Piratage russe: A qui profite le crime ? (Cui bono: Warning, a Manchurian candidate can hide another)

Audaciter calomniare semper aliquid haeret (Calomniez audacieusement, il en restera toujours quelque chose.) Proverbe latin médiéval

Messieurs, disait un fameux délateur Aux courtisans de Philippe, son maître : Quelque grossier qu’un mensonge puisse être, Ne craignez rien, calomniez toujours. Quand l’accusé confondrait vos discours, La plaie est faite; et, quoiqu’il en guérisse, On en verra du moins la cicatrice. Rousseau

Calomnions, calomnions, il en restera toujours quelque chose.  Beaumarchais (Le Barbier de Séville)

I don’t think people want a lot of talk about change; I think they want someone with a real record, a doer not a talker. For legislators who don’t want to take a stand, there’s a third way to vote. Not yes, not no, but present, which is kind of like voting maybe. (…) A president can’t vote present; a president can’t pick or choose which challenges he or she will face. Hillary Clinton (Dec. 2007)

Ma propre ville de Chicago a compté parmi les villes à la politique locale la plus corrompue de l’histoire américaine, du népotisme institutionnalisé aux élections douteuses. Barack Obama (Nairobi, Kenya, août 2006)

C’est bon d’être à la maison. (…) Je suis arrivé à Chicago pour la première fois à l’âge de 20 ans, essayant toujours de comprendre qui j’étais; toujours à la recherche d’un but à ma vie. C’est dans les quartiers non loin d’ici que j’ai commencé à travailler avec des groupes religieux dans l’ombre des aciéries fermées. C’est dans ces rues où j’ai été témoin du pouvoir de la foi et de la dignité tranquille des travailleurs face à la lutte et à la perte. C’est là que j’ai appris que le changement ne se produit que lorsque des gens ordinaires s’impliquent, s’engagent et se rassemblent pour le demander.  (…) Si je vous avais dit il y a huit ans que l’Amérique inverserait une grande récession, redémarrerait notre industrie automobile et libérerait la plus longue période de création d’emplois de notre histoire … Si je vous avais dit que nous ouvririons un nouveau chapitre avec le peuple cubain, stopperions le programme nucléaire iranien sans tirer un coup de feu et que nous nous débarrasserions du cerveau du 11 septembre … Si je vous avais dit que nous aurions obtenu l’égalité du mariage et garanti le droit à l’assurance maladie pour 20 millions de nos concitoyens. Vous auriez pensé qu’on visait un peu trop haut. Mais c’est ce que nous avons fait. (…) par presque toutes les mesures, l’Amérique va mieux et est plus forte qu’avant. Dans dix jours, le monde sera témoin d’une caractéristique de notre démocratie: le transfert pacifique du pouvoir d’un président élu librement à un autre. J’ai confié au président élu Trump que mon administration assurerait la transition la plus harmonieuse possible, tout comme le président Bush l’avait fait pour moi. Parce que c’est à nous tous de nous assurer que notre gouvernement peut nous aider à relever les nombreux défis auxquels nous sommes encore confrontés. (…) Oui, nous pouvons le faire. Oui, nous l’avons fait. Barack Hussein Obama (Chicago, 10.01.2017)

As his second marriage to Sexton collapsed in 1998, Sexton filed an order of protection against him, public records show. Hull won’t talk about the divorce in detail, saying only that it was « contentious » and that he and Sexton are friends. The Chicago Tribune (15.02.04)

Though Obama, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, lagged in polls as late as mid-February, he surged to the front of the pack in recent weeks after he began airing television commercials and the black community rallied behind him. He also was the beneficiary of the most inglorious campaign implosion in Illinois political history, when multimillionaire Blair Hull plummeted from front-runner status amid revelations that an ex-wife had alleged in divorce papers that he had physically and verbally abused her. After spending more than $29 million of his own money, Hull, a former securities trader, finished third, garnering about 10 percent of the vote. (…) Obama ascended to front-runner status in early March as Hull’s candidacy went up in flames amid the divorce revelations, as well as Hull’s acknowledgment that he had used cocaine in the 1980s and had been evaluated for alcohol abuse. The Chicago Tribune (17.03.04)

Axelrod is known for operating in this gray area, part idealist, part hired muscle. It is difficult to discuss Axelrod in certain circles in Chicago without the matter of the Blair Hull divorce papers coming up. As the 2004 Senate primary neared, it was clear that it was a contest between two people: the millionaire liberal, Hull, who was leading in the polls, and Obama, who had built an impressive grass-roots campaign. About a month before the vote, The Chicago Tribune revealed, near the bottom of a long profile of Hull, that during a divorce proceeding, Hull’s second wife filed for an order of protection. In the following few days, the matter erupted into a full-fledged scandal that ended up destroying the Hull campaign and handing Obama an easy primary victory. The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had  »worked aggressively behind the scenes » to push the story. But there are those in Chicago who believe that Axelrod had an even more significant role — that he leaked the initial story. They note that before signing on with Obama, Axelrod interviewed with Hull. They also point out that Obama’s TV ad campaign started at almost the same time. The NYT (01.04.07)

After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client — a longtime political supporter. Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell’s firm that eventually totaled $112,000. A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin. Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments. Obama’s staff said the senator advocated only for the first year’s grant — which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell. (…) Business relationships between lawmakers and people with government interests are not illegal or uncommon in Illinois or other states with a part-time Legislature, where lawmakers supplement their state salaries with income from the private sector. But Obama portrays himself as a lawmaker dedicated to transparency and sensitive to even the appearance of a conflict of interest. (…) In his book « The Audacity of Hope, » Obama tells how his finances had deteriorated to such a point that his credit card was initially rejected when he tried to rent a car at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles. He said he had originally planned to dedicate that summer « to catching up on work at the law practice that I’d left unattended during the campaign (a neglect that had left me more or less broke). » Six months later Blackwell hired Obama to serve as general counsel for his tech company, EKI, which had been launched a few years earlier. The monthly retainer paid by EKI was sent to the law firm that Obama was affiliated with at the time, currently known as Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where he worked part time when he wasn’t tending to legislative duties. The business arrived at an especially fortuitous time because, as the law firm’s senior partner, Judson Miner, put it, « it was a very dry period here, » meaning that the ebb and flow of cases left little work for Obama and cash was tight. The entire EKI retainer went to Obama, who was considered « of counsel » to the firm, according to details provided to The Times by the Obama campaign and confirmed by Miner. Blackwell said he had no knowledge of Obama’s finances and hired Obama solely based on his abilities. « His personal financial situation was not and is not my concern, » Blackwell said. « I hired Barack because he is a brilliant person and a lawyer with great insight and judgment. » Obama’s tax returns show that he made no money from his law practice in 2000, the year of his unsuccessful run for a congressional seat. But that changed in 2001, when Obama reported $98,158 income for providing legal services. Of that, $80,000 was from Blackwell’s company. In 2002, the state senator reported $34,491 from legal services and speeches. Of that, $32,000 came from the EKI legal assignment, which ended in April 2002 by mutual agreement, as Obama ceased the practice of law and looked ahead to the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate. (…) Illinois ethics disclosure forms are designed to reveal possible financial conflicts by lawmakers. On disclosure forms for 2001 and 2002, Obama did not specify that EKI provided him with the bulk of the private-sector compensation he received. As was his custom, he attached a multi-page list of all the law firm’s clients, which included EKI among hundreds. Illinois law does not require more specific disclosure. Stanley Brand, a Washington lawyer who counsels members of Congress and others on ethics rules, said he would have advised a lawmaker in Obama’s circumstances to separately disclose such a singularly important client and not simply include it on a list of hundreds of firm clients, even if the law does not explicitly require it. « I would say you should disclose that to protect and insulate yourself against the charge that you are concealing it, » Brand said. LA Times

One lesson, however, has not fully sunk in and awaits final elucidation in the 2012 election: that of the Chicago style of Barack Obama’s politicking. In 2008 few of the true believers accepted that, in his first political race, in 1996, Barack Obama sued successfully to remove his opponents from the ballot. Or that in his race for the US Senate eight years later, sealed divorced records for both his primary- and general-election opponents were mysteriously leaked by unnamed Chicagoans, leading to the implosions of both candidates’ campaigns. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in the history of public campaign financing to reject it, or that he was also the largest recipient of cash from Wall Street in general, and from BP and Goldman Sachs in particular. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in recent memory not to disclose either undergraduate records or even partial medical. Or that remarks like “typical white person,” the clingers speech, and the spread-the-wealth quip would soon prove to be characteristic rather than anomalous. Few American presidents have dashed so many popular, deeply embedded illusions as has Barack Obama. And for that, we owe him a strange sort of thanks. Victor Davis Hanson

Selon le professeur Dick Simpson, chef du département de science politique de l’université d’Illinois, «c’est à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe que le système prend racine». L’arrivée de larges populations immigrées peinant à faire leur chemin à Chicago pousse les politiciens à «mobiliser le vote des communautés en échange d’avantages substantiels». Dans les années 1930, le Parti démocrate assoit peu à peu sa domination grâce à cette politique «raciale». Le système va se solidifier sous le règne de Richard J. Daley, grande figure qui régnera sur la ville pendant 21 ans. Aujourd’hui, c’est son fils Richard M. Daley qui est aux affaires depuis 18 ans et qui «perpétue le pouvoir du Parti démocrate à Chicago, en accordant emplois d’État, faveurs et contrats, en échange de soutiens politiques et financiers», raconte John McCormick. «Si on vous donne un permis de construction, vous êtes censés “payer en retour”», explique-t-il. «Cela s’appelle payer pour jouer», résume John Kass, un autre éditorialiste. Les initiés affirment que Rod Blagojevich ne serait jamais devenu gouverneur s’il n’avait croisé le chemin de sa future femme, Patricia Mell, fille de Dick Mell, un conseiller municipal très influent, considéré comme un rouage essentiel de la machine. (…) Dans ce contexte local plus que trouble, Peraica affirme que la montée au firmament d’Obama n’a pu se faire «par miracle».«Il a été aidé par la machine qui l’a adoubé, il est cerné par cette machine qui produit de la corruption et le risque existe qu’elle monte de Chicago vers Washington», va-t-il même jusqu’à prédire. Le conseiller régional républicain cite notamment le nom d’Emil Jones, l’un des piliers du Parti démocrate de l’Illinois, qui a apporté son soutien à Obama lors de son élection au Sénat en 2004. Il évoque aussi les connexions du président élu avec Anthony Rezko, cet homme d’affaires véreux, proche de Blagojevich et condamné pour corruption, qui fut aussi le principal responsable de la levée de fonds privés pour le compte d’Obama pendant sa course au siège de sénateur et qui l’aida à acheter sa maison à Chicago. «La presse a protégé Barack Obama comme un petit bébé. Elle n’a pas sorti les histoires liées à ses liens avec Rezko», s’indigne Peraica, qui cite toutefois un article du Los Angeles Times faisant état d’une affaire de financement d’un tournoi international de ping-pong qui aurait éclaboussé le président élu. (…) Pour la plupart des commentateurs, Barack Obama a su naviguer à travers la politique locale «sans se compromettre. Le Figaro

La condamnation de M. Blagojevich met une fois de plus la lumière sur la scène politique corrompue de l’Etat dont la plus grande ville est Chicago. Cinq des neuf gouverneurs précédents de l’Illinois ont été accusés ou arrêtés pour fraude ou corruption. Le prédécesseur de M. Blagojevich, le républicain George Ryan, purge actuellement une peine de six ans et demi de prison pour fraude et racket. M. Blagojevich, qui devra se présenter à la prison le 16 février et verser des amendes de près de 22 000 dollars, détient le triste record de la peine la plus lourde jamais infligée à un ex-gouverneur de l’Illinois. Ses avocats ont imploré le juge de ne pas chercher à faire un exemple avec leur client, notant que ce dernier n’avait pas amassé d’enrichissement personnel et avait seulement tenté d’obtenir des fonds de campagne ainsi que des postes bien rémunérés. En plein scandale, M. Blagojevich était passé outre aux appels à la démission venus de son propre parti et avait nommé procédé à la nomination d’un sénateur avant d’être destitué. Mais le scandale a porté un coup à la réputation des démocrates dans l’Illinois et c’est un républicain qui a été élu l’an dernier pour occuper l’ancien siège de M. Obama. AFP (08.12.11)

Dès qu’un organisateur entre dans une communauté, il ne vit, rêve, mange, respire et dort qu’une chose, et c’est d’établir la base politique de masse de ce qu’il appelle l’armée. Saul Alinsky (mentor politique d’Obama)

On se retrouve avec deux conclusions: 1) un président très inexpérimenté a découvert que toute la rhétorique de campagne facile et manichéenne de 2008 n’est pas facilement traduisible en gouvernance réelle. 2) Obama est engagé dans une course contre la montre pour imposer de force un ordre du jour plutôt radical et diviseur à un pays de centre-droit avant que celui-ci ne se réveille et que ses sondages atteignent le seuil fatidique des 40%. Autrement dit, il y a deux options possibles: Ou bien le pays bascule plus à gauche en quatre ans qu’il ne l’a fait en cinquante ou Obama entraine dans sa chute le Congrès démocrate et la notion même de gouvernance de gauche responsable, laissant ainsi derrière lui un bilan à la Carter. Victor Davis Hanson

Bientôt, M. Obama aura ses propres La Mecque et Téhéran à traiter, peut-être à Jérusalem et au Caire. Il ferait bien de jeter un œil au bilan de son co-lauréat au prix Nobel de la paix, comme démonstration de la manière dont les motifs les plus purs peuvent entrainer les résultats les plus désastreux. Bret Stephens

C’est ma dernière élection. Après mon élection, j’aurai plus de flexibilité. Obama (à Medvedev, 27.03.12)

Dans le milieu du renseignement, nous dirions que M. Trump a été recruté comme un agent russe qui s’ignore. Michael Morell (ancien directeur de la CIA)

Republicans, independents, swing voters and GOP members of the House and Senate who are staking their reelection campaigns on their support for Trump to be president and commander in chief should thoughtfully reflect on the recent op-ed in The New York Times by former acting CIA Director Michael Morell. The op-ed is titled “I ran the CIA. Now I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton.” Morell, who has spent decades protecting our security in the intelligence business, offered high praise for the Democratic nominee and former secretary of State based on his years of working closely with her in the high councils of government. But Morell went even further than praising and endorsing Clinton. In one of the most extraordinary and unprecedented statements in the history of presidential politics, which powerfully supports the case that every Republican running for office should unequivocally state that they will refuse to vote for Trump or face potentially catastrophic consequences at the polls, Morell wrote: “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” This brings to mind the novel and motion picture “The Manchurian Candidate,” which about an American who was captured during the Korean War and brainwashed to unwittingly carry out orders to advance the interests of communists against America. I offer no suggestion about Trump’s motives in repeatedly saying things, and advocating positions, that are so destructive to American national security interests, though Trump owes the American people full and immediate disclosure of his tax returns for them to determine what, if any, business interests or debt may exist with Russian or other hostile foreign sources. Whatever Trump’s motivation, Morell is right in suggesting the billionaire nominee is at the least acting as an “unwitting agent” who often advances the interests of foreign actors hostile to America. Most intelligence experts believe the email leaks attacking Hillary Clinton at the time of the Democratic National Convention were originally obtained through espionage by Russian intelligence services engaging in cyberwar against America, and then shared with WikiLeaks by Russian sources engaged in an infowar against America. Do Republicans running for the House and Senate in 2016 want to be aligned with a Russian strongman and his intelligence services engaging in covert action against America for the presumed purpose of electing Putin’s preferred candidate? Do they believe Trump when he says he was only kidding when he publicly supported these espionage practices and called for them to be escalated? Do Republicans running in 2016 believe that America should have a commander in chief who has harshly criticized NATO and stated that if Russia invades the Baltic states, Eastern Europe states such as Poland, or Western Europe he is not committed to defending our allies against this aggression? Do Republicans running in 2016 support a commander in chief who has endorsed Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, appeared to endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and falsely stated that Russia “is not in Ukraine”? (…) I do not question Donald Trump’s patriotism. But for whatever reason Trump advocates policies, again and again, that would help America’s adversaries like Russia and enemies like ISIS and make him, in Morell’s powerful words, “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” In “The Manchurian Candidate,” our enemies sought to influence our politics at the highest level. What troubles a growing number of Republicans in Congress, and so many Republican and Democratic national security leaders, is that in 2016 life imitates art, aided and abetted by what appears to be a Russian covert action designed to elect the next American president. Brent Budowsky

A former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him. « This is something of huge significance, way above party politics, » the former intelligence officer says. « I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well. » Does this mean the FBI is investigating whether Russian intelligence has attempted to develop a secret relationship with Trump or cultivate him as an asset? Was the former intelligence officer and his material deemed credible or not? An FBI spokeswoman says, « Normally, we don’t talk about whether we are investigating anything. » But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government. In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project’s financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) « It started off as a fairly general inquiry, » says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, « there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit. » This was, the former spy remarks, « an extraordinary situation. » He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was « sufficiently serious » to share with the FBI. Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, « Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance. » It maintained that Trump « and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals. » It claimed that Russian intelligence had « compromised » Trump during his visits to Moscow and could « blackmail him. » It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on « bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. » The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was « shock and horror. » The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump’s inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. « It’s quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on, » he says. « This is something of huge significance, way above party politics, » the former intelligence officer comments. « I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well. » Mother Jones (Oct 31, 2016)

