Pierre Omidyar - Libertarian GG's Libertarian Billionaire Boss

[Whisp]

Last edited Tue Jun 3, 2014, 01:11 PM - Edit history (1)

https://libcom.org/library/pierre-omidyar-giving-until-it-hurts

Pierre Omidyar: giving until it hurts - David Matthew Carr

The new media venture from billionaire philanthropist Pierre Omidyar will enlist the muck-raking talents of Glen Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill. Omidyar's record of promoting and funding "free-market solutions" to social problems is a good indicator of what the limitations of the project will be.

Pierre Omidyar is a Punahou school alumnus who holds a bachelor's degree in computer science. He is also the multibillionaire philanthropist behind Hawaii-based Civil Beat, a Right-Libertarian, pro-business, pay-walled media website that focuses its critique on the shortcomings of democratic governance and the public sector. Omidyar's Civil Beat offers analysis which seems to exist in a strange land without class conflict, where the ruling-class and the working-class struggle shoulder to shoulder against the forces corrupting liberal democracy. As a result, the editorial slant is marked by a distinct disconnect from the every-day lives of non-billionaire philanthropists, those who don't stand to gain from the schemes of Omidyar, the "classless angel."
--
One of Omidyar's "value creating" projects has been to invest heavily in the micro-loan industry, through groups like Kiva which allows investors to profit off of loans to the poor, especially in impoverished regions of India. The ideology behind this business venture saw free markets magically lifting all boats where government funding did not. The actual results were often financial collapse, leaving the borrowers prey to lenders demanding repayment. "It is tough to find a household in this village in an impoverished district of Andhra Pradesh that is not deeply in debt to a for-profit microfinance company."

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/extraordinary-pierre-omidyar/

The Extraordinary Pierre Omidyar -- 11:51 a.m. November 15, 2013
By Mark Ames, and Yasha Levine

What all of these orgasmic accounts of Omidyar’s "idealism" have in common is a total absence of skepticism. America's smartest media minds simply assume that Omidyar is an "exceptional" billionaire, a "civic-minded billionaire" driven by "idealism" rather than by profits. The evidence for this view is Pierre Omidyar's massive nonprofit venture, Omidyar Network, which has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars to causes all across the world.

And yet what no one seems able to specify is exactly what ideology Omidyar Network promotes. What does Omidyar's "idealism" mean in practice, and is it really so different from the non-idealism of other, presumably bad, billionaires? It's almost as if journalists can't answer those questions because they haven't bothered asking them.

So let's go ahead and do that now.

Since its founding in 2004, Omidyar Network has committed nearly $300 million to a range of nonprofit and for-profit "charity" outfits. An examination of the ideas behind the Omidyar Network and of the investments it has made suggests that its founder is anything but a "different" sort of billionaire. Instead, what emerges is almost a caricature of neoliberal ideology, complete with the trail of destruction that ensues when that ideology is put into practice. The generous support of the Omidyar Network goes toward "fighting poverty" through micro-lending, reducing third-world illiteracy rates by privatizing education and protecting human rights by expanding property titles ("private property rights&quot into slums and villages across the developing world.

In short, Omidyar Network's philanthropy reveals Omidyar as a free-market zealot with an almost mystical faith in the power of "markets" to transform the world, end poverty, and improve lives—one micro-individual at a time.

All the neoliberal guru cant about solving the world’s poverty problems by unlocking the hidden "micro-entrepreneurial" spirit of every starving Third Worlder is put into practice by Omidyar Network's investments. Charity without profit motive is considered suspect at best, subject to the laws of unintended consequences; good can only come from markets unleashed, and that translates into an ideology inherently hostile to government, democracy, public politics, redistribution of land and wealth, and anything smacking of social welfare or social justice.

[Whisp]

1. The 4 questions:

http://thedailybanter.com/2013/12/why-wikileaks-doesn/

The 4 Questions Glenn Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar Still Haven’t Answered
Ben Cohen on December 13, 2013

To summarize, here are the questions Omidyar and Greenwald have yet to answer:

1. Will Greenwald accept that there’s a conflict of interest in entering into a business partnership with Omidyar whose existing business is in an alleged partnership with the NSA?

2. If so, will Greenwald release any and all documents pertaining to PayPal’s collaboration with the NSA, if they do indeed exist?

3. Are there any contractual agreements with Omidyar about the release of the remaining NSA files and NewCo? Will Omidyar and Greenwald publish them for the public to see?

4. Will Greenwald pledge to cover any potentially corrupt Omidyar’s business practices and hold him and his NSA collaborating business to the same standards he has everyone else?

Greenwald is an expert at applying ludicrously high standards of transparency and accountability to anyone he chooses to focus his laser-like attentions on. When it comes to himself, not so much evidently.

This is how he responded to Sibel Edmonds, founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, when she asked him to clarify exactly what he knew about Paypal’s cooperation with the NSA:

[ProSense]

15. That's some tweet.

Typical Greenwald.

[arthritisR_US]

62. It reminds me of the righty responses I get on discussionist. nt

[Whisp]

67. yeh, GG the 'civil' libertarian. I don't think so!

snort

[arthritisR_US]

71. I'm sorry, you miss interpreted my post due to my daftness in clarity.

GG responds with insults and like a child in the throws of a tantrum. I can't believe how the vast majority of the RW nut jobs I've been dealing with on the other board respond in the very same fashion.

