This is a good example of the kind of guilt by association that the OPM engaged in.

The Keywiki.org web says that Obama supported the creation of a holiday celebrating Cesar Chavez. A Communist group also supported the creation of a holiday celebrating Cesar Chavez.

So what?

The Hunt brothers support cancer research. I support cancer research. Does that mean the Hunt brothers support me? Or that I support the Hunt brothers? No.

I will assume that keywiki's facts are correct. The problem is the logic. He put together some quotes from an anonymous, undated pamphlet from the New Movement in Solidarity With Puerto Rican Independence, none of which quite advocate illegal violence. Since he wants to prove that they're a violent group, he interprets the quotes to mean that they advocate the violent overthrow of the government. A more objective scholar might not be convinced.

Back in the days of HUAC and Joe McCarthy, the anti-Communists used to use sources and logic like that to associate people with Communism. That's why we call it McCarthyism.

Gross was a saboteur, trying to overthrow the Cuban government. His wife finally admitted as much, as I wrote above.

He was getting money under the Helms-Burton Act. The purpose of the Helms-Burton act was to overthrow the Cuban government. They were paying him to try the unworkable idea of setting up an alternate Internet, to help the Cuban Jews overthrow the Castro government. The Cuban Jews actually got along very well with Raul Castro.

The Cubans want to exchange Gross for 3 Cuban intelligence agents who are in prison right now. They came to the U.S. as undercover agents to monitor the Miami Cubans who were committing acts of terrorism against Cuba, such as blowing up a Cuban plane, and bombing tourist spots.

The U.S. has refused the exchange. The anti-Cuban hard-liners would rather leave Gross in prison than improve relations.

The article on Gross in Wikipedia is pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... and the linked article in The Forward is pretty good too. Gross worked for Development Alternatives, a contractor for the USAID and other government agencies, possibly including the CIA, which was involved in some development projects in places like Afghanistan and Iraq where they were an arm of the U.S. military. The Venezuelan government accused them of giving support to the rebels trying to overthrow the Chavez government. Gross' projects in Cuba were funded under the Helms-Burton bill, the purpose of which was to overthrow the Cuban government, by methods including telecommunications, as Gross was doing. If a foreigner tried to do the same thing in the U.S., we would (and have) sentence them to long jail terms too. They convicted Gross of something like treason. At first he denied it, but later when his wife became dissatisfied with the U.S. government's efforts to get him out, she basically admitted it.

(According to The Forward, the Jewish community in Cuba was on good terms with Raul Castro, and Gross would have put the Jewish community at risk if they cooperated with him. They may have turned him in. They're patriotic Cubans.)

The Cuban government wants to release Gross in exchange for the Cuban Five, now down to three. They were five Cuban intelligence agents who went to Miami as refugees and infiltrated the anti-Castro groups. They had good reason to infiltrate those groups, because the Miami Cubans were committing terrorist acts in Cuba. The most notorious was Luis Posada, who engineered the bombing of a Cuban airliner, which killed all aboard. Posada was living in the U.S., which refused to prosecute him, even though he bragged about it publicly. Other terrorist acts included setting off bombs (with a few fatalities) at tourist spots, in order to discourage tourism and hard currency.

So that's the situation. The Cubans want to exchange Gross for the Cuban three, and the U.S. wants them to free Gross without anything in return. I'd like the Cubans to release Gross for humanitarian reasons (even though he's guilty of trying to overthrow the Cuban government, which is what Helms-Burton money is for). I'd also like the U.S. to free the Cuban three (even though they're guilty of traveling to the U.S. disguised as refugees, to monitor the Miami groups to stop terrorism). It's not reasonable to expect one without the other.

I would hardly agree that the U.S. was trying to reduce tensions, if they were sending people like Gross to set up a communications network to help the Jewish community overthrow the Cuban government. Don't forget, Helms-Burton only disburses money for projects to overthrow the Cuban government. If Gross was getting Helms-Burton money, then he was trying to overthrow the Cuban government.

