Edward Snowden: 'The people are still powerless, but now they're aware'

Five years after historic NSA leaks, whistleblower tells the Guardian he has no regrets

Edward Snowden remains in exile in Russia. Photograph: Alan Rusbridger for the Guardian


Edward Snowden-Mon 4 Jun 2018 

Edward Snowden has no regrets five years on from leaking the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history. He is wanted by the US. He is in exile in Russia. But he is satisfied with the way his revelations of mass surveillance have rocked governments, intelligence agencies and major internet companies.

In a phone interview to mark the anniversary of the day the Guardian broke the story, he recalled the day his world – and that of many others around the globe – changed for good. He went to sleep in his Hong Kong hotel room and when he woke, the news that the National Security Agency had been vacuuming up the phone data of millions of Americans had been live for several hours.

Snowden knew at that moment his old life was over. “It was scary but it was liberating,” he said. “There was a sense of finality. There was no going back.”

What has happened in the five years since? He is one of the most famous fugitives in the world, the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, a Hollywood movie, and at least a dozen books. The US and UK governments, on the basis of his revelations, have faced court challenges to surveillance laws. New legislation has been passed in both countries. The internet companies, responding to a public backlash over privacy, have made encryption commonplace.

Snowden, weighing up the changes, said some privacy campaigners had expressed disappointment with how things have developed, but he did not share it. “People say nothing has changed: that there is still mass surveillance. That is not how you measure change. Look back before 2013 and look at what has happened since. Everything changed.”

The most important change, he said, was public awareness. “The government and corporate sector preyed on our ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying. The revelations made the fight more even.”

He said he had no regrets. “If I had wanted to be safe, I would not have left Hawaii (where he had been based, working for the NSA, before flying to Hong Kong).”

His own life is uncertain, perhaps now more than ever, he said. His sanctuary in Russia depends on the whims of the Putin government, and the US and UK intelligence agencies have not forgiven him. For them, the issue is as raw as ever, an act of betrayal they say caused damage on a scale the public does not realise.

This was reflected in a rare statement from Jeremy Fleming, the director of the UK surveillance agency GCHQ, which, along with the US National Security Agency. was the main subject of the leak. In response to a question from the Guardian about the anniversary, Fleming said GCHQ’s mission was to keep the UK safe: “What Edward Snowden did five years ago was illegal and compromised our ability to do that, causing real and unnecessary damage to the security of the UK and our allies. He should be accountable for that.”

Jeremy Fleming of GCHQ addresses a security conference. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

The anger in the US and UK intelligence communities is over not just what was published – fewer than 1% of the documents – but extends to the unpublished material too. They say they were forced to work on the assumption everything Snowden ever had access to had been compromised and had to be dumped.

There was a plus for the agencies. Having scrapped so much, they were forced to develop and install new and better capabilities faster than planned. Another change came in the area of transparency. Before Snowden, media requests to GCHQ were usually met with no comment whereas now there is more of a willingness to engage. That Fleming responds with a statement reflects that stepchange.
In his statement, he expressed a commitment to openness but pointedly did not credit Snowden,
saying the change predated 2013. “It is important that we continue to be as open as we can be, and I am committed to the journey we began over a decade ago to greater transparency,” he said.
Others in the intelligence community, especially in the US, will grudgingly credit Snowden for starting a much-needed debate about where the line should be drawn between privacy and surveillance. The former deputy director of the NSA Richard Ledgett, when retiring last year, said the government should have made public the fact there was bulk collection of phone data.

The former GCHQ director Sir David Omand shared Fleming’s assessment of the damage but admitted Snowden had contributed to the introduction of new legislation. “A sounder and more transparent legal framework is now in place for necessary intelligence gathering. That would have happened eventually, of course, but his actions certainly hastened the process,” Omand said.
The US Congress passed the Freedom Act in 2015, curbing the mass collection of phone data. The UK parliament passed the contentious Investigatory Powers Act a year later.

Ross Anderson, a leading academic specialising in cybersecurity and privacy, sees the Snowden revelations as a seminal moment. Anderson, a professor of security engineering at Cambridge University’s computer laboratory, said: “Snowden’s revelations are one of these flashbulb moments which change the way people look at things. They may not have changed things much in Britain because of our culture for adoring James Bond and all his works. But round the world it brought home to everyone that surveillance really is an issue.”

MPs and much of the UK media did not engage to the same extent of their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, the US, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Among the exceptions was the Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert, who pressed the issue until he lost his seat in 2015. “The Snowden revelations were a huge shock but they have led to a much greater transparency from some of the agencies about the sort of the things they were doing,” he said.

One of the disclosures to have most impact was around the extent of collaboration between the intelligence agencies and internet companies. In 2013, the US companies were outsmarting the EU in negotiations over data protection. Snowden landed like a bomb in the middle of the negotiations and the data protection law that took effect last month is a consequence.

One of the most visible effects of the Snowden revelations was the small yellow bubble that began popping up on the messaging service WhatsApp in April 2016: “Messages to this chat and calls are now secured with end-to-end encryption.”

Before Snowden, such encryption was for the targeted and the paranoid. “If I can take myself back to 2013,” said Jillian York, the director for international freedom of expression at the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “I maybe had the precursor to [the encrypted communication app] Signal on my phone, TextSecure. I had [another email encryption tool] PGP, but nobody used it.” The only major exception was Apple’s iMessage, which has been end-to-end encrypted since it was launched in 2011.

Developers at major technology companies, outraged by the Snowden disclosures, started pushing back. Some, such as those at WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook a year after the story broke, implemented their own encryption. Others, such as Yahoo’s Alex Stamos, quit rather than support further eavesdropping. (Stamos is now the head of security at Facebook.)

“Without Snowden,” said York. “I don’t think Signal would have got the funding. I don’t think Facebook would have had Alex Stamos, because he would have been at Yahoo. These little things led to big things. It’s not like all these companies were like “we care about privacy”. I think they were pushed.”

Other shifts in the technology sector show Snowden’s influence has in many ways been limited. The rise of the “smart speaker”, exemplified by Amazon’s Echo, has left many privacy activists baffled. Why, just a few years after a global scandal involving government surveillance, would people willingly install always-on microphones in their homes?

“The new-found privacy conundrum presented by installing a device that can literally listen to everything you’re saying represents a chilling new development in the age of internet-connected things,” wrote Gizmodo’s Adam Clark Estes last year.

Towards the end of the interview, Snowden recalled one of his early aliases, Cincinnatus, after the Roman who after public service returned to his farm. Snowden said he too felt that, having played his role, he had retreated to a quieter life, spending time developing tools to help journalists protect their sources. “I do not think I have ever been more fulfilled,” he said.

But he will not be marking the anniversary with a “victory lap”, he said. There is still much to be done. “The fightback is just beginning,” said Snowden. “The governments and the corporates have been in this game a long time and we are just getting started.”

Letter from the land of the Great Khan

China’s turn to its domestic market may yield mixed results

Kumar David-June 2, 2018, 8:07 pm 

Why are there two Mongolias, the country Mongolia often called Outer Mongolia (OM) and the Chinese province Inner Mongolia (IM)? The answer lies in 600-year-old history. First a few dates: Genghis Khan (1162-1227) the Great Khan, ruled for 37 years (1190-1227); his grandson Kublai Khan (1215-1294) ruled for 34 years (1260-1294) and extended Mongol rule to China. In between, Genghis’s sons Ogedei, Jochi, Chagatai and other grandsons extended the empire in southern Russia, central Asia, Turkey, Mesopotamia and northern Persia. The Mongol Empire, the second largest ever, was 24 million sq. km at its peak; the British Empire at peak was 35 million sq. km. For comparison, SL is 66 thousand sq. km, population 21.5 million; OM is 1.6 million sq. km, population 3 million, 96% Mongol; IM is 1.2 million sq. km, population 25 million, 17% Mongol and 80% Han Chinese.

Kublai annexed China and founded the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty which held sway from 1271 to 1368. After his death the logistics of empire were too much for the unsophisticated Mongols and the conquests in Central Asia, Russia, and the East splintered into smaller khanates. Inner squabbles were the harbinger of disintegration; self-immolation lessons that the USA and a fractured EU are learning the hard way now. The Mongol invasions led to millions of deaths and man-made climate change; the lives lost in Genghis’ battles helped clear 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere and cooled the planet - www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/jan/26/genghis-khan-eco-warrior.

There is one huge misunderstanding about Genghis that I need to clear up for those who, like this ignoramus, did not know. Genghis was not merely a conqueror, destroyer and ruthless slayer; he was more than that. He was a nation builder, unifier of Mongol tribes, promoter of education and meritocracy, patron of the Mongolian script, creator of laws and tolerated religious diversity. He was a great-grassland version of Napoleon, 600 years before the Corsican-Frenchman.

How could I resist the temptation to visit the land of the Great Khan when my political guide was Comrade Bikyimchui of the Mongol CP’s central committee who encouraged me with my Essays on the Global Economic Crisis (Ecumenical Institute – 2010)? I was unsurprised that a Mongolian was a devotee of Genghis, but taken aback that my comrade was an avid fan of Genghis videos! In IM I found not a statue or museum piece of Mao; it was Genghis here, there, everywhere. The three things that impressed me most were the Mongolian Museum in Ho Hot, which laid out how nomads emerged, millennia ago, as humans divided into settled agricultural peoples, and nomads like the Aryans who exploded out of Central Asia into North India and Westward; secondly the Genghis Mausoleum (a museum since the burial site of no great khan has ever been found); and thirdly the vast grasslands. Pastoral nomads rely on their animals for survival and move habitat several times a year in search of water and grass for their herds. Their lifestyle is precarious, constant migration discourages transport of reserves of food and goods. They leave no graveyards as they may never return to the same place. This explains why the khans have no burial sites.

Infrastructure excess

in the hinterland

It is amazing, literally incredible how much expenditure has been sunk into some of China’s hinterland. In Inner Mongolia (IM) it’s on an Ozymandian scale. The most stunning, if you want to call it that, is the city of Ordos known as "China’s ghost city". Six-lane beautifully laid out roads but hardly a human in sight, vast verdant parks sans frolicking kids or leisure seekers (this is late spring mind you), imposing concert halls, rows of vacant apartment blocks which in appearance would do Dubai proud, and mighty government buildings to administer an urban population less than half of Colombo’s. One new area "intended to have 300,000 residents, government figures stated, had only 28,000". Over investment on wasteful infrastructure has attracted criticism and rebuke.

Three subway projects in IM’s provincial capital Ho Hot have been put on hold; trains are under patronised! An expressway linking Ho Hot to Ordos has been suspended.

The provincial government has admitted to doctoring 2016 growth upward by 40% and fiscal revenue upward by 26%. The north-eastern rust-belt province of Liaoning made a similar confession when the authorities said its cities and counties fabricated fiscal data between 2011 and 2014. The fear is that if China turns sharply to its domestic market to sustain a high growth in the wake of a trade-war with the US, wasteful infrastructure expenditure will balloon. Provincial governments, driven by their own ambitions, promote profligacy, borrow recklessly and mire themselves in debt.

My view is that there are two brakes on this. The trade-war is fizzling out; Trump is all piss and wind, no substance. Negotiations have put tariffs and counter-tariffs threatening $100 billon of bilateral trade on hold. China verbally promised to reduce its $300-$400 billion trade surplus, import $50 billion of US natural gas and increase agricultural imports by 30 to 40 percent, but did not accept the demand it cut the trade surplus by US$200 billion. China also used the talks to get the US to lift the ban on ZTE - one of its largest telecom companies – from purchasing crucial US components. The company which employs 80,000 people was accused of illegal shipments to Iran and North Korea.

The most significant US demands went by default. US insistence that China curb its "Made-in-China-2025" programme designed to push it into global co-leadership in technology – AI, robotics, digital electronics, aviation and space and military products – was rejected. The trade crisis is not over and the two sides will bristle at each other from time to time, but urgency for China to switch to the domestic market to sustain growth has been ameliorated.

The second reason is to do with the way the North Korean calculus is panning out. Three weeks ago I mapped out Kim Jong Un’s Game-Plan (Sunday Island 13 May); things are going pretty much as predicted. The US is being marginalised, the North and South seem to have an unambiguous strategy of their own; Donald is tumbling like a jack-in-the-box. The South will keep the US pacified but that’s only a sideshow. The Kim-Trump summit is still uncertain and in any case result only in anodyne pronouncements. The pace and manner of denuclearisation, easing sanctions, investment and economic development in the North, will be pretty much set by the two Koreas themselves.

China is waiting in the wings as the big hitter to move in and replace the US, not strategically but as lead economic partner. If these developments are smooth, Japan too has capital to export. I can see a new foursome strong economic-gathering emerging within five years. The US under its mad hatter is isolating itself – in Europe and the Middle East as well – and fading away sooner than the changing face of global conditions make it necessary. The relevance of all this to this piece is that if China finds new economic fields in which to play ball, infrastructure profligacy can be curbed.

Vegetable prices jump in India as farmers go on strike

A vendor speaks on his mobile phone as he maintains his ledger book at a stall selling vegetables in Mumbai, June 4, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

Rajendra Jadhav-JUNE 4, 2018 -

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Vegetable prices jumped as much as 10 percent in major Indian cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, as a four-day old strike by millions of farmers curtailed supplies.
Farmers began their 10-day protest on Friday to press demands such as farm loan waivers and higher prices for produce such as cereals, oilseeds and milk.

“Wholesale prices of some vegetables like tomatoes and french beans have risen due to lower supplies,” said a Mumbai-based vegetable vendor Mahesh Gupta.

Outbreaks of rural discontent poses a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who promised when he came to power in 2014 to double farm incomes in five years.

Farmers in eight states, mostly ruled by Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party, have restricted supplies of vegetable and milk to the cities’ markets.

“We are distributing milk and vegetables to the poor and needy, but we’ve decided not sell. The basic idea is to highlight the plight of farmers who have been overlooked by the government,” said Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer based in Punjab.

Prices for many crops have fallen sharply, while the price of diesel has gone up, squeezing millions of India’s mostly small-scale farmers.

Last year six farmers were killed in similar protests that became violent in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

In recent days, farmers blocked highways in some places and poured milk onto roads. The protests have been peaceful so far, although organisers are planning to increase the intensity in coming days.

“The government hasn’t fulfilled promises it had given last year. We have no option but to intensify our protests,” said Ajit Nawale, state general secretary, All India Kisan Sabha, one of the farmers’ union participating in the strike.

 

Two-thirds of India’s 1.3 billion people depend directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihood, but farm incomes only account for 14 percent of gross domestic product, reflecting a growing divide between the countryside and wealthier cities.

“I am stocking up vegetables for the entire week,” said Anjali Salunkhe, a housewife in Mumbai, fearing prices could double as they did during protests last year.

Why Bangladesh’s politics are broken

by T.J. / BANYAN-Feb 2nd 2015

FOR the past month Bangladesh, a country of nearly 160m people, has (yet again) been paralysed. The opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, has been confined to a party office in the capital, Dhaka. Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been staging a nationwide blockade of roads, railways and waterways. The trigger for the unrest was a banned protest to mark the anniversary on January 5th of last year’s election, in which the incumbent Awami League, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was re-elected easily thanks to an opposition boycott. Nearly 50 people have been killed and more than 10,000 opposition activists arrested. BNP leaders are mostly in jail, in exile or in hiding, and face criminal charges that will probably bar them from running in the next election. This week events appeared to be reaching a head. The government temporarily cut the electricity supply and internet cables to Mrs Zia’s redoubt. In addition to the crippling blockade, she called a three-day national strike from February 1st. Why has politics degenerated into this mess?

Bangladesh suffers a dysfunctional two-party system, in which the two party leaders, the “battling begums”, wage a personal vendetta at the country’s expense. From 1991 they have rotated in office. Because both parties know that the other will rig elections, polls used to be conducted under an interim caretaker administration. In 2006 Mrs Zia’s party, at the end of a particularly corrupt and incompetent stint in office, tried to rig that system too. The army stepped in to back a non-party “technocratic” government, which after two years held an election won in a landslide by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League. The party has used its majority to entrench its power, and make it impossible for the BNP ever to win an election: by abolishing the caretaker system, hounding its leaders and banning its largest coalition partner, Jamaat-e-Islami, for its avowedly Islamic platform. Now the government claims it is combating acts of vandalism and terrorism by the BNP. The opposition accuses the government of trying to create a one-party state. Both sides have a point.

The personal animus between the begums has helped foster a winner-takes-all approach to politics in which the futility of rigged elections forces the opposition on to the streets. Both parties are entrenched across the country; attempts, during the technocratic interregnum, to encourage “third forces” to emerge to challenge them proved fruitless. Bangladesh’s neighbours are unable and perhaps unwilling to meddle in the political deadlock. Despite everything, the country has a fair record of developmental success. And India and the West distrust Mrs Zia, seeing her as both willing to allow China a greater role in the country, and as being soft on Islamist extremism. Sheikh Hasina likes to point out that on her watch no big terrorist attack has taken place in Bangladesh. Nor has one elsewhere been traced back to the country.

However, with the BNP’s transport blockade prompting growing unrest, and victims of arson attacks filling the burns units of hospitals, the climate of repression worsening, the army may feel compelled to intervene. Mindful of its reputation (and lucrative UN peacekeeping duties), it will be wary of an outright coup. But it seems highly unlikely the government can be persuaded to treat the unrest as a political crisis and call fresh elections. So the generals may feel, as they did eight years ago, that they have no option other than to call “time out” on a political brawl that neither side can win.

Oozing Filth of Mind Out

Keeping the freedom of expression under some control has ever been a very serious issue particularly for the countries with a low literacy rate.

by Ali Sukhanver- Jun 3, 2018

( June 3, 2018, Islamabad, Sri Lanka Guardian) Liberty of expression is the most desired demand of the educated ones in every society but we see that this kind of liberty is not very common except a few societies; luckily or unluckily, Pakistan’s is one of those few ones. Here you can say and write whatever you like and you would remain safe until unless the person you talk about takes your words serious. Some people may say that things were quite different almost ten to fifteen years back when the electronic media was not as powerful and advanced as it is now.

There was only one TV channel, the PTV, which was fully under the control and command of the government and it was supported by the Radio Pakistan; also a government institution. It was the reign of President Musharaf when a media revolution brought a lot of changes in the whole of social structure of Pakistan. Gradually this liberty of expression got another ‘wing’ to fly on, that was the social media. In the beginning, the things started in a haphazard way, people misused the newly acquired freedom or liberty of expression, knowingly or unknowingly but later on, the government of Pakistan introduced and implemented different rules and regulations to channelize this liberty of expression. Now situation is very much in control.

Pakistan is now ranked very high in the list of countries where everyone is allowed to say everything using any medium of his own choice. Experts say that freedom of expression is no doubt a very positive trait but it becomes very dangerous rather disastrous if unchecked and without restrictions. To avoid any unpleasant situation with reference to the freedom of expression, though the government of Pakistan has introduced new rules and regulations but still there are some factions of society which are simply distorting the simple face of the things, knowingly or unknowingly by misusing freedom of expression. Unfortunately most of such factions are supported, guided, pushed-up and even financed by some hostile foreign elements like the RAW, NDS and to some extent the CIA. Defaming the Armed Forces and the Intelligence Agencies of Pakistan is one of the most favourite topics for the people belonging to these factions.

Keeping the freedom of expression under some control has ever been a very serious issue particularly for the countries with a low literacy rate. In Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has recently taken a serious in this particular context. She introduced an act with the name of Digital Security Act 2018 for putting a check on the misuse of freedom of expression.

According to this Act a journalist could be convicted of espionage for entering a government office and gathering information secretly using an electronic device. The offender would carry a 14-year jail sentence. This act forbids spreading of negative propaganda about the country’s war of independence or about its founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman using a digital device. In case of violation, a life sentence is suggested. According to different Bangladeshi newspapers, when the cabinet approved this act, hundreds of Bangladeshi journalists took to the streets and protested against this digital security bill. The campaigners said this law would damage media freedom in the country. Different media rights groups including the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have condemned the bill because according to them the act provides more grounds to grossly misuse the provisions to harass journalists and restrict freedom of expression.

Protest against the DSA 2018 is getting severe and severe day by day in Bangladesh and Sheikh Hasina’s government is under a very serious public pressure. Unfortunately most of her advisers belong to India; they have a very typical prejudiced type of angle of looking at the things. Moreover they have their own vested interests; it seems so they don’t want her move in the right direction. But in Pakistan the situation regarding liberty of expression is somewhat different. Most of the people here are very much sincere to the motherland; the political process is gradually getting stronger; democracy is getting strength and above all the system of accountability is running faster.

Our everyday is a better day but the problem lies with those few ones who are misguided by the notion that the Armed forces are a ‘wind’ that always blows counter to democracy. They think that by demoralizing the security forces, they are strengthening democracy. To materialize their stupid philosophy they use freedom of expression as a tool. The fact of the matter is that freedom of expression does not mean a license to ‘ooze out’ every filthy idea that comes to a mind particularly in countries like Pakistan where the Armed forces and law enforcement agencies in collaboration with the judiciary have to play a very vibrant role in keeping the country safe and secure. We don’t need any Bangladesh type Digital Security Act but we do need a specific demarcation of limits with reference to the Freedom of Expression. No reporter, analyst or TV anchor must be allowed to create misunderstandings among different national institutions including the Army, the Judiciary and the Parliament.

'I cried all night': homeless women on their first night on the streets

Michelle Ducoing, 24, inside the playground structure where she slept on her first night of homelessness in Santa Monica, California. Photograph: Annabel Clark for the Guardian
Three women in Los Angeles and Seattle talk about how they ended up without a home and how they survived the first night

Candice Pires, with photographs by Annabel Clark-Mon 4 Jun 2018 09.00 BST

Michelle Ducoing, 24, Los Angeles

I spent my first night homeless in this Santa Monica playground.


I was 21 and had recently been let go from my job as a manager at a pizza place, which meant I couldn’t pay my $600 per month rent and lost my home. I’d also just broken up with my boyfriend, who was a wonderful, kind person. I was so broken. My mental health hadn’t always been up to par and I felt like I couldn’t focus on reality.

My mom paid for a hotel for a couple of nights but she couldn’t keep doing that. Staying with her wasn’t an option. We’d fought a lot in the past. She’s from Mexico and a firm believer in God and when I started exploring different ways of belief, we had a massive argument. I’d caused a lot of problems tied to having bipolar disorder. It’s not that she doesn’t love me, she just values her own emotional wellbeing.

That night I got dinner at Chipotle. I had my luggage full of clothing and my cameras and my laptop – I was scared someone would take my stuff so I hid it in the bushes in the park. I got my normal thing: a burrito with barbacoa, sour cream, lettuce, the medium sauce, pinto beans and white rice. Then came straight back to make sure my stuff wasn’t gone. My cameras were important to me because I aspired to be a photographer – I still do. I had lenses, my flash, my tripod, eight years’ worth of photos on my laptop. I thought I was going to document stuff but my mind was too fixed on having a roof over my head.

I wish I had better adjectives to describe how sad I felt. Even while I was eating my food, I was sobbing and thinking: “Why am I eating this in the park? I could be inside. Wait, no, I can’t be inside.” I cried all night.

I used my luggage as a pillow and slept in the fetal position with my camera stuff tucked under my right arm and my left arm over it. I was so afraid. I must have fallen asleep around 1 or 2am. A guy working in the park woke me up about 5am, saying: “The sprinklers are going to turn on, you need to move.”

There was no way to prepare for what was coming: someone I trusted stole my things; I was violently assaulted in my sleep. I was basically falling off – well, almost falling off the edge of the earth.
I slept outside on and off for seven months. I’ve been in transitional housing now for two years and take medication that’s keeping me stable. I come back to this park sometimes just to relax and remember what I’ve been through.

Paige Conca, 35, plays the banjo at her camp on the side of I-90 in Seattle, Washington. She has been homeless for four years. Photograph: Annabel Clark for the Guardian

Paige Conca, 35, Seattle

My first night on the street was when my boyfriend, Bill, threw me out. I was in the shower and he asked me: “Are you getting high?” Quicker than I could think, I lied and said no. He opened the shower door, saw my drugs and told me to leave.

That was about four years ago. It was horrible. This was supposed to be me starting my real life. I’d moved from California to Seattle to be with him. I’d never had a real boyfriend as an adult, or even my own personal life. For me, this was: “Now we’re going to show them.”

I think I slept in a park that night. I was new to town and didn’t know Seattle well. I’d grown up in California and even though I’d spent a lot of time travelling and living in my van, I’d always had a bedroom to crash in at my grandmother’s. But my grandmother had recently passed away.

She was the awesomest. She took good care of me and my mother, who was a severe alcoholic. And kept the most amazing home you’d ever seen – an English brick house in North Hollywood. My grandfather had been a pianist, called Mark McIntyre, who wrote for people like Sinatra and Nat King Cole. My aunt and my mother [Patience and Prudence McIntyre] actually had a gold record when they were 11 or something with a song called Tonight You Belong to Me. My father was a gifted drummer, too, but also a heroin addict.

When I left school at 16, I met this guy who turned me on to the Grateful Dead, and I started traveling to shows. Lord knows why, but I got into heroin. I should have known better given that my parents were screwed up. Perhaps subconsciously I wanted to understand what was so great that they chose this over their kid.

I got to the point where I needed $50 a day for drugs. I didn’t want to steal and the thing I could live easiest with was prostitution. But I ended up serving a prison sentence for it and possession of heroin. It was during my last week inside that my grandmother died.

That first night on the street I was devastated. I thought: “Wait, there’s no home to go back to. I’m really homeless now.” With all the moving, I lost my grandmother’s photo albums and jewelry. I’ve been homeless since.

Bonnie, 31, at her camp in Seattle, Washington. She was evicted from her studio in downtown Seattle last summer. Photograph: Annabel Clark for the Guardian

Bonnie, 31, Seattle

Not long ago my life was being a single mom, living in Lynnwood, Washington, getting up at 5.30am every day to get my kids ready and to go to work in sales at T-Mobile. I had a routine but when I was going through an emotional time, I fell hard into methamphetamine with my on-and-off boyfriend at the time. We had a young son who was taken away from me because of methamphetamine use. I also had two older sons taken at the same time. Without my sons, I became seriously depressed and followed my boyfriend to Seattle, leaving my apartment and moving my stuff with me.

He was staying in a room with a public bathroom in the hallway. It was meant to be somewhere to work, but a friend let us rent it for $300 a month. It was basically a flophouse. We were hanging by a string. We’d been there two months when my boyfriend left me.

Shortly after, the building managers served an eviction notice. I was packing when the sheriff came and escorted me out of the building before I had time to even find my shoes. They left me outside with one trunk of my belongings and a suitcase of clothes, saying they’d be back up with the rest of my stuff. I had a really nice wardrobe and other furniture. All my family photos were there, and my kids’ boxes with their baby books and hospital bracelets. I love shoes and had about 60 pairs. There were my journals I’d been writing for over 10 years.

I waited on the sidewalk, barefoot, for six or seven hours. I remember thinking I was a failure. I was heartbroken. I was lonely. I missed my kids.

They never did bring the rest of my stuff out. I found out later they’d brought a junk truck to the other side of the building and emptied the studio. I was baffled; I didn’t think legally they could do that.
I went to a nearby campsite and a guy got me a tent. I set it up and lay there for hours, just putting together all the pieces of my life. I thought about how you can go from everything being perfect to: “I don’t know how I’m going to survive this.”

I’ve been on the streets almost a year. Seven months ago, I met a man who has saved my life. He was a security guard at a gas station where I went every night to get food and use the restroom. He’s 32, goes to school full-time, has a car and has never had a drug in his life. He’s living out here with me for now and while we’re not going to be this way forever, we’ve got a good setup. I’ve gone from having nothing to more than I could ask for.

Interviews have been edited for clarity

Don’t Close the Door on Chinese Scientists Like Me

New visa limitations for Chinese students only aid Beijing’s technocratic ambitions.

A researcher disinfects a one-day-old panda cub in an incubator at the China Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Centre on August 8, 2006 (China Photos/Getty Images)

BY YANGYANG CHENG-

 JUNE 4, 2018, 3:26 PM

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

When then-President Barack Obama uttered these words from the steps of the U.S. Capitol during his first inaugural address, I was watching as a college senior in China, anxiously waiting for admission letters to Ph.D. programs in the United States. I didn’t know the context of the George W. Bush-era policies he spoke of, but I committed the words to memory: America represented an ideal of freedom and opportunity that was worth the risks of the journey.

Today, in my ninth year working in the United States as a Chinese scientist, those ideals seem much further away. The State Department is expected to adopt new limitations on Chinese researchers in the United States, including the shortening of student visas in high-tech fields and additional security clearances for work visas. This new measure comes on the heels of the National Defense Authorization Act in May, which included a murky provision prohibiting Defense Department grants from going to researchers who participate in China’s talent recruitment programs.

The United States may feel it’s only playing defense in a global cold war over tech. In reality, these policies play into Beijing’s preferred vision of the world.

The United States may feel it’s only playing defense in a global cold war over tech. In reality, these policies play into Beijing’s preferred vision of the world.

China sees science as a tool of national greatness and scientists as servants to the state. This parochial vision discounts the individual agency and ethical obligations of scientists and runs contrary to the cosmopolitan ideal of science. The United States must uphold those ideals, not create new boundaries.

Like ill-guided policies in the war on terror, the new restrictions represent the wrong approach to addressing a real problem. China’s pursuit of technological prowess includes not only increased investments in domestic research but also aggressive recruitment of foreign-trained talent, forced transfer of technology from foreign firms, and outright intellectual property theft aided and abetted by the Chinese government. With its intensifying push of a “civil-military fusion,” China’s technological advancement also means a stronger Chinese military and a more powerful surveillance state.

I am among those who have raised serious concerns about the dangers of the mixture of advanced technology and determined authoritarianism in China. But the United States cannot seek to win a tech race against China by compromising its own liberal democratic ideals. Restricting Chinese scientists’ work at U.S. institutions based on nothing more than one’s citizenship or country of origin will be a self-inflicted wound, hurting not only the country’s values but also the pool of talent it can draw on.
Targeting nationality, rather than actual activities, is a dangerous route to go down. Eager for access to the Chinese market or capital, U.S. companies and personnel are themselves often responsible for compromising tech security through ill-judged joint ventures.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations proposed restrictions on Chinese researchers over similar concerns and eventually backed down after fierce pushback from academia and tech industries. There’s also a disturbing record of false accusations against scientists of Chinese ancestry, including the Taiwanese-born nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, as well as the recent cases of Temple University physicist Xiaoxing Xi and National Weather Service hydrologist Sherry Chen. Charges were eventually dropped and apologies made — but not before irreversible damage was done to careers, reputations, and trust in the government.

China is the largest source country of international students and visiting scholars to U.S. universities. Visa restrictions and additional security hurdles on Chinese scientists would cause serious harm to the collaborative nature of scientific research and would be a colossal waste of government resources that could be devoted to investigating actual cases of unlawful behavior with proper due process.
On a more fundamental level, a policy that discriminates based on national origin is not only wrong but also dangerous. Being an immigrant in America always carries a certain probationary quality. That fragility has only intensified since the current administration took office, both for the plethora of anti-immigrant policies it has implemented and for the dark undercurrents of racism and xenophobia in American society it has helped unleash.

A policy that evokes the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 will further enflame racial hostility and aid the Chinese government’s own mission to extend its influence overseas for both talent recruitment and political control. The Chinese government preys on the vulnerability and perpetual otherness felt by immigrants to assert itself as the rightful guardian of the Chinese people worldwide. Without being implemented, the suggestion alone of such discriminatory policies casts doubt on every Chinese citizen as a potential agent of the Chinese state, guilty until proved innocent, and inadvertently gives credence to the Chinese government’s own claim that it holds not only control over a territory but also ownership of a people, including its diaspora.

Instead of having racist paranoia turn the Chinese government’s nativist assertions into a self-fulfilling prophecy, the United States must prove the fallacy of such authoritarian delusion by welcoming Chinese immigrants and protecting them from undue pressure by their home government. Chinese scientists in the United States should not be seen as a cash cow for universities, exploited for cheap labor, or suspected as foreign spies. Instead, we deserve dignity, freedom, and equality — the fundamental rights that the Chinese government is too fearful to grant its people.

The United States cannot win a tech race against China by losing itself. The United States is at its best when it lives up to its founding ideals of equality and openness. U.S. leadership is at its best when it builds international coalitions based on universal values and shared goals, not narrow self-interest. Whether it is the splitting of an atom or the slicing of a gene, breakthroughs in modern science and technology carry implications for the whole of humanity. A secure future demands that every stakeholder come to the table to agree to and abide by a common set of rules in the development and utilization of new technology. The United States must lead by example and hold China to the same global standards.

‘Disneyland for Big Tobacco’: how Indonesia’s lax smoking laws are helping next generation to get hooked

Nathalia Tjandra-June 1, 2018 7

Lecturer in Marketing, Edinburgh Napier University

With more than 260m people, Indonesia is the biggest economy in South-East Asia. The country’s young population – 37% are under the age of 20 – is one of its greatest strengths. But Indonesia’s potential and productivity are being threatened by the number of deaths associated with smoking.

Of the 10% of the world’s smokers who live in South-East Asia, half are in Indonesia. It is estimated that smoking-related diseases kill nearly 250,000 Indonesians every year.

The 76% of males aged 15+ who smoke is the highest rate in the world – and the next generation show every sign of following in their footsteps. In addition, 20% of 13-15 year olds smoke, which is the highest figure in the region. Even before the age of ten, 20% of children have tried a cigarette – and by the age of 13 it’s more like 90%.

Fishermen at Bancar in East Java. Adam Cohn, CC BY-SA

Statistics like these explain why Indonesia is the second biggest market for tobacco in the world after China, selling more than 315 billion cigarettes a year. The country also exports vastly more cigarettes than it imports. The industry produces annual sales of over US$21 billion (£16 billion), with growth forecast at around 5% a year.

Tobacco contributes approximately 10% of all Indonesian tax revenue and employs some 2.5m workers in farming and manufacturing. Little wonder the country is planning to double tobacco production within the next decade.

Market leaders

Five players control over three quarters of the market in Indonesia. The leader is HM Sampoerna, 92.5% owned by Philip Morris International – which also makes Marlboro cigarettes. Then come a couple of Indonesian conglomerates: Gudang Garam and Djarum, both of which are known for traditional kretek or clove cigarettes. Fourth is British American Tobacco, with another Indonesian group, Nojorono Tobacco, in fifth (the source of these numbers is anti-smoking group Tobacco Free Kids).

Indonesia’s Big Five

Tobacco Free Kids

These companies have long had significant political and financial influence in Indonesia. The government consults the industry over proposed changes to tobacco policy, but the rules don’t often seem to be tightened up.

Indonesia is the only country in Asia that has not signed and ratified the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC) – even China is on board and making steady progress. The framework includes restrictions on the extent to which tobacco companies can lobby governments, as well as sales to children and passive smoking. It also recognises that a complete ban on tobacco marketing activities is the most effective way of reducing youth smoking uptake.

The Indonesian government believes that stricter tobacco controls could damage the industry, citing concerns for farmers and other tobacco workers. It is certainly true that the majority of tobacco workers are vulnerable and live in poverty, but this industry also supports four Indonesian conglomerates whose owners have a combined net worth of around $43 billion.

Youth targeting

While the majority of South-East Asian countries – led by Singapore, Brunei and Thailand – are making good progress towards a comprehensive ban on tobacco marketing, Indonesia remains lenient. This has earned the country the nickname, the “tobacco industry’s Disneyland”.

It feels particularly appropriate considering how many children get attracted to smoking. Individual cigarettes are sold as cheaply as $0.07 each. A pack of 20 Marlboro can be bought for $1.55, compared to around $20 in Australia. Indonesia’s laws state that cigarettes can only be sold to and consumed by adults aged 18 and above, but no penalties are imposed for retailers who sell them to youngsters.

Tobacco consumption, select countries

Tobacco Atlas

Indonesia is the only country in the region that still allows direct tobacco advertising. To reduce exposure to children and teenagers, advertising is restricted on TV and radio to between 9.30pm and 5am. But youngsters are still exposed through billboards, roadside stalls, music concerts, sporting events and the internet. There are shops and restaurants branded with tobacco advertising everywhere.

The tobacco companies deny that their advertising targets under-18s, but I don’t find this very convincing. The messaging uses themes that are likely to be very attractive to young people, such as humour, adventure, bravery and success. The hip young designers in this advert for the Gudang Garam’s GG Mild brand are a good example:

This advert for Sampoerna’s A Mild seems like a clarion call to the younger generation, with its mopeds, guitars and street acrobatics:

One more example is Djarum’s LA Bold advertising. Melding shadow boxing, young men in sharp suits and fawning girls, the voiceover declares: “I rule the world because I live Bold.”

The industry also positions itself as integral to society via corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sponsorship. Much of this directly involves young people. Sampoerna has developed its own educational pathway called Sampoerna School System, which distributes scholarships, supports underprivileged schools and trains teachers and principals.

Djarum sponsors Djarum Superliga Badminton and establishes sports training academies for young talents. Gudang Garam actively sponsors events and festivals which target digital natives, referring to them as “Generation G”.

In South-East Asia, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have all banned tobacco companies from using their CSR activities to attract publicity, while Brunei has banned them from such activities altogether. Indonesia has a comparable ban on tobacco CSR publicity, but such activities are still well publicised in the media and the government endorses and even participates in them.

In short, Indonesia has a big problem with tobacco. In particular, the government needs to urgently do more to protect children, since they’re not experienced enough to make well-informed choices. There needs to be a complete ban on tobacco advertising, along with stricter measures around sales – and these need rigorously enforced. Tobacco-related sponsorship and CSR must also be banned – whatever contribution they make to society is outweighed by the harm.

At a time when most countries in the region are moving in the right direction over tobacco, Indonesia urgently needs to follow suit.