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Since Spying to Benefit Monsanto Is Not Industrial Espionage, It’s Okay

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One of the examples I often raise to show how our government likely uses SIGINT to advantage specific businesses is the way the government helps Monsanto budge into markets uninterested in its products.

One WikiLeaks cable showed the US embassy in Paris planned a “military-style trade war” to benefit Monsanto.

I pointed out that WikiLeaks had revealed that our diplomats had proposed a “military-style trade war” to force Europeans to adopt Monsanto’s controversial products.

The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.

“The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices,” said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.

I have suggested these diplomatic warriors for Monsanto likely relied on intelligence collected by the NSA.

Which is apparently what this 2004 document — described in Laura Poitras and James Risen’s latest describing spying on American law firms — seems to suggest.

Other documents obtained from Mr. Snowden reveal that the N.S.A. shares reports from its surveillance widely among civilian agencies. A 2004 N.S.A. document, for example, describes how the agency’s intelligence gathering was critical to the Agriculture Department in international trade negotiations.

“The U.S.D.A. is involved in trade operations to protect and secure a large segment of the U.S. economy,” that document states. Top agency officials “often rely on SIGINT” — short for the signals intelligence that the N.S.A. eavesdropping collects — “to support their negotiations.”

If they’re using SIGINT for “negotiations,” then they’d surely use it for “military-style” campaigns to “target retaliation” against countries trying to resist a product, wouldn’t they?

Still More Deficit Reduction and “Department of Competitiveness”?!?!?

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Calculated Risk says most of what needs to be said about this article describing the debate within the White House over whether or not to “pivot to jobs” after all.

Tax incentives are the “bigger idea“? It sounds like the debate is between doing nothing and doing very little.

But it’s worth looking at two parts of this argument that appear to be new.

The article reports the Administration is considering proposing great economic policies that it would deliver in a second term. And those ideas? More neoliberal policies that won’t actually create jobs.

The issue is being framed by the 2012 election. Administration officials, frustrated by the intransigence of House Republicans, have increasingly concluded that the best thing Mr. Obama can do for the economy may be winning a second term, with a mandate to advance his ideas on deficit reduction, entitlement changes, housing policy and other issues.

So the side currently winning this debate is not only arguing against a pivot to jobs right now, but arguing it should continue its obsessive focus on the deficit and “entitlement” cuts through a second term.

And housing policy?!?!? This Administration wants to run on a promise to implement more housing policy, an area in which it has thus far achieved unmitigated failure?

But way at the end of the article, there is what I believe is a completely new policy, one which betrays just how misguided this Administration’s economic policy has become. The new big idea? Renaming the Department of Commerce.

The administration may also merge the Department of Commerce, the Office of the United States Trade Representative and some economic divisions at the State Department into a new agency, administration officials said. Possible names include the Department of Jobs or the Department of Competitiveness.

As bad as the suggestion that simply rearranging the Titanic’s deck chairs might be a great new idea is, the underlying implications of this proposed policy change are worse. Someone on Obama’s team thinks that by merging the entity that negotiates deals to send our jobs overseas with the Department of Commerce and those parts of the State Department that serve the interests of Monsanto rather than the American people, you’ll end up with more Jobs or better Competitiveness.

Atrios is right. We’re doomed.

The United States of Monsanto

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Last night, I was on BlogTalkRadio with former Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell talking about WikiLeaks, secrecy, and democracy. As a way to illustrate how the secrecy of diplomatic cables hides a great deal of undemocratic ideas, I raised the emphasis State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy placed in a hearing on WikiLeaks on State’s role in pitching US business.

This formal channel between Washington and our overseas posts provides the Department and other U.S. Government agencies crucial information about the context in which we collectively advance our national interests on a variety of issues. For example, these communications may contain information about promoting American export opportunities, protecting American citizens overseas, and supporting military operations.

I pointed out that WikiLeaks had revealed that our diplomats had proposed a “military-style trade war” to force Europeans to adopt Monsanto’s controversial products.

The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.

“The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices,” said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.

Here’s another example of how our government bureaucracy has decided that Monsanto and highly subsidized American cotton growers are more important than things like funding heating oil for the poor or teachers. {h/t Raj Patel)

On February 18, Republicans in the House of Representatives defeated an obscure amendment to the House Appropriations bill by a 2-to-1 margin. The Kind Amendment would have eliminated $147 million dollars that the federal government pays every year directly to Brazilian cotton farmers. In an era of nationwide belt tightening, with funding for things like education and the U.S. Farm Bill on the chopping block, defending payments to Brazilian farmers may seem curious.

These subsidies are the compromise the US and Brazil have concocted to resolve a trade dispute: Brazilian cotton growers won a case against US cotton subsidies. In response, Brazil proposed suspending its Intellectual Property obligations. Instead, our government effectively agreed to subsidize Brazilian growers to make sure we can continue to pay silly cotton subsidies here in the US without endangering Monsanto’s royalties in Brazil.

In WTO language, Brazil was allowed to suspend its obligations to U.S. companies under the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. This constituted a major threat to the profits of U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto and Pioneer, since Brazil is the second largest grower of biotech crops in the world. Fifty percent of Brazil’s corn harvest is engineered to produce the pesticide Bt, and Monsanto’s YieldGard VT Pro is a popular product among Brazilian corn farmers. By targeting the profits of major U.S. corporations, the Brazilian government put the U.S. in a tough spot: either let the subsidies stand and allow Brazilian farmers to plant Monsanto and Pioneer seeds without paying royalties, or substantially reform the cotton program. In essence, Brazil was pitting the interests of Big Agribusiness against those of Big Cotton, and the U.S. government was caught in the middle.

The two governments, however, managed to come up with a creative solution. In a 2009 WTO “framework agreement,” the U.S. created the Commodity Conservation Corporation (CCC), and Brazil created the Brazilian Cotton Institute (BCI). Rather than eliminating or substantially reforming cotton subsidies, the CCC pays the BCI $147 million dollars a year in “technical assistance,” which happens to be the same amount the WTO authorized for trade retaliation specifically for cotton payments. In essence, then, the U.S. government pays a subsidy to Brazilian cotton farmers every year to protect the U.S. cotton program—and the profits of companies like Monsanto and Pioneer.

Now, how did our country decide this kind of insanity is really in the “national interest”? Who decided Monsanto was a more worthy American “citizen” than the poor and the children?

Blackwater Served as Monsanto’s Intelligence Arm

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Jeremy Scahill has a new piece on Blackwater that is fairly incendiary.

Among other things (I’ll have more to say later), he reveals that Blackwater provided Monsanto with security services in 2008-2009.

According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto—the world’s largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto’s security manager for global issues.

After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson “understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name…. Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for.” Black added that Total Intelligence “would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto.” Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater “could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally.” Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto’s “generous protection budget” but would eventually become a line item in the company’s annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009. [my emphasis]

Click through for the denial Monsanto’s Wilson gave to Scahill: basically, he denied that Monsanto used Blackwater to target animal rights activists, but did use them for “scanning the content of activist blogs and websites.” Not to mention work in Asia and Latin America.

It’s bad enough to have PA’s contractor developing intelligence reports on anti-drilling activists to send to lobbyists. It’s yet another thing when Blackwater’s thugs are tracking those activists.