A quelques jours de l’intronisation d’un multimilliardaire de l’immobilier qui a gagné seul contre tous, Hollywood entre en Résistance. Le scud lancé par Meryl Streep en direction de Donald Trump à la soirée des Golden Globes, traduit fidèlement la posture de la grande majorité des stars américaines, depuis le début de la campagne présidentielle. Il suffit d’évoquer notamment les insultes de Robert de Niro, traitant carrément le futur leader des USA de chien et de porc, entre autres amabilités. L’immense interprète qu’est Meryl Streep a dénoncé, sans jamais le nommer, la violence de celui qui se serait moqué d’un journaliste handicapé, version qui, depuis longtemps, a été catégoriquement contestée par Trump, que l’on sait pourtant capable d’excès en tout genre. Mais c’est ici le mot «violence» qui interpelle. Aux Oscars comme au Grammy Awards, dans toutes ces cérémonies où les millionnaires du grand et du petit écran se coagulent et se congratulent dans une autosatisfaction permanente, on n’a jamais entendu une seule vedette dénoncer – à l’exception, évidemment, de l’après 11 septembre 2001 – les attentats de Paris et de Bruxelles, du Texas et de Floride, de Madrid et de Londres, de Jérusalem et d’Ankara, les ethnocides de communautés entières et les mille et une manières de se débarrasser des homosexuels, des femmes et des apostats, dans un certain nombre de pays de l’hémisphère Sud. Pour les étoiles filantes du Camp du Bien, les évidentes vulgarités de Trump sont beaucoup plus insupportables que la manière dont on assaisonne féministes et gays, athées et libres penseurs, à quelques milliers de kilomètres de leurs somptueuses villas super-protégées de Beverly Hills. Cependant, imperceptiblement mais sûrement, quelque chose est en train de changer. Face à la bonne conscience des privilégiés portant leur humanité en sautoir, le plouc chef de chantier Trump, à coups de tweets et de rendez-vous pris à toute vitesse, modifie d’ores et déjà le paysage. Il ne se passe pas de jour sans que telle compagnie automobile annonce qu’elle crée une usine dans le Michigan ; tel fabricant d’ordinateurs relocalise ses ateliers dans le Middle West, et l’un de nos multimilliardaires, Bernard Arnault, vient de s’engager, dans le hall de la Trump Tower, à créer des milliers d’emplois supplémentaires aux Etats-Unis. Et cela, avant même l’investiture officielle du candidat Républicain, sur la victoire duquel, rappelons-le quand même, personne ne pariait un centime il y a moins d’un an. Tout se passe comme si nous assistons à la fin du «soft power» pratiqué, avec l’insuccès que l’on sait, par Barack Obama. La difficulté du temps présent appelle, qu’on le déplore ou que l’on s’en réjouisse, à un volontarisme vigilant et à un réarmement lucide que les princes qui nous gouvernent avaient totalement oubliés, de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique. Si Hollywood pourra continuer à être «peace and love» en toute tranquillité, elle le devra à des hommes et à des femmes qui sauront faire comprendre aux totalitaires et aux intégristes de tous bords, qu’au-delà de telle limite, leur ticket ne sera jamais plus valable. Ironie du sort: ce sera peut-être grâce à Trump que Meryl Streep et les autres pourront pratiquer, en toute sécurité, leur non-violence considérée comme un des beaux-arts. André Bercoff

Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations. Julian Assange (2006)

In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like « Novaya Gazeta », in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn’t a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player. WikiLeaks is a predominantly English-speaking organisation with a website predominantly in English. We have published more than 800,000 documents about or referencing Russia and president Putin, so we do have quite a bit of coverage, but the majority of our publications come from Western sources, though not always. For example, we have published more than 2 million documents from Syria, including Bashar al-Assad personally. Sometimes we make a publication about a country and they will see WikiLeaks as a player within that country, like with Timor East and Kenya. The real determinant is how distant that culture is from English. Chinese culture is quite far away ». (…) “Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations.(…) We have published some things in Chinese. It is necessary to be seen as a local player and to adapt the language to the local culture« . Julian Assange (2016)

It was not the quantity of Mr. Snowden’s theft but the quality that was most telling. Mr. Snowden’s theft put documents at risk that could reveal the NSA’s Level 3 tool kit—a reference to documents containing the NSA’s most-important sources and methods. Since the agency was created in 1952, Russia and other adversary nations had been trying to penetrate its Level-3 secrets without great success. Yet it was precisely these secrets that Mr. Snowden changed jobs to steal. In an interview in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on June 15, 2013, he said he sought to work on a Booz Allen contract at the CIA, even at a cut in pay, because it gave him access to secret lists of computers that the NSA was tapping into around the world. He evidently succeeded. In a 2014 interview with Vanity Fair, Richard Ledgett, the NSA executive who headed the damage-assessment team, described one lengthy document taken by Mr. Snowden that, if it fell into the wrong hands, would provide a “road map” to what targets abroad the NSA was, and was not, covering. It contained the requests made by the 17 U.S. services in the so-called Intelligence Community for NSA interceptions abroad. On June 23, less than two weeks after Mr. Snowden released the video that helped present his narrative, he left Hong Kong and flew to Moscow, where he received protection by the Russian government. In much of the media coverage that followed, the ultimate destination of these stolen secrets was fogged over—if not totally obscured from the public—by the unverified claims that Mr. Snowden was spoon feeding to handpicked journalists. In his narrative, Mr. Snowden always claims that he was a conscientious “whistleblower” who turned over all the stolen NSA material to journalists in Hong Kong. He has insisted he had no intention of defecting to Russia but was on his way to Latin America when he was trapped in Russia by the U.S. government in an attempt to demonize him. The transfer of state secrets from Mr. Snowden to Russia did not occur in a vacuum. The intelligence war did not end with the termination of the Cold War; it shifted to cyberspace. Even if Russia could not match the NSA’s state-of-the-art sensors, computers and productive partnerships with the cipher services of Britain, Israel, Germany and other allies, it could nullify the U.S. agency’s edge by obtaining its sources and methods from even a single contractor with access to Level 3 documents. Russian intelligence uses a single umbrella term to cover anyone who delivers it secret intelligence. Whether a person acted out of idealistic motives, sold information for money or remained clueless of the role he or she played in the transfer of secrets—the provider of secret data is considered an “espionage source.” By any measure, it is a job description that fits Mr. Snowden. Wall Street Journal

Une enquête choc sur l’ancien employé de la NSA soutient qu’Edward Snowden a volé surtout des documents portant sur des secrets militaires et qu’il a collaboré avec le renseignement russe. (…) il prétend que Snowden se serait fait embaucher intentionnellement par la société Booz Allen Hamilton, afin de se retrouver au contact de documents secrets de la NSA. Sous-entendu: il avait l’intention dès le départ d’intercepter des informations critiques. (…) II trouve également louche que l’informaticien se soit enfui avec son larcin seulement six semaines après avoir pris ses fonctions. Par ailleurs, Epstein souligne que la majeure partie des 1,5 million de documents subtilisés ne concernaient pas les pratiques abusives des services de renseignements américains. (…) Mais Snowden aurait en fait surtout récupéré des détails précieux sur l’organisation et les méthodes de la NSA mettant en péril les intérêts et la défense du pays contre le terrorisme et des Etats rivaux. Des informations de niveau 3 encore jamais dérobées par des espions étrangers depuis la guerre froide. C’est en tous cas ce qu’en disent les militaires qui ont examiné le vol de Snowden à la demande du Pentagone. La démonstration est encore plus troublante concernant la façon dont Snowden a trouvé refuge en Russie, même si elle repose souvent sur des sources de seconde main comme des articles de presse et des reportages. Le jeune homme prétend avoir fui Hong-Kong pour rejoindre l’Amérique latine. Mais les Etats-Unis auraient révoqué son passeport, alors qu’il était en plein vol, le contraignant à trouver refuge en Russie. Faux rétorque le journaliste, les Etats-Unis auraient annulé ses papiers alors qu’il se trouvait encore à Hong-Kong. Snowden aurait donc su dès le départ qu’il se rendait en Russie. Etant donné que le jeune homme se retrouvait sans passeport valide, ni visa russe, la compagnie Aeroflot, à bord de laquelle il a voyagé, était forcément complice de sa fuite, avance l’enquêteur. Cette main tendue d’Aeroflot aurait été confirmée par l’avocat de Snowden dès 2013. Mais Epstein va plus loin en affirmant que toute l’opération d’exfiltration a été pilotée par le gouvernement russe avec l’accord de Poutine en personne. Une équipe des opérations spéciales l’aurait même accueilli à l’arrivée de l’avion, tandis que Sarah Harrison, la porte-parole de Wikileaks – site qu’on dit proche des intérêts russes depuis la publication des documents de la Convention démocrate américaine – aurait été dépêchée pour escorter l’analyste jusqu’en Russie et lui acheter de faux billets d’avion pour brouiller les pistes. Enfin, Edward Snowden avait affirmé avoir détruit ses documents en arrivant à Moscou et être resté à distance des services de renseignements russes. Là encore, Epstein prétend le contraire en s’appuyant sur le témoignage direct d’un parlementaire et d’un avocat russe, tous deux proches du Kremlin. Ils affirment que Snowden avait encore en sa possession des données secrètes et qu’elles lui ont servi de monnaie d’échange avec la Russie. Ce qui expliquerait pourquoi des informations ont continué à fuiter après l’arrivée de Snowden à Moscou comme la révélation embarrassante sur le téléphone de la chancelière allemande Angela Merkel qui était surveillé par la NSA. Epstein semble enfin convaincu que Snowden continue de partager ses informations avec la Russie. BFMTV

As a political leader, Obama has been a disaster for his party. Since his inauguration in 2009, roughly 1,100 elected Democrats nationwide have been ousted by Republicans. Democrats lost their majorities in the US House and Senate. They now hold just 18 of the 50 governorships, and only 31 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers. After eight years under Obama, the GOP is stronger than at any time since the 1920s, and the outgoing president’s party is in tatters. In almost every respect, Obama leaves behind a trail of failure and disappointment In his rush to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, he created a power vacuum into which terror networks expanded and the Taliban revived. Islamic State’s jihadist savagery not only plunged a stabilized Iraq back into shuddering violence, but also inspired scores of lethal terrorist attacks in the West. For months, Obama and his lieutenants insisted that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad could be induced to « reform, » and pointedly refused to intervene as an uprising against him metastasized into genocidal slaughter. At last Obama vowed to take action if Assad crossed a « red line » by deploying chemical weapons — but when those weapons were used, Obama blinked. The death toll in Syria climbed into the hundreds of thousands, triggering a flood of refugees greater than any the world had seen since the 1940s. (…) Determined to conciliate America’s adversaries, the president indulged dictatorial regimes in Iran, Russia, and Cuba. They in turn exploited his passivity with multiple treacheries — seizing Crimea and destroying Aleppo (Russia), abducting American hostages for ransom and illicitly testing long-range missiles (Iran), and cracking down mercilessly on democratic dissidents (Cuba). For eight years the nation has been led by a president intent on lowering America’s global profile, not projecting military power, and “leading from behind.” The consequences have been stark: a Middle East awash in blood and bombs, US troops re-embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, aggressive dictators ascendant, human rights and democracy in retreat, rivers of refugees destabilizing nations across three continents, the rise of neo-fascism in Europe, and the erosion of US credibility to its lowest level since the Carter years. According to Gallup, Obama became the most polarizing president in modern history. Like all presidents, he faced partisan opposition, but Obama worsened things by regularly taking the low road and disparaging his critics’ motives. In his own words, his political strategy was one of ruthless escalation: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” During his 2012 reelection campaign, Politico reported that “Obama and his top campaign aides have engaged far more frequently in character attacks and personal insults than the Romney campaign.” And when a Republican-led Congress wouldn’t enact legislation he sought, Obama turned to his “pen and phone” strategy of governing by diktat that polarized politics even more. To his credit, Obama acknowledges that he didn’t live up to his promise to reduce the angry rancor of Washington politics. Had he made an effort to do so, perhaps the campaign to succeed him would not have been so mean. And perhaps 60 percent of voters would not feel that their country, after two terms of Obama’s administration, is “on the wrong track”. Jeff Jacoby

Après son départ de la Maison-Blanche, George W. Bush a mis un point d’honneur à ne pas intervenir dans les débats politiques de son pays. Il s’est notamment gardé de critiquer son successeur, se contentant de défendre sa présidence dans des mémoires ou des conférences et de peindre des tableaux naïfs. Barack Obama ne semble pas vouloir suivre cet exemple après le 20 janvier. Il faut dire qu’il n’est pas aussi impopulaire que son prédécesseur au moment de quitter le 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Bush récoltait alors 24% d’opinions favorables. À 58%, Obama se situe, à la fin de sa présidence, dans une zone de popularité supérieure, en compagnie des Bill Clinton (61%) et Ronald Reagan (63%), selon les données du Pew Research Center. Mais le 44^e président doit s’acquitter d’une lourde dette politique. Une dette envers son propre parti. Les démocrates peuvent se targuer d’avoir remporté le vote populaire dans six des sept dernières élections présidentielles. Mais ils ont été décimés au cours de l’ère Obama dans les deux chambres du Congrès et dans les législatures des États américains. On peut parler d’hécatombe : de 2009 à 2016, le Parti démocrate a perdu 1042 sièges de parlementaire ou postes de gouverneur, à Washington et dans les législatures d’État. Après les élections du 8 novembre, les républicains ont désormais la mainmise complète non seulement sur les branches exécutive et législative à Washington, mais également dans la moitié des États américains. Il s’agit d’un des aspects les plus frappants – et douloureux pour les démocrates – de l’héritage d’Obama, qui doit en porter une part de responsabilité importante.Barack Obama pourrait s’écarter d’une autre façon de l’exemple établi par George W. Bush après son départ de la Maison-Blanche. Il pourrait se permettre de critiquer son successeur. Peut-être pas au cours de la première année de Donald Trump à la Maison-Blanche, mais assurément dans les moments où «certaines questions fondamentales de [la] démocratie [américaine]» seront mises en cause, a-t-il précisé lors d’une baladodiffusion récente animée par son ancien conseiller David Axelrod. Richard Hétu

Attention: un candidat mandchourien peut en cacher un autre !

Invalidations systématiques, dès son premier casse électoral de Chicago de 1996  pour les sénatoriales d’état, des candidatures de ses rivaux sur les plus subtils points de procédure (la qualité des signatures) jusqu’à se retrouver seul en lice, déballages forcés,  quatre ans plus tard aux élections sénatoriales fédérales de 2004, des problèmes de couple (un cas apparemment de violence domestique) ou frasques supposées (des soirées dans des club échangistes) de ses adversaires, que ce soit son propre collègue Blair Hull aux primaires ou le Républicain Jack Ryan à la générale de manière à se retrouver sans opposition devant les électeurs, tentative de rebelote, lors des primaires de 2008, contre sa rivale démocrate malheureuse Hillary Clinton, abandon précipité d’un Irak pacifié puis d’une Syrie fragile à l’avatar survitaminé d’Al Qaeda, extension exponentielle à l’échelle de la planète des éliminations ciblées à coup discrets de drones, abandon à l’ennemi d’un transfuge détenteur de la boite à outil même de ses services de renseignement, lâchage dans la nature des terroristes les plus dangereux de Guantanamo, attribution du droit et des moyens d’accès à l’arme nucléaire d’un pays ayant explicitement appelé à l’effacement de la carte d’un de ses voisins, offre de « flexibilité » post-électorale au principal adversaire strratégique de son propre pays, mise au pilori universel et vote d’une résolution délégitimant la présence même de son principal allié au Moyen-Orient sur ses lieux les plus sacrés …

Alors qu’à moins de dix jours de son investiture à la Maison Blanche …

Et que sur fond, après le retrait américain précipité de la région que l’on sait,  d’un Moyen-Orient à feu et à sang …

Et,  entre arrivée massive de prétendus réfugiés et retour annoncé de milliers de terroristes aguerris, d’une Europe plus que jamais fragilisée …

S’accumulent, entre mise au pilori d’Israël et appui explicite de l’hégémonisme iranien, les dossiers et les menaces potentiellement encore plus explosifs …

Et qu’entre accusations de « candidat mandchourien » et avant les révélations annoncées sans la moindre preuve les plus compromettantes …

Via nul doute les canaux habituels de celui qui explique tranquillement l’étrange exclusivité américaine de ses révélations par la trop grand liberté de Moscou et la trop grande distance de Pékin …

Se multiplient, entre Maison Blanche, Hollywood et leur claques médiatiques respectives, les doutes sur la légitimité de l’élection …

Du nouveau président que, contre tous les pronostics et les imprécations de leurs élites, se sont choisis les Américains …

Devinez qui du haut d’une des cotes les plus élevées pour un président américain sortant …

Mais du véritable champ de ruines – du jamais-vu depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale: quelque 1042 sièges de parlementaire ou postes de gouverneur perdus – qu’il laisse à son propre parti …

Est sur le point d’ajouter entre blâme de son prédécesseur au début et de son successeur à la fin …

Un énième hold up parfait à la longue liste de ceux qui l’ont amené là où il est  ?

Les Russes détiendraient des informations compromettantes sur Trump
Philippe Gélie
Le Figaro
11/01/2017

Selon CNN, les responsables du renseignement américain auraient informé Donald Trump dans un rapport confidentiel que les agents du Kremlin sont en possession d’informations personnelles et financières à son sujet susceptibles de le discréditer.

De notre correspondant à Washington,

Lorsqu’ils lui ont présenté vendredi dernier leur rapport confidentiel sur les interférences russes dans la campagne présidentielle, les responsables du renseignement américain auraient informé Donald Trump que les agents du Kremlin possédaient des «informations compromettantes, personnelles et financières» à son sujet, affirme CNN. L’assertion figurerait dans un addendum de deux pages remis parallèlement à Barack Obama.

