters: While filling out the application form, you will be asked to enter the name and email address of your three referees in the box provided. An email will automatically be sent to the referees, asking them to upload their reference letter in PDF format directly to our portal. We advise that you follow up with your references to ensure they submit on time.
5. Upload transcripts: Upload transcripts covering all of your post-secondary education in one PDF document. Any candidates who attended CEGEP in Quebec should not include their CEGEP transcripts.
6. Contact your university: Please inform the awards officer responsible for the PETF Scholarship competition at your university to let them know you’ve applied. This ensures that your application will be included in your university’s selection process.
7. University nominations: Your university will nominate applicants and forward their nominations to the Foundation by the closing date of the competition. The Foundation will only send an acknowledgement to those applicants who have been nominated by a university.
8. PETF selection process: All candidates who have been nominated by a university will go through a rigorous selection process. Finalists will be invited for an interview. 

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Toward a Counterculture of Rebellion

Bernard Marszalek

Living In A World That Can’t Be Fixed is not a guidebook to terminal melancholy. Curtis White, the author of this book, also wrote The Spirit of Disobedience along with other social criticism, hardly advocates that course of inaction. On the contrary, White’s provocative title poses a challenge. He’s saying political reformism offers modest remedies, at best, to mitigate the catastrophe upon us. And he says it with a range of insights—from Wordsworth to Adorno by way of Agnes Varda. Curtis writes with assurance of his sources, but far removed from a pedantic style.

Let’s begin where White does in the year 1969—a pivotal year for him. A recent high school graduate, living in an East Bay suburb outside San Francisco, he encountered both the political left and hippies—the counterculture. He absorbed both milieux. That year, forever in the shadow of ’68, was noteworthy for several historic countercultural events: Woodstock, People’s Park, the Alcatraz Island occupation, and, ending in December, with the fateful Rolling Stone’s Altamont concert where one person was killed.

The political aspects of the Sixties counterculture have been relegated to limbo by the manipulative media to emphasize instead the hairy, bell-bottomed, dope-smoking, denizens of the music scene as epitomizing the counterculture. White corrects this. The counterculture had extreme poles: uptight politicos at one end and psychedelic mystics at the other. White, however, was in the majority who combined, to varying degrees, political awareness along with hedonistic and revelatory pursuits of mind and body. The rebellious nature of the counterculture, we need to recall, had antecedents. The Beats immediately preceded the hippies and in some instances merged with that culture. Before the Beats, the Dadaists and Surrealists combined revolutionary politics with literary and artistic disruptions, and they in turn drew upon a host of nineteen-century poets and artists who assaulted the bourgeois philistinism of their era. It is this rich vein of oppositional culture that White mines for his sharp analysis of our current predicament.

And what precisely is our predicament? Let’s be clear here that the world in turmoil affects us intimately by way of mass
media saturation. The 24/7 bullshit that comes our way precludes an informed and critical analysis. Cutting through the media—its “if–it-bleeds-it-leads” stories—is essential. In short, the neoliberal order, unable to remedy the shambles it has created, putters along like a jalopy chucked full of armed thugs. All the media shows us in its wake is the carnage.

In response to mass media the political left promotes a moral crusade, not a vision of a convivial future. White maintains that left politics lacks an appreciation of culture, specifically a “culture-as-politics.” As he says:

Properly understood, culture is concerned with the process of becoming. Culture is about movement more fundamental than this year’s political movements. As Sigmund Freud wrote, culture is the act of “replacing what is unconscious with what is conscious.” A cult is unconscious. It simply does what it has always done. It follows instructions. Culture, on the other hand, is the bringing to awareness of the damage—repression, irrationality, violence, ugliness, injustice, and tragedy—imposed by the cult. In this sense, culture is enlightenment. And in this sense the United States is a cult.

An investigation into the meaning of culture leads White to explore the significance of place and the thinking of Christopher Alexander, a British-American architect and theorist who should be better known. Influenced by, among others, the anarchist geographer Peter Kropotkin and British “plotlanders” who built their own homes, Alexander imagines communities as “mosaics of subcultures”—a radical social decentralization not for political ends as much as for relational needs. Applied to cities, these mosaics are similar to the diverse neighborhoods in Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach’s Seventies speculative novel of a future US where the Pacific Northwest secedes.

