Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks at a press conference during a ceremony at a military academy on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, June 18. Karzai suspended talks with the US over a new Status of Forces Agreement, furious that America might be involved in peace talks with a Taliban in Qatar. (Rahmat Gul/AP)

As Karzai blusters over Taliban, more trouble in Afghanistan

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.19.13

Afghan President Hamid Karzai continued his traditional disdain for the US today, furious that America might be involved in peace talks with a Taliban office being set up in the Gulf emirate of Qatar and suspending negotiations on an extended US combat presence in the country.

A day after the US praised the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar and said it wanted to facilitate talks between both sides, Mr. Karzai's government said it would not participate in peace talks with the Taliban there. It also said it was suspending long-stalled negotiations with the US over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that would allow for the extended presence of US troops inside the country. 

Karzai continues to gamble that the US can be bent to his will in a high stakes game of chicken, counting on President Barack Obama to make compromises in his favor for fear of being seen as the president who "lost" Afghanistan. But whatever happens over the SOFA, or whether talks with the Taliban start in Qatar or not, they are not likely to mitigate the looming storm-clouds over the troubled country.

In a statement, Karzai rejected any US mediation role with the Taliban and insisted that talks take place inside Afghanistan. But the Taliban office in Qatar – a country that uses its oil and gas wealth to support Sunni Islamist causes around the world – had been in the works for 18 months. Inasmuch as the US has an exit strategy designed to prevent a hot civil war erupting again in Afghanistan, like the one that broke out after the Soviet Union's withdrawal in 1989, this is it. 

To be sure, the notion is now far-fetched of any negotiated settlement between the Taliban and Karzai, who is term-limited out of office next year at the same time America is scheduled to withdraw the last of its combat troops. US and other NATO forces are more capable than the Afghan National Army, and the Taliban is looking forward to more favorable fighting terrain. Make concessions now? Why would they? 

And while the latest Karzai eruption has officials at the US Embassy in Kabul and in Foggy Bottom holding their heads yet again (Karzai has this year alone accused the US of conspiring with the Taliban to conduct suicide attacks and carrying out war crimes against Afghan civilians), there are more important signs of the challenges facing Afghanistan this week.

Exhibit A is the outbreak of fighting in Jowzjan Province this week, in which forces loyal to Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum – a key member of the Northern Alliance that worked with the US to drive the Taliban from power in 2001 – attacked the office and home of governor and Karzai appointee Mohammad Alem Sayee in the provincial capital of Sheberghan.

Mr. Dostum is an ethnic-Uzbek and a major player in Afghanistan's civil war, repeatedly accused of war crimes like the massacre of prisoners during that conflict. His militia was also accused of atrocities in post-Taliban Afghanistan, too – like the murder of thousands of Taliban prisoners being transported to Sheberghan in 2002, one reason he was in exile on the eve of Karzai's fraud-tainted reelection in 2009. But in a deal with Karzai, Dostum was allowed to return home before the election, and his militia insured the votes went his way in Jowzjan and other areas in the Uzbek north. In return, Dostum was named chairman of the Afghan armed forces joint chiefs of staff.

But alliances in Afghan politics and war have always been fluid and ephemeral, and with Karzai looking like a lame-duck, the vast amounts of foreign military and aid spending that have enriched Dostum and so many others drying up, and a new reality looming, it appears that Dostum is flexing his muscles. Governor Sayee alleges that Dostum has lately been distributing fresh weapons to his forces and has asked the Karzai government to take legal steps against Dostum.

That's not likely to happen. For a decade now, warlords like Dostum have been the "good guys" in the US strategic equation, but they're no more likely to play nice in a post-occupation country than the Taliban will.

The so-called Afghan surge engineered by Gen. David Petraeus ended in 2012 without accomplishing its objectives of setting the stage for political reconciliation and strengthening the legitimacy of the Afghan government. The country's electoral politics have been driven by vote buying, ballot stuffing, and intimidation, and former US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry was describing Karzai himself as an "inadequate strategic partner" as long ago as 2009.

But, well, you don't go to war with the strategic partner you wished you had. And that's the ultimate concern as Afghanistan lurches towards its next transition.

Karzai is on the way out, a longer-term US troop presence remains an open question, and would-be kingmakers like General Dostum are waiting in the wings.