Cette allégation proviendrait d’un ancien agent du MI6 britannique, jugé crédible en raison de ses «vastes réseaux» de contacts à travers l’Europe. Celui-ci s’en serait ouvert auprès du FBI dès l’été. La police fédérale aurait attendu de vérifier la fiabilité de ses sources pour inclure l’information dans le rapport sur les piratages russes. Les agences américaines n’auraient pas, à ce stade, vérifié la substance de l’addendum de manière indépendante.

Un ex-ambassadeur britannique aurait cependant eu lui aussi accès aux mêmes informations, par d’autres voies. Il les aurait transmises directement au sénateur John McCain, président de la Commission de la défense du Sénat, qui s’en serait ouvert auprès du directeur du FBI, James Comey, cosignataire du rapport.

Une activité informatique suspecte identifiée

CNN affirme également que, selon l’addendum secret, des personnes liées à Donald Trump auraient communiqué régulièrement avec des proches du Kremlin durant la campagne. Des experts du piratage informatique avaient déjà identifié une activité suspecte entre un serveur du groupe Trump et une adresse e-mail russe fonctionnant en circuit fermé.

Pour les responsables du renseignement, le fait que les Russes n’aient pas diffusé les éléments «compromettants» en leur possession confirmerait leur analyse selon laquelle le Kremlin a tenté de favoriser l’élection de Donald Trump au détriment de Hillary Clinton.

Le président élu ne manquera pas d’être interrogé sur ces nouveaux éléments lors de la conférence de presse qu’il doit tenir ce mercredi, la première du genre depuis juillet. Il a jusqu’ici mis en doute ou minimisé la responsabilité de la Russie dans les piratages, soucieux que rien ne puisse entamer la légitimité de sa victoire.

Si elles sont avérées, ces révélations ne manqueront pas de relancer les soupçons sur les raisons du penchant prorusse de Trump. De nombreux démocrates, mais aussi d’importants élus républicains comme John McCain, le soupçonnent à mots couverts d’être une «marionnette» de Moscou. À l’été, Michael Morell, ancien directeur de la CIA, l’avait quasiment accusé dans le New York Times d’être un «candidat mandchourien»: «Dans le milieu du renseignement, nous dirions que M. Trump a été recruté comme un agent russe qui s’ignore».

Voir aussi:

Brent Budowsky: Donald Trump, a real-life Manchurian candidate
Brent Budowsky
The Hill
08/09/16

With Republicans facing the growing prospect of a landslide defeat that could return control of the Senate and potentially the House to Democrats, 50 leading GOP national security figures announced on Monday that they refuse to vote for Donald Trump because they consider him a danger to American national security.

For many months I have written in The Hill that Trump, now the GOP nominee, has a strange and disquieting habit of offering sympathy and praise to foreign dictators who wish America ill. He has favorably tweeted the words of Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist from darker days. He has had kind words for Kim Jong Il, the mass murdering dictator of North Korea. And the words of mutual praise exchanged between Trump and former KGB officer and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin will someday be legendary in the history of presidential politics.

Republicans, independents, swing voters and GOP members of the House and Senate who are staking their reelection campaigns on their support for Trump to be president and commander in chief should thoughtfully reflect on the recent op-ed in The New York Times by former acting CIA Director Michael Morell. The op-ed is titled “I ran the CIA. Now I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton.” Morell, who has spent decades protecting our security in the intelligence business, offered high praise for the Democratic nominee and former secretary of State based on his years of working closely with her in the high councils of government. But Morell went even further than praising and endorsing Clinton.

In one of the most extraordinary and unprecedented statements in the history of presidential politics, which powerfully supports the case that every Republican running for office should unequivocally state that they will refuse to vote for Trump or face potentially catastrophic consequences at the polls, Morell wrote: “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

This brings to mind the novel and motion picture “The Manchurian Candidate,” which about an American who was captured during the Korean War and brainwashed to unwittingly carry out orders to advance the interests of communists against America.

I offer no suggestion about Trump’s motives in repeatedly saying things, and advocating positions, that are so destructive to American national security interests, though Trump owes the American people full and immediate disclosure of his tax returns for them to determine what, if any, business interests or debt may exist with Russian or other hostile foreign sources.

Whatever Trump’s motivation, Morell is right in suggesting the billionaire nominee is at the least acting as an “unwitting agent” who often advances the interests of foreign actors hostile to America.

Most intelligence experts believe the email leaks attacking Hillary Clinton at the time of the Democratic National Convention were originally obtained through espionage by Russian intelligence services engaging in cyberwar against America, and then shared with WikiLeaks by Russian sources engaged in an infowar against America.

Do Republicans running for the House and Senate in 2016 want to be aligned with a Russian strongman and his intelligence services engaging in covert action against America for the presumed purpose of electing Putin’s preferred candidate? Do they believe Trump when he says he was only kidding when he publicly supported these espionage practices and called for them to be escalated?

Do Republicans running in 2016 believe that America should have a commander in chief who has harshly criticized NATO and stated that if Russia invades the Baltic states, Eastern Europe states such as Poland, or Western Europe he is not committed to defending our allies against this aggression?

Do Republicans running in 2016 support a commander in chief who has endorsed Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, appeared to endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and falsely stated that Russia “is not in Ukraine”?

Do Republicans running in 2016 favor a commander in chief who disdains heroic American POWs by saying he prefers troops who were never captured, and says he would order American troops to commit torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law?

Do Republicans running in 2016 favor a president who campaigns for a ban on immigration of Muslims so extreme that a long list of experts, including retired Gen. and former CIA Director David Petraeus, correctly argue it would help ISIS and other terror groups that seek to kill us?

Do Republicans running in 2016 realize that Trump’s proposal to build a wall on our borders similar to the Berlin Wall erected by the Soviets, coupled with his defamation of immigrants as rapists and murderers, would not only alienate Hispanic voters for a generation but provide a major boost to anti-American extremists across Latin America more successfully than any words Fidel Castro could say today?

I do not question Donald Trump’s patriotism. But for whatever reason Trump advocates policies, again and again, that would help America’s adversaries like Russia and enemies like ISIS and make him, in Morell’s powerful words, “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

In “The Manchurian Candidate,” our enemies sought to influence our politics at the highest level. What troubles a growing number of Republicans in Congress, and so many Republican and Democratic national security leaders, is that in 2016 life imitates art, aided and abetted by what appears to be a Russian covert action designed to elect the next American president.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. in international financial law from the London School of Economics

Voir également:

I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton

Michael J. Morell

Aug. 5, 2016

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.

I spent four years working with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room. In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.

I also saw the secretary’s commitment to our nation’s security; her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and, most important, her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all — whether to put young American women and men in harm’s way.

Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of the raid that brought Bin Laden to justice, in opposition to some of her most important colleagues on the National Security Council. During the early debates about how we should respond to the Syrian civil war, she was a strong proponent of a more aggressive approach, one that might have prevented the Islamic State from gaining a foothold in Syria.

I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room. In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.

These traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement, his overreaction to perceived slights, his tendency to make decisions based on intuition, his refusal to change his views based on new information, his routine carelessness with the facts, his unwillingness to listen to others and his lack of respect for the rule of law.

The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump’s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.

Mr. Putin is a great leader, Mr. Trump says, ignoring that he has killed and jailed journalists and political opponents, has invaded two of his neighbors and is driving his economy to ruin. Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests — endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States.

In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.

Mr. Trump has also undermined security with his call for barring Muslims from entering the country. This position, which so clearly contradicts the foundational values of our nation, plays into the hands of the jihadist narrative that our fight against terrorism is a war between religions.

In fact, many Muslim Americans play critical roles in protecting our country, including the man, whom I cannot identify, who ran the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center for nearly a decade and who I believe is most responsible for keeping America safe since the Sept. 11 attacks.

My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the C.I.A. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.

Michael J. Morell was the acting director and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013.

Voir encore:

Edward Snowden: le lanceur d’alerte ne serait-il qu’un vulgaire espion?

Amélie Charnay

BFMTV

02/01/2017

Une enquête choc sur l’ancien employé de la NSA soutient qu’Edward Snowden a volé surtout des documents portant sur des secrets militaires et qu’il a collaboré avec le renseignement russe.

Un martyr qui a révélé la surveillance de masse de la NSA au péril de sa vie. C’est l’image d’Edward Snowden aujourd’hui et celle véhiculée par le long métrage d’Oliver Stone sorti cette année. Elle repose en grande partie sur le propre témoignage de l’informaticien et celui des journalistes Laura Poitras et Glenn Greenwald à qui Snowden a confié une partie des documents qu’il avait volé en 2013 alors qu’il travaillait comme analyste pour la société Booz Allen Hamilton pour le compte de la CIA et de la NSA à Hawaï.

Une version que conteste aujourd’hui totalement le journaliste d’investigation Edward Jay Epstein, auteur d’une enquête de trois ans sur le jeune homme. Le livre, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft, sera publié ce mois-ci aux Editions Knopf mais l’auteur vient d’en livrer un condensé dans le Wall Street Journal du 30 décembre dernier.

Autant le dire d’emblée, la position d’Edward Jay Epstein est totalement à charge. Il n’a pas de mots assez dur pour qualifier l’attitude de Snowden qui aurait dissimulé « sa mission réelle », et dont « presque tous les éléments du récit » seraient faux. A l’en croire, les propos du jeune homme ne serait donc qu’un tissu de mensonges.

Un espion qui aurait manipulé la NSA pour voler des documents militaires stratégiques

La première hypothèse avancée par Epstein semble la plus fumeuse : il prétend que Snowden se serait fait embaucher intentionnellement par la société Booz Allen Hamilton, afin de se retrouver au contact de documents secrets de la NSA. Sous-entendu: il avait l’intention dès le départ d’intercepter des informations critiques. Mais le journaliste n’avance aucune preuve tangible dans son article, se contentant de citer une interview du principal intéressé dans un journal de Hong Kong en 2013. II trouve également louche que l’informaticien se soit enfui avec son larcin seulement six semaines après avoir pris ses fonctions.

Par ailleurs, Epstein souligne que la majeure partie des 1,5 million de documents subtilisés ne concernaient pas les pratiques abusives des services de renseignements américains. Les premières révélations qui sont sorties dans la presse dès le mois de juin 2013 portaient pourtant sur la collecte de données téléphoniques de citoyens américains et le programme Prism mené avec le FBI grâce auquel les Etats-Unis ont espionné les communications des utilisateurs de pays étrangers.

Mais Snowden aurait en fait surtout récupéré des détails précieux sur l’organisation et les méthodes de la NSA mettant en péril les intérêts et la défense du pays contre le terrorisme et des Etats rivaux. Des informations de niveau 3 encore jamais dérobées par des espions étrangers depuis la guerre froide. C’est en tous cas ce qu’en disent les militaires qui ont examiné le vol de Snowden à la demande du Pentagone.

Edward Snowden aurait choisi de se réfugier en Russie

La démonstration est encore plus troublante concernant la façon dont Snowden a trouvé refuge en Russie, même si elle repose souvent sur des sources de seconde main comme des articles de presse et des reportages. Le jeune homme prétend avoir fui Hong-Kong pour rejoindre l’Amérique latine. Mais les Etats-Unis auraient révoqué son passeport, alors qu’il était en plein vol, le contraignant à trouver refuge en Russie. Faux rétorque le journaliste, les Etats-Unis auraient annulé ses papiers alors qu’il se trouvait encore à Hong-Kong. Snowden aurait donc su dès le départ qu’il se rendait en Russie.

Etant donné que le jeune homme se retrouvait sans passeport valide, ni visa russe, la compagnie Aeroflot, à bord de laquelle il a voyagé, était forcément complice de sa fuite, avance l’enquêteur. Cette main tendue d’Aeroflot aurait été confirmée par l’avocat de Snowden dès 2013. Mais Epstein va plus loin en affirmant que toute l’opération d’exfiltration a été pilotée par le gouvernement russe avec l’accord de Poutine en personne. Une équipe des opérations spéciales l’aurait même accueilli à l’arrivée de l’avion, tandis que Sarah Harrison, la porte-parole de Wikileaks – site qu’on dit proche des intérêts russes depuis la publication des documents de la Convention démocrate américaine – aurait été dépêchée pour escorter l’analyste jusqu’en Russie et lui acheter de faux billets d’avion pour brouiller les pistes.

Un traître qui collaborerait avec le renseignement russe

Enfin, Edward Snowden avait affirmé avoir détruit ses documents en arrivant à Moscou et être resté à distance des services de renseignements russes. Là encore, Epstein prétend le contraire en s’appuyant sur le témoignage direct d’un parlementaire et d’un avocat russe, tous deux proches du Kremlin. Ils affirment que Snowden avait encore en sa possession des données secrètes et qu’elles lui ont servi de monnaie d’échange avec la Russie.

Ce qui expliquerait pourquoi des informations ont continué à fuiter après l’arrivée de Snowden à Moscou comme la révélation embarrassante sur le téléphone de la chancelière allemande Angela Merkel qui était surveillé par la NSA.

Epstein semble enfin convaincu que Snowden continue de partager ses informations avec la Russie. Il n’y aurait donc plus lieu, selon lui, de le qualifier de « lanceur d’alerte ». Un terme bien trop noble pour un simple espion.
En tout cas, cette enquête et ce livre tombent à point nommé, à l’heure où les Etats-Unis viennent d’annoncer des mesures contre la Russie.

Voir de même:

La dette d’Obama

De 2009 à 2016, le Parti démocrate a perdu 1042 sièges de parlementaire ou postes de gouverneur, à Washington et dans les législatures d’État.

Richard Hétu
La Presse

09 janvier 2017

(New York) Après son départ de la Maison-Blanche, George W. Bush a mis un point d’honneur à ne pas intervenir dans les débats politiques de son pays. Il s’est notamment gardé de critiquer son successeur, se contentant de défendre sa présidence dans des mémoires ou des conférences et de peindre des tableaux naïfs.

Barack Obama ne semble pas vouloir suivre cet exemple après le 20 janvier. Il faut dire qu’il n’est pas aussi impopulaire que son prédécesseur au moment de quitter le 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Bush récoltait alors 24% d’opinions favorables. À 58%, Obama se situe, à la fin de sa présidence, dans une zone de popularité supérieure, en compagnie des Bill Clinton (61%) et Ronald Reagan (63%), selon les données du Pew Research Center.

Mais le 44^e président doit s’acquitter d’une lourde dette politique. Une dette envers son propre parti. Les démocrates peuvent se targuer d’avoir remporté le vote populaire dans six des sept dernières élections présidentielles. Mais ils ont été décimés au cours de l’ère Obama dans les deux chambres du Congrès et dans les législatures des États américains.

On peut parler d’hécatombe : de 2009 à 2016, le Parti démocrate a perdu 1042 sièges de parlementaire ou postes de gouverneur, à Washington et dans les législatures d’État. Après les élections du 8 novembre, les républicains ont désormais la mainmise complète non seulement sur les branches exécutive et législative à Washington, mais également dans la moitié des États américains.

Il s’agit d’un des aspects les plus frappants – et douloureux pour les démocrates – de l’héritage d’Obama, qui doit en porter une part de responsabilité importante.

Dès les élections de mi-mandat de 2010

L’hécatombe démocrate a commencé de façon spectaculaire lors des élections de mi-mandat de 2010. Porté par la colère du Tea Party à l’égard de l’Obamacare et des plans de sauvetage des secteurs financier et automobile, le Parti républicain a notamment reconquis la majorité à la Chambre des représentants en réalisant un gain net de 63 sièges, du jamais-vu depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

Aujourd’hui, Obama se reproche de ne pas avoir consacré assez de temps à la promotion de ses politiques. Il pourrait évidemment se demander si ses politiques répondaient vraiment à l’insatisfaction économique de bon nombre d’Américains, qui ont préféré le message de Donald Trump à celui d’Hillary Clinton dans certains États-clés, dont l’Ohio, la Pennsylvanie, le Michigan et le Wisconsin.

D’autres facteurs

Mais l’hécatombe démocrate tient à d’autres facteurs pour lesquels Obama ne peut être blâmé. L’un d’eux résulte de la plus faible participation de l’électorat démocrate – les jeunes et les minorités en particulier – aux élections de mi-mandat. Un autre découle du découpage des circonscriptions électorales qui favorise les républicains. Lors des élections de mi-mandat de 2014, par exemple, ils ont remporté 57% des sièges du Congrès avec 52% des voix.

Et c’est en contribuant à corriger cette situation que Barack Obama veut acquitter une partie de sa dette envers les démocrates. Avant même la victoire de Donald Trump, il avait annoncé son soutien à un nouveau groupe, le National Democratic Redistricting Committee, dont la mission consistera à renverser les gains républicains dans les législatures d’État et à la Chambre des représentants. Le 44^e président s’est engagé à participer à des activités de collecte de fonds pour ce groupe et à faire campagne pour des candidats à des postes de gouverneur et de parlementaire à la Chambre des représentants et dans les législatures d’État.

Une priorité

Les élections de 2017 et de 2018 représentent une priorité pour Obama et le nouveau groupe démocrate, qui sera présidé par l’ancien ministre de la Justice Eric Holder. Ces élections éliront les gouverneurs et parlementaires qui approuveront dans chaque État les nouvelles circonscriptions électorales qui seront créées après le recensement américain de 2020. Or, si les démocrates ne parviennent pas à réaliser des gains dans les législatures d’État, ils risquent de continuer à être désavantagés pendant une autre décennie par un redécoupage partisan des circonscriptions électorales.

