1509. Join the March for Climate Justice on September 21

By Kamran Nayeri, August 12, 2014

On September 23rd, political and corporate leaders are meeting at the United Nations in New York City for the Climate Summit 2014. This summit represents yet another step towards the corporate takeover of the UN climate negotiations, and the privatization of land, water and air resources under the guise of a global climate compact. 

In response, Climate Justice Alliance has issued a call for a People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday September 21.  There will also be a week long series of activities including a People’s Climate Justice Summit to discuss and issue demands reflecting the needs and interests of “Indigenous peoples’ communities, communities of color and working-class white communities that are the first and most impacted by the storms, floods and droughts, are organizing to create millions of family-supporting jobs in clean energy, public transportation, zero waste, food sovereignty, community housing and ecosystem restoration.”

The Climate Justice Alliance calls on other organizations and individuals to:

• Join us in the streets of NYC for a week of creative non-violent actions for Climate Justice

• Organize a delegation to join the People’s Climate March & People’s Climate Justice Summit in NYC

• Organize a creative action in your home community that highlights local solutions to climate change

• Spread this call to action amongst your respective networks and social media outlets

The Climate Justice Alliance members are:

• Alliance for Appalachia

• ACE for Environmental Justice

• Asian Pacific Environmental Network

• Black Mesa Water Coalition

• Catskills Mountainkeeper

• Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy

• Center for Story-based Strategy

• Communities for a Better Environment

• Community to Community Development

• Cornell Global Labor Institute

• East Michigan Environmental Action Council

• Energy Justice Network

• Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative

• Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

• Global Justice Ecology Project

• Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

• Grassroots International

• Indigenous Environmental Network

• Institute for Policy Studies

• Ironbound Community Corporation

• Jobs With Justice

• Just Transition Alliance

• Kentuckians for the Commonwealth

• Labor Community Strategy Center

• Labor Network for Sustainability

• Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

• Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment

• Movement Generation

• Movement Strategy Center

• NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program

• New York City EJ Alliance

• People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER)

• POWER

• Right to the City Alliance

• Rising Tide North America

• Ruckus Society

• Southwest Organizing Project

• Southwest Workers Union

• UPROSE

System Change not Climate Change, an ecological socialist coalition, has endorsed the September 21 call and its affiliated local groups are organizing to join the New York march or local protests, including one in Oakland, California, that Our Place in the World cosponsors.  

I urge all readers of Our Place in the Word in the United States to join these activities.  Also, I urge others elsewhere in the world to join similar activities where they are taking place or organize such activities. Even modest house gathering with friends, families, co-workers, neighbors to discuss catastrophic climate change, it causes, and how to stop and reverse it would be a welcome step forward.  

Climate change is a time sensitive concern. The window of opportunity to act to stop and reverse it is relatively brief beyond which the dynamics of global warming gets out of human control.  No one knows what will happen if the average global temperature continue to rise beyond two degrees centigrade.  Life of many species as well as our own is at stake.  The time to act in NOW.  

1508. Video: Frans de Waal: Moral Behavior in Non-Human Animals

By Frans de Waal, TED, April 10, 2012

1507. Socialist Alternative Candidate Speaks on Socialism and Animal Rights

By Jon Hochschartner,  Species and Class, August 9, 2014

Jess Spear, Socialist Alternative candidate for Washington State House

Jess Spear is the Socialist Alternative candidate for the Washington State House in the 43rd district. An ally of Kshama Sawant, who was recently elected to the Seattle City Council on the same party line, Spear exemplifies a new generation of far-left electoralism, the likes of which has not been seen in quite a while. She recently agreed to an interview with Species and Class in which she discussed her views on non-human exploitation.

Species and Class: Why should those concerned by the treatment of animals vote for you?

Jess Spear: We are facing an environmental catastrophe that threatens every animal on this planet, and has already wiped out thousands of species. Politics as usual is working great for these mega-corporations, but it’s not working for working people or non-human animals.

Those concerned by the treatment of animals should vote for me because I stand in solidarity with them and their struggle to end the needless suffering of animals exacerbated under the economic system we live under —capitalism — that sacrifices everything on the altar of profit. Animal exploitation, environmental destruction, and human suffering are the very reasons I am a socialist fighting for a more just, equitable, and sustainable world.

My opponent, Frank Chopp, takes money from corporations destroying our environment, causing human deaths, and instigating a mass extinction —notably BP Oil. He represents corporations, not people. I take no money from corporations.

