Why is the US government using social media to monitor the public?

Kevin Reed 

A series of recent reports—based on documents obtained from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings and other leaked information—have revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is violating the First Amendment right to free speech and assembly by gathering social media data for surveillance purposes and targeting organizations and individuals for harassment, intimidation, deportation and arrest.

Among the facts revealed by these reports are:

•  DHS is using increasingly sophisticated methods for collecting and analyzing social media data to monitor political protests and demonstrations against US government policies.
  
•  These methods are being used to target left-wing and oppositional political organizations and individuals in the name of “national security” and “public safety.”
  
•  DHS is working with private security firms to scrape individual social media information including profile photographs, organizational affiliations, event activity and page roles.
  
•  Once individuals and organizations have been targeted by DHS through their social media activity, their identities and dossiers are merged with other big data resources of the surveillance state including those of the Departments of Justice, State, Defense and the CIA.

ICE’s “Anti-Trump Spreadsheet”

On March 6 of this year, the Nation published a report—based on documents obtained in a FOIA request—that shows how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) used social media intelligence to track a series of protests in the summer of 2018. These demonstrations were organized to promote immigrant rights, oppose the deportation policies of the Trump administration and protest the politics of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

In one case, the Nation report says, the Homeland Security Investigations arm of ICE distributed an email with an attachment containing the headline “Anti-Trump Spreadsheet 7/31/2018” to a DHS representative and an undisclosed list of others on the eve of protests against racism and xenophobia in New York City.

The spreadsheet provided detailed information about demonstrations opposed to the immigration policies of the Trump administration taking place between July 31 and August 17. It included the names of groups participating in the demonstrations and the number of individuals who had signed up on Facebook to attend it.

Among the organizations listed were the Young Progressives of America, Refuse Fascism NYC, NYC Says Enough, the New Sanctuary Coalition and Rise and Resist. The Nation report says the documents show how ICE “has been keenly attuned to left-leaning political activity” and “highly aware of organizations and advocates opposed to their controversial agency, which includes detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.”

The Nation reported on another incident on July 24, 2018 where the deputy director of ICE’s New York Field Office sent an email to top local ICE officials with information copied from the Facebook event page of a demonstration scheduled to take place two days later. The information included the name of the event, the number of people who signed up on Facebook to attend it and the names of the sponsoring organizations such as the Legal Aid Society and the New Sanctuary Coalition.

The Nation quoted from the July 24 ICE email, “This e-mail is to inform you of a planned protest at the ERO [ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations] NYC Area. … The protest is being coordinated by approximately 40 different groups located throughout the NYC area.”

In response to these revelations, the New Sanctuary Coalition and other groups filed a lawsuit against ICE for violating the First Amendment by targeting prominent immigrant rights activists for surveillance, arrest and deportation. The lawsuit says that ICE specifically targeted individuals for deportation in order to suppress their political speech.

CBP’s San Diego target list

In March, NBC 7 San Diego obtained and published a series of leaked Customs and Border Protection (CBP) slides showing the agency maintained a secret database of 59 individual activists, journalists and social media influencers associated with the Migrant Caravan that was making its way to the US-Mexico border in late 2018. The leaked document, called “San Diego Sector Foreign Operations Branch: Migrant Caravan FY-2019, Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators and Media,” was dated January 9, 2019.

A page from the secret government watchlist tracking those associated with the immgirant caravan [Credit: NBC7 Investigates]

The published list contained head shots—including many gleaned from Facebook profiles—along with dossiers of the individuals, 40 of whom were US citizens. According to the NBC 7 report, “The individuals listed include ten journalists, seven of whom are US citizens, a US attorney, and 48 people from the US and other countries, labeled as organizers, instigators or their roles ‘unknown.’ The target list includes advocates from organizations like Border Angels and Pueblo Sin Fronteras.”

The NBC 7 report said that among those profiled in the document, “Some had alerts placed on their passports, keeping at least two photojournalists and an attorney from entering Mexico to work.” Other reports about the incident said that 43 of those on the list had alerts placed against their names so that they would be tagged for questioning and stopped for additional screening by US border agents. Among the information scraped from their social media accounts was their “role” in Facebook pages set up to support those in the caravan such as administrator or editor.

Title slide of the leaked DHS document pubished by NBC 7 San Diego

In one case, Nora Phillips, a US attorney who specializes in legal aid to migrants, refugees and deportees in Tijuana was listed in the database and has since been denied entry to Mexico because an alert was placed on her passport. Phillips and two other lawyers say that border agents placed them on the target list to retaliate and harass them for defending asylum seekers and being publicly critical of CBP practices.

As of May 24, four separate requests from members of Congress for detailed information about the target database—including a recent letter from US Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan—had no response.

Social media intel from private security firms

On April 29, the Intercept published a report—based on documents obtained by the America Immigration Council through a freedom of information request—showing that a private intelligence firm gathered and provided to DHS social media information on people preparing to participate in more than 600 demonstrations across the country at the end of June 2018.

According to the Intercept report, LookingGlass Cyber Solutions of Reston, Virginia scraped social media information of individuals in the days leading up to the protests against the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their families at the border. This information was shared with DHS and then distributed through “fusion centers” nationwide to local law enforcement.

According to the DHS website, fusion centers operate as “focal points for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between federal; state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT); and private sector partners.”

The Intercept said the documents showed that a LookingGlass “Threat Analyst” emailed the finished intelligence report to a “LookingGlass Shared Services” web address on June 28, two days before the protests were to take place. The analyst’s report included the following summary: “LookingGlass has compiled a spreadsheet for State Fusion Centers detailing over 600 planned ‘Family Separation Day Protests’ across the US on June 30. These originated from Cyber Threat Center (CTC) and are broken out by City and State; they provide physical location and the Facebook event ID.”