The unofficial capital of Ecotopia was San Francisco, where the hilly topography invited distinct and diverse neighborhoods. Today gentrification and homogenization has transformed San Francisco into a playground for salary-bloated software engineers. When Callenbach wrote the city was still a haven for cultural creation. Communes and collectives thrived. The picturesque large Victorians in the Haight that accommodated communal households of hundreds of freaks were splashed across front pages to perpetuate, at best, novelty and at worst, depravity. Ignored were the thousands who inhabited other neighborhoods throughout the city. In this way the media deliberately misconstrued the extensive culture creation for superficialities.

Artists, musicians, and actors appropriated more space by transforming abandoned warehouses into live/work studios. Soon the communes spawned economic collectives: food stores, bicycle and head shops, resale clothing stores, and even car repair garages and print shops. These ventures did business in a neighborly way—like a village. In the mid-Seventies many of them were networked through a group called The InterCollective. During its heyday their Directory listed 150 collectives in the San Francisco Bay Area and 350 on the West Coast.

The Sixties countercultural institutions, rooted in place, provided the space for collective pursuits that the traditional economy foreclosed. To disparage these collectives as failed projects, because many of them didn’t survive, is to forget that youth, not too distant from their childhood, hobbled them together. Notwithstanding their precarious origins, the legacy of that period continues today with up to 2,000 worker cooperative members and further thousands living in cooperative housing in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.

To incubate institutions that incorporate the elements of a good life, White asserts, requires grounding in place as a site to cultivate our better selves. This notion may seem foreign to most people, so White successfully unwraps it with references to a broad range of cultural artifacts: films, books, plays, and music. From pop culture to more obscure literary references, he manages to convey complex ideas effortlessly.

If the Sixties was noted for communes, fifty years later we have our commons.

Elinor Ostrom, who won a Nobel Prize for Economics in 2009, methodically studied commons all over the world. Her book Governing the Commons, however, didn’t appear until 1990. The commons, as resource sharing and as an alternative to private property, didn’t gain popular recognition until the beginning of the current century.

An argument could be made that the notion of the commons eclipses the communes of the counterculture. If the hippies and fellow travelers had explicitly recognized that their various collectives had an historic commonality, maybe a stronger political force of solidarity would have taken shape. A force, that is, to sustain a concerted fight to keep rents low and funding high for countercultural subversions.

There was one struggle in White’s pivotal year of 1969, the year of People’s Park, which is exemplary as a reclamation of the commons. The commons-to-be was a parcel four times the size of People’s Park and two miles away in a working class neighborhood of Berkeley. It was a dirt field several hundred feet wide and one-half mile long that remained after Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) submerged tracks underground for its transit system.

Much of the energy from the People’s Park struggle got directed to creating a park on the barren land. They called it People’s Park Annex. This was the impetus that propelled the neighbors to develop the land. For ten years the community near the park overcame police harassment to plant trees and shrubs, create a vegetable garden, build children’s play structures, and party with huge potlucks. They resisted all attempts to divert the land for one stupid project after another until finally, with some clever legal tactics, the community wrenched the land from BART so that the City of Berkeley could acquire it. In 1979, Ohlone Park, named after the tribe that historically inhabited the SF Bay area, was officially proclaimed as a city park. The residents of Berkeley removed a significant piece of real estate from the market and created a commons—one of the largest reclaimed urban commons in America.

The continuing struggle with the campus-owned land, that is the original People’s Park, took on the tone of militant resistance—the park as a battlefield. The PPA participation, however, looked more like a carnival. There’s a lesson here. It’s the nature of a commons to facilitate democratic practices and cultivate a pragmatic egalitarianism—to live differently, as White asserts. Or as one guerilla gardener said of the PPA, “This is an adult adventure playground.

Obviously not all commons are carnivals. Historically the commons was a survival resource. It was the village grazing field, the wood supply, and a space for garden plots. In the nineteenth century, cooperatives were considered the urban form of the commons, as they remain today, though few refer to them as such. The commons was a work site, but we wouldn’t recognize the nature of the work done there. Sure, the specific tasks would be recognizable as those undertaken to provide sustenance for a family, but the context would not. Commoners practiced cooperation and reciprocity; the commons was maintained and improved collectively. Over decades, if not centuries, rules and regulations were established that provided guidance for managing the commons and governance was based on the egalitarian premise that decisions were decided to avoid divisiveness. It was the site for solidarity, which is why it had to be destroyed, enclosed.

