#federal recognition

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is a big deal. No, $48,692.05 is in no way, shape or form a fair price for the many thousands of acres of traditional Chinook land that were never ceded but were taken by settlers anyway. However, the fact that this funding from the 1970 Indian Claims Commission settlement is being released to the tribe is the strongest move toward regaining recognition in years.

As a bit of background, the Chinook Indian Nation are some of the descendants of many indigenous communities who have lived in the Columbia-Pacific region and along the Columbia to the modern-day Dalles since time immemorial. They saw the arrival of the Lewis & Clark party to the Pacific Ocean in 1805, but shortly thereafter were devastated by waves of diseases like malaria and smallpox. The survivors signed a treaty to give up most of their land in 1851, but it was never ratified by the United States government. While some Chinookan people are currently part of federally recognized tribes such as the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Reservation, the Chinook Indian Nation--comprised of the Lower Chinook, Clatsop, Cathlamet, Willapa, and Wahkiakum--have remained largely unrecognized.

That changed briefly in 2001. On January 3 of that year, the Department of the Interior under the Clinton administration formally recognized the Chinook Indian Nation. In July 2002, the Bush administration revoked the federal recognition after complaints from the Quinault Indian Nation, as the Chinook would have had access to certain areas of what is now the Quinault reservation. This meant that the Chinook, once again, were denied funding and other resources given to federally recognized tribes, to include crucial healthcare funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinook Indian Nation has been fighting legal battles to regain federal recognition ever since the revocation. The funding released to them in this month's court decision doesn't make them federally recognized, but it is a show of legitimacy in a tangled, opaque system that indigenous people across the United States have had to contend with for many decades. Here's hoping this is a crack in the wall keeping the Chinook from recognition, and that they get more good news soon.

#Chinook Indian Nation #Chinook #Chinookan people #indigenous people #indigenous Americans #indigenous rights #landback #federal recognition #Bureau of Indian Affairs #Native American #Native American rights #civil rights #United States

[native-academia]

𝓯𝓮𝓭𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓻𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓰𝓷𝓲𝔃𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓫𝓮𝓼

Across the world, there are many indigenous peoples existing within established countries who maintain their national identity, unique cultures, and individual methods of government. In the United States, those that the government officially recognizes are referred to as “federally recognized tribes”. This means that they are being recognized as sovereign nations that exist within the physical boundaries of the United States. Although legal recognition can come in a variety of forms and be standing on an international level, the US government has enumerated 3 ways of establishing formal federal recognition; an act of Congress, a decision made by a US court, or a petition by the tribe in question to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Notice that these enumerated forms of recognition put a lot of the responsibility for decision-making on the US federal government, rather than on the government or people of the tribe in question. According to these terms, an act of US Congress or decision by a US court can grant a tribe federal recognition without the tribe recognizing that distinction themselves. Historically, this has led to the erasure of many traditional tribal lines. If the US government says that all Indians living in a specific area and speaking a specific language are part of a particular tribe, that decision stands in the eyes of the US Government, even if the people themselves consider themselves to be different tribal nations. One can only imagine the level of intertribal conflict this policy has created over just the last two hundred years.

In order for a tribe to petition for their own recognition, they must file officially through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA is very strict on its definition of “tribe”, requiring any tribe in question to reach all seven qualification standards.

First, a tribe must have been considered an American Indian entity continuously since 1900, meaning that the tribe would have already had to have been established at that point.

Next, the majority of the tribe must consist of a distinct community that is recognizable from the others around it, also continuously.

Third, the tribe must have maintained political authority over its members, uninterrupted, from “historical times” to present.

Next, the nation must be able to provide a governing document (like a constitution) including and specifying citizenship criteria and political procedure, or else otherwise be able to provide a detailed explanation of that criteria. Basically, you must have a way of defining who your tribe is and how you do things.

The citizens of the tribal nation must themselves be descendants of historical nation(s) acting as a single political entity. I believe this might be the basis of blood quantum laws, because too much intermarrying could possibly threaten that claim.