A DHS official confirmed the role of LookingGlass in social media analytics saying, “In this particular instance, a private sector entity shared unsolicited information it collected through publicly available channels with DHS I&A [Office of Intelligence and Analysis] on protests that were scheduled to take place near Federal facilities.”

The claims of “unsolicited” private sector participation notwithstanding, the involvement of firms like LookingGlass—a global provider of “360° cybersecurity and intelligence” with former CIA and US military-intelligence representatives on its executive team—indicates that corporate-military entities are involved in perfecting methods of harvesting social media information for DHS.

Brennan Center report on social media monitoring

On May 22, the Brennan Center for Justice of the NYU Law School published an extensive report entitled, “Social Media Monitoring: How the Department of Homeland Security Uses Digital Data in the Name of National Security.” This document substantiates the facts in the above reports from the Nation, NBC 7 San Diego and the Intercept and provides critical details about the scale and scope of the social media data gathering operations of DHS.

The Brennan Center document analyzes how DHS and its agencies—CPB, TSA, ICE and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)—are “vacuuming up social media information” from a variety of sources and using it “to evaluate the security risks posed by foreign and American travelers.”

Among the key findings of this important report are:

•  Social media information is being collected from travelers, including Americans, even when they are not suspected of any connection to illegal activity
  
•  Social media checks extend to travelers’ family, friends, business associates and social media contacts
  
•  DHS is continuously monitoring some people inside the US and plans to expand these efforts
  
•  DHS is increasingly seeking and using automated tools to gather and analyze social media data
  
•  Social media information collected by DHS is shared with other law enforcement and state security agencies under broad standards

The Brennan Center report analyzes how DHS gathers basic traveler information through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)—where foreign travelers must complete an online application—and then connects it up with social media data and other “link analysis” to make an evaluation of the “national security threat” or “potential risk to the homeland” of individuals.

Diagram from Brennan Center report showing how inormation is shared across DHS databases

When an individual is applying for a visa waiver (permission to travel to the US for 90 days or less without a visa), for example, their social media information is stored in the CBP’s Automated Targeting System (ATS). The ATS data and other information are then fed “into a number of other watch lists, such as the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database and TSA Watch Lists, as well as analytical products on trends and threats.”

All of this information—about the applicant, their family and friends—is disseminated to a series of agencies including the Departments of Justice and State, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the CIA and Department of Defense through an organization called the National Vetting Center (NVC).

The NVC was established under the Trump Administration on February 6, 2018. According to the DHS website, “The NVC is a collaborative, interagency effort to provide a clearer picture of threats to national security, border security, homeland security, or public safety posed by individuals seeking to transit our borders or exploit our immigration system.”

Social media data scraping and warrantless searches

The Brennan report also reveals that as of March 2018, the State Department has begun collecting “social media identifiers” on all 15 million individuals who apply for visas each year. These identifiers are being scraped from 20 different social media platforms including the most widely used in the US (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) as well as others that are popular in China, Russia, Belgium and Latvia.

The CPB also uses warrantless searches of personal electronics at the border to gather social media information. By using powerful handheld devices called Universal Forensic Extraction Devices (UFEDs), CBP staff is copying “in a matter of seconds the entirety of a device’s memory, including all data from social media applications both on the device and from cloud-based accounts like Facebook, Gmail, iCloud and WhatsApp.”

A group of individuals targeted for alerts by DHS San Diego [Credit: NBC7 Investigates]

According to the Brennan Center report, 30,200 people had their devices scrubbed in this manner at the border without a warrant in 2017. Although a subsequent lawsuit blocked these intrusions by CPB, a modification to the procedure still allows warrantless copying of device data if there is evidence of a vaguely defined “national security concern.”

The report also outlines the network infrastructure that has been erected by CBP for gathering and processing big data components from multiple sources. The CPB Intelligence Records System (CIRS) stores a “wide variety of information on individuals, including many who are not suspected of any criminal activity.” The CIRS gathers “commercial data, and information from public sources such as social media, news media outlets and the internet.”

This information gathering operation is exempt from certain requirements of the Privacy Act, such that the CIRS data “may be ingested, stored, and shared regardless of whether it is accurate, complete, relevant or necessary for an investigation. There is no public guidance on quality controls for information” in the CIRS.

Third-party data mining tools

The data from the ATS and CIRS are then integrated into a master database known as the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI). According to the DHS website, the AFI has big data mining tools that provide “enhanced search and analytical capabilities to identify, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who pose a potential law enforcement or security risk.”

The AFI database is used for a host of law enforcement purposes and the analytics and data mining tools that access it are provided by third party private entities. One of these firms, Palantir, is a longtime contracting partner of the government and previously provided services to the National Security Agency in a massive public surveillance program.

The report describes the way Palantir analytics tools take “personal information about people that Palantir ingests from disparate sources—such as airline reservations, cell phone records, financial documents, and social media — and combines [it] into a colorful graphic that purports to show software-generated linkages between crimes and people.”

Another private company called Babel Street provides software that specifically scans social media platforms. The Brennan Center report says that Babel Street’s precise role is unknown, but “CPB likely uses Babel Street’s web-based application Babel X, which is multilingual text-analytics platform that has access to more than 25 social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.”

What is the Department of Homeland Security?