[Vattel]

66. He has responded to such questions.

He says that he has no documents pertaining to NSA's collaboration with PayPal. His response to Edmonds was completely appropriate. If she doesn't want a harsh response, she shouldn't make irresponsible accusations. Greenwald has said that he doesn't deny the relationship between PayPal and the NSA; he just denies that he has documents that shed light on that relationship. Edmonds, being the psychic she apparently is, just knows that Greenwald is hiding something.

[AgingAmerican]

72. The NSA spying makes Obama look authoritarian

Thus his protagonists feel they must defend the indefensible. It is what propagandists do.

[OnyxCollie]

2. The Carlyle Group Has Made $2 Billion Off Of Booz Allen

The Carlyle Group Has Made $2 Billion Off Of Booz Allen
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/06/10/the-carlyle-group-has-made-2-billion-off-of-booz-allen/

In 2008, the Carlyle Group made a large $910 million investment to buy a majority stake in Booz Allen’s government consulting business. The deal saw Booz Allen’s big government advisory unit, which produced most of the firm’s revenue, split off from its corporate consulting group, on the eve of the financial crisis.

But Washington-based Carlyle, which has a long and successful history doing deals involving government contractors, has really made the Booz Allen deal work. It has been an amazing transaction for Carlyle. The private equity firm has made $2 billion in realized and unrealized profits on the Booz Allen Hamilton deal so far. Its $910 million investment is now worth $3 billion.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[snooper2]

8. (OBANOE COUNTY) PROFITS OF CELERY

Los Angeles Herald, Volume XXX, Number 119, 1 February 1903



Association Divides $45,000 So Far This Season

SANTA ANA. Jan. 31.—Rain began falling here at 2 o'clock this morning and came down steadily until daylight, and from then. until noon there were several showers. The precipitation. Is .75 of an inch, making 6.8S for the season The sky Is still threatening. The directors of the Orange Coumty Celery Growers' association have received so far this season from the Golden West CeleQ - and Produce company about $45,000. The Amount for the first pool was SlO.OOO. Payment for December celery will be made the firs'! of February. The total shipments of celery up to January 29 aggregated 930 carloads, as follows: Karl Friut company, 200; Fuy Fruit company. 91; G»ldon West Celery and Produce company, 639. The Edison Electric company Is out with a statement showing tl»at the import recently submitted to the city council In reference to the cost of establishing a municipal lighting plant for the city of Santa Ana is based on incorrect data, and that the actual cost of the proposed plant will greatly exceed the estimate given. The young ladies of the Christian Endeavor cf the Presbyterian church gave a reception last evening ;o the ycung men of the class, a feature of which was a hat-trlmmlng contest engaged in by the young men. Professor Ludwfg Thomas of this city received news today cf the death in Germany of his father. F. G. Thomas, one of the foremost educators of the day. the same letter brought thedriath of Processor Thomas' eldest sister, who died Avithln a Rhort time of her father. Rev. Ralph K. Atchison of Albia, lowa, arrived yesterday to take charge of the Associate Presbyterian Mission. East or west, Cofonado Is brat.


http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19030201.2.209

[Octafish]

13. Inside Information...

Secret Goverment.
Secret Agendas.
Secret Agents.
Secret Beneficiaries.
No Public Accountability.

Hate Greenwald.

Before it was Hate Edmonds.

Always Kill Conspiracy Talk.

PS: Thanks for a great article. NSA's biggest contractor is owned by the BFEE.

[Cha]

68. Yeah, greenwald and omidyar are slimey like the carlyle group.

[Octafish]

3. Guy's not perfect, but he's one of the few billionaires interested in supporting democracy.

That starts with a free press and an informed public.

Most other billionaires are more interested in protecting their Swiss bank accounts than anything else.

I always do hope they'll change, though.

[msanthrope]

5. You mean like this?

Report: Glenn Greenwald’s boss helped U.S. fund Ukrainian opposition groups
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024586380

[Whisp]

9. Pierre seems to have his fingers in $$$ projects around the globe...

I am sure GG's treasure trove of stolen classified information will financially benefit him in many ways, and he'll share the loot with Greenwald and whoever else is on the payroll.

Truly sickening.

[Octafish]

61. You wouldn't happen to have the name of a good billionaire?

Maybe he or she would like to finance a news service that wasn't spun out of Roger Ailes's ass?

Perhaps we should ask Penny Pritzker?

[Whisp]

7. I can't trust a guy who thinks everything is for profit.

He makes money off of the poor, often times leaving them in worse shape after his micro loans. This sounds like the MoneyMarts in America/Canada where they rip the needy off with high fees to cash checks in advance.

This guy is about as Big Capitalism as they go and this fits in squarely with his Libertarianism of the Ron Paul kind. I am surprised he is getting the support that he is, here on DU.

He is one of those greedy predators that Elizabeth Warren is talking about in this video:

[Octafish]

60. That does cast him in an unfavorable light.

Thanks for the heads up. The ones that really tick me off follow "money trumps peace."

[questionseverything]

10. i hope you know i respect you very much oct

but i might disagree on this one (i am honestly not sure yet)

my heart dropped to the floor when i first heard the same guy that let wiki leaks be defunded had hired glenn

he could of promised anything but you know how it goes once you are relying on your employer, that employer has control wether it is spoken or not

with all the talent the new news venture has gathered they are in a position to stop investigative journalism as we know it

that is one side of the coin, the other is, no one could get the info out with out money and power so we have to rely on some 1 %er

the questions sibel brings are worth thinking about...here we are a year into this and still info is trickling out

i am sure that was by plan since the wiki dumps by manning made news for a couple of days and then the ptb were able to change the message...i think that was the reason for the slow roll out but who knows

i know sibel and respect her but she was treated so badly by the ptb about the info she tried to make public i think she is a little shell shocked (as many of us are that have fought the corruption for years)

i am debating myself with this post...anyway here is the quote that ends sibel's article...