White proposes that a new culture needs to arise from a solid foundation, a place to initiate significant revolt. One premised on “sustainable happiness.” He defines happiness with this quote from Tolstoy’s novella Family Happiness:

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor—such is my idea of happiness.

This idyll resembles the vision Marx had of life in a post-capitalist (communist) society where one would garden in the morning, have a leisurely lunch with one’s friends, play games afterwards and read or play music in the evening (or a similar mix of activities).

These nineteenth century musings may seem quaint to us. Seemingly, they depict individual refuges, though in context they were meant to be collective ventures. But we could ask what relevance do they have for a world where rural residents everywhere are draining away to urban slums?

Place without solidarity is a shrine. Nineteen century workers had Labor Temples.

The oppositional culture that White seeks must involve a strategy to build solidarity. Decades ago, solidarity streamed out of factories all over the land. Its attire was the work shirt and sturdy denim slacks. Its accouterment was the lunch pail. And strikes fortified it. Solidarity like that may appear in specific cases today, but it is no longer universal. It no longer terrorizes the bosses.

So where to find that solidarity today? If it can’t be found on the assembly line can it be found with jobs at all? By the way, working in an Amazon warehouse doesn’t approach the sense of dignity that was integral to manufacturing jobs; even though they may have been grueling and hazardous, those jobs supplied the psychological basis for resistance to the demands of the bosses.

There can be no oppositional culture if we are tethered to a meaningless job all day. What made the Sixties counterculture viable was, relatively speaking, an abundant economy compared to the austerity we suffer today. It was possible then to have a part-time job, live communally, and spend most of the day doing “what we will” as the old Eight Hour Movement slogan proclaimed.

To counter the austerity imposed on us by the bankers and their henchmen we might consider the obvious hidden in plain sight. The wealth of our society accumulated because of the efforts of previous generations. All the historic accomplishments along with all the natural resources are the commons and our inheritance. Each of us should be entitled to a portion of that inheritance. Guy Standing, the British economist, calls it a Commons Dividend. That’s just another name for a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

A UBI coupled with the implementation of basic human rights as outlined in the UN Charter on Human Rights could be the foundation for a life that is our wealth, to paraphrase John Rustin who White admires. But this is just the beginning. “Everything begins with the individual, but nothing ends there,” to quote Raoul Vaneigem, who I admire.

A guaranteed income in the context of the climate catastrophe we are enduring will hardly lead to the idyllic life Tolstoy or Marx imagined, at least not all the time. There is work to be done. Consider for example: to create a sustainable agricultural economy will entail droves of people moving to farms, to the new farms created to restore the soil, grow organic crops, and sequester carbon. This means thousands of smaller plots with millions of people working them maybe part-time and seasonally. With a UBI, jobs that force individuals to harm the planet to survive could be abandoned for socially useful tasks and absolutely necessary ones given the climate emergency. The possibility of solidarity arising amongst those reversing the damage to our planet cannot be dismissed. In fact, these are the tasks, collectively organized from the grassroots that can only function well with solidarity.

White calls for re-balancing our priorities. We can too easily get addicted to quotidian outrages—the media is a gateway drug—and waste too much time, as White maintains, trying to reform a world that can’t be fixed. Time spent creating a life with others should be the goal. This isn’t an abstraction. It means developing a playful and determined opposition—a counterculture of rebellion. We have antecedents. But instead of collectively reclaiming our lives, we work at jobs that suck our cooperative energies for stupid, if not destructive, ends. By developing solidarity with others for good ends, we will heal our abused selves while healing the abused world.

Why is there so Much Wrong in Our Society?

Graham Peebles

As old certainties crumble and systems crystallize, social divisions grow and extremes harden, a friend asks: “Why is there so much wrong in our society?” It’s a good question. He was referring specifically to Britain where we both live, but, although the specific problems may vary, the question could be applied to any country, and by extension, to world society.