Since its establishment on November 25, 2002 by then-President George W. Bush, DHS has grown into a massive state apparatus of thirteen operational and support agencies with 240,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $45 billion. Founded in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks—with overwhelming bipartisan support from the Democrats and Republicans—DHS reorganized the previously separate departments of the Customs Service, the Coast Guard and the US Secret Service under one office. It was the largest federal government reorganization since the end of World War II.

From the beginning, DHS was established as a domestic instrument for suppressing democratic rights in concert with the militarism and illegal wars fought by US imperialism in the Middle East and elsewhere. Among its primary functions is to carry through the mandate of the Patriot Act of 2001—also passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and renewed in 2011 by then-President Barak Obama—which sanctions a host of undemocratic measures, including indefinite detention and warrantless searches, wiretapping and electronic surveillance, all in the name of “national security.”

During the Trump administration, DHS has shifted focus away from “the war on terror” as it had been utilized over the previous fifteen years. With the reorientation of foreign policy toward the conflict with US rivals Russia and China, DHS has been redirected towards enforcing Trump’s racist Muslim refugee ban, policing the manufactured “crisis” at the southern border and cracking down on migrants seeking asylum in America.

Understood within this context, the inclusion of social media information gathering and analytics as part the repressive apparatus of DHS is entirely in line with the attack on democratic rights and increasingly xenophobic and authoritarian character of the Trump administration.

While organizations such as the Brennan Center, the Nation and the Intercept have brought to light the use of social media data by DHS and its affiliates, their objections are largely based on appeals to Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C. and the courts to stop it. These appeals are frequently combined with criticism of the “ineffective” nature of social media data gathering as a law enforcement methodology.

The use of social media data by DHS and other federal, state and local police agencies exposes as a sham the professed opposition of various Democratic and Republicans Party politicians to “privacy violations” by the social media and technology corporations. As long as social media information is being gathered and used secretly by the state, the parties of the ruling elite have no problem with such violations.

Behind the campaign against “fake news” on social media platforms—and the growing calls for a government break-up of all the big technology companies—is a drive to censor online political content. With workers and young people internationally using social media to plan, organize and coordinate a wave of demonstrations and strikes, the ruling elite is working on the one hand to subordinate all online content to its interests and on the other to spy on the political activity of the public in order to suppress growing social opposition to the capitalist order.

The violation of free speech and assembly rights by the intelligence and surveillance state cannot be fought by appeals to the capitalist political parties and politicians. The defense of basic democratic rights can only be mounted in a coordinated struggle of the working class internationally on the basis of the fight for socialism.

Four men charged with murder based on bogus MH-17 investigation

Clara Weiss

On June 19, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) set up in 2014 to investigate the crash of the MH-17 Malaysian Airlines flight over East Ukraine on July 17, 2014, which resulted in 298 deaths, announced the criminal prosecution of four individuals for murder by the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands.

The four suspects—Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Yuldashevich (all three Russian) and Leonid Kharchenko (a Ukrainian citizen)—were, and in some cases still are, active as leaders of the Russian-backed eastern Ukrainian separatists. They now face international arrest warrants and will be put on trial on March 9, 2020. Since the Netherlands cannot demand extradition from either Russia or Ukraine, it is likely that they will be tried and sentenced in absentia.

The four men, as well as the Russian government, maintain that they had no involvement whatsoever with the plane crash. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia’s rejection of the JIT commission, saying at a “direct line” Q&A on Russian television on Friday that he “completely disagrees” with the evidence it put forward.

Malaysian President Mahathir Mohamad denounced the charges as politically motivated: “As far as we are concerned, we want proof of guilt. But so far, there is no proof. Only hearsay.”

The shooting down of the plane occurred at the height of the Ukraine crisis and civil war in 2014, triggered by the US- and German-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 led by fascist forces and sections of the Ukrainian oligarchy working closely with Washington and Berlin. The Ukrainian and the US governments, the EU and the international bourgeois media rushed to blame Russia for the downing of the plane before any purported evidence was even presented. It was exploited as a new “Gulf of Tonkin,” an unclear and dubious military incident that the imperialist powers could use as a pretext for war.

The MH-17 case has fallen out of the limelight in recent years. However, the military build-up against Russia, led by the US and NATO, and US-led economic warfare against the country have accelerated.

The announcement of the criminal prosecution last week came amid an escalation of both the Trump administration’s war preparations against Iran, which might trigger a direct conflict with Russia, and the Democratic Party’s ongoing campaign against Trump, focusing on his allegedly “soft” stance on Russia. It also comes amid growing conflicts between the European imperialist powers, especially Germany, and the United States, including over Russian gas supplies to Germany through the NordStream2 pipeline.

The Western bourgeois press latched upon the announcement, issuing a flood of commentaries, with the editorial board of the New York Times suggesting the plane’s downing was nothing less than “state-sponsored murder.” International media like Der Spiegel largely presented the JIT’s announcement and “findings” as facts to their readership.

The Washington Post wrote that “international investigators” had “worked diligently to uncover the truth” and were “peeling away Russia’s lies about the downed Malaysian Airlines flight.” The paper dismissed out of hand evidence of possible Ukrainian involvement presented by Russia as “fabricated.”

In reality, the JIT’s announcement of the criminal prosecution of these four men is based on old findings that have no credibility. The JIT investigation is heavily biased, and part of a massive campaign to exploit the tragic death of 298 people to escalate anti-Russia war preparations. In almost five years of this “investigation,” no proof of Russian state involvement has been presented, and significant evidence pointing to potential Ukrainian involvement has been deliberately suppressed.