Please do not get me wrong here. I have no questions but answers when it comes to the checkbook opportunist in question. I have known about him for years, long before this NSA episode. What I don’t have is an answer when it comes to the NSA whistleblower in question. I have been sitting on the fence on this one. Unlike my own whistleblower members, I do not know this guy. I don’t. I have never corresponded with him, and he has never reached out to me or my organization. I keep going from silently cheering and supporting him, to doubting what he is all about. I have never seen a case like this. I don’t think anyone has. However, in light of the case of our checkbook journalist, Mainstream Publishers’ mega million book deals, Mainstream Hollywood’s mega studio deals, Mainstream Media backing and showcasing, and Mega Corporation’s mega millions getting involved … and in all this, zero retaliation or interference from our mega government known for being ruthless on whistleblowers, I just don’t get this case. - See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/08/checkbook-journalism-leaking-to-the-highest-bidders/#sthash.7pFqIKpX.dpuf

[Octafish]

12. Thanks for the heads-up, questionseverything. Back atcha...

...Please do not hold back when disagreeing with me. The truth is what matters. And I know what type of DUer you are by the kindness you extend others.

Thank you for the background. The Greenwald-Edmonds feud is a head scratcher. You were there when DU was about the only group supporting her, way back when Smirko was running a 90% approval rating and every singleton this side of the Farm was working overtime to destroy her reputation.

Glenn's tweet is a low shot, only understandable to me when considering he and she are, like Mongo in Blazing Saddles, pawns in the game of life.

[questionseverything]

16. bradblog covered her well

SPECIAL COVERAGE: Sibel Edmonds' 2009 Under-Oath Disclosures




http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=8953
Links to The BRAD BLOG's coverage of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds' under-oath disclosures in 2010 (For more backstory on the Edmonds story and our complete coverage going back for years, see our Sibel Edmonds category here.)...

• 2/27/10: OUR MAGAZINE FEATURE ARTICLE ON FBI WHISTLEBLOWER SIBEL EDMONDS IS NOW ONLINE
• 10/21/09: Bush Officials Give (Ironic) 'Denials' to Charges
• 10/5/09: FORMER FBI EXEC SEEKS 'SPECIAL COUNSEL' PROBE, CORROBORATE EDMONDS
• 10/19/09: Top U.S. Scientists Busted Selling Nukes to Israel
• 10/10/09: Turkey, Armenia Sign Historic Accord Following Snags
• 10/4/09: '06 VIDEO: Diane Sawyer on 1st Amendment 'Heroine' Edmonds
• 9/29/09: Ohio Commission's Schmidt v. Krikorian Hearing Ends
• 9/29/09: 17-Year CIA Intel Officer: Edmonds 'Very Credible'
• 9/28/09: FBI Agent Confirms 'Decade-Long' Probe of Grossman
• 9/28/09: Schakowsky Denies on Video Edmonds: 'Sue me for libel then'
• 9/24/09: EDMONDS' LETTER TO REP Invites Congressional investigation
• 9/22/09: SCHAKOWSKY DENIES, REBUTS Edmonds: Take polygraph
• 9/21/09: AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MAG: COVER STORY INTERVIEW
• 9/3/09: 'High Drama' at Schmidt v. Krikorian Hearing

////////////////////////////////

sibel told us of many black op things the fbi/cia did to elected officials...russel tice also mentioned the black ops of nsa but would go no further...as far as i know nothing on that level has been reported by greenwald so it makes me wonder how much truth we will get

as far as the ungentlemanly tweet from greenwald, he has a bit of a temper but so what, he is under huge pressure too

[Whisp]

4. eBay Shrugged: Pierre Omidyar believes there should be no philanthropy without profit

http://pando.com/2014/05/31/ebay-shrugged-pierre-omidyar-believes-there-should-be-no-philanthropy-without-profit/

“I had a long debate with Pierre,” [Nobel Peace Prize winner] Yunus told me, referring to Omidyar. “He says people should make money. I said, Let them make money—but why do you want to make money off the poor people?” — The New Yorker

Despite the sunny progressive Silicon Valley gloss we’ve been fed these past few decades, Modi’s appeal shows that the tech industry is as prone to far-right authoritarian politics as any other industry.

And that is what makes the Omidyar Network story so revealing: Perhaps no other figure embodies the disconnect between his progressive anti-state image, and his factual collaboration with the American national security state and the global neoliberal agenda, than Pierre Omidyar.

The role of Omidyar Network in so many major events of the past week — helping elect India’s ultranationalist leader Narendra Modi; co-funding Ukraine regime-change NGOs with USAID, resulting in a deadly civil war and Monday’s election of Ukrainian billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko; and now, this week’s first-ever sit-down TV interview with Edward Snowden, through an arrangement between NBC News and Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media — shows how these contradictions are coming to the fore, and shaping our world.

Omidyar’s central role in the US national security state’s global agenda may still come as a shock to outsiders and fans of First Look media’s roster of once-independent journalists. But to White House foreign policy hawks, Pierre Omidyar represents the new face of an old imperial tradition.

[SidDithers]

6. DU rec...

Greenwald is a willing tool of the 0.01%.

Sid

[Cali_Democrat]

23. Libertarians like Omidyar and Greenwald believe in completely unfettered free markets. nt

[Whisp]

26. and Fuck Ron Paul.

