Web of Deceit

Some were grabbed off the streets, blindfolded and bundled into the back of a car. Others were detained at airports and taken away by force on small private jets, often to secret locations in countries known for torture. Extraordinary rendition, a kind of state-sanctioned kidnapping that breaches international law, became a popular method used by US authorities to capture terror suspects in the years following the 2001 World Trade Centre attacks. But only now are full details about the practice, and the many corporations that have profited from it, beginning to emerge.

In recent weeks human rights group Reprieve has been publicising some of the private companies that helped organise the renditions, most carried out under the authority of the George W. Bush administration between 2001 and 2008. Among the firms are military contractors such as Virginia-based DynCorp, paid to organise the logistics of rendition flights to places like Thailand, Egypt, Syria and Morocco. But there are also less conspicuous firms that played a key role, some with strong UK connections. One is Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), an IT firm that has held contracts with the NHS and Transport for London.

“The role played by the prime contracting companies – DynCorp and CSC – was extremely significant,” says Crofton Black, a Reprieve investigator. “They basically ran a significant proportion of the entire project in terms of helping move people around between detention sites. The various operating companies that provided the airplanes and crews are significant too, because it’s unlikely these guys didn’t know what was happening in their planes.”

According to Reprieve, court documents show that CSC organised rendition flights on behalf of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry prisoners between a number of locations, including the notorious Guantánamo Bay detention camp and secret “black sites” in North Africa, South East Asia and Eastern Europe. It is alleged that the prisoners were held incommunicado and tortured during lengthy interrogations. CSC, which turned over £10.2 billion in 2011, has a string of British investors, including Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and Prudential.

Earlier this year, Reprieve wrote and asked CSC to sign its “zero tolerance for torture” pledge promising that it would not be involved in rendition, secret detention and torture in the future. The company declined, saying that individual pledges on specific topics were “not within the framework” of its existing corporate responsibility programme. Reprieve is now writing to investors in the firm asking them to “confirm whether investing in companies implicated in torture is compatible with their ethical commitments.”

“CSC has explicitly refused to rule out taking on such missions in the future,” Black says. “It’s fine for the investors to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that ‘we didn’t know such missions were going on in 2005.’ But they can’t say that anymore. So they have to come to come to terms with the fact that they are investing in a company that has basically made a commitment not to honour international law, which is effectively what CSC refusing to sign the zero tolerance for torture pledge means.”

At the same time as details about private companies’ involvement in extraordinary rendition continue to emerge, new information about the scale of Britain’s role in the programme has also been revealed. In the wake of the civil war in Libya last year, documents were uncovered showing in 2004 MI6 had helped US authorities abduct Libyan dissident Abdelhakim Belhadj and his pregnant wife in Bangkok, where they were flown to Tripoli and abused by Muammar Gaddafi’s secret police.

Belhadj is now suing MI6 and then-foreign secretary Jack Straw, a serving Blackburn MP, for complicity in torture and misfeasance in public office. Government sources say MI6’s role in rendition was part of “ministerially authorised government policy" – but Straw has gone on record claiming that "no foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence agencies are doing at any one time."

In other countries, too, the repercussions of extraordinary rendition continue to be felt. In March, Poland became the first EU country to indict one of its officials over CIA renditions, with the country’s prime minister promising an end to “under-the-table deals." It is alleged that a military garrison in the north-east of the Poland was used as a CIA black site where terror suspects were interrogated and subjected to waterboarding, a kind of torture that makes a person feel as if they are drowning.

Some details about the rendition programme, like the names of the terror suspects involved, are difficult to establish as they remain classified. But more revelations may soon emerge as part of a major new academic effort to pull together all of the information that has so far been published about extraordinary rendition. Launched by University of Kent academic Dr Ruth Blakeley in May, the Rendition Project is studying reams of court documents and flight logs, collating data about hundreds of victims of rendition and secret detention since 2001. It hopes to chronicle the 45 countries, 6500 flights and 140 aircraft allegedly connected to the CIA renditions programme.

“I don’t think the world is very well informed about the types of things that governments in the US and UK do,” Blakeley says, explaining her motivation for starting the project. “On both sides of the pond current governments don’t really want to carry out investigations [into rendition] because their own records are not that squeaky clean either.”