The JIT’s “finding” that a Russian SA-11 BUK missile system was allegedly brought by the Russian army to the Russian-backed East Ukrainian separatists was continuously cited as “evidence” of Russian involvement.

A 2016 investigative report by journalist Robert Parry pointed to multiple gaps and contradictions in this version. The second piece of “evidence” are barely audible phone conversations, allegedly tapped from Russian military sources, suggesting that the SA-11 BUK missile system was deliberately delivered to the separatists. However, these phone conversations do not at any point explicitly refer to the missile system nor to transport across the Russian-Ukrainian border.

The fact that not only Russian but also US and Dutch intelligence have found evidence suggesting Ukrainian involvement has been completely omitted from the official press coverage.

In October 2015, the Dutch intelligence service MIVD determined that the only high-powered anti-aircraft missile systems in Eastern Ukraine that could have shot down the MH-17 at 33,000 feet belonged to the Ukrainian military.

An anonymous US intelligence analyst explained in 2015 that “definitive analysis pointed to a rogue Ukrainian operation implicating one of the pro-regime oligarchs.” Malayasian news media reported as early as August 2014 that American intelligence officials assumed that the plane had been shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet. Russian military officials have also released radar data that seemed to show a Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jet fighter trailing MH 17 at the time it was shot.

The JIT’s investigation’s primary aim has been to suppress and divert attention from any evidence suggesting Ukrainian rather than Russian involvement. Not a single report produced by the commission in the past five years has even tried to disprove the evidence pointing to Ukrainian military involvement in the shoot-down of the plane. They were simply ignored.

This is no coincidence. Contrary to how it is presented by the media, the JIT is not an independent body of “international investigators.” It includes representatives of the Dutch, Belgian, Malaysian and Ukrainian government and secret services. The Russian government has from the beginning been barred from participating in the investigations.

Though Ukraine should itself have been considered a suspect in any serious investigation, the JIT not only collaborated with Kiev, but also operated under an agreement allowing the Ukrainian government to veto the release of information. There could hardly be a more glaring conflict of interest.

The Ukrainian secret service (SBU), which was heavily involved in both the imperialist-backed fascist coup in Kiev in February 2014 and subsequent operation of far-right forces in the civil war, was Ukraine’s official representative on the JIT. It massively influenced the investigation.

An internal JIT report from 2016 said: “Since the first week of September 2014, investigating officers from The Netherlands and Australia have worked here [in Kiev]. They work in close cooperation here with the Security and Investigation Service of the Ukraine (SBU). Immediately after the crash, the SBU provided access to large numbers of tapped telephone conversations and other data. …At first rather formal, cooperation with the SBU became more and more flexible. ‘In particular because of the data analysis, we were able to prove our added value’, says [Dutch police official Gert] Van Doorn. ‘Since then, we notice in all kinds of ways that they deal with us in an open way. They share their questions with us and think along as much as they can.’”

It was the SBU, moreover, that supplied the phone intercepts and other material now universally cited as “evidence” of Russian involvement.

Despite these glaring contradictions and violations of proper investigative procedure, the “findings” and actions of the JIT are presented as credible, definitive “proof” of “Russian guilt.” This testifies yet again to the lengths the bourgeois media and Western imperialists are prepared to go in their criminal and dangerous campaign against Russia—a reckless campaign which could spark a war between the world’s two largest nuclear-armed powers.

Turkey’s ruling AKP defeated in re-run of İstanbul mayoral election

Ulas Atesci

On Sunday, voters in İstanbul went to the polls in a re-run of the March 31 municipal elections as demanded by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, the People’s Alliance between the AKP and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) suffered a severe defeat. On Sunday evening, People’s Alliance candidate Binali Yıldırım issued a statement conceding the election.

Ekrem İmamoğlu, the candidate of the Nation Alliance between the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the far-right Good Party (İYİ), backed by the Kurdish nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and numerous pseudo-left groups, carried İstanbul. He won 54 percent of the 8.7 million valid votes, while AKP (People’s Alliance) candidate Yıldırım obtained 45 percent. Candidates from the Islamist Felicity Party and the Homeland Party as well as several independents also ran.

İmamoğlu won nearly 800,000 more votes than Yıldırım. This marked a substantial increase in the CHP-led alliance’s vote. In the initial March 31 election, it led by only 13,000 votes, after which the AKP challenged the results.

Sunday’s result was celebrated with demonstrations in the streets of İstanbul. It clearly represents a major blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP government, showing growing discontent in the population. The AKP’s provocative cancellation of the March 31 result in İstanbul only provoked more opposition and increased anger against the national government.

The decision to re-run the İstanbul municipal election, taken by Turkey’s Supreme Election Council on May 6, was only the latest in a series of authoritarian actions by Erdoğan and his Islamist populist regime.

On April 17, seventeen days after the March 31 local elections, İmamoğlu received the mandate of the electoral authorities, officially making him mayor of Turkey’s largest city. But the following month, the YSK canceled the mayoral election on the grounds that some of those supervising the vote were not civil servants, as required by law. It did not, however, annul the other elections held at the same time as the mayoral race, including for the city’s various districts, most of which the AKP-led alliance carried.

Immediately after Yıldırım’s concession speech on Sunday, İmamoğlu gave a long speech on the results. Extending a friendly hand to Erdoğan, İmamoğlu said: “Mr. President, I am ready to work in harmony with you. I convey from here my request to meet with you as soon as possible.”

President Erdoğan subsequently tweeted his acceptance of the results, saying, “I congratulate Ekrem İmamoğlu, who won the election according to the unofficial results.”

MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli did not congratulate İmamoğlu, however, but declared, “Turkey should now return to its real agenda and end the election process.”

The AKP quickly accepted the election result, apparently calculating that it could not challenge growing popular anger by again overturning an election under conditions of growing economic crisis and war tensions. In the first İstanbul vote, Erdoğan’s AKP was clearly hostile to allowing a rival party to control the city, as it faces an explosive international situation with the threatened breakdown of the US-Turkish alliance, compounded by an eruption of class struggle.

Home to one-fifth of Turkey’s population and almost a third of its total economic output, İstanbul plays an outsized role in Turkish politics. Erdoğan’s own rise to power began with his election as the city’s mayor in 1994, and he and his supporters have controlled the city’s administration ever since. Erdoğan himself has repeatedly declared that İstanbul plays a decisive role in Turkish politics.

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, “Everyone who believes in democracy is proud of Turkey today. The whole world who believe in democracy are proud of Turkey.” He added, “The CHP is now the party of 82 million. It will work to solve the problems of 82 million. The CHP will not marginalize anyone, will respect their religion, ethnicity and social identity.” His ally Meral Akşener, chairwoman of the Good Party, congratulated İmamoğlu.

Despite direct calls from Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), to be neutral in the İstanbul elections, the Kurdish-nationalist HDP supported İmamoğlu. HDP co-leader Sezai Temelli called on all parties to launch a “constitutional process” and “save the country from destruction created by polarized politics.”

Simone Kaslowski, the chair of Turkey’s leading business federation TÜSİAD, also tweeted congratulations to İmamoğlu.

Alper Tas, the leader of the petty-bourgeois Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), who had agreed to run for office in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul with the support of the CHP and the far-right Good Party on March 31, shared a photo with İmamoğlu. In his Twitter account, he said, “It’s good to win.”

The AKP has reportedly lost in many districts in İstanbul. In the March 31 elections, it won 25 of İstanbul’s 39 districts. This time, however, it led in just nine. Moreover, İmamoğlu increased his vote by almost 600,000, or nine percentage points, compared to the March 31 election, while Yıldırım lost nearly 250,000 votes, or three percentage points.

While the Supreme Election Council’s decision to accede to Erdoğan’s demand for an election re-run was unpopular and widely opposed, it was not the only reason for the AKP’s debacle. There is a mounting discontent over the anti-democratic and increasingly authoritarian policies of the government. The election also took place amid an economic crisis in Turkey, which has seen inflation skyrocket and unemployment rise to 14.7 percent (nearly 25 percent among youth). The economy fell into recession in the fall of last year. Growing sections of the population recognize that the government has no solution to this crisis.

Masses of people are undoubtedly looking for a way out against the dead-end of the government’s policies. However, placing hopes in the CHP-led bourgeois opposition can only produce new disappointments for the working class and youth.

In the run-up to the June 23 election, President Erdoğan used all possible means to secure a victory, even appealing to Öcalan for support. Just two days before the election, Öcalan declared that he had called on the HDP to be neutral in the election. Erdoğan and MHP leader Bahçeli supported this call, asking Kurdish voters to act accordingly. But the government failed to maintain the support of either Kurdish or Turkish voters, indicating that the government crisis and social opposition among workers and youth will only escalate.

Punitive fines threaten whistleblower Chelsea Manning with bankruptcy

Oscar Grenfell

Last Thursday, lawyers for the courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning issued a legal challenge to punitive fines that were imposed upon her by a federal district court judge last month. Her legal team has warned that the unprecedented financial penalties threaten her with imminent bankruptcy.

Manning has been imprisoned by the Trump administration since May 16 for refusing to give perjured testimony before a grand jury against WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

Her jailing is part of the attempt by the American government to railroad Assange into a US prison for his role in the exposure of war crimes and global diplomatic conspiracies. The British authorities have greenlighted hearings next February for Assange’s extradition to the US on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, carrying a maximum sentence of 170 years imprisonment.

Chelsea Manning [Credit: Sparrow Media]

In a ruling last month, Judge Anthony Trenga not only ordered that Manning be held in jail until she agreed to testify before the grand jury, he also imposed fines against her of $500 per day, beginning after one month’s imprisonment. The daily penalty will rise to $1,000 after she has been jailed for two months.

The sanctions came into effect on June 15, meaning that Manning has already been fined $5,000. Her official Twitter page, which is operated by her legal team and closest supporters, reported on June 20 that Manning had lost her apartment.

A subsequent Tweet stated: “She can pay the $500 daily fines for 11 days before she is flat broke.” In other words, if the fines are enforced, Manning will effectively be bankrupt this week.

On Thursday, Manning’s lawyers submitted a reply brief to propose guidelines for future hearings that will assess her capacity to pay the fines. Her legal team is seeking to table documents they say will demonstrate that as a result of her protracted persecution, Manning has virtually no money.

The whistleblower was prosecuted by the Obama administration for leaking US army and diplomatic documents and videos to WikiLeaks that exposed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington’s global meddling operations. Manning was convicted in 2013 and held in prison until 2017, during which time she was subjected to treatment deemed as torture by United Nations experts and international rights organisations.

On March 8, 2019, Manning was held in contempt of court and sent to jail for refusing to participate in grand jury hearings aimed at concocting charges against Assange. She was released on May 9, when that grand jury’s term expired, but was immediately issued with a new subpoena and cruelly imprisoned a week later.

In a statement accompanying last week’s legal filling, Manning explained that, “The government, and maybe the general public, think that I have access to resources just because I am a public figure but that’s just not true. Making money has never been my priority.”