Qaradawi says it's time to fight. So does Washington, kind of. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

Is Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood backing a jihad in Syria? (+video)

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.14.13

It's a typically sweltering summer in Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood has failed to repair an inadequate electricity network, reach a badly needed loan agreement with the IMF, or repair fraying relations with the United States.

But amid the heat and anger, the movement that catapulted President Mohamed Morsi to power last year has bigger fish to fry. Namely, joining the increasingly heated Shiite-Sunni sectarian rhetoric around the Syrian civil war.

Speaking in plainly sectarian terms, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref told Reuters that "throughout history, Sunnis have never been involved in starting a sectarian war" and that the movement backed a declaration issued by a group of regional clerics on Thursday that called for "jihad with mind, money, weapons - all forms of jihad" in Syria.

While his history is a little shaky, or at least one-sided, the increasingly intolerant religious rhetoric around the war in Syria is worth paying attention too. The Muslim Brotherhood frequently insists that it's separate from the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) that it founded and is now headed by Morsi, a long-term Brotherhood stalwart. But in practice the two are inseparable, and this kind of talk is dangerous.

The Brotherhood's belligerent rhetoric would appear to match the Obama administration's shift on arming Syria's rebels. But the way they're talking about the war in Syria - with calls for jihad, rooted in anti-Shiite enmity - will not be giving many people in Washington the warm and fuzzies.

The powerful involvement of jihadi groups like the Jabhat al-Nusra, which the Obama administration designated a terrorist group at the end of last year, has been a key reason the US has been so reluctant to provide direct military aid to the rebellion. The US fears that weapons it supplies will end up in jihadi hands and that the consequences, if such groups prove decisive in driving Bashar al-Assad and his cronies from power, will not be entirely to American likings.

While the US and close friend Israel have been at odds with Assad's Baath regime in Syria for years, there's no guarantee that what could replace him would be more to either country's taste. And the willingness of Egypt, which overthrew its long-standing secular dictator in 2011, to apparently countenance support of Sunni jihadi groups, also contains seeds of warning.

Hosni Mubarak's Egypt fought for years against Al Qaeda style militant groups at home, and worried about blow back from militants going abroad to fight in foreign jihads and bringing their ideals home. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took the reins of Al Qaeda after the killing of Osama bin Laden, is an Egyptian and former leader of the country's Islamic Jihad.

And while Zawahiri and Al Qaeda hate the Muslim Brotherhood for its embrace of electoral democracy and what they consider other ideological deviations, the new Egypt is far more comfortable, it seems, with taking the risk of allowing people to go fight abroad than the old one. An aide to President Morsi told Reuters that the government was not sending fighters to Syria but "could not stop Egyptians from traveling and would not penalize any who went to Syria. 

Morsi may further clarify his position tomorrow, when he's scheduled to speak at a Syria solidarity conference and mass rally in Cairo tomorrow. Also at the event will be influential Muslim Brotherhood preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has already called for jihad in Syria, and Saudi preacher Mohamed al-Arifi, who has in the past praised Osama bin Laden, called for jihad in a sermon in Cairo today. Another influential Saudi preacher appeared to call for jihad at Mecca's Grand Mosque today as well.

Sunni-Shiite rivalry has rarely been far from the surface in the modern Middle East, as Saudi Arabia's jockeying with Iran for regional influence over the years, and the horrific toll of the Sunni-Shiite war that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, make clear.

But now in this hot summer, the rivalry is being stoked again by the horrors of Syria's civil war. And while religious fervor may end up (or not, who knows?) turning the tide for the rebellion in Syria, it's likely to reverberate back out across the region in unpleasant ways.

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A Free Syrian Army fighter prays near Aleppo. (Reuters)

Wayne White on arming Syria's rebels

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.14.13

Wayne White, a former senior State Department intelligence analyst for the Middle East, is someone I had the pleasure to get to know a little bit while I was covering the Iraq war between 2003-2008. In those years I'd talk to him every couple of months or so, and was glad I did.

Why? More often than not events bore out his analysis. So when he has something to say about the region, I pay attention.

Today, he worries about the Obama administration's decision to provide light arms to some elements of Syria's rebels, writing that it could lead to "more prolonged bloodletting and and destruction."