Politicians, lost in a fog of their own ambition and blinded by ideologies, argue and deceive; they have no answers to the pressing issues or my friend’s question and, addicted to the privilege, status and motorcades, are concerned only with gaining and retaining office. Corporations and undemocratic institutions exert increasing political power and sociological influence; religion, essential to some, is irrelevant to many, ‘the church’ east and west groans under the weight of its inhibiting doctrine, fails to provide guidance and succor, and ‘the people’ – most of whom live under a blanket of economic insecurity – feel increasingly anxious, angry and depressed.

We had been discussing the justice system and specifically prisons, retribution and the total absence of rehabilitation in the UK system, when my friend posed his rhetorical question. The areas of chaos and dysfunction are many and varied, from environmental carnage to armed conflict, slavery, economic injustice and homelessness. All, however, flow from the same polluted source, us – mankind; motive, often short-term ideologically rooted, conditions and corrupts action and the construction of socio-economic forms.

Society is not an abstraction, it is a reflection of the consciousness of the people who live within it, the seed of ‘what is wrong in our society’ lies within this consciousness, not simply in the forms and systems themselves. There will never be peace in the world, for example, until we ourselves are free of conflict: that we constitute society and that societal problems flow from us is clearly true, but, as with most things in life, the issue is more complex and nuanced.

Firstly, the relationship between the forces of society and the individual is a symbiotic one, and this is well known to those that most powerfully control the systems under which we all live; secondly, the vast majority of people have little or no influence over the mechanics of society. Depending on the nature of the society in which we live, we are all to a greater or lesser degree, structural victims, with little or no voice and even less influence – something that in recent years in particular, millions have been marching to change. Billions of people throughout the world, the overwhelming majority, feel themselves to be subjects within a Giant Game of Aggrandizement and Profit played by governments and powerful organizations, including the media in its many strands.

These interconnected and interdependent groups, which are of course made up of men and women, design and shape the way society functions, and do all they can to manipulate how the masses think and act. The ideology of choice for those functioning within the corporate political sphere is founded on and promotes the dogma of greed and profit. Selfishness, ambition, competition, nationalism all are found within its tenets and are promoted as natural human tendencies that are beneficial for an individual and so should be developed. Such ‘qualities’ they claim, bring success, usually understood as material comfort, career achievement or social position, and with success, the story goes, comes happiness. Within the Corrupt Construct happiness, which is rightly recognized as something that everyone longs for, has been replaced by pleasure, which is sought after day and night. Likewise, desire and the satiation of desire, itself an impossibility – this too is well known by the architects – has been substituted for love, which has been assimilated, commodified and neatly packaged.

The tendency towards greed and selfishness, hate and violence, no doubt exist within the human being, the negative lies within us all, so does the good. The Good is our inherent nature, hidden within the detritus of conditioning and fear. The negative, aggravated, rises, and, within the Corrupt Construct it is relentlessly prodded and stirred up. Desire is demanded, facilitating its bedmate fear, which manifests as anxiety/stress, to which an antidote is offered by the deeply concerned, eternally grateful, trillion dollar pharmaceutical companies, recreational drugs/alcohol and the world of entertainment. Common sense, restraint and The Wisdom of The Wise is trivialized, discarded; conflict and suffering, within and without goes on. Discontent leading to the pursuit of pleasure is the aim, desire, agitated, the means.

The two most pervasive and effective tools employed to condition the minds of all are education and the media. Conditioning into competition and nationalism, pleasure and individualism – not individuality, which is dangerous to the status quo and is therefore actively discouraged; conformity is insisted upon and forms a cornerstone of education and the stereotypes churned out by the media.

This is a transitional time, a time of collapse and expansion, of disintegration and rebuilding; underlying the present tensions and discord is the energy of change and the emergence of the new.

A battle is taking place, between those forces in the world that are wedded to the old ways, and a dynamic, global movement for social justice, environmental action, peace and freedom. Sapped of energy, the existing forms and modes of living are in a state of decay; propelled solely by the impetus of the past they persist in form only, hollow carcasses without vitality. Growing numbers of people around the world know this to be true, and while some react with fear and look for certainty behind a flag or ideology, the majority call for a fundamental shift, for justice and the inculcation of systems that allow unifying harmonious ways of living to evolve. As always, resistance is fierce, but change and the spirit of the time cannot be held at bay indefinitely.