SC: Does Socialist Alternative have any official position on animal exploitation of any kind? If not, is this something you would like to change?

JS: As socialists, we see the incredible damage that capitalism has caused to our environment as a byproduct of the profit motive. Oil companies pollute with impunity and are the most profitable corporations in the world. Farms exist not to provide high quality food, nutrition, and jobs to society, but to make the maximum profit for private companies and Monsanto.

Socialist Alternative is primarily focused on human liberation. We stand for democratic socialism, which is the organization of society focused on meeting human need and environmental sustainability, not profit. Through the democratic planning of society we can achieve a world where humans and non-humans alike are treated with kindness and respect. Society has the technology, talent, and resources to realize this goal.

To end animal suffering, we must first work to build the power of the working class, fight for better living standards and reforms, and ultimately usher in a more just, equitable, and sustainable world. We stand with animal rights activists who are fighting this system and pointing out the terrible impact the profit motive has on all life on this planet.

SC: What public policy proposals, that you could take action on, would you support for animals if voted to the Washington state house?

JS: I would support legislation that mitigates the suffering of animals. We would call for:

— End the tax breaks and incentives for large factory farms, and bring them into public ownership under democratic control with compensation to the former owners on proven need.

— Invest in community controlled, publicly owned farms, or a network there of, to provide basic nutritious food for low cost or free, run by the city, state, and community.

— End the use of known and suspected poisons and carcinogens in food products, on animals, and humans until proven safe!

— No gag laws to stop whistle blowers!

— Access to high quality food is a right, not a privilege of wealth. Working people should have the right to know, and a say in how our food is grown, the environmental impact of the process, and the treatment of animals and humans involved in the process.

SC: For you, how, if at all, are the fights for socialism and better treatment for animals intertwined?

JS: Socialists see the economic system we live under, capitalism, as dysfunctional and completely unable to meet the needs of humans and the environment that sustains us (including animals). The struggle for more humane treatment of animals arises from the same core of human empathy that stirs one to speak out against, and act to stop, human suffering.

The suffering of animals and humans alike is unnecessary. We now have the technology and resources to provide a high standard of living for all on the planet — quality food, clean water and sanitation, decent housing, education, healthcare, and purposeful occupations — without causing needless animal suffering. But, the application and sharing of scientific innovations and technology necessary to provide this standard of living is held back by capitalism.

Capitalism depends on exploitation of all kinds and of many species, with the few ruling the many for the benefit of the few and to the detriment of the many. We strive to build working-class power through mass movements, whereby working people realize their inherent power as a class and wield that power to overturn this system and replace it with one of equality and cooperation.

A society where the economy is democratically run opens the possibility to enjoy the bounties of the world in a way that does not exploit our non-human brothers and sisters. Under capitalism, exploitation of both of humans and non-humans, is unavoidable. It is the only way to secure increasing profits. It is why we live in the richest country in the world, yet so many abhorrent practices towards animals by corporations like Tyson are protected from scrutiny and carry on their exploitation in secret. They know that peoplewould not approve of what they did, which shows that people fundamentally and overwhelmingly do not want to take part in this exploitation.

Under capitalism, however, most people have no choice. Wages for most people are so low that they are barely scraping by. When you are making poverty wages and trying to keep your family alive, you don’t have the luxury to turn down a 99-cent hamburger, no matter how it was made. People eat at places like McDonalds overwhelmingly for the same reason they shop at Wal-Mart: they have no other choice. Under this system, the ability to shop with a conscience is a luxury that most cannot afford. Until we cast off the tyrannical shackles of economic oppression under capitalism, we cannot make any significant headway to change the way animals are treated. Once the exploited workers of the world are free from exploitation, we will have the liberty to move on to ending animal suffering.

1506. Cuba Shifts Energy Focus to Renewables After Offshore Drilling Fails

By Marc Frank, Reuters, August 11, 2014

Cuba has shifted its focus away from offshore oil, concentrating on renewable energy and improving output from onshore wells due to a lack of interest by foreign companies for further deepwater exploration, sources close to the industry say.

With so much oil readily available around the world, oil companies including those from allies China and Russia see little incentive in drilling off the Caribbean island, delaying the Cuban dream of oil wealth that could inject vigor into its socialist revolution.

With the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba further complicating drilling plans, the country is seeking investors in renewable energy such as biomass and wind while attempting to increase output from existing onshore and shallow water wells.