Barack Obama pourrait s’écarter d’une autre façon de l’exemple établi par George W. Bush après son départ de la Maison-Blanche. Il pourrait se permettre de critiquer son successeur. Peut-être pas au cours de la première année de Donald Trump à la Maison-Blanche, mais assurément dans les moments où «certaines questions fondamentales de [la] démocratie [américaine]» seront mises en cause, a-t-il précisé lors d’une baladodiffusion récente animée par son ancien conseiller David Axelrod.

«Vous savez, a-t-il ajouté, je suis encore un citoyen, et cela comporte des devoirs et des obligations.»

Mais l’acquittement de sa dette envers le Parti démocrate restera sans doute la plus importante de ses obligations au cours des prochaines années.

Voir de plus:

A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump

Has the bureau investigated this material?

David Corn

Mother Jones

Oct. 31, 2016

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey set off a political blast when he informed congressional leaders that the bureau had stumbled across emails that might be pertinent to its completed inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of emails when she was secretary of state. The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigation—information that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevant—so close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: « In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information. »

Reid’s missive set off a burst of speculation on Twitter and elsewhere. What was he referring to regarding the Republican presidential nominee? At the end of August, Reid had written to Comey and demanded an investigation of the « connections between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, » and in that letter he indirectly referred to Carter Page, an American businessman cited by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, who had financial ties to Russia and had recently visited Moscow. Last month, Yahoo News reported that US intelligence officials were probing the links between Page and senior Russian officials. (Page has called accusations against him « garbage. ») On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chief. But Reid’s recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

« This is something of huge significance, way above party politics, » the former intelligence officer says. « I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well. »

Does this mean the FBI is investigating whether Russian intelligence has attempted to develop a secret relationship with Trump or cultivate him as an asset? Was the former intelligence officer and his material deemed credible or not? An FBI spokeswoman says, « Normally, we don’t talk about whether we are investigating anything. » But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.

In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project’s financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) « It started off as a fairly general inquiry, » says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, « there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit. »

This was, the former spy remarks, « an extraordinary situation. » He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was « sufficiently serious » to share with the FBI.

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, « Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance. » It maintained that Trump « and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals. » It claimed that Russian intelligence had « compromised » Trump during his visits to Moscow and could « blackmail him. » It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on « bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. »

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was « shock and horror. » The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump’s inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. « It’s quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on, » he says.

« This is something of huge significance, way above party politics, » the former intelligence officer comments. « I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well. »

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the memos. In the past, Trump has declared, « I have nothing to do with Russia. »

The FBI is certainly investigating the hacks attributed to Russia that have hit American political targets, including the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign. But there have been few public signs of whether that probe extends to examining possible contacts between the Russian government and Trump. (In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. On Monday, a Slate investigation detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, « We don’t yet know what this [Trump] server was for, but it deserves further explanation. » In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, « The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity. »)

According to several national security experts, there is widespread concern in the US intelligence community that Russian intelligence, via hacks, is aiming to undermine the presidential election—to embarrass the United States and delegitimize its democratic elections. And the hacks appear to have been designed to benefit Trump. In August, Democratic members of the House committee on oversight wrote Comey to ask the FBI to investigate « whether connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests may have contributed to these [cyber] attacks in order to interfere with the US. presidential election. » In September, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrats on, respectively, the Senate and House intelligence committees, issued a joint statement accusing Russia of underhanded meddling: « Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election. » The Obama White House has declared Russia the culprit in the hacking capers, expressed outrage, and promised a « proportional » response.

There’s no way to tell whether the FBI has confirmed or debunked any of the allegations contained in the former spy’s memos. But a Russian intelligence attempt to co-opt or cultivate a presidential candidate would mark an even more serious operation than the hacking.

In the letter Reid sent to Comey on Sunday, he pointed out that months ago he had asked the FBI director to release information on Trump’s possible Russia ties. Since then, according to a Reid spokesman, Reid has been briefed several times. The spokesman adds, « He is confident that he knows enough to be extremely alarmed. »

Voir aussi:

Barack Obama’s legacy of failure
Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
January 8, 2017

AS HE PREPARES to move out of the White House, Barack Obama is understandably focused on his legacy and reputation. The president will deliver a farewell address in Chicago on Tuesday; he told his supporters in an e-mail that the speech would « celebrate the ways you’ve changed this country for the better these past eight years, » and previewed his closing argument in a series of tweets hailing « the remarkable progress » for which he hopes to be remembered.

Certainly Obama has his admirers. For years he has enjoyed doting coverage in the mainstream media. Those press ovations will continue, if a spate of new or forthcoming books by journalists is any indication. Moreover, Obama is going out with better-than-average approval ratings for a departing president. So his push to depict his presidency as years of « remarkable progress » is likely to resonate with his true believers.

But there are considerably fewer of those true believers than there used to be. Most Americans long ago got over their crush on Obama , as they repeatedly demonstrated at the polls.

In 2010, two years after electing him president, voters trounced Obama’s party, handing Democrats the biggest midterm losses in 72 years. Obama was reelected in 2012, but by nearly 4 million fewer votes than in his first election, making him the only president ever to win a second term with shrunken margins in both the popular and electoral vote. Two years later, with Obama imploring voters , « [My] policies are on the ballot — every single one of them, » Democrats were clobbered again. And in 2016, as he campaigned hard for Hillary Clinton, Obama was increasingly adamant that his legacy was at stake. « I’m not on this ballot, » he told campaign rallies in a frequent refrain, « but everything we’ve done these last eight years is on the ballot. » The voters heard him out, and once more turned him down.

As a political leader, Obama has been a disaster for his party. Since his inauguration in 2009, roughly 1,100 elected Democrats nationwide have been ousted by Republicans. Democrats lost their majorities in the US House and Senate. They now hold just 18 of the 50 governorships, and only 31 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers. After eight years under Obama, the GOP is stronger than at any time since the 1920s, and the outgoing president’s party is in tatters.

When Obama touts the way he « changed this country for the better these past eight years, » the wreckage of the Democratic Party — to say nothing of the election of Donald Trump — presumably isn’t what he has in mind. Yet the Democrats’ repudiation can’t be divorced from the president and policies he embraced. Obama urged Americans to cast their vote as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on his legacy. That’s what they did.

In almost every respect, Obama leaves behind a trail of failure and disappointment. Consider just some of his works:

The economy . Obama took office during a painful recession and (with Congress’s help) made it even worse. Historically, the deeper a recession, the more robust the recovery that follows, but the economy’s rebound under Obama was the worst in seven decades. Annual GDP growth since the recession ended has averaged a feeble 2.1 percent, by far the puniest economic performance of any president since World War II. Obama spent more public funds on « stimulus » than all previous stimulus programs combined, with wretched, counterproductive results. On his watch, millions of additional Americans fell below the poverty line. The number of food stamp recipients soared. The national debt doubled to an incredible $20 trillion. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of young adults (18- to 34-year-olds) living in their parents’ homes is the highest it has been since the Great Depression — particularly young men , whose employment and earning levels are far lower than they were a generation ago.

In 2008, when Obama was first elected president, 63 percent of Americans considered themselves middle class. Seven years later, only 51 percent still felt the same way. Obama argues energetically that his economic policies have delivered prosperity and employment. Countless Americans disagree — including many who aren’t Republican. « Millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America he painted, » said Bill Clinton after Obama extolled the recovery in his last State of the Union speech, « and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives. »

The president’s endlessly-repeated vow that Obamacare would not force anyone to give up a health plan they liked was PolitiFact’s 2013 « Lie of the Year. »

Health care . The Affordable Care Act should never have been enacted. Survey after survey confirmed that it lacked majority support, and only through hard-knuckled, party-line maneuvering was the wrenching health-care overhaul rammed through Congress. But Obama was certain the measure would win public support, because of three promises he made over and over: that the law would extend health insurance to the 47 million uninsured, that it would significantly reduce health-insurance costs, and that Americans who had health plans or doctors they liked could keep them.

But Obamacare has been a fiasco. At least 27 million Americans are still without health insurance , and many of those who are newly insured have simply been added to the Medicaid rolls. Far from reducing costs, Obamacare sent premiums and deductibles skyrocketing. Insurance companies, having suffered billions of dollars in losses on the Obamacare exchanges, have pulled out from many of them, leaving consumers in much of the country with few or no options. And the administration, it transpired, knew all along that millions of Americans would lose their medical plans once the law took effect. The deception was so egregious that in December 2013, PolitiFact dubbed « If you like your health plan, you can keep it » as its  » Lie of the Year . »

Foreign policy. The 44th president came to office vowing not to repeat the foreign-policy mistakes of his predecessor. His own were exponentially worse.

In his rush to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, he created a power vacuum into which terror networks expanded and the Taliban revived . Islamic State’s jihadist savagery not only plunged a stabilized Iraq back into shuddering violence, but also inspired scores of lethal terrorist attacks in the West . For months, Obama and his lieutenants insisted that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad could be induced to « reform, » and pointedly refused to intervene as an uprising against him metastasized into genocidal slaughter. At last Obama vowed to take action if Assad crossed a « red line » by deploying chemical weapons — but when those weapons were used, Obama blinked. The death toll in Syria climbed into the hundreds of thousands, triggering a flood of refugees greater than any the world had seen since the 1940s.

Determined to conciliate America’s adversaries, the president indulged dictatorial regimes in Iran, Russia, and Cuba. They in turn exploited his passivity with multiple treacheries — seizing Crimea and destroying Aleppo (Russia), abducting American hostages for ransom and illicitly testing long-range missiles (Iran), and cracking down mercilessly on democratic dissidents (Cuba). Meanwhile, American friends and allies — Israel, Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic — Obama undermined or betrayed.

Syria’s dictator slaughtered innocent civilians with chemical weapons, crossing a « red line » that President Obama warned he would not tolerate. But he did tolerate it, with devastating results.

For eight years the nation has been led by a president intent on lowering America’s global profile, not projecting military power, and « leading from behind. » The consequences have been stark: a Middle East awash in blood and bombs, US troops re-embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, aggressive dictators ascendant, human rights and democracy in retreat, rivers of refugees destabilizing nations across three continents, the rise of neo-fascism in Europe, and the erosion of US credibility to its lowest level since the Carter years.

National unity . As a candidate for president, Obama promised to soothe America’s bitter and divisive politics, and to replace Red State/Blue State animosity with cooperation and bipartisanship. But the healer-in-chief millions of Americans voted for never showed up.

According to Gallup, Obama became the most polarizing president in modern history. Like all presidents, he faced partisan opposition, but Obama worsened things by regularly taking the low road and disparaging his critics’ motives. In his own words, his political strategy was one of ruthless escalation : « If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. » During his 2012 reelection campaign, Politico reported that « Obama and his top campaign aides have engaged far more frequently in character attacks and personal insults than the Romney campaign. » And when a Republican-led Congress wouldn’t enact legislation he sought, Obama turned to his « pen and phone » strategy of governing by diktat that polarized politics even more.

To his credit, Obama acknowledges that he didn’t live up to his promise to reduce the angry rancor of Washington politics. Had he made an effort to do so, perhaps the campaign to succeed him would not have been so mean. And perhaps 60 percent of voters would not feel that their country, after two terms of Obama’s administration, is  » on the wrong track . »

Obama’s accession in 2008 as the nation’s first elected black president was an achievement that even Republicans and conservatives could cheer . It marked a moment of hope and transformation; it genuinely did change America for the better.

It was also the high point of Obama’s presidency. What followed, alas, was eight long years of disenchantment and incompetence. Our world today is more dangerous, our country more divided, our national mood more toxic. In a few days, Donald Trump will become the 45th president of the United States. Behold the legacy of the 44th.

( Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe )

Voir de plus:

Transition 2016

About that Explosive Trump Story: Take a Deep Breath

Benjamin Wittes, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic

Lawfare

January 10, 2017

This afternoon, CNN reported that President Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump had been briefed by the intelligence community on the existence of a cache of memos alleging communication between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and the possession by the Russian government of highly compromising material against Trump. The memos were compiled by a former British intelligence officer on behalf of anti-Trump Republicans and, later, Democrats working against Trump in the general election. According to CNN, the intelligence officer’s previous work is credible, but the veracity of the specific allegations set forth in the document have not yet been confirmed. Notably, Mother Jones journalist David Corn reported the week before the election on similar allegations that Trump had been “cultivated” by Russian intelligence, on the basis of a memos produced by “a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country.” A similar report also appeared in Newsweek.

This cache of memos has been kicking around official Washington for several weeks now. A great many journalists have been feverishly working to document the allegations within it, which are both explosive and quite various: some of them relate to alleged collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence, while others relate to personal sexual conduct by Trump himself that supposedly constitutes a rip-roaring KOMPROMAT file.

