Friday, November 22, 2013

Paper sues Homeland Security
over seizure of reporter's notes
By Latara Appleby
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

The Washington Times is suing the Department of Homeland Security in Maryland federal court for what it says was an unlawful search and seizure of a reporter's newsgathering material.

The residence of Audrey Hudson, a former Times reporter, was searched by the Maryland State Police and federal officials on Aug. 6. The warrant permitted them to search for unregistered firearms and a potato launcher belonging to Hudson’s husband. But officials also took documents from the residence, including Hudson's reporting notes naming confidential sources in the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Air Marshal Service.

The Washington Times also reported that the documents, once in police custody, were removed from the evidence holding room for one hour on Sept. 3 without a record of why they were removed or what was done with them.

The newspaper and Hudson are asking the court to order that any of Hudson's "property that has been unlawfully seized" be returned to Hudson. Additionally, they are seeking permission to take testimony from an agent involved in the search to inquire how and with whom the documents were shared within the government.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Times focused on 'lone gunman'

before smoke cleared in Dallas

Food for thought as we approach the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's murder.

From the early "city edition":

City Edition

KENNEDY IS KILLED BY SNIPER

AS HE RIDES IN CAR IN DALLAS;

JOHNSON SWORN IN 0N PLANE

Texas Governor Is Shot;

Mrs. Kennedy Unharmed

Death Occurs in Hospital After Several

Resuscitation Efforts -- Condition of

Connally Serious But Not Critical

By Tom Wicker

Correspondent of the N.Y. Times

Dallas, Nov. 22 -- President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin today.

He died of a wound in the brain caused by a rifle bullet that was fired as he was riding through downtown Dallas in a motorcade.

[Paragraph on Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as president.]

Several hours after the assassination, Lee H. Oswald, described as a one-time defector to the Soviet Union and chairman of the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee," was arrested by the Dallas police. Oswald, 24 years old, was accused of slaying a policeman who had followed him into a theater. Oswald was subdued after a scuffle in the theater.

In the Late City Edition, the third headline was rewritten:

President Is Struck Down by a Rifle Shot

From Building on Motorcade Route --

Johnson, Riding Behind, Is Unhurt

Curious that Wicker, as reflected in the Times headline (which would not have been written by him), seems prematurely focused on the idea of a lone killer. Headlines in other newspapers averted this implication, simply asserting that Kennedy had been killed, slain, shot to death, assassinated and so on.

By the time of the Times's late city edition, the Texas School Book Depository "sniper's nest" claim had reached reporters, which shows that before the first edition deadline, neither Wicker nor the Times was aware of that claim by the Dallas police. And yet Wicker seemed very focused on not raising the issue of whether there might have been more than one gunman -- even though he and his editors were well aware that JFK had been the target of hate propaganda and that he had angered various powerful interests.

Of course, it might be argued that death very likely came via one rifle bullet, which came from one rifle, fired by one sniper. And yet there does seem to be here a decision to play down any hint that other rifles could have been fired.

Wicker, who eventually went on to become a Times columnist, defended the lone-gunman theory against all comers, deriding doubters as ignoramuses. And yet one of the early doubters was Sylvan Fox, who had written an expose of unanswered questions regarding the murder while an editor for the New York World-Telegram and Sun. After the Telegram folded he served as a reporter and editor on the N.Y. Times staff. But he fell silent on the assassination once he went to work for the Times. Fox later worked as editor of the op-ed page of Newsday, the Long Island newspaper.

Wicker, now deceased, wrote in a memoir that he had not bothered to bring his notebook that day, not expecting anything newsworthy to come of the presidential politicking, and was compelled to write notes on his shirtsleeves. As a former newspaper reporter, I find this disconcerting. I can't imagine a reporter of that era not bringing pen, pencil, a notebook or a handful of news copy paper when on the job. After all, the whole idea of NEWS is that stories often occur unpredictably. 

Yes, I can see a young, lazy reporter being so foolish. That said, we still have Wicker's lifelong defense of the official theory, and that tends to make me suspect that he "forgot" his notebook as a means of trying to avoid any suspicion that he might have had advance knowledge of treason.