The Obama Administration finally has decided to provide lethal military support to the Syrian rebels. Yet, if Washington’s main focus is providing arms, a detailed review of just that one option suggests it probably would not be enough to prevent some additional regime successes. Moreover, giving arms only to so-called “vetted” (or moderate) rebel groups could aggravate tensions between disparate opposition camps, perhaps leading to rebel infighting. Some believe a US goal in supplying arms now (aside from bolstering the rebels) would be to re-balance the situation as a prelude to negotiations. Yet, getting the many combatants-—especially the rebels–to stand down is unlikely, so the outcome of limited arms shipments could be familiar: more prolonged bloodletting and destruction.

He argues that the US determination to limit arms to fighters that say they're opposed to the ultimate agenda of jihadis like Jabhat al-Nusra risks "being too selective militarily to have much overall impact" and points out that "rebel military vanguard has been radical Islamist in character - even al-Qaeda affiliated - for some time now." If Obama is hoping to put enough pressure on Assad to engage in meaningful peace talks, White expects the president will be disappointed.

It is no wonder it took the Obama Administration since late last summer to formulate a policy on lethal American support for Syria’s rebels, with limited regime chemical weapons use only partly driving yesterday’s decision. But even by mid-2012, supplying enough weapons to make a difference without providing them to extremists already had become an iffy proposition militarily. And with the opposition disunited, with some component groups bitterly opposing talks and rebels now regaining hope for victory over the regime with US help, useful diplomatic engagement also seems less promising than when Secretary John Kerry went to Moscow early last month.

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Free Syrian Army fighters carry their weapons as they inspect a damaged truck, after seizing a government military camp used by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, near Idlib, Thursday. (Abdalghne Karoof/Reuters)

Has a 'red line' in Syria been crossed?

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.14.13

There are good arguments to be made for the US directly arming Syria's rebels. But claims that nerve gas has been deployed in small quantities by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad aren't really among them.

The UN said yesterday morning that a minimum of 93,000 people have been killed since Syria's civil war began in March of 2011. Later in the day Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, put out a press release saying the US intelligence community is convinced that Assad "has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year."

He continued:

The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete.  While the lethality of these attacks make up only a small portion of the catastrophic loss of life in Syria, which now stands at more than 90,000 deaths, the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses clear red lines that have existed within the international community for decades. We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons.  We have no reliable, corroborated reporting to indicate that the opposition in Syria has acquired or used chemical weapons.

The body of information used to make this intelligence assessment includes reporting regarding Syrian officials planning and executing regime chemical weapons attacks; reporting that includes descriptions of the time, location, and means of attack; and descriptions of physiological symptoms that are consistent with exposure to a chemical weapons agent.  Some open source reports from social media outlets from Syrian opposition groups and other media sources are consistent with the information we have obtained regarding chemical weapons use and exposure.  The assessment is further supported by laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin.

Now, 150 - or 1,050 - people killed by chemical weapons, or any other means, is tragic. But 1,050 as a percentage of 93,000 is 1.1 percent of the death toll from the war (which has claimed many fighters for Assad and civilian supporters of his government as well as people siding with the rebellion). So if the human tragedy of the Syrian civil war wasn't sufficient cause for getting involved in the fight at this time last week, it's hard to see why it's sufficient as a result that sarin was allegedly used.

One way that it is different, of course, is that chemical weapons could possibly be used to kill large numbers of civilians in a short frame of time, as happened in the Iraqi Kurdistan village of Halabja in 1988, the last wide-scale use of chemical weapons, which claimed 5,000 lives. So the fear is that Assad has tested the waters on sarin use with very small attacks, and might consider wider deployment if there isn't an international reaction.

Perhaps. But it's also the case that of late the Syrian army has regrouped, and with the help of Lebanon's Hezbollah, has made strategic gains. With the rebels on the back foot, he has less incentive to risk using sarin or any other chemical weapons. If the US started supplying game changing weapons like anti-aircraft or anti-tank missiles that the rebels have craved, there's an argument to be made that he'd be more likely to use chemical weapons. 

After all, the view of Assad and regime stalwarts is that they're in a truly existential battle: They can win or die, or, if they're lucky, live out their days as exiles from their homeland. The sectarian cast to much of the fighting -- the Alawite minority that Assad belongs to disproportionately supports his government -- also can't be ignored. Nor can the calls for jihad by leading Sunni preachers and the framing of war by other Sunni powers like the Muslim Brotherhood that now runs Egypt as a fight against Shiites, be ignored. (Iran is overwhelmingly Shiite and supports Assad; the Alawites are a long-ago offshoot of Shia Islam).