If you are finding Lawfare useful in these times, please consider making a contribution to support what we do.We have had the document for a couple of weeks and have chosen, as have lots of other publications, not to publish it while the allegations within it remain unproven. In response to CNN’s report, however, Buzzfeed has now released the underlying document itself, which is available here. Whether or not its release is defensible in light of the CNN story, it is now important to emphasize several points. First, we have no idea if any of these allegations are true. Yes, they are explosive; they are also entirely unsubstantiated, at least to our knowledge, at this stage. For this reason, even now, we are not going to discuss the specific allegations within the document. Second, while unproven, the allegations are being taken quite seriously. The President and President-elect do not get briefed on material that the intelligence community does not believe to be at least of some credibility. The individual who generated them is apparently a person whose work intelligence professionals take seriously. And at a personal level, we can attest that we have had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people about the material in this document. While nobody has confirmed any of the allegations, both inside government and in the press, it is clear to us that they are the subject of serious attention. Third, precisely because it is being taken seriously, it is—despite being unproven and, in public anyway, undiscussed—pervasively affecting the broader discussion of Russian hacking of the election. CNN reported that Senator John McCain personally delivered a copy of the document to FBI Director James Comey on December 9th. Consider McCain’s comments about the gravity of the Russian hacking episode at last week’s Armed Services Committee hearing in light of that fact. Likewise, consider Senator Ron Wyden’s questioning of Comey at today’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, in which Wyden pushed the FBI Director to release a declassified assessment before January 20th regarding contact between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. (Comey refused to comment on an ongoing investigation.) So while people are being delicate about discussing wholly unproven allegations, the document is at the front of everyone’s minds as they ponder the question: Why is Trump so insistent about vindicating Russia from the hacking charges that everyone else seems to accept? Fourth, it is significant that the document contains highly specific allegations, many of which are the kind of facts it should be possible to prove or disprove. This is a document about meetings that either took place or did not take place, stays in hotels that either happened or didn’t, travel that either happened or did not happen. It should be possible to know whether at least some of these allegations are true or false. Finally, fifth, it is important to emphasize that this is not a case of the intelligence community leaking sensitive information about an investigative subject out of revenge or any other improper motive. This type of information, referencing sensitive sources and methods and the identities of U.S. persons, is typically treated by the intelligence community with the utmost care. And this material, in fact, does not come from the intelligence community; it comes, rather, from private intelligence documents put together by a company. It is actually not even classified. All of which is to say to everyone: slow down, and take a deep breath. We shouldn’t assume either that this is simply a “fake news” episode directed at discrediting Trump or that the dam has now broken and the truth is coming out at last. We don’t know what the reality is here, and the better part of valor is not to get ahead ahead of the facts—a matter on which, incidentally, the press deserves a lot of credit.  Voir de même: Conférence du 15 janvier 2017: l’esprit de Munich s’invite à Paris ! Dora Marrache Europe Israël Déc 28, 2016 « Vous aviez le choix entre le déshonneur et la guerre. Vous avez choisi le déshonneur, et vous aurez la guerre ». (Winston Churchill) Le 23 décembre, le vote de la Résolution 2334, a permis aux Juifs de découvrir le vrai Obama, celui qui se cache sous des dehors affables. Bien sûr,  on se console en se disant que Donald Trump fera révoquer cette « honteuse » résolution. Mais là rien n’est moins sûr, car il est à craindre qu’il ne réussisse pas à obtenir les 9 voix qui le soutiendront. Hélas, Obama n’a pas encore assouvi pleinement son désir de vengeance. La Conférence de Paris permettra au gouvernement israélien de découvrir sans doute l’aspect maléfique du premier président noir des États-Unis, mais aussi  celui du président français qui proclame  son amour des Juifs de France, mais enfonce un couteau dans le dos de leurs frères israéliens. Prévue initialement en mai 2016, cette conférence a été reportée à plusieurs reprises mais,  à moins d’un report fort improbable (après le 20 janvier, Obama n’aura plus aucun pouvoir),  elle aura lieu le 15 janvier 2017, à Paris. « La ConférenceBottom of Form sur la paix de Paris : une feuille de route cauchemardesque? » écrivait en juin Shimon Samuels, le directeur des Relations internationales du Centre Simon Wiesenthal, et il  en parlait comme d’un autre Munich. En effet, difficile de ne pas penser à la conférence de Munich quand on parle de la conférence de Paris. Les ressemblances sont frappantes, on pourrait même envisager des Accords calqués sur ceux de Munich. En revanche, si nombreux étaient ceux qui, au lendemain des Accords de Munich,  ont parlé de « la lâcheté de Munich », il est, hélas fort peu probable qu’ils le soient pour parler de « la lâcheté de Paris ». Aujourd’hui, le dictateur c’est Abbas qui promet la paix et la fin du terrorisme si on lui donne les territoires qu’il convoite afin de pouvoir ensuite s’accaparer tout Israël.  On va donc tenter de les lui livrer sur un plateau d’argent. But de la conférence de Paris-  La résolution du conflit israélo-palestinien par la création de l’État palestinien. Un peu comme la conférence de Munich qui fut organisée à la demande de Paris les 29 et 30 septembre 1938 pour régler le problème germano-tchèque, celle de Paris, organisée également à la demande du gouvernement français, a pour objectif de résoudre le conflit israélo-palestinien. Paris, l’allié inconditionnel des « Palestiniens » feint de vouloir instaurer la paix dans cette région du monde,  alors qu’il ne fait qu’obéir aux ordres de Ramallah. À cette conférence à laquelle 70 pays sont conviés – plus on est de fous, plus on s’amuse- Israël a choisi,  depuis longtemps d’ailleurs,  de ne pas participer.  L’État juif veut des négociations bilatérales, mais Abbas évidemment préfère obtenir ce qu’il désire sans devoir faire la moindre concession. La conférence aura donc lieu en l’absence du principal intéressé, tout comme celle de Munich organisée en l’absence de la Tchécoslovaquie. Mais tandis que la Russie, allié de la Tchécoslovaquie n’avait pas été invitée à Munich,  l’Amérique, allié-traitre de l’État juif, sera à Paris car le gouvernement est assuré de son soutien depuis mai 2016 et le vote du 23 décembre le lui a confirmé. On peut donc dire d’ores et déjà que, à l’instar de la Tchécoslovaquie qui fut trahie par la France qui lui avait pourtant garanti ses frontières, Israël sera trahi encore une fois par l’Amérique. Abbas / Hitler  Abbas se frotte déjà les mains : tout comme Hitler a pu obtenir la Tchécoslovaquie sans rien donner en retour, Abbas espère bien obtenir que l’État juif se retire aux lignes du cessez-le-feu de la guerre de 48. « La feuille de route, nous explique Shimon Samuels, consiste alors en une résolution préparée par la conférence internationale organisée à Paris, qui doit être votée par les quinze États membres du Conseil de sécurité dans les cinquante jours qui précèdent l’intronisation du président Trump, le 20 janvier prochain ». Et il ajoutait : « Si elle n’est pas rejetée par l’habituel veto américain, qui s’applique à chaque fois que les intérêts vitaux d’Israël sont en jeu, cette résolution fera d’Israël un État paria, passible de sanctions ». On peut maintenant, à la lumière du vote du 23 décembre, assurer qu’elle ne le sera pas. La France peut dormir tranquille, Obama la suivra fidèlement et sera même disposé à aller encore plus loin.  Comme l’État juif ne se soumettra pas au diktat de Abbas, contrairement aux autres pays, l’ONU votera une résolution pour isoler complètement l’État juif en élargissant le boycott à tous les produits israéliens, puis une autre pour  la proclamation unilatérale de l’État « palestinien » (ce qu’avait suggéré Fabius). Les Accords de Paris Pourquoi ne pas les imaginer calqués sur les « Accords de Munich »? Ils se liraient alors ainsi : (LE 15 JANVIER 2016 LES puissances  (à définir) réunies sont convenues des dispositions et conditions suivantes règlementant ladite cession, et des mesures qu’elle comporte. Chacune d’elles, par cet accord, s’engage à accomplir les démarches nécessaires pour en assurer l’exécution : L’évacuation des territoires occupés commencera le …. Ils conviennent que l’évacuation des territoires en question devra être achevée le … sans qu’aucune des installations existantes ait été détruite. Le gouvernement d’Israël, la Puissance occupante, aura la responsabilité d’effectuer cette évacuation sans qu’il en résulte aucun dommage aux dites installations. Les conditions de cette évacuation seront déterminées dans le détail par une commission internationale, composée de représentants de la France, des États-Unis, … de la Palestine et d’Israël, la Puissance occupante. L’occupation progressive par l’armée de l’Autorité Palestinienne commencera le … Les zones indiquées sur la carte ci-jointe seront occupées par les soldats palestiniens à des dates fixées ultérieurement et dans l’ordre suivant : la zone 1, les … la zone 2, les … la zone 3, les … la zone 4, les  … La commission internationale mentionnée au paragraphe 3 déterminera les territoires où doit être effectué un plébiscite. (Ce paragraphe n’apparaitra pas puisque de la Cisjordanie rien ne sera laissé aux Juifs) La fixation finale des frontières sera établie par la commission internationale. Il existera un droit d’option permettant d’être inclus dans les territoires transférés ou d’en être exclu. (Ce droit n’existera même pas, Abbas exige un territoire judenrein) Le gouvernement d’Israël, la Puissance occupante,  libèrera, dans un délai de quatre semaines à partir de la conclusion du présent accord, tous les prisonniers palestiniens retenus dans les prisons d’Israël, et ce quels que soient les délits dont ils se sont rendus coupables Paris, le 15 janvier 2017 Le président de l’Autorité palestinienne Abou MAZEN Le président français François Hollande Le président des États-Unis Barak Hussein Obama Tout cela est bien beau et c’est le rêve de Abbas. Il caresse l’espoir insensé que la communauté internationale réussira à mettre Israël au pied du mur et qu’il réalisera la première étape de son plan diabolique, à savoir obtenir la totalité de l’État juif. Car il faut être lucide: toutes les guerres qui ont été déclenchées contre l’État juif l’ont été dans ce but et, aujourd’hui, près de 70 ans plus tard,  les Arabes n’ont nullement renoncé à l’objectif qu’ils se sont fixé. Conclusion  Seulement voilà : Israël n’est pas la Tchécoslovaquie, Israël ne capitulera pas comme l’avait fait le gouvernement tchécoslovaque. Si Abbas et tous ses acolytes s’imaginent qu’Israël se soumettra aux résolutions de l’ONU -ce qui n’est nullement dans ses habitudes- et qu’il va assister au démantèlement de Jérusalem et de la Judée-Samarie en restant les bras croisés, ce qu’ils se gourent! Ce qu’ils se gourent! Après Munich, conscient que le pire était à venir, Daladier en faisant allusion au peuple français qui croyait avoir obtenu la paix, avait murmuré : « Ah les cons s’ils savaient ! ». Après Paris, y aura-t-il au moins quelques chefs d’État qui se feront la même réflexion? J’en doute fort! Tous sont tellement aveuglés par la haine qu’ils nourrissent à l’égard de l’État juif qu’ils ne sont pas même capables de réaliser qu’ils ont à faire à un adversaire de taille qui se battra avec le même acharnement qu’au cours des guerres que ses ennemis lui ont déclarées. Les Juifs auxquels ils se heurtent n’ont plus rien en commun avec le Juif honteux, celui qui a servi de bouc émissaire pendant les 2000 ans d’exil.  Les Israéliens sont prêts à la guerre pour défendre leur territoire lilliputien. Les « Palestiniens » le sont-ils? Si à l’issue de cette conférence, la France passe pour l’artisan incontestable de la « paix », si on joue à Paris l’hymne national « palestinien », ne sommes-nous pas en droit de nous demander si la France ne se prépare pas à devenir le plus grand fossoyeur de l’humanité? Il semble bien, hélas,  que tous les pays invités à Paris ont oublié que le passé est garant de l’avenir.

Voir par ailleurs:

Qui a fait élire Trump ? Pas les algorithmes, mais des millions de “tâcherons du clic” sous-payés

Antonio Casilli

17 November 2016

Le débat sur les responsabilités médiatiques (et technologiques) de la victoire de Trump ne semble pas épuisé. Moi par contre je m’épuise à expliquer que le problème, ce ne sont pas les algorithmes. D’ailleurs, la candidate “algorithmique” c’était Clinton : elle avait hérité de l’approche big data au ciblage des électeurs qui avait fait gagner Obama en 2012, et sa campagne était apparemment régie par un système de traitement de données personnelles surnommé Ada.

Au contraire, le secret de la victoire du Toupet Parlant (s’il y en a un) a été d’avoir tout misé sur l’exploitation de masses de travailleurs du clic, situés pour la plupart à l’autre bout du monde. Si Hillary Clinton a dépensé 450 millions de dollars, Trump a investi un budget relativement plus modeste (la moitié en fait), en sous-payant des sous-traitants recrutés sur des plateformes d’intermédiation de micro-travail.

Une armée de micro-tâcherons dans des pays en voie de développement

Vous avez peut-être lu la news douce-amère d’une ado de Singapour qui a fini par produire les slides des présentation de Trump. Elle a été recrutée via Fiverr, une plateforme où l’on peut acheter des services de secrétariat, graphisme ou informatique, pour quelques dollars. Ses micro-travailleurs résident en plus de 200 pays, mais les tâches les moins bien rémunérées reviennent principalement à de ressortissants de pays de l’Asie du Sud-Est. L’histoire édifiante de cette jeune singapourienne ne doit pas nous distraire de la vraie nouvelle : Trump a externalisé la préparation de plusieurs supports de campagne à des tacherons numériques recrutés via des plateformes de digital labor, et cela de façon récurrente. L’arme secrète de la victoire de ce candidat raciste, misogyne et connu pour mal payer ses salariés s’avère être l’exploitation de travailleuses mineures asiatiques. Surprenant, non ?

Hrithie, la “tâcheronne numérique” qui a produit les slides de Donal Trump…

Mais certains témoignages de ces micro-travailleurs offshore sont moins édifiants. Vous avez certainement lu l’histoire des “spammeurs de Macédoine”. Trump aurait profité de l’aide opportuniste d’étudiants de milieux modestes d’une petite ville post-industrielle d’un pays ex-socialiste de l’Europe centrale devenus des producteurs de likes et de posts, qui ont généré et partagé les pires messages de haine et de désinformation pour pouvoir profiter d’un vaste marché des clics.

How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News

A qui la faute ? Au modèle d’affaires de Facebook

A qui la faute ? Aux méchants spammeurs ou bien à leur mandataires ? Selon Business Insider, les responsables de la com’ de Trump ont directement acheté presque 60% des followers de sa page Facebook. Ces fans et la vaste majorité de ses likes proviennent de fermes à clic situées aux Philippines, en Malaysie, en Inde, en Afrique du Sud, en Indonesie, en Colombie… et au Mexique. (Avant de vous insurger, sachez que ceci est un classique du fonctionnement actuel de Facebook. Si vous n’êtes pas au fait de la façon dont la plateforme de Zuckerberg limite la circulation de vos posts pour ensuite vous pousser à acheter des likes, cette petite vidéo vous l’explique. Prenez 5 minutes pour finaliser votre instruction.)

Bien sûr, le travail dissimulé du clic concerne tout le monde. Facebook, présenté comme un service gratuit, se révèle aussi être un énorme marché de nos contacts et de notre engagement actif dans la vie de notre réseau. Aujourd’hui, Facebook opère une restriction artificielle de la portée organique des posts partagés par les utilisateurs : vous avez 1000 « amis », par exemple, mais moins de 10% lit vos messages hilarants ou regarde vos photos de chatons. Officiellement, Facebook prétend qu’il s’agit ainsi de limiter les spams. Mais en fait, la plateforme invente un nouveau modèle économique visant à faire payer pour une visibilité plus vaste ce que l’usager partage aujourd’hui via le sponsoring. Ce modèle concerne moins les particuliers que les entreprises ou les hommes politiques à la chevelure improbable qui fondent leur stratégies marketing sur ce réseau social : ces derniers ont en effet intérêt à ce que des centaines de milliers de personnes lisent leurs messages, et ils paieront pour obtenir plus de clics. Or ce système repose sur des « fermes à clics », qui exploitent des travailleurs installés dans des pays émergents ou en voie de développement. Cet énorme marché dévoile l’illusion d’une participation volontaire de l’usager, qui est aujourd’hui écrasée par un système de production de clics fondé sur du travail caché—parce que, littéralement, délocalisé à l’autre bout du monde.

Flux de digital labor entre pays du Sud et pays du Nord

Une étude récente de l’Oxford Internet Institute montre l’existence de flux de travail importants entre le sud et le nord de la planète : les pays du Sud deviennent les producteurs de micro-tâches pour les pays du Nord. Aujourd’hui, les plus grands réalisateurs de micro-taches se trouvent aux Philippines, au Pakistan, en Inde, au Népal, à Hong-Kong, en Ukraine et en Russie, et les plus grands acheteurs de leurs clics se situent aux Etats-Unis, au Canada, en Australie et au Royaume-Uni. Les inégalités classiques Nord/Sud se reproduisent à une échelle planétaire. D’autant qu’il ne s’agit pas d’un phénomène résiduel mais d’un véritable marché du travail : UpWork compte 10 millions d’utilisateurs, Freelancers.com, 18 millions, etc.

Micro-travailleurs d’Asie, et recruteurs en Europe, Australie et Amérique du Nord sur une plateforme de digital labor.

Nouvel “i-sclavagisme” ? Nouvel impérialisme numérique ? Je me suis efforcé d’expliquer que les nouvelles inégalités planétaires relèvent d’une marginalisation des travailleurs qui les expose à devoir accepter les tâches les plus affreuses et les plus moralement indéfendables (comme par exemple aider un candidat à l’idéologie clairement fasciste à remporter les élections). Je l’explique dans une contribution récente sur la structuration du digital labor en tant que phénomène global (attention : le document est en anglais et fait 42 pages).  Que se serait-il passé si les droits de ces travailleurs du clic avaient été protégés, s’ils avaient eu la possibilité de résister au chantage au micro-travail, s’il avaient eu une voix pour protester contre et pour refuser de contribuer aux rêves impériaux d’un homme politique clairement dérangé, suivi par une cour de parasites corrompus ? Reconnaître ce travail invisible du clic, et le doter de méthodes de se protéger, est aussi – et avant tout – un enjeux de citoyenneté globale. Voilà quelques extraits de mon texte

Extrait de “Is There a Global Digital Labor Culture?” (Antonio Casilli, 2016)

Conclusions:
Pour être plus clair : ce ne sont pas ‘les algorithmes’ ni les ‘fake news’, mais la structure actuelle de l’économie du clic et du digital labor global qui ont aidé la victoire de Trump.
Pour être ENCORE plus clair : la montée des fascismes et l’exploitation du digital labor s’entendent comme larrons en foire. Comme je le rappelais dans un billet récent de ce même blog :

L’oppression des citoyens des démocraties occidentales, écrasés par une offre politique constamment revue à la baisse depuis vingt ans, qui in fine a atteint l’alignement à l’extrême droite de tous les partis dans l’éventail constitutionnel, qui ne propose qu’un seul fascisme mais disponible en différents coloris, va de pair avec l’oppression des usagers de technologies numériques, marginalisés, forcés d’accepter une seule offre de sociabilité, centralisée, normalisée, policée, exploitée par le capitalisme des plateformes qui ne proposent qu’une seule modalité de gouvernance opaque et asymétrique, mais disponible via différents applications.

Voir aussi:

Facebook accusé d’avoir fait le jeu de Donald Trump
Le réseau social a réagi aux critiques en annonçant que les sites publiant de fausses informations ne pourront plus monétiser leur audience sur la plate-forme.
Michaël Szadkowski, Damien Leloup et William Audureau
Le Monde
16.11.2016

Moins d’une semaine après l’élection de Donald Trump, Facebook est pris dans ses contradictions. Accusé d’avoir influencé le dénouement du scrutin en laissant des articles mensongers remonter dans les fils d’actualité de ses utilisateurs, le réseau social est en pleine remise en question. Une première mesure a été annoncée dans la nuit de lundi 14 à mardi 15 novembre : les sites publiant de fausses informations ne pourront plus utiliser Facebook Audience Network, l’outil de monétisation publicitaire de la plate-forme, rapporte le Wall Street Journal citant un porte-parole de Facebook. Il s’agit d’une première disposition face à un phénomène d’une ampleur nouvelle.

Google a pris le même jour une mesure similaire. « Nous allons commencer à interdire les publicités sur les contenus trompeurs, de la même manière que nous interdisons les publicités mensongères », a déclaré le groupe à l’AFP.

Selon le PewResearch Center, 44 % des Américains s’informent directement sur le réseau social. Le site BuzzFeed a calculé que 20 % des articles de médias partisans des démocrates étaient mensongers, et 38 % côté républicain. Une fausse information publiée en juillet annonçant le soutien du pape François à Donald Trump a notamment été partagée près d’un million de fois, relate le New York Times. Une situation déplorée par Bobby Goodlatte, ancien ingénieur de Facebook : « Malheureusement, le News Feed [le fil d’actualité de Facebook] est optimisé pour intéresser et générer des réactions. Comme nous l’avons appris avec cette…

Voir également:

Trump team outsourced making presentation slides to S’porean teen via freelancer site Fiverr

Stealing American jobs

Belmont Lay

November 17, 2016

The East View Secondary School student, Hrithie Menon, helped create a Prezi presentation targeted at youths that was used as part of Trump’s presidential campaign after his team approached her for her services via Fiverr, a site that aggregates vendors for digital services.

Prezi is an alternative slide-making programme to PowerPoint.

The teen said she didn’t know who Trump was last year as she did not follow US politics.

She was unable to provide more details about the work done as she is bound by a non-disclosure agreement.

She began doing such work when she was in Primary 4. She has been doing freelance work for clients for the past two years.

She charges US$100 a project and has made about US$2,000 in total so far.

The money help pay for her dental braces.

Hrithie said she completed the Trump campaign slides within two hours in one day.

Ironically, during Trump’s campaigning period at a rally in Florida on Sunday, Nov. 6, the then presidential hopeful told his supporters that they are “living through the greatest jobs theft in the history of the world” and in the process, naming Singapore as one of the culprits of stealing American jobs.

He said then that the United States has lost about 70,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organisation.

He said: “Goodrich Lighting Systems laid off 255 workers and moved their jobs to India. Baxter Health Care laid off 199 workers and moved their jobs to Singapore. It’s getting worse and worse and worse.”

Yes, 320 million people in the United States and no one can make slides.

Voir de même:

Tech-savvy S’porean teen played part in Trump campaign
Toh Ee Ming
November 17, 2016

SINGAPORE — When the request came from American billionaire Donald Trump’s campaign team to help create a Prezi presentation for youth as part of his presidential campaign last August, East View Secondary School student Hrithie Menon treated it as “just another project” to pay for her own dental braces.