Impeachment: What Is At Risk

David Sparenberg

Today, as the public phase of impeachment hearings are underway, I am watching while reading from the Life of Frederick Douglass.  Sadly, I admit to not trusting the American people as much as I might to see clearly, think honestly, and do what is right.  I would welcome being mistaken in my skepticism.

However, I am certain not to trust the systems and structures of the American way of life not to corrupt the principled values and decision making of the American people.  The socio-political and economic system of big money and world power is both ingeniously and insidiously corruptible and Americans may prove to be fatally susceptible to confusion, convenient misguidance, compromise and corruption.  Operating under misnomers, these are powerful channels of American life and the very fundamentals of democracy, much weakened by narcissism and indulgence instead of being schooled in freedom of conscience and moral character will be needed not to remain numbed into accepting the status quo of limited perception, disconnection, and the indifference that accompanies disempowerment.

This thinking poses a painful dilemma for me.  My experience is of a lifetime. That experience is that no matter how much I disagree with policies, or opinions or attitudes, I cannot deny finding most Americans to be good natured and well intentioned. Yet this by itself may not be enough in the democratic crisis the United States now struggles with and is deeply immersed in.  When ordinary goodness is divorced from truthfulness and justice, a crisis becomes problematic on the level of ordinary identity, behavior and cohesion.

Perhaps, as the impeachment of Donald J. Trump moves forward, we, to one another but also before the rest of the watchful world, will see if there is honesty akin to Abraham Lincoln and integrity of the statue of Frederick Douglass still alive within us to recall the exiled American soul and reaffirm the constitutionality of the American republic? Long since we ceased to be a nation of naïve innocence, of robust farmers and tenacious pioneers.  Are we yet capable of responsible citizenship, of standing up, resisting what is wrong and doing what is right?  Events in motion will provide an answer.

Was the Founder of White Helmets Killed by Islamic State?

Nauman Sadiq

The founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was a former British army veteran and a private security contractor from 2008 to 2012 working for Good Harbor, run by Richard Clarke, the former Bush administration counter-terrorism czar.

Much like Erik Prince of the Blackwater fame, Le Mesurier’s work included training several thousand mercenaries for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) oil and gas field protection force, and designing security infrastructure for the police state of Abu Dhabi.

Although the police in Istanbul are treating the incident as suicide, it’s obvious that a person of his background and training would never attempt suicide by jumping off a two-story building. Because such a fall might have fractured a few bones but it was highly unlikely to cause death.

The assassination of James Le Mesurier should be viewed in the backdrop of the killing of the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on October 27 in a US special-ops raid. It’s important to note in the news coverage of the killing of al-Baghdadi that although the mainstream media has been trumpeting for the last several years that the Islamic State’s fugitive leader was hiding somewhere on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found hiding in the northwestern Idlib governorate, under the control of Turkey’s militant proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed while trying to flee to Turkey in Barisha village five kilometers from the border.

The reason why the mainstream media scrupulously avoided mentioning Idlib as al-Baghdadi’s most likely hideout in Syria was to cover up the collusion between the militant proxies of Turkey and the jihadists of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, the White Helmets area of operations is also Idlib governorate in Syria where they are allowed to conduct purported “rescue operations” and “humanitarian work” under the tutelage of al-Nusra Front.

In fact, the corporate media takes the issue of Islamic jihadists “commingling” with Turkey-backed “moderate rebels” in Idlib so seriously – which could give the Syrian government the pretext to mount an offensive in northwest Syria – that the New York Times cooked up an exclusive report a couple of days after the special-ops night raid, on October 30, that the Islamic State paid money to al-Nusra Front for hosting al-Baghdadi in Idlib.

The morning after the night raid, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Sunday, October 27, that a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by warplanes belonging to the international coalition had attacked positions of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, in Idlib province where the Islamic State chief was believed to be hiding.

Despite detailing the operational minutiae of the special-ops raid, the mainstream news coverage of the raid deliberately elided over the crucial piece of information that the compound in Barisha village five kilometers from Turkish border where al-Baghdadi was killed belonged to Hurras al-Din, an elusive terrorist outfit which has previously been targeted several times in the US airstrikes.