These people are vile scum predators.

Shame on the ones who call them heroes. *feh!

[Tarheel_Dem]

49. And a completely non-interventionist federal government. n/t

[ucrdem]

11. "reducing third-world illiteracy rates by privatizing education"

Gag. Is there a RW fleece-the-poor scam this guy DOESN'T support?

[Whisp]

14. Sibel Edmonds exposes Omidyar, PayPal:

Submitted by AnCapMercenary on Wed, 12/11/2013 - 22:06
http://www.dailypaul.com/307626/sibel-edmonds-exposes-omidyar-paypal-implicated-in-withheld-nsa-documents-william-binney-russell-tice-confirm

BFP Breaking News- Omidyar’s PayPal Corporation Said To Be Implicated in Withheld NSA Documents
The U.S. Government, An Implicated Billionaire, Fortune-Seeking Journalists & A Public in the Dark



Sibel Edmonds | December 11, 2013

The 50,000-pages of documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden contain extensive documentation of PayPal Corporation’s partnership and cooperation with the National Security Agency (NSA), according to three NSA veterans. To date, no information has been released as to the extent of the working relationship and cooperation between the two entities- NSA and PayPal Corporation. What’s more, the billionaire owner of PayPal Corporation has entered into a $250 Million business partnership with two journalists-Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, a journalist duo who possess the entire cache of evidence provided by Edward Snowden. Despite earlier pledges by the journalists in question, only one percent (1%) of Snowden’s documents has been released.

BFP was recently contacted by a retired NSA official who claims that the documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden contain extensive documentation pertaining to NSA’s partnership with major U.S. financial institutions, including credit card companies and PayPal Corporation. The official, who requested anonymity, also alleges that a deal was made in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved.

--

&feature=youtu.be
Paypal co-founder defends NSA Surveillance

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. DailyPaul and Infowars? You're outdoing yourself! (nt)

[Whisp]

19. I believe my info is from Edmunds Boiling Frogs site...

am I supposed to be responsible for what Alex Jones decides to post at his site (which is NOT linked to here).

You saying that Sibel Edmunds' words don't mean anything because somewhere along the line jones or whoever, linked or copied her stories to their sites??

I'm at a bit of a loss here. I'm sure you can clear that up.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Half of the article on DailyPaul that you linked to is from Infowars

You linked to that, not to Edmonds' site. There is both text and video from infowars, clearly marked.

Since you're struggling, yes, I will clear this up: if you want to say Omidyar is a Libertarian, then don't link to the world's premier Libertarian site - DailyPaul, for an article half of which comes from the world's premier nutball-libertarian site - infowars.

[Whisp]

24. No, the content is from Boiling Frogs. Here:

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/11/bfp-breaking-news-omidyars-paypal-corporation-said-to-be-implicated-in-withheld-nsa-documents/

Is that Alex Jones/info wars there too? Of course, same info here at BFS as in the my other post if you want to look. But a bit juicier actually:

===

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald Goes on Record: “I Don’t Doubt PayPal Cooperates with NSA!”

Sibel Edmonds | December 13, 2013 5 Comments

On December 11, 2013, at 4:16 pm, after the publication of our report on NSA-PayPal partnership and long-going cooperation, Glenn Greenwald responded via twitter, and here is what he said-verbatim:

“I don’t doubt PayPal cooperates with NSA – that this is in the docs that we’ve been paid to withhold are total lies.”

Let’s remain completely verbatim and verified:
John Schoneboom @jrs7000
@ggreenwald Come on. Docs aside, you deny PayPal arrangement with NSA, or consider it irrelevant? Not accusing you, seeking clarification.

Glenn Greenwald ✔ @ggreenwald
Follow
@jrs7000 I don’t doubt Paypal cooperates with NSA – that this is in the docs that we’ve been paid to withhold are total lies.
4:16 PM – 11 Dec 2013
17 RETWEETS 7 FAVORITES

Mr. Greenwald has confirmed the main premise of our news report: PayPal is among corporations that have been providing NSA with our data. However, Mr. Greenwald denies that Edward Snowden’s 50,000-page cache contains any evidence implicating his new boss’ corporation-PayPal. Yet, this same Mr. Greenwald refuses to publicize the documents and prove this claim. At the same time, this exact same Mr. Greenwald demands that we make public all our sources and all our communications with our sources.

Now I am asking Mr. Greenwald to prove his publicly-made claim: That he knows, without a doubt, with one hundred percent certainty, that his new billionaire owner and boss Omidyar’s PayPal Corporation is in fact one of the corporations that has been cooperating with the NSA’s illegal surveillance.

For nearly a decade Glenn Greenwald had justifiably attacked all mainstream media outlets as Corporate Media. However, after he came in possession of the 50,000-page documents implicating the NSA, he entered into a business venture with a Major Corporate Mogul, the billionaire owner of PayPal & eBay Corporations, for $250 million, whom he will be reporting for and under. There exists no doubt that the billionaire Corporation-ist is at least as Corporate as the corporate mainstream media Greenwald spent ten years attacking.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. You didn't link to 'Boiling Frogs', you linked to DailyPaul

From the DailyPaul page you linked to (by 'AnCapMercenary' - I presume that's 'Anarcho-Capitalist Mercenary, but since it's a site you frequent, you may be able to clear that up):