To be sure, Obama officials are saying that they're not going to provide serious weaponry to the rebellion, and the calculation in Washington appears to be a minor escalation to warn Assad off of further sarin use, without making him feel his back is to the wall. But it's also the case that "light" support of foreign insurgents has a way of morphing into wider entanglements, as US prestige and pride kick in.

Finally, it's worth remembering that the "red line" has in fact been a bit squiggly, though it has hardened over time.

The first "red line" set by Obama in August 2012 had enough holes in it to make an Emmental cheese maker proud. "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," Obama said then, "That would change my calculus."

Since then, caveats like "a whole bunch" have been rarer, with chemical weapons use spoken of in generic terms, and without specific action threatened. For instance, in December of 2012 Obama's spokesman Jay Carney said that, "our promise of significant consequences" if Assad used chemical weapons were "extremely clear and stark," without explaining what those consequences would be.

Obama also took a tougher line on March 21: "I've made it clear to Bashar al-Assad and all who follow his orders: We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, or the transfer of those weapons to terrorists."

Well, for now, "won't tolerate" is translating as, "we'll give a little more assistance to the rebellion."

Full-scale US involvement in the conflict appears to remain a way off. 

Has Obama chosen the best path this week? Only time will tell.

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Is "don't be a wuss" any way to run a foreign policy? Bill Clinton suggests it might be. (Scott Eisen/AP)

Wusses, US foreign policy, and the horrific death toll in Syria

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.13.13

Former President Bill Clinton more or less suggested that President Barack Obama should "man up" and back Syria's rebels against the government led by President Bashar al-Assad.

Clinton's remarks, at a closed event with Senator John McCain yesterday in New York, came shortly before the UN updated its death toll from the Syrian civil war – 92,901 dead and counting. That number runs from March 2011 to the end of this April and represents an aggregation and analysis from eight different sources, some pro-government, some pro-rebellion. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said "this is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher." The UN estimated that 82 percent of the dead are men, and that at least 6,561 minors have been killed in the conflict.

The Syrian war is a humanitarian catastrophe, there is no getting around that. And the updated casualty figures are going to fuel more hand-wringing that the US must "do something," as well as further suggestions that all the death in the country is the fault of Assad.

But that's clearly not true. Syrian government forces have also died at horrific rates. While most neutral observers indicate that the government has been more responsible for civilian atrocities than the rebels, the rebels have been far from blameless. And what exactly should the US do?

Mr. Clinton, whose remarks were recorded by an attendee and leaked to Politico, wasn't clear. He warned that if Obama was deterred from acting based on polling which shows most Americans are opposed to another war that he'd look like a "wuss" and said that action for its own sake is sometimes the right course of action.

"Some people say, ‘OK, see what a big mess it is? Stay out!’ I think that’s a big mistake. I agree with you about this,” Clinton told McCain. “Sometimes it’s just best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t overcommit — like, as long as you don’t make an improvident commitment.”

He complained about Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah support for Assad and suggested that the US should try to "do something to try to slow their gains and rebalance the power so that these rebel groups have a decent chance, if they’re supported by a majority of the people, to prevail." 

Perhaps. But is the rebellion prevailing in US interests? Is it in humanitarian interests if a hotter, longer war results from the US fully engaging in a proxy war involving Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and a likely spillover into neighbors like Lebanon, Iran, and Jordan? What of the sizable presence of jihadis in the ranks of the rebels, who detest the country's minority Alawite sect (which Assad and much of his inner circle belong to) and its Christian minority, not to mention their hostility to US interests? If US weapons end up at the sharp end of sectarian massacres if the rebels win, what then?

These difficult to answer, troubling questions are among the reasons that Obama has hesitated to become more involved. And clearly casualties are not all on one side.

Earlier this month the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in London that has generally been supportive of the rebels during the country's 27 month old civil war, estimated that over 96,000 Syrians have died in the war and that over 24,600 were members of the government security forces and a further 17,000 belonged to the pro-government Shabiha militias. The group estimated that nearly 35,500 of the dead are non-combatants.

The Observatory's numbers need to be treated with care, as the political affiliations of the group are opaque, as are the manner in which it carries out its work. But it's one of the few estimates of pro-regime casualties out there.