Russia's state-run Rosneft and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) separately agreed last month to help Communist-run Cuba extract more oil along the traditional northwest heavy oil belt, but did not sign on to deepwater exploration.

The northwest heavy oil belt is a 200-mile (320-km) stretch of the northern coast from Havana to Villa Clara and reaching up to 3 miles (5 km) offshore. It produces poor quality oil that meets 40 percent of the country’s needs.

Rosneft and CNPC will also support the horizontal drilling of new wells from shore and join Canadian firm Sherritt International (S.TO) and another Russian state-run oil company, Zarubezhneft, which are already carrying out similar work.

Cuba had hoped Russia and China, whose presidents visited in July, would explore deepwater offshore fields that it says may hold 20 billion barrels of oil and end its dependence on socialist ally Venezuela.

Venezuela sends 115,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba under favorable terms.

"The Cubans have stopped talking about offshore oil exploration in the state-run media and in private appear more interested in new recovery methods for existing wells, biogas projects and windmill farms," a European diplomat said.

Three deepwater wells drilled in 2012 by Spanish, Norwegian, Indian, Malaysian, Russian and Venezuelan firms came up dry. All but the Norwegian state firm Statoil ASA and Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA have pulled out, and those companies are inactive. Future drilling has been postponed for the foreseeable future.

A Big Gamble 
Difficult geology from hard rock encountered while sinking the wells, alternative prospects elsewhere and U.S. sanctions that require oil rigs to carry less than 10 percent U.S. technology are discouraging further drilling, according to Western diplomats.

"Exploration is not a one-shot deal, but in Cuba due to many factors it is. Drilling is like playing once at a roulette wheel with $100 million chips," said a diplomat whose country was involved in exploration.

Jorge Pinon, an expert on Cuban oil at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas in Austin, said, "They are shifting their focus and efforts to the known coastal reservoirs rather than on the unknown offshore deepwater reservoirs."

Cuba's heavy crude fields have a recovery factor of about 10 percent (10 barrels for every 100 barrels in a well), due to the viscosity of the crude and the porosity of the rock formations from which it is extracted, Pinon said.

"If successful, Cuba could increase its present recovery factor from 10 percent to maybe 17 to 20 percent adding an additional 12,000 to 15,000 barrels of new production if not more to their current level of approximately 50,000 barrels per day," Pinon said.

Vice President and politburo member Marino Murillo told parliament in July that Cuba planned to invest $3.6 billion over the next 15 years in alternative energy, which is a priority for foreign investment.

Murillo said 96 percent of energy generation came from oil and that the goal was to reduce that by 2030 to 76 percent, with the remainder coming from 19 bioelectricity plants attached to sugar mills, 13 wind parks and solar facilities.

He did not mention deepwater oil exploration.

1505. Plants Display an Unexpected Response to Climate Change

By Jennifer Balmer, Science, August 8, 2014

Most plants under study moved downhill. Photo: Anna Wilson

Not all species flee rising temperatures. As the mercury has inched upward across western North America over the last 40 years, many plant species have moved downhill, toward—not away from—warmer climates, according to the results of a new study. The finding adds to growing evidence that temperature isn’t the only factor influencing how Earth’s life will respond to climate change.

“This is a very cool study and demonstrates what many of us have been saying—that we will get surprises,” writes Camille Parmesan, a climate change biologist at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, in an e-mail to Science. She was not involved with the study.

Like animals, plants require specific environmental conditions—such as the right temperature, moisture, and light levels—in order to thrive. Even small changes in environmental parameters can affect the reproduction and survival of a species. As global temperatures rise, both animal and plant populations are projected to gradually shift toward northern latitudes and upward to higher elevations where temperatures are cooler in order to stay within their ideal range of environmental conditions.

In an effort to understand how plants may cope with changing climates, researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, compiled geographic coordinate data for the locations of nearly 300 plant species within seven topographically distinct regions across western North America, ranging from the western Sierra Nevada mountain range in Nevada to the eastern Rocky Mountain Foothills of northern Canada, spanning the last 40 years. They then compared these findings with changing climate conditions, such as temperature, rain, and snowfall. The study is the most extensive of its kind to date.

The results of the analysis were unexpected. More than 60% of plants shifted their distributions downward, toward warmer, lower elevations—despite significant climate warming across the regions under study, the team reported online on 24 July in Global Change Biology. Even more striking, all plants within a region—regardless of species—moved in the same direction.

“Initially, we thought there was something wrong with our analysis—species distributions are expected to shift upward, not downward,” says team leader and plant ecologist Melanie Harsch. “But we redid the analysis and we got the same results.”

A closer look revealed that the downhill movement of plants was likely driven by the changes in precipitation that accompanied warming temperatures. Those regions that experienced less rain and snow at high elevations were those with plants shifting toward lower elevations with wetter climates. “Less snow in winter translates into less water in summer, resulting in water-stressed plants and downward shifts,” Harsch says.

Although plant populations are shifting downward toward greater water availability, they will also have to contend with an increasingly warming climate. “It’s a double-edged sword,” Harsch states, “as temperatures rise, water needs will also increase.”

Although previous, smaller studies have also noted downhill movements in relation to water availability, others report uphill movements in relation to temperature, suggesting the direction of species movements is dependent on local environmental conditions as well as the types of species present. “These studies highlight the importance of understanding the complexities not only of future climate change but the climatological requirements of individual species,” says Anne Kelly, a plant ecologist at the Catalina Island Conservancy in Avalon, California, who was not involved in the work.

Future climate changes are projected to intensify precipitation patterns in western North America, leading to more pronounced shifts in plant distributions and potential subsequent effects on the wildlife that depend on them for food and habitat. “How we decide where to allocate limited resources such as money and manpower to conserve species in the face of long-term global warming is a primary concern right now,” Harsch notes. “We can’t monitor all species everywhere, but, by identifying the factors responsible for environmental changes, we can begin to predict effects and prioritize conservation management choices.”

1504. Massive Texas Wind Farm Experiment Gets Underway

By Matthew L. Ward, The New York Times, July 23, 2014

The wind farm project in Panhandle, Texas, will cost $7 billion

PANHANDLE, Tex. — The wind is so relentless that a week can go by before it is calm enough for a crane operator to install the 30-ton blades atop the 260-foot towers at the Panhandle 2 wind farm here. It’s worth the wait; a single turbine at the farm can produce 40 percent more energy than an average one.

But turning wind into electricity is one thing; moving the energy to a profitable market is another. For years, the wind industry has been hampered by such a severe lack of transmission lines that when the wind is strong, a local power surplus forces some machines to be shut down.

Now, Texas is out to change that by conducting a vast experiment that might hold lessons for the rest of the United States. This year, a sprawling network of new high-voltage power lines was completed, tying the panhandle area and West Texas to the millions of customers around Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and

The project, its supporters say, is essential if states are ever to wean their reliance on fossil fuels and meet new federally mandated rules to reduce carbon emissions.

By any standard, the scale is enormous. Anywhere else, a big transmission project is a few hundred miles long and costs a few hundred million dollars; this is a network of 3,600 miles built at a cost of $7 billion, which is more money than the whole country has spent on transmission in some recent years. It comes to about $300 per person served by the Texas grid.

Nationally, transmission infrastructure is built only when circumstances demand it; in Texas, however, lawmakers have ordered an “if-you-build-it, they-will-come” approach.

And it is working. “We’ve built it and they’re marching this way,” said Warren Lasher, the director of system planning at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator, citing plans for new wind farms.

Encouraged by the new power lines and by federal tax credits that were available only to projects that broke ground by the end of last year, developers had started work on 7,000 megawatts of capacity by the end of 2013.

In a hushed control room near Austin, about a dozen technicians sitting among banks of computer screens watch the power flows and conditions, as more wind farms pump current into the system. The new lines are meant to handle up to 18,000 megawatts — millions of households. While there are still problems — the wind generally does not blow strongly on the hottest days, when its power generation is needed most, for example — scientists say that the supply will become somewhat more stable as more transmission lines, and more wind farms, are built in diverse locations.

The Legislature began the planning for the new lines in 2005, pushed not so much by environmentalists as by big wind companies, which argued that the lines would be an economic stimulus, and that planning would break a stalemate in wind industry development. Local officials were enthusiastic.

In Carson County, of which Panhandle is the seat, the winds were never seen as a blessing.

With utilities paying to secure rights of way for the new lines, wind energy is income for farmers and for the county itself, said Lewis Powers, the chairman of the county commissioners court. The county’s tax base, about $850 million last year, will exceed $1 billion this year, he said.

The decision by the Legislature to build the lines set off a planning process that forced the wind developers to cluster together, into what are called competitive renewable energy zones, or CREZ.