Although Hurras al-Din is generally assumed to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, it is in fact the regrouping of the Islamic State jihadists under a different name in northwestern Idlib governorate after the latter terrorist organization was routed from Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and Raqqa and Deir al-Zor in Syria and was hard pressed by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes in eastern Syria.

According to “official version” of Washington’s story regarding the killing of al-Baghdadi, the choppers took off from an American airbase in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, flew hundreds of miles over the enemy territory in the airspace controlled by the Syrian and Russian air forces, killed the self-proclaimed “caliph” of the Islamic State in a Hollywood-style special-ops raid, and took the same route back to Erbil along with the dead body of the “caliph” and his belongings.

Although Washington has conducted several airstrikes in Syria’s Idlib in the past, those were carried out by fixed-wing aircraft that fly at high altitudes, and the aircraft took off from American airbases in Turkey, which is just across the border from Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. Why would Washington take the risk of flying its troops at low altitudes in helicopters over the hostile territory controlled by myriads of Syria’s heavily armed militant outfits?

In fact, several Turkish journalists, including Rajip Soylu, the Turkey correspondent for the Middle East Eye, tweeted on the night of the special-ops raid that the choppers took off from the American airbase in Turkey’s Incirlik.

As for al-Baghdadi, who was “hiding” with the blessing of Turkey, it now appears that he was the bargaining chip in the negotiations between Trump and Erdogan, and the quid for the US president’s agreeing to pull out of Syria was the pro quo that Erdogan would hand Baghdadi to him on a silver platter.

It’s worth noting that although Idlib governorate in Syria’s northwest has firmly been under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led by al-Nusra Front since 2015, its territory was equally divided between Turkey-backed rebels and al-Nusra Front.

In a brazen offensive in January, however, al-Nusra Front’s jihadists completely routed Turkey-backed militants, even though the latter were supported by a professionally trained and highly organized military of a NATO member, Turkey. And al-Nusra Front now reportedly controls more than 70% territory in the Idlib governorate.

The reason why al-Nusra Front has been easily able to defeat Turkey-backed militants appears to be that the ranks of al-Nusra Front have now been swelled by highly motivated and battle-hardened jihadist deserters from the Islamic State after the fall of the latter’s “caliphate” in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

In all likelihood, some of the Islamic State’s jihadists who joined the battle in Idlib in January were part of the same contingent of thousands of Islamic State militants that fled Raqqa in October 2017 under a deal brokered by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The merger of al-Nusra Front and Islamic State in Idlib doesn’t come as a surprise, though, since the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front used to be a single organization before a split occurred between the two militant groups in April 2013 over a leadership dispute. In fact, al-Nusra Front’s chief Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was reportedly appointed the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, in January 2012.

Finally, regarding the assassination of the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, in downtown Istanbul, it’s worth pointing out that Turkey has been hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees and myriad factions of Ankara-backed militant proxies. It’s quite easy for the jihadists of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State to intermingle with Syrian refugees and militants in the Turkish refugee camps.

Evidently, one of the members of the White Helmets operating in al-Nusra’s territory in Syria’s Idlib betrayed his patrons for the sake of getting a reward, and conveyed crucial piece of information to Le Mesurier who then transmitted it to the British and American intelligence leading to the October 27 special-ops raid killing al-Baghdadi. In all likelihood, the assassination of the founder of the White Helmets was the Islamic State’s revenge for betraying its slain chief.

New Zealand police introduce new armed units

Tom Peters

Late last month, the New Zealand Police launched Armed Response Teams (ARTs) in three districts: the Canterbury region including Christchurch; the Waikato; and Counties Manukau in working class South Auckland. Following a six-month trial, the ARTs will be “evaluated” before most likely being rolled out across the entire country—a major step towards arming all police officers.

The ARTs are the latest in a series of moves by the Labour Party-NZ First-Greens government to exploit the far-right terrorist attack in Christchurch in March to strengthen the state’s anti-democratic powers.

So-called “anti-terrorism” legislation introduced last month will allow courts to drastically restrict the freedom of individuals suspected, but not convicted, of involvement in overseas terrorist or “extremist” groups. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also played a leading role advocating internet censorship in the name of combating “extremism.”