The majority of a tribal nation must not be enrolled in any other federally recognized tribe.

Lastly, there have been acts of Congress expressly ending or forbidding the federal recognition of certain tribes. Those tribes are completely ineligible for federal recognition, even if they manage to meet all of the other requirements of the BIA.

sources: x - x

#federal recognition #natives in academia #native american #native american history #american history #native american studies #history #anthropology #sociology #indigenous peoples #indigenous history #land back #federally recognized tribes #studyblr

[freehawaii]

WATCH YOUR BACK

#robin danner #federal recognition #fed wreck #hawaiian tribe #wreckin robin

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

For the academia wip game: 35

I LOVE YOU !!!!!!!!

okay so i didnt have any particular system set up because i wasn't expecting anyone to actually see my post or respond lol and all the wip games ive found are very creative writing focused, so I'm going with WIP #3, page 5, (first passage) because the numbers work lol

"...Secondly, in order to acquire federal recognition, a tribal nation must present their history and culture in a way that is acceptable to the state. As such, it necessitates a particular presence in the historical record: one which is legible to the state and in accordance with colonial, statist, conceptions of “history”...."

#from a paper on federal recognition + historical narrative + the ICC + the state + authority/anarchism+ the chinook indian nation #if anyone else asks do as specific or vauge as you want idk ill figure it out #ceci says stuff #academia #ask #anon #wip game #academia wip game

[skruffie]

had a thought in my head when I was getting beading supplies at Michael's earlier today and it has not left me since: the federal government did it's best to try to eradicate my ancestors, and the same government would then further punish me as their descendant if I misstep while reconnecting with what they were trying to steal away (i.e.: if I sold any beaded products I make, possession of eagle feathers, etc)

#i am getting into beading but i am now creating a problem for future me of What Do I Do With This Now #i mean like #i CAN sell beaded jewelry but it cannot be labelled as indigenous made #beaded jewelry is not exclusive to north american indigenous culture #however the styles i'm learning are directly influenced by the ancestries i'm reconnecting to #it is an extension of what i am trying to learn culture wise #i have documented ancestry but selling it when i am not connected is still appropriation #this is a large entanglement of bq and federal recognition and i just want to learn how to bead

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

not voting for joe biden in 2024 because texas is not purple enough for it to matter but i will be volunteering for colin allred's senate campaign. and voting for him, obviously. its really hard to beat incumbents at the statewide level (including state offices and the us senate), but there is a better chance there. also allred did manage to flip his house seat in 2018 by beating pete sessions

#there are a host of people running but allred has the best name recognition and is the only one currently holding federal office #i don't dislike roland guterriez but you know #however he does currently represent a kind of purple district in the state senate #we'll see

[ricketybonesandricketyhands]

mcr "i know you dont work here anymore" except its about me emailing my old indigenous studies prof because I decided that maybe I will publish that paper he wanted me to except im hashtag afraid and want his advice (he does not work at my college anymore)

#we have a new indigenous studies prof but i havent met him yet #bc for the first time in (???idk how many) years im not taking an indigenous studies course #which tbh has me clawing at the walls. i just made an essay in a totally unrelated class about nagpra #I HAVE A LOT OF OPINIONS ON NAGPRA #anyway :) #also they quoted rae gould in some of the readings and its like no u dont understand !!! its rae gould !!!!! #u dont understand the complexities here !!!! they are quoting a member of teh hassanamisco band of nipmuc on nagpra u dont understand !!!! #her saying that its not a question of the law its a question of ppl looking to the law for any excuse to not do the right thing is !!!!! #its so much more because the nipmuc arent federally recognised !! they arent allowed to make claims under nagpra !!! gould has written ... #...books abt federal recognition! WE ARE RIGHT NEXT TO NIPMUC LAND. on it #even !!they say nipmuc to the east but actually it overlaps !!!!! #actually genuinely strangling some of the ppl in my state class #DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FEDERAL ACKNOWLEGEMENT PROCESS IS. YES OR NO #sure that reading mentioned the dawes act in the context of land rights and jays treaty but do u know abt its long term impact on federal.. #..recognition ? IF I TELL U WILL U GET DEFENSIVE ABT NOT KNOWING ?????????? #um anyway :) im super normal about the FAP hahaha :) <- lying #ceci says stuff