(

UPDATE 1:
Who's Controlling The Snowden Documents and to What Purpose? Link to infowars, followed by video clearly marked 'infowars.com' (you don't even have to play it to see that)
Then text marked "TheAlexJonesChannel"
then links to infowars, prisonplanet, and Alex Jones' twitter feed and facebook page
Then an excerpt from Edmonds
Then another video clearly marked "infowars.com"
then text marked 'infowars.com'

UPDATE 2:
an RT video

UPDATE 3:
an interview of Edmonds by tracesofreality.com
Then another infowars video

What is 'Traces of Reality'? Glad you asked:

Guillermo Jimenez is the host of the Traces of Reality Radio show and Demanufacturing Consent, an exclusive weekly podcast on Boiling Frogs Post. In 2012, he served as a National Delegate for Ron Paul, and is now working to advance the message of liberty outside of politics through a venture into independent media and grassroots activism.
http://tracesofreality.com/about/

This continuous linkage of Ron Paul and Sibel Edmonds is not surprising - she likes him:

Not only that. I want you to look up and checkout the candidates’ photos above. I took these pictures from that same iWatch News story. Please do it. What do you see? A tough and confident looking number 1-Obama. A happy, confident and relaxed smiling Romney. Lip smacking and beaming Newt Gingrich. A typical silly male bimbo on his way out of the race, but too silly to realize it, thus semi-smiling-Santorum. And then, there comes the candidate they list as the last in money raising, bottom of the barrel, the one on the loser-spot – a real worried, grim and sour looking-Ron Paul.

Reality in this case: As far as raising money for the campaign goes, Ron Paul is the third candidate in the race overall, As far as Republican candidates are concerned, Ron Paul is number 2 in both raising and spending money.

We’ve been reading everyday on the establishment media’s belligerent attitude towards Ron Paul and all their attempts to avoid providing coverage when it comes to him. But this? At this level? Come on. This goes way beyond belligerence. It reaches ultimate pathetic levels and makes them look like fools. Or a better way to say it: their role as the establishment’s jokers.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/01/31/media-belligerence-against-ron-paul-reaches-a-pathetic-point/

https://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/05/28/ron-paul-we-live-in-a-dictatorship/
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/11/16/congressman-ron-pauls-farewell-speech-to-congress/

All in all, it seems pretty clear that Edmonds is very supportive of libertarians, such as Paul, so it does seems strange you use her, plus Paulites and the lunatic Alex Jones, to try to paint Omidyar and/or Greenwald as a libertarian.

[Whisp]

35. I should probably change that link in the initial post but

it looks like you are having too much fun, I wouldn't want to spoil things for you.

Besides, Stormfront and infowars are okay to link to here now - but I didn't link to any ufo's are in my underwear drawer story from infowars, or some President is a Piece of Shit story from Stormfront, I was looking for Sibel Edmunds.

About Edmunds, the fact that there are things I disagree with her on, like her apparent something or other respect for Paul, doesn't change the Facts she is reporting on Greenwald - confirming he's a sorry little loser scammer.

[muriel_volestrangler]

43. You may think Stormfront and infowars are okay to link to here now, but I don't

Fuck, I was the one putting most into getting the horrific link to the far right "Asian Privilege" nonsense exposed as a far right hate site.

I can't see anything about Greenwald being a 'scammer' in that DailyPaul page. I assumed you were doing it to slag off Omidyar more, because that seems to matter a lot to you.

[Whisp]

51. No, I don't think they are ok to link here. But the 'community' does.

so I'm not going to hyperventilate about *gasp!, my sin of that link.

I have to go wash my dog right now, see ya!

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. However, Kiva is a non-profit microfinance organisation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva_%28organization%29

so why Mr. Carr thought it was worth quoting from an article about for-profit microfinance comapnies, I don't know.

Indeed, Kiva has been pretty popular on DU: https://www.google.com/search?q=kiva+microloan+|+loan&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com

[Whisp]

28. Six Degrees of Omidyar

http://tomslee.net/2013/09/six-degrees-of-omidyar.html

Six Degrees of Omidyar
September 8, 2013

Start with an old story. Back in 2006 the world of microfinance split between “pure do-gooders and profit-minded do-gooders”, between Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunus and eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Yunus’s Grameen Bank had pioneered group-based credit for the impoverished, but had stayed away from making the Bank into a public company; Omidyar wanted to turn microfinance into a fully commercial, profit-making sector.
---
Microfinance operates at the border between charity and business. LAPO was for several years a major partner of Omidyar-funded “peer-to-peer” lender Kiva, until Kiva cut ties in 2010. The episode highlighted a fact that was worrying some observers, including David Roodman: “peer-to-peer” lending is not actually peer-to-peer, instead Kiva works with intermediary partners which in turn make loans which were not, as many thought, interest-free.

[Update: a version of this post, re-edited in the light of the Omidyar/Greenwald news venture, is now at The New Inquiry: Charity Assets.]
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/charity-assets/

Charity Assets
By Tom Slee

--
Change.org is one example of how adopting the Omidyar vision can boost “enterprise” at the cost of “social”, and has many parallels to the new journalism venture. The site has long presented itself as a non-profit organization (a .org), and has gained widespread support on that basis. But it was actually privately owned, and in 2012 it stepped out from behind its non-profit front, allowing “corporate advertising, Republican Party solicitations, astroturf campaigns, anti-abortion or anti-union ads and other controversial sponsorships (insert fucking puke).” Then in May 2013 it took venture capital from the Omidyar Network and others in order to scale up, and the nature of the organization changed.

The Omidyar/Change.org press release uses the standard language of social entrepreneurs: blandly inspirational and content-free.