Now, the Ardern government is joining others internationally in militarising the police to defend ever-widening levels of social inequality against working class opposition. New Zealand’s ruling elite is undoubtedly watching the mass protests in Puerto Rico, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Lebanon, Hong Kong and elsewhere with growing anxiety. The country has been shaken by nationwide strikes by teachers, nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers, opposing austerity and the decay of public services.

New Zealand is one of a small handful of countries where frontline police do not routinely carry guns, although patrol vehicles are equipped with them. In 2008, the previous Labour Party government armed police with tasers. An elite Armed Offenders Squad (AOS), with 352 members, was called out 1,058 times in 2017 to deal with allegedly armed suspects.

In response to widespread opposition to the ARTs, Ardern told TVNZ she was “totally opposed to the routine arming of the police.” She claimed the ARTs were “specialised” units that would be “called out” in cases where suspects were known to be armed.

This is thoroughly misleading. The ARTs, unlike the AOS, are deployed seven days a week to carry out standard tasks including so-called “preventive patrolling” in “high-risk areas.” Police Association president Chris Cahill told Radio NZ the ARTs would also be involved in “lower risk” activities, saying: “I don’t think anyone would expect that they should just sit around and do nothing all day.”

To justify the armed units, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said “our operating environment has changed” since fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people and injured 50 more in Christchurch using a military-style semi-automatic rifle. Ardern claimed that there was “a prevalence of guns in New Zealand” and police had to be better prepared for incidents involving firearms.

In fact, gun ownership has fallen considerably since the March 15 attack. The government banned possession of weapons like Tarrant’s and more than 36,000 guns have been turned in during a buyback.

There are many unanswered questions about why police did not prevent the Christchurch atrocity. Police issued Tarrant a firearms license, which required officers to visit his flat and take statements from referees. This was after Tarrant had made numerous threats against “communists” and immigrants on social media, including a death threat that was dismissed by Australian police. New Zealand police ignored a warning from a member of the Bruce Rifle Club, where Tarrant was a member, about violent and racist talk among club members.

Tarrant’s fascist manifesto, which expressed sympathy for the police and military, was banned in an anti-democratic decision by New Zealand’s censor. A royal commission of inquiry into how Tarrant’s attack was planned and carried out is being held in secret.

The Christchurch attack is being used to make changes that have been planned for years. The Labour Party and its coalition partner NZ First ran a law-and-order campaign in the 2017 election, promising to increase police numbers by 1,800, or about 20 percent. Labour recruited former police union leader Greg O’Connor as a member of parliament. O’Connor had long advocated for police to be armed and has defended every shooting by police.

Shootings have already increased dramatically. In 2017, Stuff reported that 35 people were shot by police, 16 of them fatally, in the previous 10 years. This compared to 42 people shot in the 100 years prior to 2007. No officers have been charged, including in recent cases in 2015 and 2016 where witnesses described the shootings as unnecessary.

A petition against armed patrols on the ActionStation website gained more than 8,000 signatures in three weeks. One signatory, Tama’a, commented: “I don’t want NZ to turn into America, where there’s going to be higher chance of Maori/Pacific Islanders getting killed.”

Sol Marco wrote: “Increased militarisation of the police and these patrols will only increase violence. The police are already biased against Maori, against poor people and against those who may have problems with mental illness… This is frightening.”

About 60 people protested in Manukau Square on November 2 against the ARTs. Counties Manukau is one of the poorest areas of the country, with a large proportion of Maori and Pacific Islanders, who are disproportionately affected by police violence. From 2009 to 2019, 66 percent of those shot by police were Maori or Pacific, who make up just 22 percent of the population.

Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson told Radio NZ “more armed officers will result in more deaths and injuries for people experiencing mental health crises.” He noted that the similar warnings when tasers were introduced were ignored and that weapons are used disproportionately against mentally ill people.

The ARTs will not be the last move to strengthen police powers. The Ardern government has proposed new “Firearms Prohibition Orders,” which Police Minister Stuart Nash admitted would infringe on human rights. Anyone with a criminal conviction deemed “high risk” could be barred from “being around others who have firearms, using them under supervision, or being at a location that enables access to guns.” To enforce the orders, police would get much greater powers to carry out warrantless searches.