Now, wind developers, reassured by the certainty of transmission, are building. The Panhandle 1 and Panhandle 2 wind farms cover two-thirds of the width of Carson County. Panhandle 1 entered service this month; Panhandle 2 will come by September. Together they are 400 megawatts, which means when the wind is strong, they are as powerful as a midsize coal plant.

Cattle graze obliviously among some of the wind towers. Other towers are squeezed into the unused, odd-shaped corners of square fields where farmers have installed circular irrigation systems. “From our perspective, the CREZ lines have been fantastic,” said Michael Garland, president of Pattern Energy Group, which developed the wind farms.

But not everyone is sold.

Carol Biedrzycki, executive director of the Texas Ratepayers’ Organization to Save Energy, and a customer of Austin’s municipal utility, said that she supported more renewable energy, but that “we’re supposed to have an electricity market where the power producers are taking the risks.”

Instead, the $7 billion is being paid for by all customers, under the regulated portion of the Texas system, which covers transmission and distribution. The Texas Public Utility Commission said the typical residential ratepayer was charged an extra $6 a month or so. “There are some things about the CREZ lines that can leave a bad taste in your mouth,” Ms. Biedrzycki said. But proponents say the lines have cut electricity costs by more than the $6.

Where the transmission towers, 130 feet tall, march through the farmland, pastureland and deserts of Texas, hardly anybody professes to like them. Leaving Brickhouse, a lunch spot in Panhandle known for chicken fried steak and fried okra, Mark Urbanczyk, who farms 13,000 acres of milo, wheat and corn, paused when he was asked what he thought of the power lines.

“Well, I like the windmills,” Mr. Urbanczyk said. He said he and his father had 17 on their adjoining farms.

In McLean, a few miles to the east, about seven and a half miles of the new lines run through Jeff Haley’s ranch, in the pastures of blue grama and the sideoats grama. After arbitration, Mr. Haley received $45,000 a mile for the right of way, which he said was not enough to compensate him for an ugly intrusion, but an offer he accepted because of the expense and uncertainty of a court appeal.

Concerns like those of Ms. Biedrzycki and Mr. Haley have not prevented the new lines from being completed. Now, supporters are asking if the Texas model can be replicated around the country — an open question, experts say.

One reason is a matter of geography and politics. Texas is one of only three states with borders roughly contiguous with a grid operator, putting its electric system under the control of a single legislature and a single public utilities commission, and it is by far the largest in that category. (The others are New York and California, but each of those is much more tightly tied to its neighbors than is Texas.)

Anywhere else, every state on the route must agree on how the transmission costs will be shared, and a consensus established among the generators and the utilities.

Outside Texas, “the regulatory system is infinitely more complicated,” said James Hoecker, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The commission has been trying to encourage interstate electricity transmission, but has no jurisdiction in Texas. Compared to the rest of the country, he said, the Texas system “looks fairly remarkable.”

At the Austin office of Public Citizen, which puts climate change high on its list of priorities, Tom Smith, a longtime campaigner on energy issues, said that to cut carbon emissions, the country would need “interstate renewable transmission superhighways,” not unlike interstate highways. “That’s one of the things we’re going to have to change federally,” he said.

But the last time Congress considered federal control of electricity transmission, in 2005, state officials persuaded lawmakers that this was a state prerogative.

Mr. Hoecker said that for programs like the one in Texas, “You can’t get those kinds of decisions made anywhere else in the country right now.”

1503. US Sent Latin Youth Undercover in Anti-Cuba Ploy

By Desmond Butler, Jack Gillum, Alberto Arce and Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press, August 4, 2014 

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration program secretly dispatched young Latin Americans to Cuba using the cover of health and civic programs to provoke political change, a clandestine operation that put those foreigners in danger even after a U.S. contractor was hauled away to a Cuban jail.

Beginning as early as October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled around the island scouting for people they could turn into political activists.

In one case, the workers formed an HIV-prevention workshop that memos called "the perfect excuse" for the program's political goals — a gambit that could undermine America's efforts to improve health globally.

But their efforts were fraught with incompetence and risk, an Associated Press investigation found: Cuban authorities questioned who was bankrolling the travelers. The young workers nearly blew their mission to "identify potential social-change actors." One said he got a paltry, 30-minute seminar on how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared to be no safety net for the inexperienced workers if they were caught.