She defiantly concluded: “I do the work I do for the same reason I do everything: because I want to make a difference. Now, my work has been totally interrupted by my incarceration. I definitely feel the costs of these sanctions, but I never expected to have a comfortable life, and I would rather be in debt forever than betray my principles.”

According to the Sparrow Project, Manning’s lawyers will argue in future hearings over the financial penalties that she will be unable to pay the fines, because they are far greater than her current or potential net worth. They will also note that “it is unheard of for an individual to be hit with such heavy fines, particularly where the underlying matter involves no financial misconduct.”

Manning’s legal team will reportedly also argue that the fines, along with her imprisonment, are unlawful, because they will not coerce her to cooperate with the grand jury process.

Under existing anti-democratic legislation, fines and terms of imprisonment can only be imposed if there is a reasonable prospect that they will force a witness to testify. If there is not, they are deemed a punitive form of illegitimate punishment.

Last week’s legal challenge follows mounting questions over why Manning remains in prison, given that the US Justice Department has already unveiled its indictment against Assange.

Under existing British and US laws, individuals who are extradited from the UK to the US cannot be charged with additional crimes other than those included in the formal extradition request, or that were allegedly committed after the application had been issued.

In response to a motion by Manning’s legal team earlier this month for sanctions against her to be reconsidered, the US Justice Department stated on June 14 that “Manning’s testimony remains relevant and essential to an ongoing, investigation into charges or targets that are not included in the superseding indictment.”

The “superseding indictment” contains the publicly unveiled charges against Assange.

The response raises the prospect that the US is seeking to impose even further charges against Assange, other than those it has already revealed. Further counts against Assange could potentially carry a sentence of the death penalty. US authorities would have an interest in concealing such charges, to get around provisions banning extraditions from the UK on charges with a maximum sentence of capital punishment.

The response is also a warning that the US government may be preparing a broader legal assault on WikiLeaks, and those alleged to have assisted it, both in the United States and internationally.

The possibility that the Justice Department is preparing additional indictments targeting WikiLeaks collaborators was indicated by a report in the Associated Press on June 16. It revealed that US investigators had received permission from the Ecuadorian government to question Ola Bini, a Swedish programmer and personal friend of Assange, who was arrested on April 11 by the Ecuadorian regime of Lenin Moreno.

Bini was held for almost two months without charge or any evidence that he had committed a crime. He was released from prison last week but remains under investigation. US officials will reportedly seek to interrogate him in Quito this Thursday. Bini has stated that he has never been a member of WikiLeaks.

The WSWS International Editorial Board last week issued a statement calling for a Global Defence Committee to coordinate a worldwide campaign to prevent Assange’s extradition to the US, and to secure his and Manning’s complete freedom.

As part of this crucial struggle, the Socialist Equality Parties around the world have called meetings and rallies, including a series of protests in Australia beginning this Saturday.

The demonstrations, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, will demand that the Australian government use its diplomatic and legal powers to block Assange’s dispatch to the US and ensure his return to Australia, with a guarantee against further political persecution.

Minutes to disaster: Lessons to be learned from the confrontation with Iran

Andre Damon

On Thursday evening, the United States military was ten minutes away from launching a series of air and missile strikes on Iran that risked sparking a massive new war leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences—military, diplomatic and political—of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump presidency.

While Trump’s foreign policy team—headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—“unanimously” supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,” the Times wrote.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump “changed his mind because he had second thoughts about the military and political consequences.” Or, as Stratfor, put it, “Trump, fearing a much bigger escalation, got cold feet.”

While much of the discussion has been centered on the American president’s last-minute decision, the entire episode underscores the recklessness that pervades all aspects of American foreign policy.

Discounting Trump’s claim that his decision to call off the bombing was motivated by squeamishness over the loss of 150 Iranian lives, it is evident that the United States came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had not seriously examined.

The planned enterprise was based, again, on disastrous miscalculations, this one being that Iran would stand helplessly by as the US military launched yet another wave of bombings.

But Iran’s downing Thursday of a $130 million RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude spy plane, the nominal pretext for the planned strike, had clearly taken US officials by surprise.

As it turned out, Iran’s downing of the drone seemed at the last minute to have convinced sections of the military, and Trump himself, that the consequences of their planned assault on Iran could be far more serious than they had expected. If they were surprised by this development, what other surprises would have followed had a war begun?

The real reason for the reversal, to be blunt, was the fear that American warships could be sunk and American aircraft would be shot down, puncturing the myth of America’s military invincibility.

The American surveillance drone was shot down by a Raad air defense system, an Iranian surface-to-air missile generally regarded to be far less capable than the Russian-made S-300 and S-400 systems also available to the Iranian military.

The clear message was that Tehran was also capable of downing other aircraft, including American F-35 fighters that Trump routinely praises as “invisible,” or even the $2 billion B-2 Spirit “stealth” bomber.

Iran recently deployed a new range of anti-ship missiles, which it claims have the ability to sink American destroyers and carriers in the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf. “Commit the slightest stupidity, we will send these ships to the bottom of the sea along with their crew and planes,” Iranian General Morteza Qorbani warned RT.

The USS Abraham Lincoln [Credit: US Navy]

The strikes against Iran would likely have been carried out by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its associated battle group, consisting of at least three destroyers and one cruiser. But under these conditions, the US military was forced to see these ships not just as military assets, but as liabilities. What would be the consequences of Iran sinking a $2 billion destroyer and killing a substantial portion of its nearly 300 crew?