And while it is almost impossible to know the political leanings of all the civilian dead, the chances that all of them are pro-rebellion are zero. There have been credible reports of massacres of Shiites and Alawites, who support the Assad government in greater numbers than the country's Sunni majority, at the hands of rebel forces. The UN report released today is limited to "killings that are fully identified by the name of the victim, as well as the date and location of death" hence the assumption of an under count.

What's needed to determine whether the US should get directly involved or not is reasonable assumptions about whether more arms for the rebels will lead to fewer deaths and atrocities in the end, if US interests will indeed be served by a rebel victory, and the ease with which US-supplied weapons can be kept out of jihadi hands.

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Smoke rises during what activists say was military operations led by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad against rebels, in Aleppo's countryside, Thursday. (George Ourfalian/Reuters)

Is Iran winning in Syria?

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.13.13

Max Fisher suggests that Iran is "winning" in Syria. Is he right?

Hezbollah and Iran have been helping Assad’s forces to regain the momentum in the war, making it look more likely that he could ultimately prevail over the rebels. If and when the war ends, it’s increasingly plausible that Iran will emerge as the big winner, able to project even more influence in a weakened Syria and into Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. “If Iran wins this conflict and the Syrian regime survives, Iran’s interventionist policy will become wider and its credibility will be enhanced,” an analyst at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Council told Sly.

... Long-held international relations theory maintains that states, though their leaders might nudge them a few degrees one way or another, tend to conduct foreign policy in accordance with their national interests. And the simple fact is that, for all the U.S. interests in Syria, Iran’s interests run deeper. The country just has much more to gain in “winning” the conflict than does the United States and much more to lose if it doesn’t.

It's certainly the case that Iran has more direct interests at stake in Syria than the US does – just as Iraq, Lebanon, Iraq and the Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies have more at stake. That's a function of proximity and, as Fisher rightly points out, Iran's dwindling number of friends in the region (see: Hamas). A rebel victory over Assad will certainly reduce Iran's regional leverage, make it harder to arm and support Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah, and leave Iran even more isolated.

But when it comes to regional influence, any "victory" in Syria may well prove a Pyrrhic one. Just seven years ago, Iran and Hezbollah, along with the Sunni Palestinian Hamas, were aligned as an "axis of resistance" and feted across the Arab world for standing up to Israel and US interest in the region. Today, Hamas has distanced itself from Iran and both the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah are scorned in the region as butchers and worse for their involvement in Syria, in which they're fighting to preserve, in the view of most regional media, a secular autocrat and torturer of women and children.

While Iran's cordial relations with the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq, made possible by the US-led war to remove Saddam Hussein from power in 2003, may offset whatever losses they're already taking as a result of their support for Assad, the country's regional standing has already taken a meaningful longterm hit.

A few years ago, Iran could contract its own steadfast opposition to the US and Israel with the likes of close US partner Saudi Arabia, and find some resonance among Arab public's for its position. Today, heightened distrust of Iran is a given throughout the region. At the end of last month, influential Sunni preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, close to both the Qatari regime and to the Muslim Brotherhood that now rules Egypt, called for a jihad in Syria to push Hezbollah and Iran out of the country, and recanted his earlier kind words for Iran, saying he now sees the country as committed to wiping out Sunni Muslims.

Should the US join the war just because a defeat for Assad is bad for Iran's interests? Are US interests therefore automatically served? Not necessarily. The country could well have a long civil war after this war, the only certain outcome of which would be greater suffering. And in that event, the US would be involved in a multisided, dirty conflict far from home.

A boy with a Chinese national flag in front of the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/REUTERS)

News flash: The NSA is spying on China

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.13.13

Edward Snowden, the young National Security Agency contractor with the Electronic Frontier Foundation sticker on his laptop, said he leaked details of the government's domestic surveillance operations out of a sense of patriotism and concern over intrusive government overreach into private citizens lives.

But his odd choice of flight to Hong Kong, which may have an independent judiciary but is nevertheless tied to US rival China, has now been matched with revelations about the NSA's spying programs against the People's Republic. 

That the NSA collects signals intelligence against China is hardly surprising, since gathering that kind of information against US rivals and potential rivals is explicitly the NSA's job. The famously secretive intelligence agency is up front about its mission, right on its web page:

The National Security Agency is responsible for providing foreign Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) to our nation's policy-makers and military forces. SIGINT plays a vital role in our national security by providing America's leaders with critical information they need to defend our country, save lives, and advance U.S. goals and alliances globally.