[Mojorabbit]

63. Yes, we still have a team there. Thank you for remembering. nt

http://www.kiva.org/team/democratic_underground

[Cali_Democrat]

21. Interesting read

Thanks.

[AgingAmerican]

22. NSA domestic spying still sucks

nt

[Whisp]

25. I can agree with that mostly, but GG and Co. Libertarians suck more. n/t

[AgingAmerican]

27. No, domestic spying by our own government

sucks more and effects way more people negatively. Especially when it is done under a Democratic administration.

[Whisp]

29. GG and Co. give a shit about domestic spying. It's a ruse, it's bait for the gullible.

They are pushing the same buttons for reactions like the gun nutz and NRA do about 'right to bear arms', same sensitivity to right to privacy people are reacting in the same way for the same reasons. Buttons, push push, work work on everyone - left, right, middle top bottom everywhere else.

Omidyar and Co, which includes Libertarians Brothers like GG and Snowden and the rest, are only interested in stripping the government of powers and regulations resulting in making bigger profits on anything that moves (too often moving poor people) regardless of moral questions.

[AgingAmerican]

30. So you are saying domestic spying didn't happen?

It's a 'hoax'?

Do you know that your position is a ''Logical Fallacy'?

[Whisp]

32. No, I'm saying Omidyar and Co. are using people's fear for profit. Just like the NRA.

same shit, different pile.

[AgingAmerican]

36. No

You are smearing the messenger, which is a logical fallacy.

Logical fallacies are always invalid because their conclusion does not follow their premises.

Your conclusion (NSA spying is acceptable, or irrelevant) does not follow from your premise (Snowden and Greenwald are allegedly Libertarians).

[Whisp]

40. I disagree wholeheartedly. I am seeing the same kinds of reactions from the groups.

You will never convince a hard core NRAer that evil Obama isn't after all your guns and all your freedoms.

And you will never convince hard cores anti-NSA/Govt that evil Obama isn't after all your private information and all your freedoms.

[AgingAmerican]

42. Are you pro NSA?

Or are you against NSA domestic spying?

[Whisp]

45. pro NSA meaning I like the idea of cameras and intrusion into

every facet of everyone's private life? Because that is what I am hearing on DU - that this complete invasion of privacy is what the NSA is after or is doing right now.

Whether it's the NRA or NSA, Obama and those libruls want to take ALL our guns and ALL our privacy and ALL our freedom away. Everything is superlative in manipulation land.

Thankyou for making my point for me.

In regards to how I personally feel about the NSA:
I don't feel threatened now any more than when I realized, quite a few years ago now, that there is information gathered on us by the government, my SSN, my birth certificate, my drivers licence, a whole buncha stuff and probably more than I think too. I fear what corporations do with that info more than what the government does, actually.

In regards to how I personally feel about the NRA, while I am at it:
Scammer fucks only interested in money and profits, at any cost to the public, and control of the people they feed misinformation and fear. Pretty much how I feel about Omidyar about now.

[AgingAmerican]

46. So you are pro NSA domestic spying

The NRA is irrelevant to this conversation.

[Whisp]

48. No. Is there a case proven that NSA spies domestically?

I mean that the initial Target is an American,
not that an American may have ties and phone calls overseas to suspects.

I've not heard of a case, but I sure could have missed it. Can you site it? And human beings being the foible riddled idiots we are too often, yes, I could easily believe that some asshole went rebel and did shit s/he shouldn't have. Or that some deep Repig mole that was placed there by Poppy Bush is still doing business on the side for his buds, against standard practices. On the whole, these are just mostly regular people trying to do a good job.

Or I guess we can wait for that list GG is promising, of all the Americans that NSA spies on. I'm willing to bet that that revelation won't be quite as juicy as GG makes it sound. But time will tell.

I think the NRA comparison is very relevant and if you don't think so, that is quite fine but the similarities are rather shocking.

[Cerridwen]

33. What role does Spiegel Online play?

They have an ongoing series about the NSA and spying. http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/nsa_spying_scandal/

Then, of course, there's the Electronic Frontier Foundation; since this story is so closely tied to information and technology; what is their role in this? They too have a series of articles about the NSA and spying with discussion about the technology used. https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

Here's a presentation by EFF's Senior Staff Attorney at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress [30c3] by the Chaos Computer Club [CCC] in Hamburg, Germany:

&index=99&list=PLOcrXzpA0W82rsJJKrmeBlY3_MS0uQv3h

There were several other presentations at the 30c3 also addressing technology, the NSA, and spying:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOcrXzpA0W82rsJJKrmeBlY3_MS0uQv3h

What do you think might be 30c3's role in all this?

Have you heard of Mikko Hermanni Hyppönen? Yeah, I hadn't either until I saw this TED talk,

then checked for background on him. According to the links on his wiki:

Since the 1990s, Hyppönen has assisted law enforcement in the United States, Europe and Asia on cybercrime cases and advises governments on cyber crime.[5] His team has been responsible for taking down the Sobig.F botnet.[6]

In 2004, Hyppönen co-operated with Vanity Fair on a feature, The Code Warrior, which examined his role in the Blaster and Sobig Computer worms.[7]

Hyppönen has keynoted or spoken at various conferences around the world, including, Black Hat, DEF CON, DLD,[8] Hack In The Box Security Conference[9] and RSA. In addition to data security events, Hyppönen has delivered talks at general-interest events, such as TED, TEDx, DLD, SXSW and Google Zeitgeist. He's also spoken at various military events, including AFCEA events and the NATO CCD COE's ICCC. Hyppönen is a reserve officer in the Finnish Army.[10]

Hyppönen has been a member of the advisory board of IMPACT (International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats) since 2007 together with Yevgeny Kaspersky, Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Professor Fred Piper and John Thompson.[11]

Hyppönen is a columnist for BetaNews and Wired.[12] He has also written on his research for CNN.