Prezi is a presentation tool used as an alternative to traditional slide-making programmes such as PowerPoint. Hrithie, 15, told TODAY that it was one of the “easiest” projects she has had to do, because it was fairly straightforward and she completed it within two hours.

“At that time, I didn’t really know who he was, so I didn’t (think) it was such a big deal,” the Singaporean student said. It was only when she heard news of the United States presidential election that she realised she did “play a part” in the event, even though she admitted that she does not follow US politics.

While she is unable to share too many details because she is bound to a non-disclosure agreement, she said that the slides were shared across various colleges and university campuses in the US aimed at capturing young people’s votes.

Her parents consider Mr Trump, now the US President-elect, Hrithie’s “biggest client” so far.

Her mother, Madam Shenthil Ranie, 44, who works in the media entertainment industry, said: “(I remember) my husband texting me to say, ‘You’ll never know who this new client is’ … It was so hilarious … That was a big moment for us, to think that my daughter’s freelance work could actually get her such a big gig.”

Hrithie, who learnt the skills herself, has done projects for 20 clients in the last two years, such as creating a Prezi on safety guidelines for the United States Polo Association and working with various brands in Spain and Vietnam.

Clients approach her on the website Fiverr — a marketplace for digital services — where they provide her with the content that she turns into a Prezi video. She charges about US$100 (S$140) a project and has earned close to US$2,000 to date.

The digital native uses with ease various software and tools such as Prezi, Adobe After Effects and VideoScribe, and completes these projects typically within a day.

Her interest in such work was sparked when her father first tasked her to create some videos during her school holidays, when she was in Primary 4. She went on to develop some 15 to 20 android apps, including a celebrity-inspired news app about artistes such as One Direction and Selena Gomez. She also used to buy in bulk various accessories or monopods for taking selfies from e-commerce site AliExpress, to sell through her own Instagram account.

Her father, Mr Haridas Menon, 49, founder of the Singapore Internet Marketing Academy, said: “She somehow has the knack of picking up trends, she has her ears to the ground.”

While she excels in the technical area, Hrithie sometimes has to turn to her parents for help when clients are not as clear in their briefs or when she encounters language difficulties. Even so, her parents are amazed at her abilities and resourceful nature.

“When I see her on this path and what she has achieved, it is mind-blowing for me, to think that she’s so young,” her mother said, hoping that schools may nurture students with similar talents to do more digital work or for them to build new products online.

In her spare time, Hrithie is keen on learning how to help businesses tighten their cyber security on WordPress. Cyber security is an area she is looking to study in a polytechnic in future to enhance her skills.

On how others may pick up skills like hers, Hrithie said: “You just have to have the initiative to go and search for (them) on YouTube. Everything is on the Internet.”

Post Politics

Clinton’s data-driven campaign relied heavily on an algorithm named Ada. What didn’t she see?

 John Wagner

The Washington Post

November 9, 2016

Hillary Clinton at a rally in Raleigh, N.C., on the eve of the election. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Inside Hillary Clinton’s campaign, she was known as Ada. Like the candidate herself, she had a penchant for secrecy and a private server. As blame gets parceled out Wednesday for the Democrat’s stunning loss to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, Ada is likely to get a lot of second-guessing.

Ada is a complex computer algorithm that the campaign was prepared to publicly unveil after the election as its invisible guiding hand. Named for a female 19th-century mathematician — Ada, Countess of Lovelace — the algorithm was said to play a role in virtually every strategic decision Clinton aides made, including where and when to deploy the candidate and her battalion of surrogates and where to air television ads — as well as when it was safe to stay dark.

The campaign’s deployment of other resources — including  county-level campaign offices and the staging of high-profile concerts with stars like Jay Z and Beyoncé — was largely dependent on Ada’s work, as well.

While the Clinton campaign’s reliance on analytics became well known, the particulars of Ada’s work were kept under tight wraps, according to aides. The algorithm operated on a separate computer server than the rest of the Clinton operation as a security precaution, and only a few senior aides were able to access it.

According to aides, a raft of polling numbers, public and private, were fed into the algorithm, as well as ground-level voter data meticulously collected by the campaign. Once early voting began, those numbers were factored in, too.

What Ada did, based on all that data, aides said, was run 400,000 simulations a day of what the race against Trump might look like. A report that was spit out would give campaign manager Robby Mook and others a detailed picture of which battleground states were most likely to tip the race in one direction or another — and guide decisions about where to spend time and deploy resources.

The use of analytics by campaigns was hardly unprecedented. But Clinton aides were convinced their work, which was far more sophisticated than anything employed by President Obama or GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, gave them a big strategic advantage over Trump.

So where did Ada go wrong?

About some things, she was apparently right. Aides say Pennsylvania was pegged as an extremely important state early on, which explains why Clinton was such a frequent visitor and chose to hold her penultimate rally in Philadelphia on Monday night.

But it appears that the importance of other states Clinton would lose — including Michigan and Wisconsin — never became fully apparent or that it was too late once it did.

Clinton made several visits to Michigan during the general election, but it wasn’t until the final days that she, Obama and her husband made such a concerted effort.

As for Wisconsin: Clinton didn’t make any appearances there at all.

Like much of the political establishment Ada appeared to underestimate the power of rural voters in Rust Belt states.

Clearly, there were things neither she nor a human could foresee — like a pair of bombshell letters sent by the FBI about Clinton’s email server. But in coming days and weeks, expect a debate on how heavily campaigns should rely on data, particularly in a year like this one in which so many conventional rules of politics were cast aside.

Voir encore:

Trump spent about half of what Clinton did on his way to the presidency

Jacob Pramuk
9 Nov 2016

Donald Trump threw out campaign spending conventions as he stormed his way to the American presidency.

The businessman racked up 278 electoral votes as of Wednesday morning, versus 228 for Clinton, with three states still not called by NBC News.

Trump did so with thin traditional campaign spending. His chaotic and often divisive campaign drew constant eyeballs, earning him billions of dollars in free media and allowing him to spend comparatively little on television ads and ground operations.

His campaign committee spent about $238.9 million through mid-October, compared with $450.6 million by Clinton’s. That equals about $859,538 spent per Trump electoral vote, versus about $1.97 million spent per Clinton electoral vote.

Those numbers do not include spending from Oct. 20 to Election Day.

While Trump’s campaign increased its spending on television ads in its final election push, it still used the traditional outreach tool much less than Clinton’s did. As of late October, Clinton spent’s campaign spent about $141.7 million on ads, compared with $58.8 million for Trump’s campaign, according to NBC News.

That disparity extended to campaign payrolls. For example, Clinton’s campaign had about 800 people on payroll at the end of August, versus about 130 for Trump’s. Democrats often have larger ground operations than Republicans.

Still, it wasn’t just Clinton who heavily outspent Trump. He shelled out much less money than other recent nominees, as well.

Through mid-October 2012, the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent $630.8 million and $360.7 million, respectively.

Obama’s campaign also spent about $593.9 million through mid-October 2008. Sen. John McCain’s 2008 campaign actually spent less than Trump, about $216.8 million through mid-October.

Voir encore:

Politics

Trump, Mocking Claim That Russia Hacked Election, at Odds with G.O.P.

David E. Sanger

The New York Times

Dec. 10, 2016

WASHINGTON — An extraordinary breach has emerged between President-elect Donald J. Trump and the national security establishment, with Mr. Trump mocking American intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in the election on his behalf, and top Republicans vowing investigations into Kremlin activities.

On Saturday, intelligence officials said it was not until the week after the election that the C.I.A. altered its formal assessment of Russia’s activities to conclude that the government of President Vladimir V. Putin was not just trying to undermine the election, but had also acted to give one candidate an advantage.

Wary of being seen as politicizing their findings, C.I.A. analysts had been reluctant to come to that conclusion in the midst of the election — even as many supporters of Hillary Clinton believed it was obvious, given the leak of emails from her campaign chairman and others.

One intelligence official said there were indications in early October that the Russians had shifted their focus to harm Mrs. Clinton. The C.I.A.’s slowness in shifting its assessment, another official said, was one reason President Obama ordered a full review of “lessons learned” on the operation to influence the election.

But the disclosure of the still-classified findings prompted a blistering attack against the intelligence agencies by Mr. Trump, whose transition office said in a statement on Friday night that “these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” adding that the election was over and that it was time to “move on.”

Mr. Trump has split on the issue with many Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees, who have said they were presented with significant evidence, in closed briefings, of a Russian campaign to meddle in the election.

The rift also raises questions about how Mr. Trump will deal with the intelligence agencies he will have to rely on for analysis of China, Russia and the Middle East, as well as for covert drone and cyberactivities.

At this point in a transition, a president-elect is usually delving into intelligence he has never before seen, and learning about C.I.A. and National Security Agency abilities. But Mr. Trump, who has taken intelligence briefings only sporadically, is questioning not only analytic conclusions, but also their underlying facts.

“To have the president-elect of the United States simply reject the fact-based narrative that the intelligence community puts together because it conflicts with his a priori assumptions — wow,” said Michael V. Hayden, who was the director of the N.S.A. and later the C.I.A. under President George W. Bush.

With the partisan emotions on both sides — Mr. Trump’s supporters see a plot to undermine his presidency, and Mrs. Clinton’s supporters see a conspiracy to keep her from the presidency — the result is an environment in which even those basic facts become the basis for dispute.

Mr. Trump’s team lashed out at the agencies after The Washington Post reported that the C.I.A. believed that Russia had intervened to undercut Mrs. Clinton and lift Mr. Trump, and The New York Times reported that Russia had broken into Republican National Committee computer networks just as they had broken into Democratic ones, but had released documents only on the Democrats.

For months, the president-elect has strenuously rejected all assertions that Russia was working to help him, though he did at one point invite Russia to find thousands of Mrs. Clinton’s emails. There is no evidence that the Russian meddling affected the outcome of the election or the legitimacy of the vote, but Mr. Trump and his aides want to shut the door on any such notion, including the idea that Mr. Putin schemed to put him in office.

Instead, Mr. Trump casts the issue as an unknowable mystery. “It could be Russia,” he recently told Time magazine. “And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

The Republicans who lead the congressional committees overseeing intelligence, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security take the opposite view. They say that Russia was behind the election meddling, but that the scope and intent of the operation need deep investigation, hearings and public reports.

One question they may want to explore is why the intelligence agencies believe that the Republican networks were compromised while the F.B.I., which leads domestic cyberinvestigations, has apparently told Republicans that it has not seen evidence of that breach. Senior officials say the intelligence agencies’ conclusions are not being widely shared, even with law enforcement.

“We cannot allow foreign governments to interfere in our democracy,” Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and was considered by Mr. Trump for secretary of Homeland Security, said at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “When they do, we must respond forcefully, publicly and decisively.”

Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times’s products and services

He has promised hearings, saying the Russian activity was “a call to action,” as has Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the few senators left from the Cold War era, when the Republican Party made opposition to the Soviet Union — and later deep suspicion of Russia — the centerpiece of its foreign policy.

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said there was little doubt that the Russian government was involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee. “All of the intelligence analysts who looked at it came to the conclusion that the tradecraft was very similar to the Russians,” he said.

Even one of Mr. Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, said on Friday that he had no doubt about Russia’s culpability. His complaint was with the intelligence agencies, which he said had “repeatedly” failed “to anticipate Putin’s hostile actions,” and with the Obama administration’s lack of a punitive response.

Mr. Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that the intelligence agencies had “ignored pleas by numerous Intelligence Committee members to take more forceful action against the Kremlin’s aggression.” He added that the Obama administration had “suddenly awoken to the threat.”

Like many Republicans, Mr. Nunes is threading a needle. His statement puts him in opposition to the position taken by Mr. Trump and his incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who has traveled to Russia as a private citizen for RT, the state-controlled news operation, and attended a dinner with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Nunes’s contention that Mr. Obama was captivated by a desire to “reset” relations with Russia is also notable, because Mr. Trump has said he is trying to do the same — though he is avoiding that term, which was made popular by Mrs. Clinton in her failed effort as secretary of state in 2009.

There are splits both within the intelligence agencies and the congressional committees that oversee them. Officials say the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. have not always shared their findings with the F.B.I., which they often distrust. The question of how vigorously to investigate also has a political tinge: Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, for example, are pushing hard for a broad investigation, while some Republicans are resisting.

Intelligence can also get politicized, of course, and one of the running debates about the disastrously mistaken assessments of Iraq that Mr. Trump often cites is whether the intelligence itself was tainted or whether the Bush White House read it selectively to support its march to war in 2003.

But what is unfolding in the argument over the Russian hacking is more complex, because tracking the origin of cyberattacks is complicated. It is made all the harder by the fact that the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. do not want to reveal human sources or technical abilities, including American software implants in Russian computer networks.

This much is known: In mid-2015, a hacking group long associated with the F.S.B. — the successor to the old Soviet K.G.B. — got inside the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems. The intelligence gathering appeared to be fairly routine, and it was unsurprising: The Chinese, for instance, penetrated Mr. Obama’s and Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign communications in 2008.

In the spring of 2016, a second group of Russian hackers, long associated with the G.R.U., a military intelligence agency, attacked the D.N.C. again, along with the private email accounts of prominent Washington figures like John D. Podesta, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. Those emails were ultimately published — a step the Russians had never taken before in the United States, though the tactic has been used often in former Soviet states and elsewhere in Europe. That moved the issue from espionage to an “information operation” with a political motive.

One person who attended a classified briefing on the intelligence said that the investigators had explained that the malware used in the cyberattack on the D.N.C. matched tools previously used by hackers with proven ties to the Russian government. That sort of “pattern analysis” is common in cyberinvestigations, though it is not conclusive.

But the intelligence agencies had more: They had managed to identify the individuals from the G.R.U. who oversaw the hacking efforts. That may have come from intercepted conversations, spying efforts, or implants in computer systems that allow the tracking of emails and text messages.

In briefings to Mr. Obama and on Capitol Hill, intelligence agencies have said they now believe that what began as an effort to undermine the credibility of American elections morphed over time into a much more targeted effort to harm Mrs. Clinton, whom Mr. Putin has long accused of interfering in Russian parliamentary elections in 2011.

But to hedge their bets before the election, according to the briefings, the Russians also targeted the Republican National Committee, Republican operatives and prominent members of the Republican establishment, like former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. However, few of those emails have ever surfaced, save for Mr. Powell’s, which were critical of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign for trying to draw him into a defense of her use of a private computer server.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee, Sean Spicer, disputed the report in The Times that the intelligence community had concluded that the R.N.C. had been hacked.

“The RNC was not ‘hacked,’” he said on Twitter. “The @nytimes was told and chose to ignore.” On Friday night, before The Times published its report, the committee had refused to comment.

Voir de plus:

Piratage imputé à la Russie : Poutine mis en cause, Trump minimise

Le rapport des agences de renseignement affirme que le président russe a influencé la campagne américaine.

Gilles Paris (Washington, correspondant)

 Le Monde

07.01.2017 

Il n’est plus vraiment question d’« un type de 180 kg » vautré sur son lit ni d’« un adolescent de 14 ans », prodiges du piratage informatique. A l’issue d’un briefing avec les responsables de la Direction nationale du renseignement (DNI), du FBI, de la CIA et de l’Agence nationale de sécurité (NSA) américaine, à New York, vendredi 6 janvier, le président élu Donald Trump a semblé faire légèrement machine arrière à propos du vol de données confidentielles du Parti démocrate. Ces données avaient été diffusées pendant la campagne présidentielle, manifestement pour nuire à sa candidate, Hillary Clinton. Le nom du président russe, Vladimir Poutine, figure en bonne place dans le rapport des agences de renseignement rendu public vendredi 6 janvier.

Pendant des semaines, M. Trump a pourtant jeté la suspicion sur les accusations du renseignement américain dirigées vers Moscou dès le 7 octobre, c’est-à-dire un mois avant sa victoire. Séchant ostensiblement les réunions quotidiennes sur la sécurité prévues pour que la future administration soit capable d’assurer ses fonctions dans les meilleures conditions dès son arrivée à la Maison Blanche, M. Trump a multiplié en outre les propos désobligeants vis-à-vis du renseignement, parfois mentionné sur son compte Twitter affublé de guillemets.

Mercredi, au lendemain d’un entretien sur Fox News de Julian Assange, fondateur du site WikiLeaks à l’origine de la publication de ces données, M. Trump avait relayé sans la moindre distance les affirmations selon lesquelles n’importe qui aurait pu accéder aux données du Parti démocrate et qu’elles n’avaient pas été fournies au site par les autorités russes. Le lendemain, au cours d’une audition par la commission des forces armées du Sénat, le directeur du renseignement national, James Clapper, avait jugé que M. Assange n’était pas une source crédible.

Lire aussi :   La transition entre Obama et Trump tourne à la guerre froide

Les républicains également visés

Dans le communiqué publié aussitôt après la fin du briefing de vendredi, M. Trump s’est félicité de sa teneur et a assuré avoir « le plus grand respect » pour les agences de renseignement. Il s’est cependant gardé d’opérer un revirement complet sur la responsabilité de la Russie, mentionnée au même titre que « la Chine, d’autres pays, des groupes extérieurs et des individus » jugés « constamment » à la manœuvre pour « s’introduire » dans les sites « d’institutions gouvernementales, d’entreprises et d’organisations dont le Comité national démocrate », la plus haute instance de ce parti.

A part la volonté de renforcer les moyens de défense américains, M. Trump a surtout voulu retenir du rapport qui lui a été présenté un élément jugé primordial. Il a estimé qu’il prouvait que les piratages n’avaient eu « absolument aucun effet sur l’issue de l’élection ». Renvoyant le Parti démocrate à ses responsabilités, il a ajouté que sa formation avait également été visée mais qu’elle avait bénéficié de meilleures protections.