SIGINT is intelligence derived from electronic signals and systems used by foreign targets, such as communications systems, radars, and weapons systems. SIGINT provides a vital window for our nation into foreign adversaries' capabilities, actions, and intentions.

NSA's SIGINT mission is specifically limited to gathering information about international terrorists and foreign powers, organizations, or persons. NSA produces intelligence in response to formal requirements levied by those who have an official need for intelligence, including all departments of the Executive Branch of the United States Government.

In that third paragraph you'll find the reason Mr. Snowden has given for violating the terms of the top secret clearance he was given to work on NSA's computers. In his estimations, the US government was not limiting itself to foreign powers and persons, but was collecting vast amounts of data on US nationals as well. While that is hotly contested by the Obama Administration, the NSA, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, a number of politicians and others agree with Snowden (the ACLU for instance).

But talking about the NSA's targeting of China is unlikely to win much support for Snowden, and it's hard to see how the "whistle-blower" sobriquet could possibly apply. Spying on China is practically the whole point of having an agency like the NSA. And while China spies vigorously on the US government, in turn, having specific information put out in public by a rogue NSA employee at a time when the US government has been complaining about Chinese hacking designed to steal details of US weapons systems is inconvenient to say the least.

China's state controlled press has been having a field day with the latest revelations. The LA Times rounds up Chinese media reaction this morning: 

The English-language China Daily ran a large cartoon of a shadowed Statue of Liberty, holding a tape recorder and microphone instead of a tablet and torch.

In an editorial dripping with indignation, the Communist Party-run Global Times demanded an explanation on behalf of the Chinese government.

"Before Snowden is silenced, Washington owes China an explanation of whether the U.S. as an Internet superpower abused its power over our vital interests,’’ Global Times opined.  

In Hong Kong, the pro-Communist Party Takungpao newspaper added:  "If the U.S. is the true defender of democracy, human rights and freedom like it always described itself … President Obama should sincerely apologize to the people from other countries whose privacy was violated.’’

Snowden, who is seeking asylum in Hong Kong against an inevitable US government extradition request, told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post that the US has run extensive SIGINT operations against targets in China, and revealed some details. The paper reports that Snowden believes "there had been 61,000 NSA hacking operations globally, with hundreds of targets in Hong Kong and on the mainland" since 2009. The paper says Snowden claims NSA targets included "Chinese University and public officials, businesses and students in the city" of Hong Kong.

The US has an extradition treaty with Hong Kong, though legal experts there say any effort to extradite him, particularly if it includes him seeking asylum on human rights grounds, could take years to wind through the courts. Snowden called the US government "hypocritical" for spying on what he deems civilian targets in foreign countries and painted the US government in thuggish terms.

“All I can do is rely on my training and hope that world governments will refuse to be bullied by the United States into persecuting people seeking political refuge,” he told the paper.

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White House spokesman Jay Carney wasn't interested in talking about NSA surveillance today. A new ACLU suit will probably change that. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

ACLU files suit over NSA surveillance, citing 'chilling effect'

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.11.13

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint in a New York district court this afternoon that says the US government's practice of obtaining secret warrants to trawl through vast amounts of American phone records – what it calls "dragnet acquisition" – "is akin to snatching every American’s address book – with annotations detailing whom we spoke to, when we talked, for how long, and from where."

The ACLU named five defendants, who are some of the most powerful people in the US intelligence community and the Obama administration: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; Director of the NSA Keith Alexander; Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel; Attorney General Eric Holder; and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The organization says that since the US government confirmed an order issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court six weeks ago requiring phone carrier Verizon to turn over metadata relating to the calls made by all of its subscribers to the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI, and that since the ACLU is a Verizon customer, that it has standing to contest the legality of the government's behavior.

"Government officials have indicated that the [Verizon] order is part of a program that has been in place for seven years and that collects records of all telephone communications of every customer of a major phone company, including Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint," the ACLU writes in its complaint, which is also supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union. "The government’s surveillance of their communications ... allows the government to learn sensitive and privileged information about their work and clients, and it is likely to have a chilling effect on whistle blowers and others who would otherwise contact Plaintiffs for legal assistance."

The ACLU says the practice violates the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. They also say it violates Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the government says has made its searches legal.