In 2011, he was ranked 61st in Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers report.[13]

The two greatest tools of our time have been turned into government surveillance tools. I'm talking about the mobile phone and the internet. George Orwell was an optimist.
—Hyppönen on the PRISM surveillance in 2013[14]

Check the links at his wiki to confirm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikko_Hypp%C3%B6nen

Is he connected to Omidyar you think?

I highly recommend you not check out any recent DefCon presenters.

[Whisp]

37. Mikko Hypponen

I saw this guy on TED a few months ago.

http://mikko.hypponen.com/

All sounds good until you realize he is selling you stuff to protect yourself from the evil NSA so hyping up fear is in his financial interest.

The rest of your links, I will look into, can't right now for time, there's a lot there!

[Cerridwen]

39. I may have misunderstood the talk he gave to which I linked,

but I'm pretty sure he wasn't selling anything. Then of course, there's his whole background in working with governments to track cyber crime. I'm sure it was just marketing.

[Whisp]

41. on the actual TED video, I don't think he was selling...

maybe a mention of what he does but the vid itself was info not info mercial.

I googled his name right after the show and found out he deals in web site security and stuff like that so I gave him a big loud raspberry.

[Cerridwen]

44. Ah. So all his experience in cyber security is null and void if he profits from it?

^ Helen Martin (November 2010). "Conference report, Vancouver expedition" (PDF). pp. 6–7. Retrieved 2012-08-06.
^ a b "short bio".
^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers".
^ "50 Most Important People on the Web". March 5, 2007.
^ "Mikko Hypponen background at TEDxRotterdam".
^ "TED profile".
^ Shnayerson, Michael (January 2004). "The Code Warrior". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2013-09-13.
^ "Mikko Hypponen: Clipping of CYBERWARFARE, CRIME AND SECURITY (DLD Conference 2013)".
^ "Mikko Hypponen: Behind Enemy Lines (Hack In The Box Security Conference 2012)".
^ "The Finnish Defence Forces Annual Report 2010".
^ "List of the members of the advisory board of IMPACT".
^ "Wired Columns by Mikko Hypponen". 2012-06-01.
^ Foreign Policy. The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers. December 2011.
^ GCHQ and NSA outsourcing cyber security tasks to third-party vendors V3.co.uk, 2013
^ "USA Today – Documentary examines the inception of PC viruses 25 years ago". 2011-03-08.
^ "Mikko Hypponen: Combattere i virus, difendere la rete".
^ "YoutTube – Brain: Searching for the first PC virus in Pakistan".
^ "Scientific American – Malware Goes Mobile".
^ "Twitter account @mikko".
^ "ZDNet – Twitter suspends security researcher's account as a threat".
^ "Webuser – Twitter ban for security expert".


Damn! No wonder the IT industry pays so lousy these days.

[Whisp]

50. I didn't trust him. That's my choice.

Scary Boogymen all over! Hide, it's so Scarey! I have proof!

By the way, I also have this awesome Popeil Pocket BoogyFisherman that can make you Safe! For a mere, $99.99 plus shipping charges.


ummm, no thanks.

[Cerridwen]

52. Fortunately, people who care about cyber-security on an international scale,

and who understand technology, don't agree with you.

By the way, anything to say about EFF or Spiegel Online? I noticed you kind of zeroed in on this guy to the exclusion of the others since you didn't have a lot of time to check out the others.

[Whisp]

54. I was a bit offended that he was on TED talks

That was my beef with it all mostly because I respect TED talks as a whole and learn so much interesting things there I would never hear anywhere else and that sort of tainted it a bit for me.

The fact he is trying to sell his product is no big deal, of course that on it's own is nothing to even comment on - it was the association with TED. Which I am sure is not pure either.

[Cerridwen]

56. Then the Vanity Fair article from 2004 will really make things tough for you.

Especially the part I emphasised.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2004/01/virus-hunters-200401?currentPage=all

The Code Warrior
The nightmare began in August with Blaster, a new kind of virus, which infected computers through their Internet connections, without e-mails or attachments, replicated on its own, and may have played a role in the recent blackout in the U.S. Northeast. A week later, things got worse: the sixth version of SoBig,a virus more sophisticated and cunning each time it appeared, was programming innocentcomputers to an unknown sinister end. In Finland, Michael Shnayerson learns how a ponytailed virus hunter, Mikko Hypponen, raced to defuse the threat—and how lethal these cyber-plagues can be.

<snip>

No surprise, then, that the boom in I.T.—information technology—has fostered a plucky start-up here to guard that information from hackers and virus writers. F-Secure—the name means nothing, but to its founders sounded “cool”—went public in November 1999 during the dot-com wave and saw its stock soar more than a thousand percent, briefly making its young C.E.O., Risto Siilasmaa, the richest man in Finland, to his utter mortification. (Finns are different.) The stock is back where it started, but the company is profitable, in large part because of its crack anti-virus team.

Siilasmaa and the corporate brass enjoy harbor views from the modernist glass boxes where F-Secure has its headquarters, in an industrial area at the western end of Helsinki. Hypponen and his young programmers look out the back from bare, unlit offices onto a dreary street, but none seems to mind: their eyes are glued to their computer screens. Some 600 viruses hit the Internet each month—more than 80,000 have plagued it to date—and Hypponen’s team has to deal with most of them, posting fixes online twice a day to the far-flung corporate clients of F-Secure’s anti-virus program. The pressure, especially when a Level One virus hits, is intense.