Cette présentation des faits diffère pourtant de ce qui a été publié, quelques heures après le briefing de M. Trump, par la Direction nationale du renseignement. Le rapport public, qui ne comprend donc pas les éléments restés classifiés, affirme qu’il y a eu des tentatives d’intrusion par « des acteurs russes » dans les données électorales de certains Etats, parallèlement au piratage du Parti démocrate, même s’il reconnaît que ces tentatives « ne concernaient pas le comptage des votes ».

Lire aussi :   La riposte d’Obama envers la Russie pour le piratage de l’élection

Le rapport indique également que des données appartenant au Parti républicain ont également été dérobées par le biais de piratages similaires, mais qu’elles n’ont pas été rendues publiques.

Ces deux points mis à part, le rapport de vingt-cinq pages destiné au public (celui resté classifié en comporte vingt-cinq de plus, selon la presse américaine) est très économe en révélations. Il ne permet pas d’aller beaucoup plus loin, dans le détail, que les informations publiées jusqu’à présent. La mise en cause de la Russie et de l’implication des plus hautes autorités est devenue la position officielle de l’administration dès le 7 octobre. L’information restée confidentielle, évoquée par le Washington Post jeudi, selon laquelle les services de renseignement américains auraient intercepté une conversation de responsables russes analysant la victoire de M. Trump comme « un succès géopolitique » pour la Russie, n’est pas beaucoup plus convaincante.

La différence principale réside dans la mention explicite du président Poutine, comme le véritable architecte de ce projet : « Nous pouvons affirmer que le président russe, Vladimir Poutine, a ordonné une campagne visant à influencer la campagne électorale de 2016. » La motivation de ces interférences, à savoir favoriser la candidature de Donald Trump en visant son adversaire démocrate, avait déjà été évoquée en décembre par le Washington Post, sur la foi de sources anonymes du renseignement. Le rapport est plus explicite : « Poutine a eu de nombreuses expériences positives en travaillant avec des responsables politiques occidentaux dont les intérêts commerciaux les rendaient plus disposés à discuter avec la Russie, comme l’ancien premier ministre italien Silvio Berlusconi et l’ancien chancelier allemand Gerhard Schröder. »

Mise en garde

Comme l’avait précisé M. Clapper au Sénat, le rapport inscrit le piratage du Parti démocrate dans une stratégie plus générale visant « à affaiblir la foi du public dans le processus démocratique américain », « à dénigrer M^me Clinton, et à nuire à sa capacité à être élue et à sa présidence éventuelle ». Ce projet, met en garde le rapport, pourrait être dupliqué pour viser d’autres pays, notamment des alliés des Etats-Unis. L’Allemagne a publiquement mis en cause sur les risques d’interférences russes dans les élections législatives prévues à l’automne.

Moscou a mobilisé, selon le rapport, « les agences gouvernementales » chargées du renseignement. Le principal service russe pour les opérations extérieures, le GRU, est cité comme source indirecte crédible des documents publiés par WikiLeaks. Mais cet effort ne s’est pas limité aux services. Il a également impliqué « des médias officiels russes, des intermédiaires et des usagers rémunérés des réseaux sociaux, des trolls ».

Le rapport met ainsi en cause la couverture de la chaîne officielle Russia Today, au-delà même de la présidentielle. Il pointe notamment la campagne qui lui est prêtée sur les risques pour l’environnement provoqués par le développement de l’extraction du gaz de schiste américain, que le renseignement analyse comme un élément perturbateur pour les intérêts énergétiques russes. Il évoque également la préparation d’un mouvement de contestation sur les réseaux sociaux des résultats de l’élection, alors que la victoire de M^me Clinton était redoutée (#DemocracyRIP). Ce mouvement est resté dans les cartons après sa défaite.

Il est plausible que ce rapport soit enterré dès l’arrivée à la Maison Blanche de M. Trump, qui s’accompagnera en outre d’un renouvellement d’une partie des responsables des services, dont ceux de la CIA et la DNI. Si la partie classifiée est plus convaincante, elle pourrait cependant entretenir l’hostilité traditionnelle d’une partie significative du Parti républicain envers la Russie. Et contrarier une éventuelle tentative de rapprochement de la future administration américaine avec Moscou.

Voir enfin:

National Security

The Unraveling of Julian Assange

Eli Lake

Jan 6, 2017

You almost have to feel sorry for Julian Assange. Shut in at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London without access to sunlight, the founder of WikiLeaks is reduced to self-parody these days.

Here is a man dedicated to radical transparency, yet he refuses to go to Sweden despite an arrest warrant in connection with allegations of sexual assault. His organization retweets the president-elect who once called for him to be put to death. He spreads the innuendo that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, was murdered this summer because he was the real source of the e-mails WikiLeaks published in the run-up to November’s election. And now he tells Fox News’s Sean Hannity that it’s the U.S. media that is deeply dishonest.

This is the proper context to evaluate Assange’s claim, repeated by Donald Trump and his supporters, that Russia was not the source for the e-mails of leading Democrats distributed by WikiLeaks.

We all know that the U.S. intelligence community is standing by its judgment that Russia hacked the Democrats’ e-mails and distributed them to influence the election. And while it’s worrisome that Trump would dismiss this judgment out of hand, this also misses the main point. Sometimes the spies get it wrong, like the “slam-dunk” conclusion that Saddam Hussein was concealing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The real issue is Assange. The founder of WikiLeaks has a history of saying paranoid nonsense. This is particularly true of Assange’s view of Hillary Clinton. His delusions have led him to justify the interference in our elections as an act of holding his nemesis accountable to the public.

Bill Keller, the former New York Times executive editor, captured Assange’s penchant for dark fantasy in a 2011 essay that described him casually telling a group of journalists from the Guardian that former Stasi agents were destroying East German archives of the secret police. A German reporter from Der Spiegel, John Goetz, was incredulous. “That’s utter nonsense, he said. Some former Stasi personnel were hired as security guards in the office, but the records were well protected,” Keller recounts him as saying.

In this sense, WikiLeaks’s promotion of the John Grishamesque yarn that Seth Rich was murdered on orders from Hillary Clinton’s network is in keeping with a pattern. Both Rich’s family and the Washington police have dismissed this as a conspiracy theory. That, however, did not stop WikiLeaks from raising a $20,000 reward to find his “real” killers.

Add to this Assange’s approach to Russia. It’s well known that his short-lived talk show, which once aired a respectful interview with the leader of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, was distributed by Russian state television. WikiLeaks has also never published sensitive documents from Russian government sources comparable to the State Department cables it began publishing in 2010, or the e-mails of leading Democrats last year.

When an Italian journalist asked him last month why WikiLeaks hasn’t published the Kremlin’s secrets, Assange’s answer was telling. “In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum,” he said. “There are also newspapers like Novaya Gazeta, in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn’t a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player.”

This is bizarre for a few reasons. To start, Assange’s description of the press environment in Russia has a curious omission. Why no mention of the journalists and opposition figures who have been killed or forced into exile? Assange gives the impression that the Russian government is just as vulnerable to mass disclosures of its secrets as the U.S. government has been. That’s absurd, even if it’s also true that some oppositional press is tolerated there.

Also WikiLeaks once did have a Russian-speaking associate. His name is Yisrael Shamir, and according to former WikiLeaks staffer James Ball, he worked closely with the organization when it began distributing the State Department cables. Shamir is a supporter of Vladimir Putin.

This is all a pity. A decade ago, when Assange founded WikiLeaks, it was a very different organization. As Raffi Khatchadourian reported in a 2010 New Yorker profile, Assange told potential collaborators in 2006, “Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations.”

For a while, WikiLeaks followed this creed. The first document published, but not verified, was an internal memo purporting to show how Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union intended to murder members of the transitional government there. It published the e-mails of University of East Anglia climate scientists discussing manipulation of climate change data. In its early years, WikiLeaks published information damaging to the U.S. as well. But no government or entity or political side appeared to be immune from the organization’s anonymous whistle-blowers.

Today, WikiLeaks’s actions discredit its original mission. Does anyone believe Assange when he darkly implies that he received the DNC e-mails from a whistleblower? Even if you aren’t persuaded that Russia was behind it, there is a preponderance of public evidence that the e-mail account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta was hacked, such as the e-mail that asked him to give his password in a phishing scam. Assange himself is not even sticking to his old story: He told Hannity that a 14-year-old could have hacked Podesta’s emails. Good to know.

In short, the founder of a site meant to expose the falsehoods of governments and large institutions has been gaslighting us. Just look at the WikiLeaks statement on the e-mails right before the election. “To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know,” it said.

That’s precious. WikiLeaks did favor a candidate in the election simply by publishing the e-mails. And the candidate it aided, Donald Trump, is so hostile to the public’s right know that he won’t even release his tax returns. In two weeks, he will be in charge of an intelligence community that asserts with high confidence the e-mails WikiLeaks made public were stolen by Russian government hackers. Assange, of course, denies it, and Trump seems to believe him. Sad!

Voir de plus:

Julian Assange: « Donald? It’s a change anyway »

The interview. The Wikileaks cofounder: « Our source Chelsea Manning tortured in Usa »

Stefania Maurizi

Reppublica

23 decembri 2016

LONDON – When they appeared on the scene for the first time in 2006, few noticed them. And when four years later they hit worldwide media headlines with their publication of over 700,000 secret US government documents, many assumed that Julian Assange and his organisation, WikiLeaks, would be annihilated very shortly.

Since 2010 Assange has lived first under house arrest and then confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been granted asylum by Ecuador. The country’s officials judged  his concerns of being extradited to Sweden and then to the US to be put on trial for the WikiLeaks’ revelations well-grounded.

Repubblica met Julian Assange in the embassy, nicely decorated for the Christmas season. These last ten years have been intense ones for his organisation, but the last two months have been truly hectic: WikiLeaks’ publication of Hillary Clinton’s and US Democrats’ emails hit headlines around the world. The US government hit back, accusing WikiLeaks of having received these materials from Russian cybercriminals with the political agenda of influencing the US elections, a claim some experts question. In the midst of these publications, Ecuador even cut off Julian Assange’s internet connection. Finally, in November, Swedish prosecutors travelled to London to question the WikiLeaks’ founder after six years of judicial paralysis. In a matter of a few weeks, they will be deciding whether to charge or absolve him once and for all. Next February, Ecuador will be holding political elections. If Julian Assange loses asylum, will he be extradited to Sweden and then to the US?

How did it all start? Back in 2006, why did you think a new media organisation was necessary?
« I had watched the Iraq War closely, and in the aftermath of the Iraq War a number of individuals from the security services, including the Australian [ones], came out saying how they had attempted to reveal information before the war began and had been thwarted. People who wanted to be whistleblowers before the Iraq war had not found a channel to get the information out. I felt that this was a general problem and set about to construct the system which could solve this problem in general ».

In a famous interview, you declared that at the beginning you thought that your biggest role would be in China and in some of the former Soviet states and North Africa. Quite the opposite, most of WikiLeaks’ biggest revelations concern the US military-industrial complex, its wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq and its serious human rights violations in the war on terror. These abuses have had a heavy impact in an open and democratic society like the United States and produced ‘dissidents’ like Chelsea Manning willing to expose them. Why aren’t human rights abuses producing the same effects in regimes like China or Russia, and what can be done to democratise information in those countries?

« In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like « Novaya Gazeta », in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn’t a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player. WikiLeaks is a predominantly English-speaking organisation with a website predominantly in English. We have published more than 800,000 documents about or referencing Russia and president Putin, so we do have quite a bit of coverage, but the majority of our publications come from Western sources, though not always. For example, we have published more than 2 million documents from Syria, including Bashar al-Assad personally. Sometimes we make a publication about a country and they will see WikiLeaks as a player within that country, like with Timor East and Kenya. The real determinant is how distant that culture is from English. Chinese culture is quite far away ».

What can be done there?
« We have published some things in Chinese. It is necessary to be seen as a local player and to adapt the language to the local culture ».

There is strict control of the web in China…
« China banned us in 2007, we have worked around that censorship at various times, publishers there were too scared to publish [our documents]. The feeling is mixed within China: they of course like to see the Western critique that a number of our publications enable. China is not a militaristic society, they don’t see they have a comparative advantage in making warfare, so they presumably like general critiques of war, but it is a society that is authority-structured, which is terrified of dissidents, whereas if you compare it to Russia, it too is an increasingly authoritarian society, but one that has a cultural tradition of lionising dissidents ».

Why aren’t the US and UK intelligence agencies leaking to WikiLeaks about their enemies, like Russia or China? They could do it using NGOs or even activists as a cover and they could expose WikiLeaks, if your organisation didn’t publish their documents…
« We publish full information, pristine archives, verifiable. That often makes it inconvenient for propaganda purposes, because for many organisations you see the good and the bad, and that makes the facts revealed harder to spin. If we go back to the Iraq War in 2003, let’s imagine US intelligence tried to leak us some of their internal reports on Iraq. Now we know from US intelligence reports that subsequently came out that there was internal doubt and scepticism about the claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Even though there was intense pressure on the intelligence services at the political level to create reports that supported the rush towards the war, internally their analysts were hedging. The White House, Downing Street, the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN stripped off those doubts. If WikiLeaks had published those reports, these doubts would have been expressed and the war possibly adverted ».

WikiLeaks published documents on Hillary Clinton and the US Democrats. How do you reply to those who accuse you of having helped to elect Mr. Trump?
« What is the allegation here exactly? We published what the Democratic National Committee, John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, and Hillary Clinton herself were saying about their own campaign, which the American people read and were very interested to read, and assessed the elements and characters, and then they made a decision. That decision was based on Hillary Clinton’s own words, her campaign manager’s own words. That’s democracy ».

Do you agree with those who say that it was a hit job, because you hit Hillary Clinton when she was most vulnerable, during the final weeks of her campaign?
« No, we have been publishing about Hillary Clinton for many years, because of her position as Secretary of State. We have been publishing her cables since 2010 and her emails also. We are domain experts on Clinton and her post 2008 role in government. This is why it is natural for sources who have information on Hillary Clinton to come to us. They know we will understand its significance ».

So Clinton is gone, has WikiLeaks won?
« We were pleased to see how much of the American public interacted with the material we published. That interaction was on both sides of politics, including those to the left of Hillary Clinton those who supported Bernie Sanders, who were able to see the structure of power within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and how the Clintons had placed Debbie Wasserman Schultz to head up the DNC and as a result the DNC had tilted the scales of the process against Bernie Sanders ».

What about Donald Trump? What is going to happen?
« If the question is how I personally feel about the situation, I am mixed: Hillary Clinton and the network around her imprisoned one of our alleged sources for 35 years, Chelsea Manning, tortured her according to the United Nations, in order to implicate me personally. According to our publications Hillary Clinton was the chief proponent and the architect of the war against Libya. It is clear that she pursued this war as a staging effort for her Presidential bid. It wasn’t even a war for an ideological purpose. This war ended up producing the refugee crisis in Europe, changing the political colour of Europe, killing more than 40,000 people within a year in Libya, while the arms from Libya went to Mali and other places, boosting or causing civil wars, including the Syrian catastrophe. If someone and their network behave like that, then there are consequences. Internal and external opponents are generated. Now there is a separate question on what Donald Trump means ».

What do you think he means?
« Hillary Clinton’s election would have been a consolidation of power in the existing ruling class of the United States. Donald Trump is not a DC insider, he is part of the wealthy ruling elite of the United States, and he is gathering around him a spectrum of other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities. They do not by themselves form an existing structure, so it is a weak structure which is displacing and destabilising the pre-existing central power network within DC. It is a new patronage structure which will evolve rapidly, but at the moment its looseness means there are opportunities for change in the United States: change for the worse and change for the better ».

In these ten years of WikiLeaks, you and your organisation have experienced all sorts of attacks. What have you learned from this warfare?
« Power is mostly the illusion of power. The Pentagon demanded we destroy our publications. We kept publishing. Clinton denounced us and said we were an attack on the entire « international community ». We kept publishing. I was put in prison and under house arrest. We kept publishing. We went head to head with the NSA getting Edward Snowden out of Hong Kong, we won and got him asylum. Clinton tried to destroy us and was herself destroyed. Elephants, it seems, can be brought down with string. Perhaps there are no elephants ».

You have spent six years under arrest and confinement, the UN established that you are arbitrarily detained, the UK appealed against the UN decision and lost, so this decision is now final. What is going to happen now?
« That’s all politics, that’s something that people cannot properly understand, unless they been through the legal system themselves in high-profile cases. This decision by the UN in my case is really an historical decision. What is someone to do when they are in a multi-jurisdictional conflict, that is politicised and involves big powers? There is too much pressure for domestic courts to resist, so you need an international court with representation from different countries which are not allied to each other to be able to come to a fair decision. That is what happened in my situation. Sweden and the United Kingdom have refused to implement this decision so far, of course it costs both Sweden and the UK on a diplomatic level and the question is how long they are willing to pay that cost ».

After six years, the Swedish prosecutors questioned you in London, as you had requested from the beginning. What happens if you get charged, extradited to Sweden and then to the United States? Will WikiLeaks survive?
« Yes, we have contingency plans that you have seen in action when my Internet was cut off and while I was in prison before. An organisation like WikiLeaks cannot be structured such that a single person can be a point of failure in the organisation, it makes him or her a target ».

Is the internet still cut off?
« The internet has been returned ».