If Iran sank the Nimitz-class carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, with 5,000 sailors and airmen aboard, the consequences would be incalculable.

As a former member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards told the Times, “What happened in the past 48 hours was extremely important in showing Iran’s strength and forcing the U.S. to recalculate… No matter how you look at it, Iran won.”

But the Iranians would be ill-advised to boast. The United States came within minutes of launching a war whose consequences had barely been considered. There is no reason to believe that the next incident will not have the catastrophic outcome that were narrowly avoided this time—whether against Iran or another target. (One need only recall that after nearly 250 American soldiers were killed in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, US President Reagan responded two days later by invading Grenada.)

The entire US foreign policy establishment, even if some are prepared to admit that there had been insufficient consideration of the consequences of an attack on Iran, are deeply frustrated by the outcome.

“The Trump administration should respond to these recent attacks with strikes of its own on Iranian and Houthi air-defense assets, offensive missile systems and Revolutionary Guard Corps bases,” wrote Michael G. Vickers, Obama’s undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the Washington Post. He added, “Failure to hit back will only embolden them further.”

Martha Raddatz, hosting ABC’s This Week, pressed the Texas war hawk Representative Mac Thornberry whether “anything less than a military retaliatory strike” would be proportional “after they shot down an $130 million drone in an unprovoked attack?”

The recklessness of the US threats against Iran can only be explained by the enormous crisis, global and domestic, that confronts American capitalism.

Trump does nothing more than give the most grotesque expression to the manic impulses of American imperialism. One moment he is within minutes of launching a missile strike against Iran, then he is talking about making “Iran great again,” and then he is threatening to “obliterate” the country.

This level of instability does not have its source in an individual. Trump himself is buffeted by forces that he is not even intellectually capable of understanding.

Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic global consequences, including for the United States itself.

There are parallels to the recklessness that prevailed before 1914, not to mention the desperation that led Hitler to launch the Second World War in 1939, and just 78 years ago yesterday, Nazi Germany’s catastrophic invasion of the Soviet Union.

The United States has responded to every foreign policy disaster—from the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq to the bombing of Syria and Libya—by preparing for new, and bigger, wars.

There does not exist any constituency within the American ruling elite or political establishment for opposing war, however catastrophic. American imperialism, as the World Socialist Web Site anticipated in 2003, has a “rendezvous with disaster.” Only the actions of the working class can prevent America’s capitalists, their generals, and their spies from taking the rest of humanity with them.

Government of Colombia Master and PhD Scholarships 2019/2020 for International Students

Application Deadline: 28th June 2019

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Addressed to all countries cooperating with Colombia, except ecuadorian, peruvian and french citizens as there is a program aimed to professionals from these countries.

To be taken at (country): Colombia

Type: Doctorate/ PhD, Masters, Research

Eligibility: Eligible candidates must:

• be foreign professionals in the range of age between 25-49 years old
• have undergraduate degree (university degree or bachelor) in different disciplines
• have a grade point average of 4.0 on the Colombian scale of 1 to 5
• at least 1 year of professional experience in their field of study.
• The candidate must master the Spanish language (reading, writing and speaking)
• He/she must deliver us a certificate of these competences and must have an admission letter from the Colombian educational institution in any career determined in the catalog annex to this call.
• The candidate must not live in Colombia and must not have Colombian nationality
• Prove minimum one year experience in their field of study, after obtaining the degree.
• The candidate must have successfully completed college.
• The academic program should start in the second semester of 2018. Admission to programs starting in 2019 will not be contemplated.
• The documents must arrived through the embassies or directly to the International Relations Office of ICETEX in Bogotá-Colombia before the 28th June 2019.

Selection Criteria: 

• Academic excellence
• Coherence between the academic trajectory, work experience and academic program
• Professional working experience
• Study Project
• Reciprocity on educational cooperation

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Program: :

• TUITION: 100% coverage of all these costs granted by the Colombian universities (only for academic programs found in the catalog of this call).
• INCIDENTAL: Grant of $221,384 COP) for once during the period of studies, just in case of circumstances beyond the beneficiary control.
• STIPEND FOR BOOKS AND MATERIALS: Grant of $425,400 COP for once, at the beginning of the academic program
• MONTHLY ALLOWANCE: Grant of the sum equivalent to 3 Minimum Monthly Legal salaries. $2.484,348
• COP HEALTH INSURANCE: Wide coverage in medical assistance only in Colombia, during the period of studies.
• INSTALLATION COSTS: Grant of {$401.321 COP for once at the beginning of studies.

Duration of Program: 

• Postgraduate scholarships in Colombia will have a maximum of twelve (12) months for specialization and twenty-four (24) months to master and up to thirty-six (36) months for doctorate. The scholarship holder of doctorates that last more than 3 years have to assume by themselves the allowance for the rest of the program.
• The scholarships are awarded on an annual term, for that reason, for more than 12 months academic programs (master and doctorate) the scholar must request an extension for his second year. The extension is subject to the requirements of the ICETEX. It is clear that ICETEX has no financial obligation to cover the economic expenses incurred once the academic program has ended. The scholarship does not cover the period of degree work

How to Apply: 

•  It is important for interested candidates to go through the Application requirements (See in Link below) before applying.
• Required documents, which are detailed in this call, should be at ICETEX on the date indicated in the notice.
• No documents will be received outside the established dates.
• The documents required in this call must be translated into Spanish
• All application documents to this call should be sent to ICETEX through the Embassy from the country of origin of the applicant in Colombia. In case of absence of diplomatic representation in Colombia, the applicant must
  send it directly to ICETEX.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Colombia

Harvard University Radcliff Fellowship 2020

Application Deadlines:

• The deadline for individual applications in the creative arts, humanities, and social sciences is 12th September, 2019.
• For applications in the natural sciences and mathematics, the deadline is 3rd October, 2019.