“This year, 2003, was the worst in virus history,” says Hypponen, whose good looks, easygoing charm, and perfect command of American jargon make him stand out in your average gathering of European computer wonks. In that terrible year, he says, one month was the worst: “The whole of August was just a nightmare.”

Much more at link.

[Whisp]

57. still wouldn't buy anything from Hypponen, but great good work is being done.

I can't object to that.

just a quirk of mine.

[riderinthestorm]

34. So if someone's boss isn't ideologically pure enough for anonymous internet dudes

that's also cause for instant dismissal of that person/DUer/journalist etc?

Really?

I'd love to know what world you live in that allows you to ensure everyone around you is ideologically pure enough for you all before you have a working relationship with them.

Cause I sure don't. I can tell you for a fact that at least half of my clients are hard core Rethugs. So is my equine chiropractor and farrier. But because we're all adults and are looking for a quality result, we all manage to work well together.

Your attempt to smear people who actually have professional working relationships with others who may differ politically or ideologically is crazy. Or that we are somehow lessened because of that working relationship is very bizarre.

But have at it. Says way more about you all then the rest of us adults who actually deal with the real world.

I won't be back on this thread since its soooo not worth it. I've learned that dialogue is futile on this type of shit.

Feel free to slay me in my absence....

[Whisp]

38. There's a lot of distance between ideologically pure and filthy money grubbing ghoul. n/t

[Vattel]

70. Well-said. Smearing Greenwald and Snowden is a sport around here.

Now we have Sibel Edmonds recklessly accusing Greenwald of hiding stuff damaging to his employer and demanding that Greenwald prove that there is a relationship between PayPal and NSA (even though Greenwald says the documents he has doesn't provide such proof). It gets crazier and crazier.

[grasswire]

47. do you have a news story about Omidyar?

Or just opinion pieces?

[Jackpine Radical]

53. Since when do "investors" in Kiva make anything from their "investments?"

I "invested" a small amount in Kiva that goes to interest-free loans, and recycle the money into new loans as the old ones are paid off. I also periodically contribute a percentage of the loan amount to help fund Kiva. If it's some sort of for-profit deal, I'll pull my money from it & place it somewhere that it does more good.

[Whisp]

55. Apparently the Omidyar kind do. There is more info out there on that.

The split that happened in about 2007 (?) where the profiteers come into the pic and Omidyar rode in on his foaming horse to grab some. he's not associated with them any more, since 2010. So some news says, and that is good unless some other predator took up his space.

[Whisp]

58. Do more research, please. There are good people out there doing good things

with Kiva.

Some bandits just come around and screw things up sometimes and that is shameful.

[Cerridwen]

59. Charity Navigator Ratings gives them 4 stars...

Rating Score (out of 70) FYE 12/2012


Overall 68.76 4 stars
Financial 68.26 4 stars
Accountability & Transparency 70.00 4 stars

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12978

I'm pretty sure Charity Navigator is a decent source.

[JEB]

64. Fuck Rand Paul and

fuck the NSA with a rusty wire brush.

[riderinthestorm]

65. Oh. And Greenwald is not a Libertarian

Her's a civil libertarian. But you knew that...

[Cha]

69. Riiiight.."odios and repugnant" Greenwald is "not" a Libertarian.. so quit saying that..

The GG fanclub is evidently ashamed of his libertarianism and are trying to rebrand him as anything but..

Libertarians are poisoning the left and trying to undermine it.

Libertarians are posing as liberals and trying to RATFUCK the left.Their primary goal is to undermine the Democratic Party and hand elections to Republicans.Their strategy consists of...
1) ingratiating themselves with the progressive media
2) Pushing the meme that Democrats are just as bad (or worse) then Republicans
3) Dismissing Racism as "identity politics"
4) Promoting far right wing politicians as "true progressives"
5 convincing disgruntled progressives to vote 3rd party or not vote at all
6) Attack traditional Democratic Voters & their issues

snips//

At a talk given the day after the 2010 election — one that was a disaster for Democrats — “progressive” writer and civil liberties lawyer Glenn Greenwald gave a talk at the University of Wisconsin, and expressed the hope that Democrats might suffer the same fate in 2012.

...the idea that taking money from the Koch brothers for a one-year drug-decriminalization project shouldn’t be disclosed each time Greenwald attacks progressives while defending the Kochs’/libertarians’ pet projects—as when Greenwald defended Citizens United, much to progressives’ confusion, or when Greenwald attacked our article in The Nation about the Koch-funded libertarians leading the anti-TSA union campaign—is plain wrong and ridiculous. Payoffs and influence-peddling usually come in more subtle forms than payments marked “BRIBE.”

dkos

Glenn Greenwald Unethically Taped Witnesses While Working for Matt Hale, White Supremacist.

snip..

"Mr. Hale, for his role in the shootings, was sued by a number of survivors. This included a case filed by two teenage Orthodox Jewish boys. And another case filed by a Black minister. These people were selected by Benjamin Smith because they looked like the religious/ethnic minorities they are.

And Glenn Greenwald called them 'odious and repugnant' for suing his client--"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002101211

Only it's Greenwald who is "odious and repugnant".. whatever he's posing as.. here he is now trying to keep himself relevant and suppressing the vote in 2012.. when he "expertly previewed the 2012 election"..

[Whisp]

73. kick