"Although there is never total certainty, trust that the authorities will not try to harm you physically, only frighten you," read a memo obtained by the AP. "Remember that the Cuban government prefers to avoid negative media reports abroad, so a beaten foreigner is not convenient for them."

In all, nearly a dozen Latin Americans served in the program in Cuba, for pay as low as $5.41 an hour.

The AP found USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates International, continued the program even as U.S. officials privately told their government contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba after the arrest of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after smuggling in sensitive technology.

"We value your safety," one senior USAID official said in an email. "The guidance applies to ALL travelers to the island, not just American citizens," another official said.

The revelations of the USAID program come as the White House faces questions about the once-secret "Cuban Twitter" project, known as ZunZuneo. That program, launched by USAID in 2009 and uncovered by the AP in April, established a primitive social media network under the noses of Cuban officials. USAID's inspector general is investigating that program, which ended in September, 2012.

Officials said USAID launched "discreet" programs like ZunZuneo to increase the flow of information in a country that heavily restricts it. But the AP's earlier investigation found ZunZuneo was political in nature and drew in subscribers unaware that the service was paid for by the U.S. government.

"USAID and the Obama administration are committed to supporting the Cuban people's desire to freely determine their own future," the agency said in response to written questions from the AP. "USAID works with independent youth groups in Cuba on community service projects, public health, the arts and other opportunities to engage publicly, consistent with democracy programs worldwide."

In a statement late Sunday, USAID said the HIV workshop had a dual purpose: It "enabled support for Cuban civil society while providing a secondary benefit of addressing the desire Cubans expressed for information and training about HIV prevention."

In this July 9, 2014 photo, a woman walks in front of the building that once housed the human rights …

Creative Associates declined to comment, referring questions to USAID.

In response to the AP's report, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said USAID's programs were important for human rights in Cuba. "We must continue to pressure the Castro regime and support the Cuban people, who are oppressed on a daily basis," said Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban native and vocal supporter of pro-democracy programs there.

Both ZunZuneo and the travelers program were part of a larger, multimillion-dollar effort by USAID to effect change in politically volatile countries, government data show. But the programs reviewed by the AP didn't appear to achieve their goals and operated under an agency known more for its international-aid work than stealthy operations. The CIA recently pledged to stop using vaccine programs to gather intelligence, such as one in Pakistan that targeted Osama bin Laden.

The travelers program was launched when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama's administration was talking about a "new beginning" with Cuba after decades of mistrust, raising questions about whether the White House had a coherent policy toward the island nation.

Drawing on documents and interviews worldwide, the AP found the travelers program went to extensive lengths to hide the workers' activities. They were to communicate in code: "I have a headache" meant they suspected they were being monitored by Cuban authorities; "Your sister is ill" was an order to cut their trip short.

"We worked it so that the government here didn't know we were traveling to Cuba and helping these groups," said Yajaira Andrade, a former administrator with a Venezuelan organization. "Because that was when (President Hugo) Chavez was in power, and if he had known about us — that some Venezuelans were working to stir rebellion — we would have been thrown in jail."

To evade Cuban authorities, travelers installed innocent-looking content on their laptops to mask sensitive information they were carrying. They also used encrypted memory sticks to hide their files and sent obviously encrypted emails using a system that might have drawn suspicion.

It is illegal in Cuba to work with foreign democracy-building programs. Nevertheless, one contract was signed days after Gross' detention.

"They arrested a contractor from another agency. That could be dangerous," one Skype message between two project workers would later read. "Thank God he's not one of ours."

Documents show Creative Associates approved the use of the travelers' relatives to carry cash to the Cuban contacts. But the family members weren't to be told that the funds were from the U.S. government.

Hector Baranda, who was a college student in Cuba when he was befriended by a group of traveling Venezuelans, said he was surprised to hear from the AP they were working for the U.S. government and had profiled him.

"How would you feel if you offered your sincere friendship and received this kind of news?" Baranda asked.

The travelers' project was paid for under the same pot of federal money that paid for the ZunZuneo program. But USAID has yet to provide the AP with a complete copy of the Cuban contracts under a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than three months ago.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was in office during the program and is a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, said in her new book "Hard Choices" that she was pleased "to see change slowly creeping into the country."

____

Online:

Documents about the program at http://apne.ws/UxJ05x

Link to the unabridged story: http://tinyurl.com/phcxymt

Another in a series of stories detailing secret American political activity in Cuba under the Obama administration, including the creation of a secret U.S.-backed "Cuban Twitter" program.