Times page on JFK's slaying

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1122.html

Bloomberg interview

Plame alarmed by the scope

of NSA surveillance programs

Valerie Plame, whose status as a CIA officer was leaked to the press on orders from Vice President Dick Cheney, expresses alarm over the extent of NSA surveillance programs in a Bloomberg.com video.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/valerie-plame-snowden-revelations-alarming-_FcDchpATQumw~jiqhNQCA.html?cmpid=otbrn.video

Monday, November 18, 2013

Bloomberg suspends reporter
after nixing his China expose

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/world/asia/reporter-on-unpublished-bloomberg-article-is-suspended.html

So if Bloomberg is this cheap, putting China money ahead of investigative reporting, is it any wonder that Bloomberg immediately went blind to the glaring holes in the official 9/11 yarn? Bloomberg's egregious behavior is an example of how media corporations let the business department determine news coverage, or lack of it.

No one ever dreamed of sharing anything from the Snowden NSA trove or from Wikileaks with Bloomberg. This sort of button-down all-business attitude is actually counterproductive for a business-oriented news organization. It's the news -- which is about what's new -- that is the basic commodity of a news organization. Hence, excluding certain sources of news means that business-oriented people will go elsewhere, maybe the Wall Street Journal, to find out what's really going on.

The same holds for excluding stories that will offend those who can control distribution. Once you are caught playing favorites, your credibility declines and your readers will favor your competition.

Of course, the intelligence system/media cartel tries to ensure that there is no competition to speak of when it comes to specified topics. Fortunately, that central committee method of curbing news is frayed about the edges in our still vigorous democracy. The System may have robbed us of our democracy, but they haven't robbed us of our belief in basic American freedoms, meaning that this nation's democracy is far from dead.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Disclosure from Britain
N.Y. Times works with NSA
before publishing leak reports

The New York Times has been cooperating with U.S. intelligence before publishing stories based on leaked NSA documents, it emerged today.

"From all that I can see the Guardian and the New York Times have taken immense trouble to avoid any individual operative or operation being endangered," according to Charles L. Falconer, a former high-level Labor cabinet member with responsibilities for intelligence oversight.

According to the Guardian, "The Guardian has spoken to the NSA and GCHQ before publishing details from the leaked files." But its story does not corroborate Falconer's remark concerning the Times. GCHQ is Britain's equivalent of the NSA.

The Washington Post has previously disclosed that it suppresses some information in NSA stories prior to publication at the behest of the U.S. government.

The Guardian and its editors do not enjoy the same guarantees of press freedom as their U.S. counterparts and so would be expected to consult intelligence officials beforehand.

Times Editor Jill Abramson has said the Times rejected a request by British diplomats to hand over the digital trove originating with Edward Snowden.

Falconer defends Guardian, Times
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/17/threat-nsa-leaks-snowden-files

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Thousands who bought 'wrong book'

quietly placed on federal watch list

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/14/208438/americans-personal-data-shared.html

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Miller goes to bat
for fellow reporter
From newswoman Judith Miller:

On Tuesday, Fox News reporter Jana Winter will be back in court, this time in Albany, continuing her fight to avoid jail and protect her confidential sources.

On that day, the New York State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, will hear her plea to reverse a lower state court ruling which orders her to return to Aurora, Colorado to testify in the trial of James Holmes, the man charged with 166 felony charges, including 24 counts of first degree murder, in the movie theater massacre at a midnight showing of "Batman, The Dark Knight Rises." Twelve died and over 55 were injured in the attack on July 20, 2012.

Five days after the shooting, Winter, citing unidentified "law enforcement sources," reported that Holmes had sent a notebook "full of details about how he was going to kill people" to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the attack.

Miller's report
http://www.judithmiller.com/14027/jana-winter-court

Much of the press is ignoring Winter's fight, Miller said.

Miller spent time in jail for refusing to disclose a source in the Valerie Plame case. The jailing proved unnecessary because Vice President Dick Cheney eventually claimed he had had authority from President Bush to declassify Plame's status, meaning there had been no need to appoint a special prosecutor.

By maintaining silence on his planned defense, Cheney sacrificed Miller's freedom to his desire to do nothing to disrupt the second Bush-Cheney re-election drive.