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Turn Back Workmen," Windsor Star. February 22, 1943. Page 3. ---- Wallaceburg Strikers Resume Aggressive Picketing ---- WALLACEBURG, Feb. 22 - Police were pushed around as mass picketing was resumed in the strike at the Dominion Glass Company, now nearly a month old, here today, breaking a two weeks' lull in which it appeared for a time that the strike might be abandoned.

75 TURNED BACK Apparently in anticipation of what was to follow, around 200 workers entered the plant before 6.30 a.m. and avoided the picket lines, but a heavy barrier turned back 75 workmen who attempted to enter during the regular 8 o'clock shift. More than 200 men, picketing with arms interlocked, formed the barrier.

An effort by five policemen to open the lines resulted in them being pushed back bodily from the area as they came into contact with the men.

ASK REINFORCEMENTS Since then, it was reported a call. had been sent out for police reinforcements, but they had not appeared on the scene at a late hour this morning.

About 850 workers were originally involved in the strike first called January 30 by the U.A.W.-C.I.O., but since then more than half the number are said to have returned to their jobs. It is estimated that about 300 men are still idle.

The strike was called for union recognition. However, the company claims to have a deal with the Glass Bottle Blowers' Association, an A.F.L. affiliate. Strikers claim their C.IO. union comprises a majority of the workers at the plant, and that returning workers are being forced to join the A.F.L. outfit. The company also claims that, for the present, it has enough workers.

#wallaceburg #strike #picketing #picket line #strikebreakers #scabs #dominion glass company #american federation of labor #central industrial organization #union politics #union recognition #strike demands #union infighting #canada during world war 2 #crime and punishment in canada #history of crime and punishment in canada

[nando161mando]

Just to be clear, though, no amount of "proper training" will make it okay for the FBI to use facial recognition. This technology is fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights and democracy

#morals #ethics #facial recognition #humanrights #privacy #invasion of privacy #federal bureau of investigation #fbi corruption #fbi most wanted #fbi cover up #cops ‘didn’t search’ for missing sc woman julia ann bean ‘who was last seen with rex heuermann’ as fbi launches probe #fbi #democracy #ausgov #politas #auspol #tasgov #taspol #australia #fuck neoliberals #neoliberal capitalism #anthony albanese #albanese government #1312 #acab1312 #acab #all cops are bastards #all cops are bad #cops #police state

[kyreniacommentator]

How do we finally get Recognition for the TRNC?

Readers mail…. From Olcay Akdeniz…. Asking the British or anyone else with our Turkish Cypriot demand for recognition of the TRNC has and will get us nowhere and I blame ourselves for the past inaction in many categories of action and weak attempts. The Turkish Military in 1974, had total control over Larnaca and the coastlines including Hala Sultan Tekkesi. (The Third Most Sacred Site in…

View On WordPress

#Con-Federally United TRNC and Turkey #Cyprus issue #Olcay Akdeniz #Option 2 #Readers Mail #TRNC recognition #two-state solution

[metanarrates]

I haven't seen a lot of coverage in the news about this, but my state has just advanced legislation on a bill that would criminalize trans bathroom use in publicly owned buildings. this could mean up to 6 months in jail and up to $1000 in fees for those convicted.

most alarming aspects of this bill:

-"publicly owned buildings" include airports, schools, libraries, government offices, some hospitals, and most terrifyingly AND explicitly within the bill, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis facilities. transgender people, who are estimated to be almost 4 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than cisgender people, could become criminalized in the very spaces they seek out to shelter from abuse.

-on that note, the bill potentially threatens federal funding of already-underfunded domestic violence and sexual assault facilities. to recieve federal grants, facilities are required to follow nondiscrimination laws. this law could place the facilities in danger of losing the grants they rely on. this is severely going to impact victims' abilities to access critically needed services.

-the bill legally defines "sex" in a way that has a lot of potential impact across state legislature. according to the bill’s text, HB 257 would legally define a female as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions in a way that could produce ova,” and a male as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions to fertilize the ova of a female.” this could effectively end the state's legal recognition of trans people.

-the bill demands that trans people who DO use bathrooms in publicly owned buildings must have undergone both gender reassignment surgery and have had their birth certificate changed. this has several issues, obviously, but the biggest one I want to highlight is that this opens the door to potential genital inspection by law enforcement if someone is accused of being transgender in a bathroom. in addition to any other indignities suffered by being harassed by cops when trying to use the restroom, it is completely possible for law enforcement to now demand to see whether someone's genitals are in compliance with these laws. it's an unconscionable and humiliating invasion of privacy.

-the bill requires trans students to develop a "privacy plan" with their school in order to arrange access to unisex spaces. if unisex bathrooms are unavailable, the student can be granted access to a sex-designated space “through staggered scheduling or another policy provision that provides for temporary private access.”

-the bill allows the state’s attorney general to impose a fine of up to $10,000 per day on local governments that don’t enforce the bill. in essence, any government that isn't sufficiently committed to enforcing these draconian laws may face massive fines until they have reached the attorney general's standard of enforcement.

this is one of the most unbelievably severe anti-trans laws that have ever been proposed in the united states. it would effectively ban trans people from participating in public life, harm nearly every single victim of domestic violence and sexual assault who seeks services in the state, enforce criminality on random trans people in bathrooms, and open every single person who could be potentially accused of being trans up to a wave of harassment and discrimination from both private citizens and law enforcement. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that this law would literally force me and my transfemme fiancee to flee this state.

the law's been fast tracked to an insane degree through the legislature. similarly to the anti-dei bill currently making its way through, it's only been a week since it was introduced, and it's already passed the house, and is now up for vote in the senate. if it passes both sets of votes, the only thing left in its way is the governor's decision to veto.

please share this post. make as much noise as you can. if you live in utah, please call and email your district senator as soon as possible. it doesn't matter how late you see this. the bill is up for vote this week (1/23/24 at the time of writing) and we need to do whatever we physically can to protest its passing. we've already moved past the opportunity for public comment on the bill, but a few organizations have called for a rally at the capitol steps on thursday (1/25/24) at noon. if you are in the salt lake area or are able to make it there, please consider attending. wear a mask and bring a sign. we are stronger together.

#narrates #signal boost #please tag anyone you can think of with a large platform in this post. we need this to spread asap

[trueunifrom]

True Uniform - Promotional Products: Balloons

Looking for high-quality promotional products that are both reliable and affordable? Look no further than True Uniform - the federal government's premier source for promotional items! Whether you're looking for custom t-shirts, hats, pens, or even balloons, True Uniform has everything you need to promote your brand and get your message out there.

#promotional products #promotional items #promo products #military programs #health education #awareness campaigns #corporate apparel #conference supplies #logo products #imprinted items #custom products #custom items #UNICOR #Federal Prison Industries #Bureau of Prisons #veterans affairs #awards and recognition

[freehawaii]

FREE HAWAI`I TV THE FREE HAWAI`I BROADCASTING NETWORK "OH NO! - IS FED WRECK BACK??"

You Probably Saw The Rumors On Social Media. Or Maybe The Statement From The US Department Of Interior. So Is The US Federal Recognition Threat Back For Hawai`i? Watch This For The Real Answer About What Itʻs All About. Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

#free hawaii tv #federal recognition #fed wreck #doi hearings #ehu kekahu cardwell #free hawaii broadcasting network #hawaiian kingdom #koani foundation

[moniquill]

Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

#indigenous #intertribal infighting #state recognized tribes #seaconke Wampanoag #our chief and first councilman were at NCAI and there was ver nearly physical violence about this issue #Seaconke Wampanoag is recognized in MA and currently pursuing recognition by RI #like we gave active bills in tge state house

[cesium-sheep]

yknow that's kinda worth reiterating on its own, that I was one of the first females to ever enlist in a true combat mos. my name's not gonna be remembered for it or anything, since by the time I actually started training (I went through the enlistment process during my last quarter of college so I signed the papers the day the mos opened but the first female to start combat training graduated while I was still in basic) there was a half platoon of us going through at once, and I didn't actually finish ait due to the drastic worsening of my now debilitating and potentially fatal immune disorder. (altho I only missed minesweeping and ceftx.)

but I was one of the first.

(I say "females" because "women" isn't correct cuz I'm not a woman and I am 1000% positive there have been some trans women in combat mos prior to 2015. and "afab people" isn't correct because if a transmasc had already medically and socially transitioned prior to enlistment, it may be a little complicated depending on the paperwork but they would probably have been allowed in with minimal issue. so "females" is really the closest to a correct term there is, and it's the one they use.)

(also to clarify this does not include combat medics, who god love and keep them do go into combat zones, but they are not legally combatants. there have been female combat medics for a significant amount of time. and for a significant amount of time that's the closest we were allowed to get.)

#ask to tag #it's honestly very easy for me to overlook. #it's the type of shit you find out about a grandparent after they die and you're like '???' #like you wish you could ask them a hundred questions about it. #like it's that type of thing. but I just don't think about it because it's a very. hm. complicated thing. #I never finished training because I was completely debilitated by it. #I'm still in the process of fighting for recognition and compensation for that. #it's been 7 years. #and whether or not I'm considered a veteran is very... mushy. #many municipal governments qualify any service that didn't receive a dishonorable discharge #the federal government requires a 4 year active duty contract fulfillment or a medical discharge #so if my appeal gets approved I am legally a veteran by every definition. #but if it doesn't... #fuck dude severe chronic illness really is skipping straight from whatever age you got it to old age huh.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How Google’s trial secrecy lets it control the coverage

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

"Corporate crime" is practically an oxymoron in America. While it's true that the single most consequential and profligate theft in America is wage theft, its mechanisms are so obscure and, well, dull that it's easy to sell us on the false impression that the real problem is shoplifting:

https://newrepublic.com/post/175343/wage-theft-versus-shoplifting-crime

Corporate crime is often hidden behind Dana Clare's Shield Of Boringness, cloaked in euphemisms like "risk and compliance" or that old favorite, "white collar crime":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/07/solar-panel-for-a-sex-machine/#a-single-proposition

And corporate crime has a kind of performative complexity. The crimes come to us wreathed in specialized jargon and technical terminology that make them hard to discern. Which is wild, because corporate crimes occur on a scale that other crimes – even those committed by organized crime – can't hope to match:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

But anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. After decades of official tolerance (and even encouragement), corporate criminals are finally in the crosshairs of federal enforcers. Take National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo's ruling in Cemex: when a company takes an illegal action to affect the outcome of a union election, the consequence is now automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

That's a huge deal. Before, a boss could fire union organizers and intimidate workers, scuttle the union election, and then, months or years later, pay a fine and some back-wages…and the union would be smashed.

The scale of corporate crime is directly proportional to the scale of corporations themselves. Big companies aren't (necessarily) led by worse people, but even small sins committed by the very largest companies can affect millions of lives.

That's why antitrust is so key to fighting corporate crime. To make corporate crimes less harmful, we must keep companies from attaining harmful scale. Big companies aren't just too big to fail and too big to jail – they're also too big for peaceful coexistence with a society of laws.

The revival of antitrust enforcement is such a breath of fresh air, but it's also fighting headwinds. For one thing, there's 40 years of bad precedent from the nightmare years of pro-monopoly Reaganomics to overturn:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

It's not just precedents in the outcomes of trials, either. Trial procedure has also been remade to favor corporations, with judges helping companies stack the deck in their own favor. The biggest factor here is secrecy: blocking recording devices from courts, refusing to livestream the proceedings, allowing accused corporate criminals to clear the courtroom when their executives take the stand, and redacting or suppressing the exhibits:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

When a corporation can hide evidence and testimony from the public and the press, it gains broad latitude to dispute critics, including government enforcers, based on evidence that no one is allowed to see, or, in many cases, even describe. Take Project Nessie, the program that the FTC claims Amazon used to compel third-party sellers to hike prices across many categories of goods:

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/amazon-used-secret-project-nessie-algorithm-to-raise-prices-6c593706

Amazon told the press that the FTC has "grossly mischaracterize[d]" Project Nessie. The DoJ disagrees, but it can't say why, because the Project Nessie files it based its accusations on have been redacted, at Amazon's insistence. Rather than rebutting Amazon's claim, FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar could only say "We once again call on Amazon to move swiftly to remove the redactions and allow the American public to see the full scope of what we allege are their illegal monopolistic practices."

It's quite a devastating gambit: when critics and prosecutors make specific allegations about corporate crimes, the corporation gets to tell journalists, "No, that's wrong, but you're not allowed to see the reason we say it's wrong."

It's a way to work the refs, to get journalists – or their editors – to wreathe bold claims in endless hedging language, or to avoid reporting on the most shocking allegations altogether. This, in turn, keeps corporate trials out of the public eye, which reassures judges that they can defer to further corporate demands for opacity without facing an outcry.

That's a tactic that serves Google well. When the company was dragged into court by the DoJ Antitrust Division, it demanded – and received – a veil of secrecy that is especially ironic given the company's promise "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful":

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

While this veil has parted somewhat, it is still intact enough to allow the company to work the refs and kill disfavorable reporting from the trial. Last week, Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – published an editorial in Wired reporting on her impression of an explosive moment in the Google trial:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

According to Gray, Google had run a program to mess with the "semantic matching" on queries, silently appending terms to users' searches that caused them to return more ads – and worse results. This generated more revenue for Google, at the expense of advertisers who got billed to serve ads that didn't even match user queries.

Google forcefully disputed this claim:

https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297

They contacted Gray's editors at Wired, but declined to release all the exhibits and testimony that Gray used to form her conclusions about Google's conduct; instead, they provided a subset of the relevant materials, which cast doubt on Gray's accusations.

Wired removed Gray's piece, with an unsigned notice that "WIRED editorial leadership has determined that the story does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed":

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

But Gray stands by her piece. She admits that she might have gotten some of the fine details wrong, but that these were not material to the overall point of her story, that Google manipulated search queries to serve more ads at the expense of the quality of the results:

https://twitter.com/megangrA/status/1711035354134794529

She says that the piece could and should have been amended to reflect these fine-grained corrections, but that in the absence of a full record of the testimony and exhibits, it was impossible for her to prove to her editors that her piece was substantively correct.

I reviewed the limited evidence that Google permitted to be released and I find her defense compelling. Perhaps you don't. But the only way we can factually resolve this dispute is for Google to release the materials that they claim will exonerate them. And they won't, though this is fully within their power.

I've seen this playbook before. During the early months of the pandemic, a billionaire who owned a notorious cyberwarfare company used UK libel threats to erase this fact from the internet – including my own reporting – on the grounds that the underlying research made small, non-material errors in characterizing a hellishly complex financial Rube Goldberg machine that was, in my opinion, deliberately designed to confuse investigators.

Like the corporate crimes revealed in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, the gambit is complicated, but it's not sophisticated:

Make everything as complicated as possible;

Make everything as secret as possible;

Dismiss any accusations by claiming errors in the account of the deliberately complex arrangements, which can't be rectified because the relevant materials are a secret.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#but-id-have-to-kill-you

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: Jason Rosenberg (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/underpants/12069086054/

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

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#pluralistic #secrecy #opacity #google #antitrust #trustbusting #wired #working the refs #megan grey #semantic matching