From the moment that the Verizon warrant was reported in a scoop by The Guardian of the UK earlier this week, challenges over government surveillance practices on constitutional grounds seemed inevitable. The ACLU suit today makes no mention of the PRISM program, in which the government has been accessing the online habits of customers of companies like Microsoft and Google.

The ACLU complains that Section 215 of the Patriot Act has made it too easy for the US government to go on fishing expeditions through Americans' phone records, while also shielding the government from effective external review of its actions.

"Section 215 also relaxed the standard that the FBI is required to meet to obtain an order to seize these records. Previously, FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] required the FBI to present to the FISC 'specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person to whom the records pertain [was] a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.' In its current form, Section 215 requires only that the records or things sought be 'relevant' to an authorized investigation 'to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities,” the organization writes.

The ACLU also complains that orders issued under the section are accompanied by gag orders and that while companies (Verizon, say) have the right to appeal the gag, "the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] must treat the government’s claim 'that disclosure may endanger the national security of the United States or interfere with diplomatic relations ... as conclusive.' " The ACLU says that at any rate, the government has exceeded the limitations of Section 215 with its mass order to Verizon and perhaps other companies.

In addition to asking the court to declare the surveillance a violation of Section 215 and unconstitutional, the ACLU is also seeking a court order requiring the "defendants to purge from their possession all of the call records of Plaintiffs' communications in their possession collected pursuant to the Mass Call Tracking."

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National Security Agency plaques are seen at the compound at Fort Meade, Md., June 6. An extensive government surveillance program involving the NSA found that a large number of Americans are comfortable with trading privacy for security, a new Pew poll suggests. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Americans say they are pretty comfortable with expanded government surveillance (+video)

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 06.11.13

A Pew Research Center poll conducted from June 6 to 9, prompted by revelations of an extensive domestic surveillance program involving the National Security Agency found that a large number of US citizens are comfortable with trading privacy for security.

The poll found that 56 percent of Americans considered it "acceptable" for the NSA to get "secret court orders to track calls of millions of Americans to investigate terrorism," while 41 percent of those surveyed found this "not acceptable."

This was the first time Pew had asked that specific question. It has asked the question "should the government be able to monitor everyone's e-mail to prevent possible terrorism" for a number of years. For that proposition there is less support, perhaps because it doesn't include any judicial oversight. In 2002, 45 percent said they supported e-mail monitoring, while 47 percent said they didn't support that. In June 2013, 45 percent still indicated they supported e-mail monitoring, but the number of Americans opposed to it rose to 52 percent.

The overall picture is still one in which large numbers of Americans are deeply frightened by terrorism and want the government to devote significant resources to combat it, notwithstanding the fact that terrorism is not much of an actual threat. On balance, most people polled indicated security is more important to them than privacy, which is the reason that expanded surveillance powers and the use of secret courts have been so popular among lawmakers.

Pew writes:

Currently 62% say it is more important for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy. Just 34% say it is more important for the government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats.

These opinions have changed little since an ABC News/Washington Post survey in January 2006. Currently, there are only modest partisan differences in these opinions: 69% of Democrats say it is more important for the government to investigate terrorist threats, even at the expense of personal privacy, as do 62% of Republicans and 59% of independents.

The polling did find a meaningful gap between older and younger Americans on this issue, with older Americans being less concerned about privacy.

"While six-in-10 or more in older age groups say it is more important to investigate terrorism even if it intrudes on privacy, young people are divided: 51% say investigating terrorism is more important while 45% say it is more important for the government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible threats," Pew writes.

While the poll finds bipartisan support for surveillance, the way the attitudes of Democrats and Republicans have shifted on the issue since President Obama took office is once again evidence of the power of partisanship, rather than principle, in how voters see the world. For instance; the number of Democrats who say they think invading Iraq was the right choice has surged since Obama took office, and the number of Republican's who think it was a smart choice has plummeted.

The Pew poll found that in January 2006, 75 percent of Republicans found NSA surveillance programs "acceptable," while 61 percent of Democrats found them "unacceptable." In this June 2013 poll, Republican support dropped to 52 percent while Democrat support surged, to 64 percent now finding the surveillance programs acceptable.

While it's natural that Republicans would trust a Republican president more (and vice versa), expanded powers for the federal government don't expire at the end of each president's term. Still, even when it comes to fundamental questions about the trade-offs between privacy and security, a large portion of the electorate, like the politicians that lead them, don't look beyond the election cycle.