You’ve declared on more than one occasion that what you really miss after 6 years of arrest and confinement is your family. Your children gave you a present to make you to feel less alone: a kitten. Have you ever reconsidered your choices?
« Yes, of course. Fortunately I’m too busy to think about these things all the time. I know that my family and my children are proud of me, that they benefit in some ways from having a father who knows some parts of the world and has become very good in a fight, but in other ways they suffer ».

One of the first times we met I noticed a book on your table: « The Prince » by Machiavelli. What have you learned about power in 10 years of WikiLeaks?
« My conclusion is that most power structures are deeply incompetent, staffed by people who don’t really believe in their institutions and that most power is the projection of the perception of power. And the more secretively it works, the more incompetent it is, because secrecy breeds incompetence, while openness breeds competence, because one can see and can compare actions and see which one is more competent. To keep up these appearances, institutional heads or political heads such as presidents spend most of the time trying to walk in front of the train and pretending that it is following them, but the direction is set by the tracks and by the engine of the train. Understanding that means that small and committed organisations can outmanoeuvre these institutional dinosaurs, like the State Department, the NSA or the CIA ».

Voir également:

U.S. complains to Russia over sex tape ‘smear’-ABC

Reuters

Sep 24, 2009

The United States has complained to Russia’s Foreign Ministry over what it says is a bid to smear a diplomat with a fabricated sex tape, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow told ABC television.

Ambassador John Beyrle said a video apparently featuring the diplomat and prostitutes that appeared in the Russian media was « clearly fabricated, » according to a transcript of an interview broadcast late on Wednesday on ABC.

Ties with Moscow sank to a post-Cold War low under the last U.S. administration but President Barack Obama, who met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in New York on Wednesday, has said he wants to press the « reset » button on the relationship.

« I think there are people here who don’t want the U.S.-Russian relationship to get better. That’s unfortunate, » Beyrle said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it would issue a statement on the case later on Thursday. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said it had nothing to add to Beyrle’s comments on ABC.

Beyrle said that the video, posted last month on the web site of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, http://www.kp.ru, spliced genuine footage of diplomat Kyle Hatcher in a Moscow hotel room with staged footage of a couple having sex.

« Kyle Hatcher has done nothing wrong, » Beyrle said. « Clearly the video we saw was a montage of lot of different clips, some of which are clearly fabricated, » he told ABC News.

Hatcher works in the embassy’s political section and is responsible for outreach to religious, civil society and human rights organizations.

« There may be some people here who don’t like that job description and would like to discredit him in the eyes of his contacts, » Beyrle said.

« I have full confidence in him and he is going to continue his work here at the embassy. » (Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Voir enfin:

Read the full transcript of President Obama’s farewell speech

 LA Times

January 10, 2017

Here is an unedited transcript of President Obama’s prepared remarks during his farewell address in Chicago, as provided by the White House.

It’s good to be home.  My fellow Americans, Michelle and I have been so touched by all the well-wishes we’ve received over the past few weeks.  But tonight it’s my turn to say thanks.  Whether we’ve seen eye-to-eye or rarely agreed at all, my conversations with you, the American people – in living rooms and schools; at farms and on factory floors; at diners and on distant outposts – are what have kept me honest, kept me inspired, and kept me going.  Every day, I learned from you.  You made me a better president, and you made me a better man.

I first came to Chicago when I was in my early 20s, still trying to figure out who I was; still searching for a purpose to my life.  It was in neighborhoods not far from here where I began working with church groups in the shadows of closed steel mills.  It was on these streets where I witnessed the power of faith, and the quiet dignity of working people in the face of struggle and loss.  This is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it.

Découvrez Stormfall Age of War en francais et jouer gratuitement en ligne. Stormfall: Age of War est un MMO de stratégie médiévale par navigateur !

After eight years as your president, I still believe that.  And it’s not just my belief.  It’s the beating heart of our American idea – our bold experiment in self-government.

It’s the conviction that we are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It’s the insistence that these rights, while self-evident, have never been self-executing; that we, the people, through the instrument of our democracy, can form a more perfect union.

This is the great gift our Founders gave us.  The freedom to chase our individual dreams through our sweat, toil, and imagination – and the imperative to strive together as well, to achieve a greater good.

For 240 years, our nation’s call to citizenship has given work and purpose to each new generation.  It’s what led patriots to choose republic over tyranny, pioneers to trek west, slaves to brave that makeshift railroad to freedom.  It’s what pulled immigrants and refugees across oceans and the Rio Grande, pushed women to reach for the ballot, powered workers to organize.  It’s why GIs gave their lives at Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima; Iraq and Afghanistan – and why men and women from Selma to Stonewall were prepared to give theirs as well.

So that’s what we mean when we say America is exceptional.  Not that our nation has been flawless from the start, but that we have shown the capacity to change, and make life better for those who follow.

Yes, our progress has been uneven.  The work of democracy has always been hard, contentious and sometimes bloody.  For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back.  But the long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion, a constant widening of our founding creed to embrace all, and not just some.

If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history…if I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11…if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another 20 million of our fellow citizens – you might have said our sights were set a little too high.

But that’s what we did.  That’s what you did.  You were the change.  You answered people’s hopes, and because of you, by almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started.

In 10 days, the world will witness a hallmark of our democracy:  the peaceful transfer of power from one freely elected president to the next.  I committed to President-elect Trump that my administration would ensure the smoothest possible transition, just as President Bush did for me.  Because it’s up to all of us to make sure our government can help us meet the many challenges we still face.

We have what we need to do so.  After all, we remain the wealthiest, most powerful, and most respected nation on Earth.  Our youth and drive, our diversity and openness, our boundless capacity for risk and reinvention mean that the future should be ours.

But that potential will be realized only if our democracy works.  Only if our politics reflects the decency of the our people.  Only if all of us, regardless of our party affiliation or particular interest, help restore the sense of common purpose that we so badly need right now.

That’s what I want to focus on tonight – the state of our democracy.

Understand, democracy does not require uniformity.  Our founders quarreled and compromised, and expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity – the idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together; that we rise or fall as one.

There have been moments throughout our history that threatened to rupture that solidarity.  The beginning of this century has been one of those times.  A shrinking world, growing inequality; demographic change and the specter of terrorism – these forces haven’t just tested our security and prosperity, but our democracy as well.  And how we meet these challenges to our democracy will determine our ability to educate our kids, and create good jobs, and protect our homeland.

In other words, it will determine our future.

Our democracy won’t work without a sense that everyone has economic opportunity.  Today, the economy is growing again; wages, incomes, home values, and retirement accounts are rising again; poverty is falling again.  The wealthy are paying a fairer share of taxes even as the stock market shatters records.  The unemployment rate is near a 10-year low.  The uninsured rate has never, ever been lower.  Healthcare costs are rising at the slowest rate in 50 years.  And if anyone can put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we’ve made to our healthcare system – that covers as many people at less cost – I will publicly support it.

That, after all, is why we serve – to make people’s lives better, not worse.

But for all the real progress we’ve made, we know it’s not enough.  Our economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class.  But stark inequality is also corrosive to our democratic principles.  While the top 1% has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many families, in inner cities and rural counties, have been left behind – the laid-off factory worker; the waitress and healthcare worker who struggle to pay the bills – convinced that the game is fixed against them, that their government only serves the interests of the powerful – a recipe for more cynicism and polarization in our politics.

There are no quick fixes to this long-term trend.  I agree that our trade should be fair and not just free.  But the next wave of economic dislocation won’t come from overseas.  It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes many good, middle-class jobs obsolete.

And so we must forge a new social compact – to guarantee all our kids the education they need; to give workers the power to unionize for better wages; to update the social safety net to reflect the way we live now and make more reforms to the tax code so corporations and individuals who reap the most from the new economy don’t avoid their obligations to the country that’s made their success possible.  We can argue about how to best achieve these goals.  But we can’t be complacent about the goals themselves.  For if we don’t create opportunity for all people, the disaffection and division that has stalled our progress will only sharpen in years to come.

There’s a second threat to our democracy – one as old as our nation itself.  After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America.  Such a vision, however well-intended, was never realistic.  For race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society.  I’ve lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10, or 20, or 30 years ago – you can see it not just in statistics, but in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum.

But we’re not where we need to be.  All of us have more work to do.  After all, if every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hard-working white middle class and undeserving minorities, then workers of all shades will be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.  If we decline to invest in the children of immigrants, just because they don’t look like us, we diminish the prospects of our own children – because those brown kids will represent a larger share of America’s workforce.  And our economy doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.  Last year, incomes rose for all races, all age groups, for men and for women.

Going forward, we must uphold laws against discrimination – in hiring, in housing, in education and the criminal justice system.  That’s what our Constitution and highest ideals require.  But laws alone won’t be enough.  Hearts must change.  If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation, each one of us must try to heed the advice of one of the great characters in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

For blacks and other minorities, it means tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face – the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change.

For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ‘60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised.

For native-born Americans, it means reminding ourselves that the stereotypes about immigrants today were said, almost word for word, about the Irish, Italians, and Poles.  America wasn’t weakened by the presence of these newcomers; they embraced this nation’s creed, and it was strengthened.

So regardless of the station we occupy; we have to try harder; to start with the premise that each of our fellow citizens loves this country just as much as we do; that they value hard work and family like we do; that their children are just as curious and hopeful and worthy of love as our own.

None of this is easy.  For too many of us, it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or college campuses or places of worship or our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions.  The rise of naked partisanship, increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste – all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable.  And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that’s out there.

This trend represents a third threat to our democracy.  Politics is a battle of ideas; in the course of a healthy debate, we’ll prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them.  But without some common baseline of facts; without a willingness to admit new information, and concede that your opponent is making a fair point, and that science and reason matter, we’ll keep talking past each other, making common ground and compromise impossible.

Isn’t that part of what makes politics so dispiriting?  How can elected officials rage about deficits when we propose to spend money on preschool for kids, but not when we’re cutting taxes for corporations?  How do we excuse ethical lapses in our own party, but pounce when the other party does the same thing?  It’s not just dishonest, this selective sorting of the facts; it’s self-defeating.  Because as my mother used to tell me, reality has a way of catching up with you.

Take the challenge of climate change.  In just eight years, we’ve halved our dependence on foreign oil, doubled our renewable energy, and led the world to an agreement that has the promise to save this planet.  But without bolder action, our children won’t have time to debate the existence of climate change; they’ll be busy dealing with its effects: environmental disasters, economic disruptions, and waves of climate refugees seeking sanctuary.

Now, we can and should argue about the best approach to the problem.  But to simply deny the problem not only betrays future generations; it betrays the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our Founders.

It’s that spirit, born of the Enlightenment, that made us an economic powerhouse – the spirit that took flight at Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral; the spirit that that cures disease and put a computer in every pocket.

It’s that spirit – a faith in reason, and enterprise, and the primacy of right over might, that allowed us to resist the lure of fascism and tyranny during the Great Depression, and build a post-World War II order with other democracies, an order based not just on military power or national affiliations but on principles – the rule of law, human rights, freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, and an independent press.

That order is now being challenged – first by violent fanatics who claim to speak for Islam; more recently by autocrats in foreign capitals who see free markets, open democracies, and civil society itself as a threat to their power.  The peril each poses to our democracy is more far-reaching than a car bomb or a missile.  It represents the fear of change; the fear of people who look or speak or pray differently; a contempt for the rule of law that holds leaders accountable; an intolerance of dissent and free thought; a belief that the sword or the gun or the bomb or propaganda machine is the ultimate arbiter of what’s true and what’s right.

Because of the extraordinary courage of our men and women in uniform, and the intelligence officers, law enforcement, and diplomats who support them, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years; and although Boston and Orlando remind us of how dangerous radicalization can be, our law enforcement agencies are more effective and vigilant than ever.  We’ve taken out tens of thousands of terrorists – including Osama bin Laden.  The global coalition we’re leading against ISIL has taken out their leaders, and taken away about half their territory.  ISIL will be destroyed, and no one who threatens America will ever be safe.  To all who serve, it has been the honor of my lifetime to be your Commander-in-Chief.

But protecting our way of life requires more than our military.  Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear.  So just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are.  That’s why, for the past eight years, I’ve worked to put the fight against terrorism on a firm legal footing.  That’s why we’ve ended torture, worked to close Gitmo, and reform our laws governing surveillance to protect privacy and civil liberties.  That’s why I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans.  That’s why we cannot withdraw from global fights – to expand democracy, and human rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights – no matter how imperfect our efforts, no matter how expedient ignoring such values may seem.  For the fight against extremism and intolerance and sectarianism are of a piece with the fight against authoritarianism and nationalist aggression.  If the scope of freedom and respect for the rule of law shrinks around the world, the likelihood of war within and between nations increases, and our own freedoms will eventually be threatened.

So let’s be vigilant, but not afraid.  ISIL will try to kill innocent people.  But they cannot defeat America unless we betray our Constitution and our principles in the fight.  Rivals like Russia or China cannot match our influence around the world – unless we give up what we stand for, and turn ourselves into just another big country that bullies smaller neighbors.

Which brings me to my final point – our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.  All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions.  When voting rates are some of the lowest among advanced democracies, we should make it easier, not harder, to vote.  When trust in our institutions is low, we should reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics, and insist on the principles of transparency and ethics in public service.  When Congress is dysfunctional, we should draw our districts to encourage politicians to cater to common sense and not rigid extremes.

And all of this depends on our participation; on each of us accepting the responsibility of citizenship, regardless of which way the pendulum of power swings.

Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift.  But it’s really just a piece of parchment.  It has no power on its own.  We, the people, give it power – with our participation, and the choices we make.  Whether or not we stand up for our freedoms.  Whether or not we respect and enforce the rule of law.  America is no fragile thing.  But the gains of our long journey to freedom are not assured.

In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but “from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken…to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth;” that we should preserve it with “jealous anxiety;” that we should reject “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties” that make us one.

We weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character are turned off from public service; so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but somehow malevolent.  We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others; when we write off the whole system as inevitably corrupt, and blame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.

It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.  Because for all our outward differences, we all share the same proud title:  Citizen.

Ultimately, that’s what our democracy demands.  It needs you.  Not just when there’s an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime.  If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try to talk with one in real life.  If something needs fixing, lace up your shoes and do some organizing.  If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.  Show up.  Dive in.  Persevere.  Sometimes you’ll win.  Sometimes you’ll lose.  Presuming a reservoir of goodness in others can be a risk, and there will be times when the process disappoints you.  But for those of us fortunate enough to have been a part of this work, to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire.  And more often than not, your faith in America – and in Americans – will be confirmed.

Mine sure has been.  Over the course of these eight years, I’ve seen the hopeful faces of young graduates and our newest military officers.  I’ve mourned with grieving families searching for answers, and found grace in a Charleston church.  I’ve seen our scientists help a paralyzed man regain his sense of touch, and our wounded warriors walk again.  I’ve seen our doctors and volunteers rebuild after earthquakes and stop pandemics in their tracks.  I’ve seen the youngest of children remind us of our obligations to care for refugees, to work in peace, and above all to look out for each other.

That faith I placed all those years ago, not far from here, in the power of ordinary Americans to bring about change – that faith has been rewarded in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined.  I hope yours has, too.  Some of you here tonight or watching at home were there with us in 2004, in 2008, in 2012 – and maybe you still can’t believe we pulled this whole thing off.

You’re not the only ones.  Michelle – for the past 25 years, you’ve been not only my wife and mother of my children, but my best friend.  You took on a role you didn’t ask for and made it your own with grace and grit and style and good humor.  You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody.  And a new generation sets its sights higher because it has you as a role model.  You’ve made me proud.  You’ve made the country proud.

Malia and Sasha, under the strangest of circumstances, you have become two amazing young women, smart and beautiful, but more importantly, kind and thoughtful and full of passion.  You wore the burden of years in the spotlight so easily.  Of all that I’ve done in my life, I’m most proud to be your dad.

To Joe Biden, the scrappy kid from Scranton who became Delaware’s favorite son:  You were the first choice I made as a nominee, and the best.  Not just because you have been a great vice president, but because in the bargain, I gained a brother.  We love you and Jill like family, and your friendship has been one of the great joys of our life.

To my remarkable staff:  For eight years – and for some of you, a whole lot more – I’ve drawn from your energy, and tried to reflect back what you displayed every day: heart, and character, and idealism.  I’ve watched you grow up, get married, have kids, and start incredible new journeys of your own.  Even when times got tough and frustrating, you never let Washington get the better of you.  The only thing that makes me prouder than all the good we’ve done is the thought of all the remarkable things you’ll achieve from here.

And to all of you out there – every organizer who moved to an unfamiliar town and kind family who welcomed them in, every volunteer who knocked on doors, every young person who cast a ballot for the first time, every American who lived and breathed the hard work of change – you are the best supporters and organizers anyone could hope for, and I will forever be grateful.  Because, yes, you changed the world.

That’s why I leave this stage tonight even more optimistic about this country than I was when we started.  Because I know our work has not only helped so many Americans; it has inspired so many Americans – especially so many young people out there – to believe you can make a difference; to hitch your wagon to something bigger than yourselves.  This generation coming up – unselfish, altruistic, creative, patriotic – I’ve seen you in every corner of the country.  You believe in a fair, just, inclusive America; you know that constant change has been America’s hallmark, something not to fear but to embrace, and you are willing to carry this hard work of democracy forward.  You’ll soon outnumber any of us, and I believe as a result that the future is in good hands.

My fellow Americans, it has been the honor of my life to serve you.  I won’t stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my days that remain.  For now, whether you’re young or young at heart, I do have one final ask of you as your president – the same thing I asked when you took a chance on me eight years ago.

I am asking you to believe.  Not in my ability to bring about change – but in yours.

I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written:

Yes We Can.

Yes We Did.

Yes We Can.

Thank you.  God bless you.  And may God continue to bless the United States of America.