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: Each of the more than 850 fellows who have been in residence at the Radcliffe Institute has pursued an independent project, but the collaborative experience unites all of them. Scholars, scientists, and artists work on individual projects, or in clusters, to generate new research, publications, art, and more at the Harvard University Radcliff Fellowship.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: No matter their field, Radcliffe Fellows demonstrate an extraordinary level of accomplishment.
Applicants in the humanities and social sciences must:

1. Have received their doctorate (or appropriate terminal degree) in the area of their proposed project at least two years prior to their appointment as a fellow (December 2018 for the 2020-21 fellowship year).

2. Have published a monograph or at least two articles in refereed journals or edited collections.
Applicants in science, engineering, and mathematics must:

1. Have received their doctorate in the area of the proposed project at least two years prior to their appointment as a fellow (December 2018 for the 2020-21 fellowship year).

2. Have published at least five articles in refereed journals. Most science, engineering, and math fellows have published dozens of articles.
** This is not intended to serve as a post-doctoral fellowship. Applicants must demonstrate a strong body of independent research and writing.

Applicants in the creative arts for the Harvard University Radcliff Fellowship must meet discipline-specific eligibility requirements, as outlined below:
Film and Video: Applicants in this discipline must have a body of independent work of significant achievement. Such work will typically have been exhibited in galleries or museums, shown in film or video festivals, or broadcast on television.
Visual Arts: Applicants in this discipline must show strong evidence of achievement, with a record of at least five years of work as a professional artist, including participation in several curated group shows and at least two professional solo exhibitions.
Fiction and Nonfiction: Applicants in these disciplines must have one of the following:
a) one or more published books;
b) a contract for the publication of a book-length manuscript; or
c) at least three shorter works (longer than newspaper articles) published.
Poetry: Applicants in this discipline must have had published at least 20 poems in the last five years or published a book of poetry, and must be in the process of completing a manuscript.
Journalism: Applicants in this discipline are required to have worked professionally as a journalist for at least five years.
Playwriting: Applicants in this discipline must have a significant body of independent work in the form. This will include, most typically, plays produced or under option.
Music Composition: It is desirable, but not required, for applicants in music composition to have a PhD or DMA. Most importantly, the applicant must show strong evidence of achievement as a professional artist, with a record of recent performances.
Performing Arts—Dance, Music Performance, Theater Performance: Although Radcliffe occasionally invites applications from selected performing artists, we do not accept performing arts applications through the general application process.
Individuals who are applying as practitioners must have held senior leadership positions in non-profits, government, or the private sector. Practitioners should have at least ten years of relevant professional experience and be acknowledged as leaders in their fields.

Number of Awards: 50

Value of Program:

• Radcliffe Institute fellows are in residence for a period of nine months from September 1, 2020 through May 31, 2021 and receive a stipend of $77,500 plus an additional $5,000 to cover project expenses. Fellows are expected to be free of their regular commitments so that they may fully devote themselves to the work outlined in their proposal.
• As this is a residential fellowship, fellows are expected to reside in the Greater Boston area for the duration of their fellowship. Fellows may be eligible to receive additional funds for moving expenses, childcare, and housing to aid them in making a smooth transition. Healthcare options are made available as needed.
• Harvard University Radcliff Fellowship Fellows receive office or studio space in Byerly Hall and full-time Harvard appointments as visiting fellows, granting them access to Harvard University’s various resources, including libraries, housing, and athletic facilities. If fellows would like to hire Harvard undergraduate students as Research Partners, we will cover their hourly wages.
• Fellows are expected to engage actively with the colleagues in their cohort and to participate fully as a member of the Radcliffe community. To this end, all fellows present their work-in-progress, either in the form of a private talk for their cohort or a public lecture, in addition to attending the presentations of all other fellows during that academic year (up to two talks per week). We offer group lunches and other opportunities to connect with members of your cohort, but attendance at these is optional.
  

Duration of Program: 9 Months (from September 2020 – May 2021)

How to Apply: The online application for the 2020–2021 fellowship year is now available.


Visit Programme Webpage for details

Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA) Fully-funded PhD Scholarships 2020 for International Students

Application Deadline: 1st December 2019 for July 2020 intake.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore

Eligible Field of Study: Research areas under the PhD Programme fall broadly under two categories:

• Biomedical Sciences; and
• Physical Science and Engineering.

About Scholarship: The Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA) is a collaboration between the Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR), the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to offer PhD training to be carried out in English at your chosen lab at A*STAR Research Institutes, NUS or NTU. Students will be supervised by distinguished and world-renowned researchers in these labs. Upon successful completion, students will be conferred a PhD degree by either NUS or NTU.

Type: PhD, Research

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

• Open for application to all international graduates with a passion for research and excellent academic results
• Good skills in written and spoken English
• Good reports from academic referees

The above eligibility criteria are not exhaustive.

Number of Scholarships: up to 240

Value of Scholarship: The award provides support for up to 4 years of PhD studies including:

• Tuition fees
• Monthly stipend of S$2,000, which will be increased to S$2,500 after the passing of the Qualifying Examination
• One-time airfare grant of up to S$1,500*
• One-time settling-in allowance of S$1,000*

* Subject to terms and conditions

Duration of Scholarship: For 4 years

How to Apply: 
If you need more Information about this scholarship, kindly visit the Scholarship Webpage