It seems that the ones who are holding up the deal are people like Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the other anti-Cuban hard-liners. It seems that they don't want a trade, because it would improve relations with Cuba. They only want to overthrow the Cuban government. They'd rather let Gross stay in jail than improve relations. I suggest you address your concerns about Gross to them. I suspect, though, that you'll have to wait until they're dead before we establish normal relations with Cuba again.

Really, did it ever occur to you to wonder whether some anonymous web site is accurate?

This same site also has an article linking Barak Obama to the Communist Party. http://keywiki.org/Barack_Obam...

Yes, that's what you learned from a web site that claims Barak Obama is affiliated with the Communist Party. http://keywiki.org/Barack_Obam...

I bet those lunatics at the OPM do their security reviews the same way, by clicking on the first Google hit.

You just fabricated an interview. Nobody knows for sure what the agent said and what she answered, because he destroyed the notes after he wrote his report.

And he didn't make an audio recording, which would have cleared up all the disagreements. Why don't they record interviews? Because this way they can "remember" anything they want.

No. If she's going on an interview for a background check, she has an obligation to answer any question they ask her, to the best of her ability.

She doesn't have an obligation to provide all information that any right-winger could possibly want to know about her background. This is not a Chinese self-criticism session or a Scientology audit.

They're saying, "You didn't answer the questions that we didn't ask."

An accountant once told me how to act at an IRS audit: Answer all their questions, but don't volunteer information.

"more than a cursory background check"? For what? She was working at the NIH on an education project to draw more women into computing. She's not working on nuclear weapons.

Well I read the pages you linked to, and I think jrumney has it exactly right.

If you look at the other documents that you find on the Internet about the Women's Committee Against Genocide, you'll see that many of them are involved in filmmaking.

This flyer is for a film series. The film series is jointly sponsored by the Moncada Library. So we don't know whether this is written by the Women's Committee or the Moncada Library.

The problem here is guilt by association. There's nothing to actually show that they or Barr were advocating violence. I bet the OPM is doing similar Google searches and drawing similar unsupported associations. At least you know your limits.

Filmmakers who run film series don't necessarily agree with the politics of the films they show. I ran a film series once and I showed Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will, and Potemkin. So would you conclude that I'm a KKK member, a Nazi, and a Communist? If I were applying for a job at the National Institutes of Health, and they asked me whether I had ever belonged to an organization that advocated overthrowing the government by violence, am I supposed to say, "No, but I showed Potemkin in my college film series"?

Well, I don't see anything in that interview about the New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence at all, and I don't see anything that indicates that the Women’s Committee Against Genocide was a "sub-group" of M19CO. The only one who claims that they're sub-groups is the OPM.

How is Barr supposed to know that the OPM believes that the two movements that she was once involved in were sub-groups of a third group?

Nobody on this list can even find a source on the Internet to support that claim.

Based on an anonymous Wiki that also tries to prove that Obama was a Communist? http://keywiki.org/Barack_Obam...

And those of us who read the article also might doubt the objectivity and judgment of the special agent who thinks beating up liberal college professors is funny (and destroyed his notes):

I really have to respond to this because I read Science every week and I know some of the reporters. So let me give you a quick lesson in Journalism 101.

Jeffrey Mervis, who I've been reading for years, didn't do "zero research." If you read the article again http://news.sciencemag.org/peo... and count the number of people he either interviewed or attempted to interview, you'll see that he either quoted or got a no comment from every government agency and from as many people who knew her as he could reach by deadline. He interviewed two lawyers who specialize in security clearances.

The next time you look at one of those so-called news sources on the Internet, see whether they interview people on both sides, or talk to experts like lawyers.

Were you ever affiliated with an organization that was affiliated with an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government?

No, that's not the best ref. They don't even explicitly state that the New Movement espoused violence, and they quote an unverifiable, undated pamphlet that may or may not represent their actual position.

And who puts that wiki out? Where are they coming from? Their entry on Obama and the Communist Party http://keywiki.org/Barack_Obam... may give you an idea.

I wouldn't be surprised if the agent who interviewed her was getting his information from Wikis like that.

You realize you're accusing a scientist of belonging to a violent organization based on an anonymous wiki that is also accusing Obama of being a Communist.