Prior to coming in to office in 2008, US president Barack Obama condemned many of his predecessor’s more aggressive counter-terror policies. He barred waterboarding and signed an executive order entitled "Ensuring Lawful Interrogations," designed to increase oversight. But he didn’t outlaw extraordinary renditions. Obama has also significantly heighted the use of unmanned military drones, remotely controlled aircraft that are used to bomb suspected militants in places such as Pakistan and Yemen. Some argue that, to avoid using the costly and controversial rendition method, Obama has favoured drone strikes – killing rather than capturing.

“It’s expensive to detain people in prison,” Blakeley says. “A lot of people say drone attacks are Obama’s preference because you just get rid of the people and you don’t have all the messy stuff afterwards to deal with... It avoids the public outcry around rendition.”

London-based human rights group Cage Prisoners, founded by Birmingham-born Moazzam Begg, a former Guantánamo detainee, believes rendition is still happening today but on a lesser scale. The group, which campaigns to raise awareness about individuals held extra-judicially as part of the so-called War on Terror, argues public inquiries into extraordinary rendition are the only way to redress the abuses of international law that became commonplace after 2001.

“There’s no way that we can adequately compensate those who had these things happen to them,” says Asim Qureshi, executive director at Cage Prisoners. “In the grand scheme of things, for those people inquiries mean nothing, because they’ve already had their lives ruined by renditions.

“But for the future they become important, because this is effectively the way the human rights industry can fight back – by bringing these legal cases, by having the process of accountability, and by really placing the emphasis back on due process and the rule of law.”

Obama's broken promises

Earlier this month American president Barack Obama openly reneged on two important issues. First came the announcement that legal trials at US prison camp Guantanamo Bay would recommence. And then, just a few days later, followed Obama's statement that the widely condemned treatment of Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified files to WikiLeaks, was "appropriate and meeting our basic standards".

On his rise to power in 2008, Obama spoke out against the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and vowed to close the prison. Within hours of becoming president he put a halt to the (now resumed) legal trials taking place at the camp, during which the US military acts as both judge and jury. He also pledged to protect government whistleblowers, and spoke passionately about the need for a "common humanity" and a "new era of peace" in his inauguration speech .

Obama’s transformation since then has been remarkable. Through the course his two-year tenure so far, five suspected government whistleblowers have been charged on suspicion of leaking classified information – more than under the respective terms of republican presidents Reagan, Nixon and both George Bushes combined. Before Obama came to power, the US government had only filed similar charges on three occasions in 40 years.

Aside from declaring what Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg has described as a “war on whistleblowers”, Obama has also escalated military action in Afghanistan and sanctioned clandestine bombings in Pakistan and Yemen. And while Guantanamo remains open and its trials get back underway, his government continues to allow “extraordinary rendition”, a practice – again condemned by Obama prior to his election – that involves the secret CIA abduction of terror suspects who are transferred to prisons in countries with questionable human rights records.

Part of Obama's massive original appeal in 2008 was that he appeared to be a man of liberal principle. In his book, Dreams of My Father , he portrayed his younger self as a pot-smoking, humble intellectual who entered into politics from community activism. It was natural at the time to want to believe he was different; after eight years of war and draconian civil liberties crackdowns under the presidency of George W. Bush, Obama’s talk of “hope” and “change” was a welcome tonic. But as is now obvious: we were gullible and naive to fall blindly for his rhetoric.

In London recently, Hillary Clinton’s senior advisor on innovation, Alec Ross, spoke at the London School of Economics . His lecture was in many ways a reflection of the Obama presidency. It was stylishly delivered and punctuated with idealism – though so devoid of substance it was almost chilling.

As Ross spoke about the “free internet” and implementing a “change agenda”, the spirit of Obama lingered in the room. When probed by one audience member on the role of his government in Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition, the 39-year-old looked momentarily bewildered. “I cannot disembowel my country’s history,” he said. “I don’t always feel great about our past but I feel good about our future.”

Such unwillingness to tackle the ugly realities of American political life has been a defining feature of Obama’s two years in office to date. Supporters of Obama point to his criticism of China's human rights record and refusal to oppose gay marriage – both of which are undeniably commendable. But the president needs to do much more. There was a sense three years ago that Obama represented a whole new dawn for America and perhaps even the world. Today his apparent reluctance to stick to previously advocated principles has left many feeling empty and betrayed.

Giving his second State of the Union address in January, Obama spoke of how America “supports the democratic aspirations of all people.” No amount of grand speeches, however, can alter the paradox of his country's present position as both advocate and adversary of democracy. The imprisonment and punitive treatment of whistleblowers; trial under military jury at Guantanamo; and the sanctioning of extraordinary rendition – these are not policies in line with any notion of democracy, no matter how skewed.

