Good morning 99percenters!

Chris Hedges: “Why should we be impoverished so that the profits of big banks, corporations, and hedge funds can swell?”
Jeremy Hammond's a hero who exposed surveillance-state secrets. His excessive prison sentence should terrify us all

I sat in the front row of a New York federal court in November 2013 the day Jeremy Hammond was sentenced to 10 years in prison for hacking into the computers of a private security firm that works on behalf of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Marine Corps, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and corporations such as Dow Chemical and Raytheon.

Hammond, then age twenty-six, released to WikiLeaks, Rolling Stone, and other publications some 5 million emails in 2011 from the Texas-based company Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor. His four co-defendants, convicted in Great Britain, were sentenced to less time combined—the longest sentence was 32 months—than the 120-month sentence meted out to Hammond. The 5 million email exchanges, once made public, exposed the private security firm’s infiltration, monitoring, and surveillance of protesters and dissidents on behalf of corporations and the national security state. And perhaps most importantly, the information provided chilling evidence that antiterrorism laws are being routinely used by the state to criminalize nonviolent, democratic dissent and falsely link dissidents to international terrorist organizations. Hammond sought no financial gain. He got none.

The email exchanges Hammond provided to the public were entered as evidence in my lawsuit against Barack Obama over Section 1021(b (2) of the National Defense Authorization Act. One of my co-plaintiffs was Alexa O’Brien, a journalist and content strategist who cofounded the U.S. Day of Rage, an organization created to reform the election process. Because of the Hammond leaks, we know that Stratfor officials attempted to falsely link her and her organization to Islamic radicals and websites as well as jihadist ideology, setting her up for detention under the new law. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled, in part because of the leak, that we did as plaintiffs have a credible fear, and she nullified the law, a ruling that the higher appellate court overturned when the Obama administration appealed her ruling.

Hammond’s 10-year sentence was one of the longest in U.S. history for hacking. It was the maximum the judge could impose under a plea agreement in the case. It was wildly disproportionate to the crime—an act of nonviolent civil disobedience that championed the public good by exposing abuses of power by the government and a security firm. But the excessive sentence was the point.

4 U.S. Companies Getting Rich Off Gulf Arab Conflict With Iran
They're are striking contracts with the Department of Defense to supply missiles, helicopters and fighter jets.

In mid-May, President Barack Obama hosted top officials from Gulf Arab states at Camp David, the idyllic presidential retreat in Maryland. The meeting was designed to assure Gulf Arab leaders that the U.S. still has their back, even though the Obama administration is hurtling full-speed ahead toward a landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

Many of the monarchs from the Gulf decided to snub Obama by not showing up for the retreat. Instead, they sent other top officials, a way of showing their displeasure at the impending nuclear deal with Iran, the state they have been battling over Middle East hegemony for years. Despite the snubs, the Obama administration announced at the summit that there will be more security assistance and expedited weapons sales for Gulf Arab states as a way of ensuring their strategic position against Iran.

That promise of more arms is not surprising. In recent years, the Gulf states, flush with oil wealth, have bought massive amounts of American weapons. Since 2010, Gulf Arab states have increased their armaments purchases by 70 percent. Leading the pack is Saudi Arabia, which in 2014 became the world’s largest importer of American-made weapons. One out of every seven dollars spent on weapons in the world comes from the Saudis, according to the IHS’ yearly Global Defence Trade Report.  The Obama administration has overseen the sale of over $64 billion in weapons and defense systems to Gulf nations.

In the past, weapons sales to Gulf Arab nations have been held up because of Israeli concerns over their “qualitative military edge,” the notion that Israel should maintain superior military capabilities over their Arab nations. But that reticence to sell weapons to states like Saudi Arabia has eased in recent years because Israel and the Gulf states share a common interest in boxing in Iran.

Who’s down with TPP?: Big business wins and democracy loses as both parties lie about free trade
Both parties line up to back a job-killing trade deal without even reading it. The hypocrisy is staggering

If you need further proof of your democracy’s ill health, the Senate provided plenty of it this week as it began debating whether to fast track President Obama’s much-beloved Trans Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP). By passing the bill Congress, would divest itself of its constitutional right to amend the agreement. On Thursday, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” signaled it will do just that. Debate will extend into the coming week — but make no mistake, in the Senate, the fix is in.

Acceptance or rejection of the agreement will be the most consequential decision Congress has made since greenlighting the Iraq war. Yet no member of the public has been allowed to read the document. Neither has any member of Congress, really. A copy lies in a locked room in the Capitol basement. There, relieved by security guards of any cell phones, cameras or recorders, members may read it but are not allowed to take any notes.

We gripe about legislators not reading bills, but doing so can be a colossal waste of time. Bills are often literally unreadable. To tell a member of Congress to sit under guard in an airless room perusing an impenetrable text insults not just that member but democracy itself. We shouldn’t castigate those who decline the invitation, just those who’d stop others from making changes to a treaty they haven’t read.

Few in or out of politics grasp the TPP’s epic scope. This is partly due to the secrecy in which it is shrouded but also to how both sides have framed the debate. At stake are rules governing a quarter of all world trade. These rules may well supplant those in other trade agreements and so affect nearly all global trade. But that’s not the all of it, not by a long shot. The first thing you need to know about the trade agreement is that it’s about so much more than trade.

Over 1,000 people sue Japan gov't to halt involvement in TPP

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- More than 1,000 people filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government Friday seeking to halt its involvement in the 12-country talks for a Pacific Rim free trade agreement as "unconstitutional."

A total of 1,063 plaintiffs, including eight lawmakers, claimed in the case brought to the Tokyo District Court that the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact would undermine their basic human rights such as the right to live and know that are guaranteed under the Constitution.

The envisaged pact would not only benefit big corporations but jeopardize the country's food safety and medical systems and destroy the domestic farm sector, according to their written complaint.

The U.S.-led TPP is aimed at setting new terms for trade and investment among the 12 countries bordering the Pacific, accounting for some 40 percent of global gross domestic product. Advocates have said the far-flung trade deal would boost economic growth and create new jobs.