The problem is that Obama has become just another large cog in the same machine he set out to dismantle. Which is why when he speaks it is difficult to hear anything other than broken promises and backtracking. He will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the great orators, but it is actions, not words, that will rightly define his legacy. Irrespective of how many times Obama promises a “change agenda”, the uncomfortable truth is that so far he has failed dramatically to deliver.

This article appeared originally at: openDemocracy.net

Paypal and Bradley Manning

Yesterday the online payment company Paypal froze the account of an organisation raising money for Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking confidential military documents to WikiLeaks. Since 2006 the San Francisco-based organisation, Courage to Resist, has been using Paypal to raise funds for “military objectors” who have refused to participate in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The group says there were no issues, however, until supporters were recently encouraged to donate to help fund a "Stand with Bradley Manning" campaign.

Late last year, Paypal made the news after they similarly froze the account of WikiLeaks. A short statement from the company at the time said that WikiLeaks had violated its Acceptable Use Policy, and pointed to a clause stating “our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

This time, according to Courage to Resist, Paypal – whose annual revenue in 2010 was $3.4bn (£2.1bn) – made no reference to any clause in its terms of service. Instead, they restricted the group’s account pending “organisational verification.” Paypal executives then asked questions about “the intended use of the funds being solicited in support of Bradley Manning” and requested details of purchases made with funds received via Paypal. Eventually, the executives concluded that the appropriate course of action was to freeze the Courage to Resist account.

They were not legally obliged to do so. Rather, the decision was taken on the basis of an “internal policy” that they refused to divulge. As a private company, Paypal are of course entitled to shut down accounts as they see fit. But it is a problem when a company of such size and influence chooses to adopt an overtly political stance on an explosive, controversial issue like Bradley Manning with little explanation.

After Paypal’s decision was publicised yesterday morning, an internet backlash ensued. Within a few hours, 10,000 people had signed a petition calling for them to reinstate the Courage to Resist account. Likely realising they had a public relations disaster on their hands, Paypal promptly obliged. “This decision had nothing to do with WikiLeaks,” they said in a statement. “We have decided to lift the temporary restriction placed on their [Courage to Resist's] account.”

Yet the implications of their initial decision remain highly significant, and had there not been a huge backlash the Courage to Resist account would still be frozen. It is a serious matter of concern that by refusing to facilitate payments to a support fund raising finances for Bradley Manning’s legal aid – albeit temporarily – Paypal participated in what equates essentially to an act of political repression.

The question is: who next? If Bradley Manning is a policy problem for Paypal, technically every person accused of a crime is at risk of having their account frozen, especially if politics is involved. A quick Google search reveals prisoner support funds for animal rights activists, G20 protestors and even former Guantanamo Bay prisoners, all using Paypal to raise money. If the company is to take issue with Manning, then surely by extension of their own logic it is only a matter of time before they clamp down on others.

There is no going back for Paypal now. By adopting what appears to have been a political stance on an issue that should be far beyond their remit as an online payment provider, they have shown themselves to be cut from the same cloth as draconian forces at the highest echelons of American power. They have engaged in what it is difficult to conceive of as anything other than a kind of corporate McCarthyism, backpedalling only after thousands of voices boomed a chorus of discontent.

Ten days ago, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton gave a speech in which she condemned political censorship in China, Iran, Burma, Egypt, Vietnam, Cuba, Tunisia and Syria. Though as this latest revelation in the Bradley Manning saga illustrates, Clinton could do worse than look closer to home for pertinent examples of repression. “Our commitment to internet freedom is a commitment to the rights of people,” she said at the time, “and we are matching that with our actions.” In the wake of their experiences with Paypal, it is very much doubtful the Stand with Bradley Manning campaign would agree.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/paypal%E2%80%99s-corporate-mccarthyism

What WikiLeaks has told us

Since 2006, the whistleblowers' website WikiLeaks has published a mass of information we would otherwise not have known. The leaks have exposed dubious procedures at Guantanamo Bay and detailed meticulously the Iraq War's unprecedented civilian death-toll. They have highlighted the dumping of toxic waste in Africa as well as revealed America's clandestine military actions in Yemen and Pakistan.

The sheer scope and significance of the revelations is shocking. Among them are great abuses of power, corruption, lies and war crimes. Yet there are still some who insist WikiLeaks has "told us nothing new". This collection, sourced from a range of publications across the web, illustrates nothing could be further from the truth. Here, if there is still a grain of doubt in your mind, is just some of what WikiLeaks has told us: