Typohoid Marys Place

Angry Moms Bought Down "News of the World"

2011-07-14T04:23:00.002-04:00

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/71-71/6597-angry-moms-brought-down-news-of-the-world

Koppel on Todays News

2011-03-29T08:20:00.000-04:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/28/ted-koppel-keith-olbermann-cnn_n_841457.html

Fox News Lies Keep Them Out of Canada

2011-03-01T12:29:00.000-05:00

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/5123-fox-news-lies-keep-them-out-of-canada

Al-Jazeera English Blacked Out of Most of US

2011-02-01T00:48:00.000-05:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/30/al-jazeera-english-us_n_816030.html?ref=fb&src=sp

PRESSing Matters at the White House: Tables, Seats, and How Many, if Any?

2011-01-28T03:21:00.005-05:00

Old But Interesting News about the White House Press, and who is and who aint important;
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=139657
and the subersive, underhanded, perhaps even downright illegal,..activites employed in the establishment and/or ascertaining thereof .

Typohoid Marys Cognitive Reading Test

2011-01-26T19:53:00.002-05:00

1- Find the C below....KEEP YOUR HAND OFF THE CURSOR

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2- If you already found the C, now find the 6 below.

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
69999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

3 - Now find the N below. It's a little more difficult.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

This is NOT a joke. If you were able to pass these three tests, you can cancel your annual visit to your neurologist. Your brain is great and you're far from having a close relationship with Mr Alzheimer.

Eonvrye who can raed this rsaie your hnad.

If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid too

Can you raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg.. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm.. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and some people think slpeling is ipmorantt! Lol. Not me!

Freedom of Speech & Falsehoods in Media

2010-11-18T23:18:00.001-05:00

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201011180047?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

WikiLeaks Renews Call for U.S. Probe, Founder May Seek Political Asylum

2010-11-05T17:57:00.000-04:00

The founder of the online whistleblower organization WikiLeaks says he’s considering applying for political asylum in Switzerland in the wake of the U.S.-led crackdown on his organization. Julian Assange says Switzerland, as well Cuba and Iceland, are the only countries with whistleblower protection laws that could allow WikiLeaks to operate safely. Assange also renewed calls for the United States to investigate human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan detailed in the hundreds of thousands of documents his group has released.

Julian Assange: "The result of this and some of our other publishing activities has led not to the United States conducting a full and frank investigation into the abuses revealed, as other countries are doing, but rather an aggressive investigation into this organization, public threats towards this organization, a demand for the destruction of that material."

Breaking the Mirror

2010-10-30T16:08:00.001-04:00

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/breaking-the-mirror/#comments

Obomba: Fox News; Destructive to America

2010-10-29T00:09:00.001-04:00

Well, I think he is right on this one, but it aint just Fox News anymore....pic anyone of the big three, you will find the same problems there...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/28/obama-fox-news-is-destructive-to-america/?iref=obinsite

Auto-Tune the News: The Gregory Bros. / How They Do Do Do It

2010-10-27T00:54:00.002-04:00

http://vimeo.com/11917918

"O'Bomba's Wars" Book Seals Generals Fate

2010-10-08T20:22:00.000-04:00

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/08/henry.woodward.jones/index.html?hpt=C1

Israeli Journalist Imprisoned for Reporting Israeli Army War Crimes

2010-10-05T07:33:00.000-04:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/isra-a23.shtml

Write Like a Mother-Fucker

2010-08-30T13:17:00.002-04:00

http://therumpus.net/2010/08/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-48-write-like-a-motherfucker/

A Public Apology

2010-08-09T19:04:00.001-04:00

An Apology for my Indiscretions: With so much talk of 1st Amendment Rights and freedom of expression these days, I got to thinking how wrong it was of me to "unfriend" people from my FB page simply because they dont agree with my positions on any given issue such as war, etc. I have also deleted a posts that I thought were "poking fun" at me such as the comment suggesting it was time for me to "take my meds." I acted on impulse and in retrospect it was wrong of me to do so. I want to make a public apology for myself in so doing and to reassure everyone that because I am a staunch believer in 1st amendment rights and oppose censorship,... it will not happen again. I encourage healthy debate and you cant do that by banning those with opposing views. Feel free even to poke fun of me here. I can handle it. Honest I can....without meds. (For the record, I am on not on any prescription drugs) Lol.

UAE to Ban Blackberry Services / Security Threat

2010-08-02T02:42:00.001-04:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100801/ap_on_hi_te/ml_emirates_blackberry

NYT Attacks Stones "Border"Doc w/ False Rant of "Pro-Coup" Reporter

2010-07-04T00:25:00.003-04:00

Oliver Stones Documentary, "South of the Border" ; http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/5220/Oliver-Stones-South-of-the-Border-Trailer

TruthOut Article;

http://www.truth-out.org/nyt-attacks-border-with-false-rant-pro-coup-reporter60872

Fox(y) News

2010-06-12T08:32:00.001-04:00

Media Matters: Fox Business: Low on ratings, high on Fox-patented GOP boosterism and falsehoods

When News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch introduced the Fox Business Network in 2007, he made no attempt to hide the fact that the financial channel would reflect his own conservative philosophy. The financial media, in his view, should be in the business of "celebrat[ing]" free-market capitalism.

As Murdoch saw it, the existing media were too quick to ''leap on every scandal" and "are not as friendly to corporations and profits as they should be." In contrast to purportedly anti-business CNBC, Fox Business would be ''more business friendly" and "celebrate the freedom and sense of optimism that free markets have given Americans." America, according to Australian-born Murdoch, has the best "corruption-free companies in the world. Our companies are beacons of success that the rest of the world looks to, not that you'd know that through much of the business coverage we see every day."

As he did with Fox News, executive Roger Ailes has imported Murdoch's conservative philosophy to FBN, where the network's coverage and most visible personalities are unabashedly conservative and dismissive of progressives. The head of FBN's news division is senior vice president, host, and tea-party booster Neil Cavuto, who donated to President Bush, bashed the "awful" Democratic health care bill, and sports a record of misinforming viewers about economic issues.

Morning anchor Stuart Varney is a British expat whose shtick involves complaining that "socialist" Democrats are pushing America in the direction of his former country. Varney is described by Fox Business as a "business journalist" and news "anchor." Yet he admits that he's "very partisan," "very clearly partisan" and can't resist bashing Democrats while propping up Republicans. Varney also -- stop the presses -- misinforms viewers about economic issues,

David Asman, another "journalist," hosts the prime-time show America's Nightly Scoreboard. Asman, lover of Milton Friedman, makes it a habit to assail Social Security, Democrats, and "hypocrite" environmentalists who dare get in the way of activities like more oil drilling. Asman is one of the channel's biggest proponents of the tea parties, once telling viewers they "need to go" to a tea party merchandise site. Asman also -- hold the phone -- misinforms viewers about economic issues.

John Stossel, host of his own weekly "libertarian" show, has argued that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act should be repealed to restore the right to discriminate and that the "free market" would have likely resolved the issue of racial discrimination by businesses -- a claim that civil rights expert Andrew Grant-Thomas called "ahistorical" and "unempirical." Stossel recently keynoted a fundraising luncheon for a "research" organization with heavy ties to the energy industry. When Stossel joined Fox, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace said he'd be "very natural fit" because "he's conservative." Stossel also has a history of -- call grandma -- misinforming viewers.

Fox, which defends itself by claiming that its "fair and balanced" reporters just report the news, employs FBN "reporter" Tracy Byrnes, who said Democrats voting yes on health care "make me sick," and "senior correspondent" Charles Gasparino, who said he wouldn't vote for the Democrats' health care bill ("Who would?").
FBN also recently announced promotions for Eric Bolling and Andrew Napolitano. Bolling, previously of the canceled afternoon show Happy Hour, will get a weekday prime-time show, his apparent reward for shilling for Republican candidates, and -- start the Drudge siren -- misinforming viewers about economic issues.

Napolitano, meanwhile, will bring his previously online-only show Freedom Watch to FBN on a weekly basis. Napolitano is an unabashed libertarian, meaning that while he disagrees with some of his Fox colleagues on certain social and national security issues, he'll fit right in on economic matters. In its online iterations, Freedom Watch frequently gave a platform to fringe guests like 9-11 conspiracy leaders Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura; Thomas E. Woods Jr., who has been a member of the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a "racist" hate group; and "libertarian anarchist" Lew Rockwell, who excoriates Abraham Lincoln and openly pushes for secession. Napolitano has used his Fox perch to push inane conspiracy theories and -- insert any remaining idiom here -- misinform viewers.

How many people not getting paychecks from Media Matters will actually watch those shows, though, remains a question. While Fox News has undoubtedly achieved ratings success, Fox Business, in its third year, continues to post "feeble" ratings. While CNBC is available in more than 90 million households, FBN is available in just 50 million. Vanity Fair's Matt Pressman wrote last November that "it's fairly safe to assume" that "most of its shows fall short of attracting 35,000 viewers," or roughly one-tenth of CNBC's audience and a hundredth of SpongeBob SquarePants'.

The most high-profile show on FBN -- a dubious honor -- isn't even a business-oriented show. Last October, FBN began simulcasting Don Imus, best known for helping pioneer shock jock radio decades ago and smearing female basketball players. Imus, as he has self-deprecatingly acknowledged, has no expertise in business news, which is why FBN incorporates several business updates on his show.

Fox hopes to grow its fledgling business channel by cross-promoting it on Fox News, which also struggled with early ratings. Fox News has begun using hosts like apparent financial wizards Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck to tout FBN as "no-spin talk you can trust" and the network that "wants you to succeed." Varney, Bolling, Byrnes, and others regularly appear on FNC, where they're touted as financial experts -- facts to the contrary -- while Cavuto incessantly uses his afternoon FNC show to implore viewers to "demand" FBN from their cable providers.

In a new ad for the network, Fox states that Fox Business and Fox News offer "two networks, twice the power." Indeed, from its inception to its recent hiring decisions, Fox Business has made it clear that like its sister channel, "fair and balanced" is merely a wink and a nod to viewers looking for a reaffirmation of conservative myths and blatant GOP boosterism

Journalistic Over-Kill

2010-05-19T20:53:00.002-04:00

Old but interesting news;

Christine Chubbuck, 29 was a TV news reporter for Channel 40, WXLT-TV station.

She had been depressed for some time, the main source of which was apparently “her focus on her lack of relationships.” Her mother later said that it was due to “her personal life was not enough”. She complained to colleagues that she was going to be 30, yet she was still a virgin who never went on more than 2 dates with men. Her colleagues noted that she could be “brusque and defensive” and that she was “self-deprecating, criticizing herself constantly and rejecting any compliments she was given.”

On 15th July 1974, she turned up for work with a .38 revolver and put it below her desk.

The first 8 minutes of her program started normally enough. She covered a few national news stories. Then the story turned to one about a local restaurant shooting the day before. There was a technical problem with the videoclip about the restaurant, and Christine shrugged it off, before saying:

In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first: an attempted suicide.

Then, unbelieveably, she took out the pistol and shot herself behind her right ear. As a result, she violently fell forward. The technical director faded slowly to black.

Jean Reed was handling the videocameras that morning and she thought it was a prank until she saw Chubbuck’s twitching body.

To cover, the TV station immediately filled in with a standard Public Service tape, followed by a movie.

Chubbuck was taken to hospital and pronounced dead 14 hours later.

She was cremated. Her family managed to get a court order preventing the release of the videotape of her suicide.

Source
Wikipedia

Mark Victor Hansen Writers Conference - Got an Extra Grand 2 Spare? If so, You're Invited

2010-04-09T23:38:00.002-04:00

At one point, Mark Victor Hansen, best-selling author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, was where you are right now. He had wanted to become an author, but didn't know the best way to turn his manuscript into a published book. That was years ago though, because since then, Mark has sold hundreds of millions of his books around the globe.

Now he wants to share all he has learned and help you get published. At his new Writer's Extravaganza conference, he has brought together a team of leading speakers and experts who can help you:
Choose our best publishing strategy
Learn why you need to brand yourself and why this is so important
Build your book into a business
Market your product to the masses
Protect your intellectual property
This two-day conference has a limited number of openings, but AuthorHouse has made special arrangements with Hansen to hold a select number of seats for aspiring authors like you.
To learn more about the conference and reserve your space, click on title above; https://mvhansen.infusionsoft.com/go/writers_extravaganza/authors/ad1

Don't let this opportunity to get tips from a best-selling author and publishing industry insiders pass you by. Register for the Writer's Extravaganza today.

Sincerely,

Your AuthorHouse Team

P.S. Seating is limited, so don't delay. Sign up now.

http://www.writerextravaganza.com/index.php?utm_campaign=

When tweets can make you a jailbird

2010-03-18T05:11:00.000-04:00

By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer – Tue Mar 16, 3:04 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Maxi Sopo was having so much fun "living in paradise" in Mexico that he posted about it on Facebook so all his friends could follow his adventures. Others were watching, too: A federal prosecutor in Seattle, where Sopo was wanted on bank fraud charges.

Tracking Sopo through his public "friends" list, the prosecutor found his address and had Mexican authorities arrest him. Instead of sipping pina coladas, Sopo is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

Sopo learned the hard way: The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.

Law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, even going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that surfaced in a lawsuit.

The document shows that U.S. agents are logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.

Among the purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree — people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars — can link suspects or their friends to crime.

The Justice document also reminds government attorneys taking cases to trial that the public sections of social networks are a "valuable source" of information on defense witnesses. "Knowledge is power," says the paper. "Research all witnesses on social networking sites."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, obtained the 33-page document when it sued the Justice Department and five other agencies in federal court.

A decade ago, agents kept watch over AOL and MSN chat rooms to nab sexual predators. But those text-only chat services are old-school compared with today's social media, which contain a potential treasure trove of evidence.

The document, part of a presentation given in August by cybercrime officials, describes the value of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other services to investigators. It does not describe in detail the boundaries for using them.

"It doesn't really discuss any mechanisms for accountability or ensuring that government agents use those tools responsibly," said Marcia Hoffman, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sued to force the government to disclose its policies for using social networking.

The foundation also obtained an Internal Revenue Service document that states IRS employees cannot use deception or create fake accounts to get information.

Sopo's case didn't require undercover work; his carelessness provided the clues. But covert investigations on social-networking services are legal and governed by internal rules, according to Justice officials. They would not, however, say what those rules are.

The document addresses a social-media bullying case in which U.S. prosecutors charged a Missouri woman with computer fraud for creating a fake MySpace account — effectively the same activity that undercover agents are doing, although for different purposes.

The woman, Lori Drew, posed as a teen boy and flirted with a 13-year-old neighborhood girl. The girl hanged herself in October 2006, in a St. Louis suburb, after she received a message saying the world would be better without her. Drew was convicted of three misdemeanors for violating MySpace's rules against creating fake accounts. But last year a judge overturned the verdicts, citing the vagueness of the law.

"If agents violate terms of service, is that 'otherwise illegal activity'?" the document asks. It doesn't provide an answer.

Facebook's rules, for example, specify that users "will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission." Twitter's rules prohibit users from sending deceptive or false information. MySpace requires that information for accounts be "truthful and accurate."

A former U.S. cybersecurity prosecutor, Marc Zwillinger, said investigators should be able to go undercover in the online world the same way they do in the real world, even if such conduct is barred by a company's rules. But there have to be limits, he said.

"This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our most personal relationships," said Zwillinger, whose firm does legal work for Yahoo and MySpace.

The Justice document describes how Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have interacted with federal investigators: Facebook is "often cooperative with emergency requests," the government said. MySpace preserves information about its users indefinitely and even stores data from deleted accounts for one year. But Twitter's lawyers tell prosecutors they need a warrant or subpoena before the company turns over customer information, the document says.

"Will not preserve data without legal process," the document says under the heading, "Getting Info From Twitter ... the bad news."

The chief security officer for MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam, said MySpace doesn't want to stand in the way of an investigation. "That said, we also want to make sure that our users' privacy is protected and any data that's disclosed is done under proper legal process," Nigam said.

MySpace requires a search warrant for private messages less than six months old, according to the company.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company has put together a handbook to help law enforcement officials understand "the proper ways to request information from Facebook to aid investigations."

___

On the Net:

Justice Department document: http://tinyurl.com/yjc6mql

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100316/ap_on_hi_te/us_feds_on_facebook

HuffPost Gets BIG $hot in the Arm

2010-03-13T22:06:00.001-05:00

Online Investigative Reporting gets a shot in the arm – the Knight Foundation to Support The Huffington Post Investigative Fund with $200,000.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 22nd, 2009
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Knight Foundation to Support The Huffington Post Investigative Fund

Washington, DC – December 22, 2009. As part of its ongoing support for investigative journalism, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announces a grant of $200,000 to The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. In making the contribution, the Knight Foundation joins the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Markle Foundation and The Huffington Post as key supporters of the venture.

“The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is experimenting with a new way of providing important journalism, functioning as a non-profit that draws audience from a popular for-profit,” said Eric Newton, vice president of Knight Foundation’s journalism program. “It’s a worthy test of a new idea, and since we really don’t know how investigative reporting is best supported in the future, an interesting experiment.”

Based in Washington, D.C., The Huffington Post Investigative Fund has a full-time staff of 11 and a budget of $2 million. It is headed by executive director Nick Penniman, formerly the publisher of the Washington Monthly, and executive editor Lawrence Roberts, formerly the investigations editor of the Washington Post. Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, chairs the nonprofit’s board. Collectively, its staff members have won more than four dozen major journalism awards, including multiple Pulitzer Prizes.

“We’re thrilled and honored to receive Knight’s backing,” said Penniman. “In these times of great upheaval for the news industry, Knight Foundation is helping us blaze a new trail for how you finance, create and distribute investigative journalism.

Said Arianna Huffington: “Knight’s grant is an important milestone in the young history of The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. We’re incredibly grateful to Alberto Ibargüen and Eric Newton of Knight Foundation for their passion for championing innovative solutions in the face of the crisis facing investigative journalism. Everyone who understands the vital role good journalism plays in our democracy is looking for ways to preserve and strengthen it during this time of great transition for the media, and Knight is playing a lead role in this effort.”

“The Huffington Post is an ideal partner for Knight Foundation. They are entrepreneurial and care passionately about meeting the information needs of communities,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation. “As a media leader, few are as innovative as Arianna Huffington. She believes in freedom and practices it. She believes in journalism and has hired outstanding investigative reporters and editors. And she believes in the power of technology to change the world for the better.”

“It’s also extremely important to us to partner with Atlantic Philanthropies in supporting The Huffington Post, as it was to partner with the Houston Endowment on the Texas Tribune or the San Diego Community Foundation in supporting the Voice of San Diego,” added Ibargoen. “These collaborations are essential as we look for the next sustainable model for the delivery of news people need.”

The Fund’s mission is to be an online innovator of investigative reporting by merging the classic watchdog function and traditional values of the press with the best tools of new media. Since its operations began in the early Fall, it has produced more than 50 stories, including 20 videos. Highlights include an investigation of a top subprime lender showing how fraud was at the heart of the housing boom and bust; a three-part expose of how the credit rating companies have fended off regulation from Congress and the SEC; and a project shedding light on inequities in denials of health insurance claims, reported with help from citizen journalists. The Fund has also completed multiple citizen journalism and “distributed research” projects and collaborated with other nonprofits on various stories, including the Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica and the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

Through open-source publishing, any content the Investigative Fund produces is free for anyone to publish at the same time that it’s made available to The Huffington Post. The relationship helps the nonprofit distribute its reporting to a larger audience than it is capable of attracting on its own. In addition to The Huffington Post, more than 40 other outlets have republished the Fund’s pieces.

“We’ve built a first-rate staff of veteran investigative reporters and up-and-coming journalists,” said Roberts. “Having Knight’s support is an exciting endorsement of our efforts so far and of our potential.”

Knight Foundation’s $15 million Investigative Reporting Initiative was announced this year at the annual convention of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization, the nation’s leading group of investigative journalists. Grantees under the initiative include News21, the Center for Investigative Reporting, ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity and the Texas Tribune.

WaPost Hires Another Torture-Writer

2010-03-03T21:27:00.002-05:00

The Washington Post just hired Marc Thiessen, who now becomes the second former George W. Bush speechwriter-turned-columnist at the paper. Thiessen isn't just any right-wing shill: He's an unapologetic advocate for torture. And he isn't alone. Charles Krauthammer, Michael Scheuer, and Richard Cohen have all used the editorial pages of the Post to defend torture.

How much longer can the Post give writers its pages as a platform to promote torture before it starts to look like the paper's official position?

When the Post gives a platform to torture supporters, it shapes -- and distorts -- the national debate on security and human rights, especially if those advocates are making a misleading case. The paper must stop promoting torture -- and they need to hear that from you.

In his book and even on the pages of the Post, Thiessen has repeatedly made dishonest and dubious statements in support of torture. For example:

He falsely claimed in his most recent book that, since CIA interrogation of terror suspects began after 9-11, there were no attacks by Al Qaeda on U.S. interests at home or abroad. He also claimed, falsely, in a Post op-ed that Bush oversaw "2,688 days without a terrorist attack on [American] soil," ignoring the anthrax mail attacks, the El Al shooting in Los Angeles and other domestic terrorist attacks.
In a Post op-ed, he called President Obama's decision to release Bush administration torture memos "irresponsible" and claimed that "Americans may die as a result."
The Washington Post needs to be held accountable for the ethics of the writers it hires and features, especially on such a crucial issue. We need to let the Post know that giving a platform to dishonest advocates of torture is unacceptable. They must stop promoting torture.

Click on title above to tell The Washington Post: Stop promoting torture.

In the Post, columnist Richard Cohen claimed that torture works and criticized the refusal to waterboard terrorists as naive, while columnist Krauthammer used his column to attack opponents of torture and promote Bush administration talking points.

But hiring Thiessen as a weekly columnist is a new low. Thiessen is not a reliable voice on national security, and the Post's credibility will be hurt by Thiessen's advocacy of inhumane and unnecessary torture techniques.

The Washington Post and editorial page editor Fred Hiatt need to say no to torture apologists, and stop promoting torture.

Go here to sign petition; http://mediamatters.org/action/wapotorture/?source=wapotorture1

Thank you for your help in holding the Post accountable.

Eric Burns
President,
Media Matters for America

Marley Son Memoir...Publisher Woes

2010-02-18T05:09:00.003-05:00

Click on title above for original article

http://www.bvnewswire.com/2010/02/16/ky-mani-marley-memoir-dear-dad

Media Company Tries to Muffle Free Speech, Goes After Public Citizen Attorney

2010-02-05T18:46:00.000-05:00

Jan. 28, 2010

Boca Raton Media Company Tries to Muffle Free Speech, Goes After Public Citizen Attorney

Vision Media Attacks Online Message Board Provider, Then Its Lawyer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A media company trying to stifle its online critics is now going one step further – it is trying to muzzle a Public Citizen attorney involved in the case.

Vision Media is a Boca Raton, Fla.,-based company that makes TV spots for nonprofit groups and gets new business by cold-calling prospective customers. Not only is it going after 800notes.com, an Internet message board that allows consumers to critique telemarketers, for allegedly defamatory comments posted about Vision Media, but it is now pursuing Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy, one of the lawyers representing Web site operator Julia Forte. Local counsel Judith M. Mercier of Holland & Knight in Orlando is also representing 800notes.com.

In its request for a gag order, filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Vision Media said that Levy “seeks to embarrass, defame and disparage the plaintiffs through trying their case through the Internet media outlet and without affording the plaintiffs with an opportunity to address substantive arguments.”

A gag order is impermissible prior restraint, Levy said. Plus, it flies in the face of basic First Amendment principles.

“Vision Media continues to ignore the principle of Internet free speech as it again tries to muzzle anyone who speaks out against the company,” Levy said. “If the plaintiffs learned their lesson, they could instead respond to the postings on the message boards and blogs, and voice their same First Amendment right, rather than trying to squelch that of others.”

To read more about this case, visit http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3032.

To read Levy’s blog post that Vision Media objects to, visit http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2010/01/vision-media-tv-tries-to-evade-section-230-immunity-to-squelch-criticism.html.

To read Public Citizen’s briefs, go to http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=591.

###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3035

Beyond GBS2 to a New Rule of Copyright Law

2010-02-02T09:43:00.001-05:00

James Grimmelmann has published his supplemental comments on behalf of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School. His thoughts about the whole GBS1 - GBS2 process are very interesting:

This filing reflects the continuing evolution of my thinking on the settlement. I have gone from “Approve the settlement.” to explaining “How to Fix the Google Book Search Settlement” to being deeply concerned about the means it uses.” In September, our filing recommended further consultation and improvements to the class action process, in the hopes that sufficient oversight could keep it accountable and operating in the public interest. The letter filed today concludes that the way the settlement uses a class action is not salvageable.

I had been looking for a limiting principle: something that could justify a modified version of the settlement while also setting a clear boundary beyond which future cases could not go. But I have become convinced that no such limiting principle is likely to be apparent any time soon. Without one, there is no way to make the settlement consistent with the rule of law, and it should not be approved.

Published in the New Republic, HLS prof Larry Lessig's recent essay, For the Love of Culture: Google, copyright, and our future, argues the case that a new rule of copyright law is needed sooner rather than later. "We have all wasted too much time waging the copyright wars to know enough what a sensible peace would look like," writes Lessig. Between the "copyright abolitionists" and the licensing advocates, the "content industry--that seeks to license every single use of culture, in whatever context" as reflected, for example, in GBS2 which "constructs a world in which control can be exercised at the level of a page, and maybe even a quote," a new balance must be established to protect and limit markets by legislative reform.

We need a renewed effort to strike this balance through interests that recognize the good in both sides. It would be a mistake to destroy new markets by eliminating copyright protection where it would do good. It would also be a mistake to assume that all access to culture should be governed by markets, regardless of the effect it has on access to our past. In the most abstract sense, we need to decide what kinds of access should be free. And we need to craft the law to assure that freedom.

Lessig is less than optimistic:

The idea of balanced public policy in this area will strike many as oxymoronic. It is thus no wonder, perhaps, that the likes of Google sought progress not through better legislation, but through a clever kludge, enabled by genius technologists. But this is too important a matter to be left to private enterprises and private deals. Private deals and outdated law are what got us into this mess. Whether or not a sensible public policy is possible, it is urgently needed.

For starters, the Open Book Alliance might want to ratchet down the level of its polemics below "11." In its recently filed amicus brief opposing GBS2, OBA "highlights" five reasons why the GBS2 is a “paltry proposal:”

Control of the Search Market is Google’s True Goal
Secret Side Deals Among the Parties Actually Control The Settlement Terms
Google’s Anticompetitive Bundling Undermines Competition in Digital Book Distribution
The Amendments Fail to Resolve Antitrust Objections
The Settlement Fails Even a Rule of Reason Evaluation
[JH]

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2010/02/beyond-gbs2-to-a-new-rule-of-copyright-law.html?utm_source=feedburner

Journalists Arrive Back in U.S. after Being Being Freed from N. Korea Jail

2009-08-06T10:39:00.001-04:00

-- Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee arrive back in the U.S. after being freed from detention in North Korea.

Watch live coverage now on http://CNN.com/Live

(Click on title above to go there)

(Update 1) FBI Forces Alex Jones Off Of The Air Today During Radio Broadcast

2009-08-01T06:52:00.001-04:00

July 31st 2009

Ernest Hancock
Website: www.ernesthancock.com
Date: 07-31-2009
Subject: Media: Radio

Developing Story - From I can learn. There was a blog post on Alex Jones' web site by a blogger threatening Law Enforcement. So the FBI come to Alex's studio and pulled him off the air to... not sure why specifically. But they cerrtainly wanted the post taken down. And I'm sure they wanted any additional information about the individual that Alex Jones was able to provide.

I'll post more as I know it but Alex was forced to run pre-recordings while dealing with the demands of the FBI for the actions of another using his site to express himself in an illegal manner as alleged by the FBI.

More to come.....

My good friend Dale Williams is a great talk show host in Salt Lake City and has provided me with the background informatiuon that I am certain that you are interested in....

Alex Jones Interrupted by FBI

Today the Alex Jones Show (prisonplanet.tv) was interrupted by a visit from agents of the FBI. They took Alex from his broadcast booth for a 30 minute “interview.”
When Alex came back on the air, he stated that the “interview” was related to postings, by an unaffiliated third party, on one of his websites, and that the FBI delivered a subpoena related to those postings which will require Jones’ presence at a trial in Virginia.

A call to the Jones studio confirmed that Alex is fine. Highlights from previous shows were played during the initial period of today’s rebroadcast, followed by the show interval which immediately followed the FBI’s intrusion on today’s show.

Please go to Alex’s website and tell him you support his efforts and pray for him and his family’s welfare daily.

-D.W.

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/054517-2009-07-31-update-1-fbi-forces-alex-jones-off-of-the-air.htm

The Anatomy Of The Twitter Attack

2009-07-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

by Nik Cubrilovic on July 19, 2009

The Twitter document leak fiasco started with a simple story that personal accounts of Twitter employees were hacked. Twitter CEO Evan Williams commented on that story, saying that Twitter itself was mostly unaffected. No personal accounts were compromised, and “most of the sensitive information was personal rather than company-related,” he said. The individual behind the attacks, known as Hacker Croll, wasn’t happy with that response. Lots of Twitter corporate information was compromised, and he wanted the world to know about it. So he sent us all of the documents that he obtained, some 310 of them, and the story developed from there.

It’s clear that Twitter was completely unaware of how deeply they were affected as a company - when Williams said that most of the information wasn’t company related he believed it. It wasn’t until later that he realized just how much and what kind of information was taken. It included things like financial projections and executive meeting notes that contained highly confidential information.

We’ve already said a lot about all of this and the related “server password = password” story that was discovered by another individual last week. But we’ve got two more stories to tell. The first, this post, is exactly how the hacks took place, based on information gathered from hours of conversations with Hacker Croll. The second is what was happening behind he scenes with Twitter as the story unfolded. We’ll post that later this week.

When the story first broke the true scope of what had taken place and how it occurred was not understood. Various bloggers speculated about the cause of the attack - with some placing the blame on Google while others blaming the rising trend of hosting documents in the cloud.

We immediately informed Twitter of the information we had in our possession (and forwarded it to them), and at the same time reached out to the attacker. With some convincing, the attacker responsible for the intrusion at Twitter began a dialog with us. I spent days communicating with the attacker in an effort to gain insight into how the attack took place, what the true scope of it was and how we could learn from it.

Read More

http://www.techcrunch.com/

Tom Wolfes Obeservations: Novelist as Journalist / Reporter

2009-07-15T21:51:00.002-04:00

The Bonfire of the Vanities - coming to this blog

Posted: 14 Jul 2009 06:11 PM PDT

Tom Wolfe likes to introduce his novels with a sort of "making of" Introduction. I noticed he did so with "I am Charlotte Simmons"; and now I discover that, about twenty years before, he did the same with "The Bonfire of the Vanities."

The Introduction to "The Bonfire of the Vanities" is a lovely literary essay, the sort of thing that arouses serious writers (whom Tom Wolfe defines as those who aim for literary prestige). It is rich with historical context from the world of fiction, from as far back the nineteenth century to the 1980s. It is also an argument for something.

Wolfe argues that novel writing must rely on reporting skills. A serious writer must be able to document - carefully - the world he wishes his work to inhabit. He has to interview, live in, make friends with, that world. Wolfe compares realism to electricity; you can't go back on it, you can't do without it. Realism is essential for fiction, he argues.

His point seems true; part of The Wire's immense TV success is that its creator immersed himself in the inner-workings of Baltimore, Maryland. Indeed, David Simon was a reporter for a local Baltimore paper for many years.

Some nuggets:

In 1969, Tom Wolfe sought to write a novel about New York - that irresistible destination of all those who insist on being where things are happening. He thought it the most obvious idea an American writer could have.

1960s America was a time of immense change. He kept waiting for novels about those changes. Nothing.

By the time 1979 swung around, and still no grand novel on New York had come out, Wolfe began to prepare for writing that book himself.

The reason why no novels where forthcoming was complicated. Most writers were experimenting with different forms of fiction. The realism school was deemed to have been 'over'.

Extraordinary and abundant news coverage challenged fiction writers. There was no way they could replicate that realism. The news was full of detail, full of things even a fictional novelist would be at loss to match for symbolism and surprise.

Reporting is the most vaulable and least understood resource available to any writer with exalted ambitions, whether the medium is print, film, tape, or the stage.

Wolfe sought to document the influence of society on even the most personal aspects of the life of an individual. It strikes me as folly to believe that you can portray the individual in the city today without also portraying the city itself.

I doubt that there is a writer over forty who does not realise in his heart of hearts that literary genius, in prose, consists of proportions more on the the order of 65 percent material and 35 percent the talent in his brain.

Between 1981-1985, Tom Wolfe gathered material by visiting neighborhoods and making friends with people he would never have encountered. The novel was published in 1987 to widespread acclaim; it was often described as 'prophetic'.

Hola: While in London, my friend avantcaire set up this book-reading-circle of sorts; to my lot fell the honour of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" - all 740 pages of it. My task is to read it, and send it on to the next person in the ring. Wish me luck!

Want to read my future posts?
Click on title above to suscribe to my newsletter blog;

http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/TbCz

Access Scandal Echoes Beyond The Washington Post or How We Get Our "Un-Biased" News

2009-07-04T23:46:00.001-04:00

For those readers not familiar with the "Access Scandal" click on title above to read original artile of which this one (below) is a follow-up)

Friday 03 July 2009

by: Michael Calderone and Andy Barr | Visit article original @ The Politico

For embarrassed Washington Post executives-reeling from what the paper's own ombudsman called a public relations "disaster" over a flier promoting a "salon" for lobbyists to mingle with prominent newsmakers-there must be a sense of "Why us?"

The fact is The Post's clumsy effort to make money on its brand name and market its access to the powerful was a belated effort to follow in the steps of at least two other prominent news organizations: the Wall Street Journal and the Economist magazine.

The Journal, for instance, is charging a $7,500 for its two-day CEO Council in November, an elite gathering that will include the paper's top editors and high-profile speakers like Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. And for a few thousand dollars, The Economist can open the door to intimate off-the-record meet-and-greets with world leaders.

These events illustrate how the basic transaction-charging big fees to special interests to arrange private, special-access encounters with powerful people-that caused the Post this week to be excoriated is a more endemic practice than many people in political and media circles realize. Some watchdogs hope this week's Post scandal will help put an end to a hard-to-defend practice by revenue-hungry news organizations.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism, said he thought the Post flier raised a red flag for news organizations to be wary of entering into a financial arrangement with people that you're covering.

"One has to ask," Rosenstiel said, "Is the amount of money you might generate from this worth damaging that bond with your readers?"

While the speakers at the Journal conference this November will be on the record, with ostensible benefits for Journal readers, Rosenstiel said the bigger problem is when newsmakers and top editorial staffers are offered up to guests with no press access whatsoever, as the Post was originally planning. By doing so, he said, news organizations are "encouraging the notion in the readers mind that [they're] part of some insider establishment that it considers more important than public knowledge."

The Journal arguably crossed that line in March, when the paper agreed to allow National Economic Adviser Larry Summers to conduct his talk, during a $5,000-a-head conference, as closed to press. All the other speakers at the Future of Finance Initiative conference, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, spoke on the record. But when it came time for Summers talk, Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray, who's instrumental in organizing the paper's executive conferences, instructed attendees (and not reporters) to get in cars headed for White House. (The Journal declined to comment on this arrangement).

Changing the Summers talk from on to off the record and whisking executives over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue came up late in the process at the Journal. By contrast, The Economist, the British publication that has developed considerable readership on this side of the Atlantic, makes it clear from the start what the ground rules are for its conferences. And those have nothing to do with informing average readers.

The Economist has scheduled two off-the-record summits this year bringing together government officials and business leaders together in Mexico and Brazil. The magazine's website lists three aims for the summits, one of which is to foster an off-the-record, high-level debate between Mexican business leaders and key ministers on the policies and strategies of the current government. The price for the Mexico and Brazil summits are not listed, but prices for other events run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to nearly $4,000.

"The events are off the record because we have found it is the best way for our delegates and host governments to get value from the discussion," an Economist spokesperson wrote in an e-mail. "It also explicitly means that the event will not be covered by The Economist.

"We host events because they are a natural extension of the debate initiated by the magazine," the spokesperson added.

Rarely has a prestigious news organization found itself so much on the defensive about the practice as The Post was on Thursday following POLITICO's report on a marketing flier sent to lobbyists that offered exclusive, off-the-record access to the top of the Post's masthead, Congressional leaders, Obama administration officials, and the paper's health-care reporters in exchange for fees ranging from $25,000 for one event to $250,000 for ten.

Post executives- publisher Katharine Weymouth and executive editor Marcus Brauchli--focused on the flier, which in particularly over-the top language promised a corporations a "seat at the table" with policy-makers for a dinner that would have a certain type of mood. "Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it.""

Weymouth and Brauchli said the flier not been vetted, adding that the newsroom would never have taken part in a pay-to-play scheme as described. But Weymouth did not repudiate the concept of charging corporate sponsors for off-the-record dinners and insisted that "there is a viable way to expand our expertise into live conferences and events."

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, said on POLITICO's Arena that the bottom line for the Post brass was money, "and when people start thinking money, they tend to forget to think about anything else."

"Let's hope that the Chinese wall between the news side and the business side doesn't crumble under current intense financial pressure as the industry transforms," Kanter said. "The bottom line, so to speak, is not what was said on the fliers about paying big bucks and getting a seat at Weymouth's dinner table. It is that the fliers were honest about the nature of the offering: contacts for cash."

For the Post, facing steep losses this year, such events have been part of a revenue-generating strategy for some time. As Weymouth told staffers in a memo last December, "to expand our revenue base and diversify our business model, we must look for opportunities to create new products, especially in the areas where business and policy intersect." One idea, she wrote at the time, was "hosting of specialized conferences for business decision makers with a stake in Washington policy-making."

Perhaps no one has perfected the art of bringing together ideas and debate in the public sphere while generating profits and prestige as Atlantic Media owner David Bradley. Microsoft has teamed up with National Journal for private dinners, and Bradley's annual schmoozefest, the Aspen Ideas Festival, brought together over one hundred speakers with leading positions in government, business, journalism, advocacy and the arts this past week.

Sponsored by the Aspen Institute and Atlantic, along with corporate support, the festival also features Cabinet members, the top editors and writers from Bradley's magazines, and a sundry media all-stars. (As coincidence would have it, Weymouth sat on a future of journalism panel in Aspen titled "What's the News Worth to You?")

Atlantic Monthly editor James Bennet said that "the whole idea of the [festival] is to be on-the-record and in open conversation."

According to Bennet, "sponsors of the session here go to events and have the same opportunities to ask questions as everybody else." But The Atlantic, like other news organizations, charges big money for such gatherings, though anyone can head to the website for regular festival dispatches or clips of panels and interviews.

POLITICO has also collaborated with sponsors such as the ACLU and Yahoo in holding public events. But each has been open to the public and press - a critical distinction according to John F. Harris, POLITICO's editor-in-chief.

"My view is that it is the job of news organizations to illuminate public issues, and do so in a public way," Harris wrote in an e-mail. "Sponsored events, in which editors set the agenda and the proceedings are transparent, can do this effectively. It is not our job to serve as a kind of escort service to facilitate private encounters between special interests and public officials."

"Publisher Robert Allbritton agrees with this and has directed us to avoid events that revolve around these kind of transactions," Harris added.

http://www.truthout.org/070409C?n

Honduras new government is censoring journalists

2009-07-01T12:53:00.003-04:00

Roberto Michele, new Honduran president - former head of the Honduran Congress

BY FRANCES ROBLES

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- At the close of the one of this week's nightly news broadcasts, Channel 21 news anchor Indira Raudales made a plea: ``We have a right to information! This can't be happening in the 21st century!''

If Raudales offered more details, viewers did not hear them: the screen briefly went to static.

Her on-air appeal for freedom of the press came as the newly installed Honduran government kept several news outlets closed, detained international reporters, and periodically interrupted the signal of CNN en español.

Reporters for The Associated Press were taken away in military vehicles and Venezuela's Telesur network -- and any other station supportive of toppled president Manuel Zelaya -- are still off the air.

Stations that are broadcasting carry only news friendly to the new government. Several local papers have yet to publish information about Zelaya's international support in neighboring countries.

''They militarized Channel 36, which is owned by me,'' said Efdras López, director of the show, ''Asi se Informa.'' ``They brought more than a battalion -- 22 armed men -- took the channel and said nobody could come in and nobody could come out.

``I own this building!''

The crackdown on the media began before dawn Sunday, when hooded soldiers entered the presidential palace by force and captured Zelaya, a leftist firebrand who had vowed to defy the supreme court, congress and the attorney general's office in a quest to hold a referendum. The nation's media went black while Zelaya was flown out of the country.

When a new government presided by former head of Congress Roberto Micheletti was installed a few hours later, only the radio and TV stations loyal to the establishment were allowed to broadcast.

Citing a daily newspaper, the InterAmerican Press Association reported that Zelaya supporters in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula attacked reporters and photographers, as well as destroyed newspaper-vending kiosks. The advocacy group also reported that soldiers stormed into a TV station and newspaper newsrooms, ordering a halt to operations.

''We are deeply concerned by reports that several broadcasters have been taken off the air,'' said Committee To Protect Journalists' Americas senior program coordinator Carlos Lauría. ``We call on those in power to allow the resumption of all broadcasts and ensure that all journalists can work freely and safely at this critical time for Honduras.''

López said his station was targeted because of his past critical coverage of Micheletti and Gen. Romeo Vásquez, the head of the armed forces.

''There are journalists who Zelaya paid to insult me morning, noon and night,'' said National Human Rights Commissioner Ramón Custodio López. ``There is no censorship in Honduras. We have simply asked the media not to feed the conflict. The media that are closed are the ones that were feeding hate.''

Custodio, the government ombudsman, said he has not received any complaints from the press.

''If I get a complaint, I will investigate it,'' he said.

If news outlets are leaving out chunks of the story, Custodio said, it's because they have the right to publish only the information that interests them.

''Who are we supposed to turn to when the government human rights commissioner is justifying this coup?'' said Andrés Molina, a correspondent for Venezuela's Telesur network, which is off the air. ``The military picked up our reporters off the street and held them for two hours. Later they said it was a mistake. How can it be a mistake, when these people are going around with cameras, microphones and media credentials?''

He stressed that Telesur is often criticized for being a ''leftist station out of Caracas'' but ``how then do you explain that they are taking CNN off the air too?''

''This is not ideology,'' he said. ``This is abuse.''

Micheletti's spokesman René Zepeda, himself a longtime journalist here, told reporters that if it were his decision, all stations would be broadcasting. The Zelaya administration's channel 8, he said, would return after consultation with lawyers.

A 2008 report by the Open Society Institute said government payments to the press were widespread. A report by the InterAmerican Dialogue think tank in Washington said the Honduran media operate as arms of political parties.

''One of the largest threats to Honduran democracy is the lack of independence of the Honduran media,'' according to the paper written by Manuel Orozco and Rebecca Rouse. ``The media have failed to fulfill their social function as government watchdogs, are controlled by business and political interests and do not practice fair reporting practices.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1122536.html

Korean Journalist Indicted for Telling Truth about Dangers of U.S. Beef

2009-06-20T20:49:00.001-04:00

June 18, 2009

Korean journalists indicted for beef story

A controversial television broadcast that offended Korean agriculture officials resulted in five indictments for biased reporting Thursday, officials said.

Four producers and a script writer of "PD Notebook" on the MBC network were accused of defaming government officials, the Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday. Their show was critical of the Korean government's decision to lift its ban on beef imports from the United States, which were imposed out of fear of mad cow disease.

Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun and negotiator Min Dong-seok claim the show distorted facts. The indictment also said the producers deliberately mistranslated interviews and exaggerated any threat of mad cow from imported beef.

The decision by the Korean government to lift most restrictions on U.S. beef was hugely unpopular in South Korea, Yonhap noted.

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=313064385&mode=cnc&tag=3.5981%3Ficx_id%3D402212453703

Support Editors Fight to Preserve Our Privacy Right

2009-06-19T04:53:00.002-04:00

Click on title above to join the editors fight to preserve our right to free-speech and privacy

Big Brother Subpoenas Newspaper to ID Online Commenters

2009-06-18T14:13:00.002-04:00

Vegas paper gets subpoena to ID online commenters

The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 6:34 PM

LAS VEGAS -- A Nevada newspaper says it has been served a federal grand
jury subpoena seeking information about readers who posted comments on the
paper's Web site.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday that its editor, Thomas
Mitchell, plans to fight the request, which the newspaper received after
reporting on a federal tax fraud case against business owner Robert Kahre.
The subpoena seeks the identities and personal information about people who
posted comments on the story. The newspaper said prosecutors told the
judge in the case that some comments hinted at acts of violence and the
subpoena was issued out of concern for jurors' safety.

Mitchell said anonymous speech is "a fundamental and historic part of this
country." The newspaper would consider cooperating if specific crimes or
real threats were presented, he said.

The newspaper said the subpoena bears the name of U.S. Assistant District
Attorney J. Gregory Damm, a lawyer on the Justice Department team that is
prosecuting Kahre and others on charges including income tax evasion, fraud
and criminal conspiracy.

Grand jury proceedings are secret, and the subpoena is not a public record.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for Nevada declined to comment.

The newspaper said it received the subpoena June 2, a week after its story
describing the government's case against Kahre, a Las Vegas construction
company executive accused of paying contractors with gold and silver U.S.
coins based on the precious metal value of the coins but using the much lower
face value of the coins for tax purposes. Kahre and the other defendants
have pleaded not guilty.

The story drew nearly 175 online comments by Monday night, most in support
of Kahre and critical of the government and jurors and attorneys in the
case.

One commentator said: "The sad thing is there are 12 dummies on the jury
who will convict him. They should be hung along with the feds."

Another called Damm a "socialist, fascist Mormon" and a "Nazi moron."

The comments are written under pseudonyms. Along with the real names of
people who posted comments, the subpoena asks the newspaper for the writers'
gender, birth date, physical address, telephone number, Internet service
provider, IP address and credit card numbers.

After a 2003 raid on Kahre's business, Kahre and several of his workers
sued Damm, two Internal Revenue Service agents and others who were involved.
That civil matter is pending.

In 2007, Kahre sued Damm and agents of the FBI and IRS, alleging criminal
behavior. U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra dismissed the complaint in
December, and Kahre appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two years ago, Damm prosecuted a similar tax case against nine defendants,
including Kahre. The trial ended with no convictions and four acquittals.
Five defendants were partially acquitted, and two of them were dropped from
the indictment that generated the current case.

Click on title above to go to original article;
Las Vegas Review-Journal,_http://www.lvrj.com_
(http://www.lvrj.com/)

The Green Dam Phenomenon

2009-06-17T22:47:00.002-04:00

By REBECCA MACKINNON From today's Wall Street Journal Asia.

The Chinese government may be backing down from its plan to install new "filtering" software, Green Dam, on all Chinese computers. But it would be naïve to think that scrapping the Green Dam mandate means the end of headaches for computer- and device-makers world-wide. More and more governments -- including democracies like Britain, Australia and Germany -- are trying to control public behavior online, especially by exerting pressure on Internet service providers. Green Dam has only exposed the next frontier in these efforts: the personal computer.

Corbis
First, some context: China currently has the world's most sophisticated and multi-layered system of Internet censorship. Objectionable content on domestic Web sites is deleted or prevented from being published, and access to a large number of overseas Web sites is blocked or "filtered." Decisions about what to censor are based on the Chinese Communist Party's desire to maintain power and legitimacy. There is no transparency or accountability in the censorship system, no public consultation in developing block lists or censorship criteria, and no way to appeal the blockage or removal of Web content.

Green Dam purports to take censorship to a whole new level. A report by the Open Net Initiative, an academic consortium dedicated to the study of censorship and surveillance, finds the Chinese government's mandate of censoring software at the PC-level "unprecedented." Companies installing the software risk becoming part of the existing opaque extension of regime power, at the other end of the chain that already includes Internet service providers, Web hosts and Web content companies.

But Green Dam is only an extreme example of a global trend: The Internet censorship club is expanding and now includes a growing number of democracies. Legislators are under growing pressure from family groups to "do something" in the face of all the threats sloshing around the Internet, and the risk of overstepping is high.

In Germany, Internet users and civil liberties groups are fighting proposed legislation mandating a national censorship system. The Bundestag votes today on a bill authorizing German police to establish and maintain a list of Web sites that Internet service providers would be required to block. In a petition against the bill, German civil liberties groups call it "untransparent and uncontrollable, since the 'block lists' cannot be inspected, nor are the criteria for putting a Web site on the list properly defined." These concerns aren't unfounded: Some German politicians have already suggested extending the block list to Islamist Web sites, video games and gambling Web sites, while book publishers have suggested it would also be nice to block file-sharing sites too.

Since 2007 Australia's Labor government has advocated a policy of mandatory national filtering. In the face of fierce public criticism the censorship plan may be downgraded to a voluntary industry initiative. But critics remain concerned the block list will not be selected and maintained in a transparent or accountable way -- and that the process for appeal is very unclear, making it likely that some Web sites will be blocked in error or that "mission creep" could take place without adequate public supervision.

In Britain, a "block list" of harmful Web sites, used by all the major Internet Service Providers, is maintained by a private foundation with little transparency and no judicial or government oversight of the list. At least one British family protection group, Mediamarch, has already spoken out in support of the Green Dam concept of moving censorship from the network down to the device level.

Back in China, the silver lining of the Green Dam mandate is that it has unleashed a passionate nationwide debate over the appropriate role of the government, the IT sector, media, parents and educators in protecting children from real threats. While some argue that the threat requires national mandates and tougher enforcement, others counter that draconian crackdowns and technical "auto-parent" solutions are no substitute for good parenting and teaching -- and that decisions about what children can or can't do and see must be left to individual families and schools. Sound familiar?

There are no easy answers. The argument will never end, but the right to keep arguing is an essential component of a functioning democracy. In a world that includes child pornographers and violent hate groups, it is probably not reasonable to oppose all censorship in all situations. But if technical censorship systems are to be put in place, they must be sufficiently transparent and accountable so that they do not become opaque extensions of incumbent power -- or get hijacked by politically influential interest groups without the public knowing exactly what is going on.

Which brings us back to companies: the ones that build and run Internet and telecoms networks, host and publish speech, and that now make devices via which citizens can go online and create more speech. Companies have a duty as global citizens to do all they can to protect users' universally recognized right to free expression, and to avoid becoming opaque extensions of incumbent power -- be it in China or Britain.

A new multi-stakeholder initiative called the Global Network Initiative aims to help companies do the right thing. Founded by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft in conjunction with human-rights groups, socially responsible investment funds and academics, the initiative centers around a set of core principles for protecting users' right to free expression and privacy around the globe and helps companies to uphold those principles. Participating companies agree to develop robust human-rights policies, conduct human-rights impact assessments and be held accountable. While the initiative supports efforts to protect children and fight crime, they should "be narrowly tailored and subject to the rule of law" to prevent infringement of users' rights.

It is very encouraging that a coalition of industry groups has pushed back publicly against the Green Dam mandate, calling on the Chinese government to reconsider. But the Green Dam incident is yet another example of why it behooves companies to think ahead about how they are going to uphold their larger responsibility to society. Industry has a choice: be reactive -- and be forced into growing complicity with government censorship and surveillance around the globe. Or be pro-active, develop robust human-rights policies, and consider how to responsibly handle the inevitable pressures by all kinds of governments to serve as national auto-parent, if not auto-cop.

Ms. MacKinnon is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, an Open Society fellow and assistant professor of journalism at the University of Hong Kong. She is writing a book about China and the Internet.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A13

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124525992051023961.html

NKorea convicts 2 US journalists

2009-06-08T00:35:00.001-04:00

Sentences them to 12 years in labor prison

Associated Press

Last update: June 7, 2009 - 11:22 PM

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea's top court has convicted two U.S. journalists, and sentenced them to 12 years in labor prison, the country's state news agency reported Monday.

The Central Court tried American TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee and confirmed their unspecified "grave crime" against the nation, and of illegally crossing into North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency said.

It said the court — which tried the women from June 4 to 8 — "sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor." The report gave no other details.

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul said it had no immediate comment.

The circumstances surrounding the trial of the two journalists and their arrest three months ago on the China-North Korean border have been shrouded in secrecy, as is typical of the reclusive nation.

There were fears that the two women would be used by Pyongyang as bargaining chips in its standoff with South Korea and the United States, which are pushing for U.N. sanctions to punish the nation for its latest nuclear blast and barrage of missile tests.

The journalists — working for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV — were arrested March 17 as they were reporting about the trafficking of women. It's unclear if they strayed into the North or were grabbed by aggressive border guards who crossed into China.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider did not have an immediate response to the sentencing.

The women cannot appeal as they were tried in North Korea's highest court where decisions are final.

The sentences are much harsher than what many observers had hoped for. The trial was not open to the public or to foreign observers.

http://www.startribune.com/world/47171042.html?elr=KArks:DCiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiacyKU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P

Pro-Copyright Propaganda Enters US Classrooms

2009-05-26T13:45:00.001-04:00

Written by Ernesto on May 22, 2009

Pro-copyright lobbyists and anti-piracy outfits have a clear idea of what is needed to manipulate the minds of the younger generations. The MPAA most famously handed out a “merit patch in respecting copyright” to LA Boy Scouts, and now the Copyright Alliance has entered US classrooms in an attempt to educate today’s youth about the benefits of copyright.

The Copyright Alliance describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization dedicated to promoting the value of copyright as a means to make money. The more restrictions, the more money can be made is their credo, and they go to extremes to prove their point.

One of the key research documents listed on their website is a highly critical review of Professor Lawrence Lessig’s book “Free Culture“. According to the review, Lessig is a “hypocritical demagogue” whose book imposes a “quasi-socialist utopianism” while “demonizing” copyright.

Of course, everybody is entitled to their own opinion but with regard to what’s being taught to youngsters in schools, one should at least try to get the facts right. Unfortunately, the Copyright Alliance screws up badly in this respect.

For example, in one of their their featured reports it is claimed that The Pirate Bay is selling pirated movies and music to its users. “Up until 2006, one of the largest global sellers of pirated films and music files was sold by a company based in Sweden – Pirate Bay,” it reads. Despite their blatant lies in their research reports, they have still managed to convince several schools to use their course materials.

“Think First, Copy Later,” is the working title of the pro-copyright curriculum set to be taught in several schools throughout the US. TorrentFreak contacted Aaron Engley, administrator at West Potomac Academy - one of the schools that plans to use the Copyright Alliance’s material.

Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, “Our school has a communication and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not educating them on how to protect what they produce.”

Of course, the Copyright Alliance itself fails to mention that thousands of artists profit from sharing their work for free, and that the lion’s share of copyright profits go to large corporations. But even if we put that aside, kids should be taught to think critically so they can make up their own minds instead of being brainwashed with pro (or anti) copyright propaganda.

Saved in: Copyright Issues, Politics and Ideology

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?At=0057995&From=News

Proof That Social Media Efforts Pay Off

2009-05-23T14:06:00.000-04:00

Posted on: May 21st, 2009

Arianna Huffington launched the Huffington Post as a news content and blog site in 2005. The site quickly became a strong advocator of community engagement and involvement thus turning it into a social news site. James Smith, the Chief Revenue Officer of HuffPost, credits the success of the site to that social evolution, saying:

“It’s [Huffington Post] almost a social media site with news as the topic of conversation.”

The site logs over one million comments each month.

In the above interview, James encourages other content publishers to push for active communities as well. He explains how implementing polls, thumbnails, and popular statistics can all add extensive social value to content.

Publishers that use social media know that it requires close monitoring. Most of the time publishers closely monitor their social efforts in order to manage the negative response. But did you ever think about how you could also benefit from closely monitoring the positive response? James says publishers have the opportunity to take advantage of the positive surges by further promoting them.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/05/21/proof-that-social-media-efforts-pay-off/

Marketers Tapping into Social Networks

2009-05-22T10:11:00.001-04:00

Learning, and Profiting, from Online Friendships

Companies are working fast to figure out how to make money from the wealth of data they're beginning to have about our online friendships
By Stephen Baker

Data about behavior among online friends can be deceptive, says Danah Boyd Shawn G. Henry
A question: If you have 347 followers on the Twitter microblogging service, what are the chances that they'll click on the same online ad you clicked on last night? Advertisers are dying to know. Or, say you and a colleague exchange e-mails on a Saturday night. Can managers assume that you have a tight working relationship? Researchers at IBM and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are investigating.
Friendships aren't what they used to be. We now have tools, from e-mail to social networks, to keep in touch with people who a decade ago would have drifted into distant memories. Practically every hand we shake and every business card we exchange can lead to an invitation, sometimes within minutes, for a "friendship" on LinkedIn or Facebook. And unless we sever them, these ties could linger for the rest of our lives.

What do these relationships say about us and the people in our networks? Companies armed with rich new data and powerful computers are beginning to explore these questions. They're finding that digital friendships speak volumes about us as consumers and workers, and decoding the data can lead to profitable insights. Calculating the value of these relationships has become a defining challenge for businesses and individuals.

Marketers are leading the way. They're finding that if our friends buy something, there's a better-than-average chance we'll buy it, too. It's a simple insight but one that could lead to targeted messaging in an age of growing media clutter.

The second arena for study is inside companies. Businesses such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM (IBM) are researching employees' relationships with an eye to quickening the flow of knowledge and the generation of ideas within their ranks. One team at IBM Research, studying anonymous data of Big Blue's consultants, concluded that employees who forged tighter e-mail connections with their boss brought in on average $588 more in monthly revenue. This is early-stage research, but the goal is to distill patterns of successful communication and replicate valuable links throughout the company.

For most of us, the business value of networked friends is tied to a third area, personal opportunity. In addition to companionship, friends online represent a turbocharged Rolodex for entrepreneurs and job seekers inside and outside companies. These collections of contacts expand social horizons, keeping us in touch with more people who can provide ideas, answers, business leads, and even legal advice. Those who master these connections stand to win a big edge: the connections and brainpower of a large team.

"A NEW UNDERSTANDING"
An immense new laboratory of human relations is taking shape. Millions of us are playing, working, flirting, and socializing online—and producing oceans of data. Duncan J. Watts, a Columbia University sociologist now on leave and heading a research unit at Yahoo!, marvels at the change. "When I started network research 12 years ago, we had virtually no data," he says. Now he and his team can study the network behavior of 295 million e-mailers and legions of the 200 million Facebook users. For social scientists, Watts says, this flood of data could be as transformative as Galileo's telescope was for the physical sciences: "It gives us a new understanding of our world and ourselves."

But managing hundreds or even thousands of relationships is a thorny challenge. Which friends go where? A couple of months ago, Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist in New York, decided to reduce the 360 people on his Facebook crowd into a circle of intimates. He kept the 56 he could see inviting to a wedding or bar mitzvah. The rest? "I nuked them," he says.

Others find value in a sizable following. Earlier this year, Jason Calacanis, founder of the search engine Mahalo, offered to pay Twitter $250,000 to put his account on a recommended list for the service's users. He says he was "half joking" but believes the investment would have paid off.

He figures the recommendation would have steered 5 million to 15 million new followers his way within two years and that many would have made their way to his company's Web site. "If 10% click on a link [to Mahalo] once a month," he writes in an e-mail, "you have about 1 million visits a year. ... I'd pay 5 cents for a follower." Lots of businesses, he says, could benefit from such followings. An airline such as JetBlue could offer discounts to the first 1,000 people who respond and "never [have] another empty seat."

While Calacanis tries to build crowds, advertisers are more interested in understanding individuals. Decoding friendship, many believe, could be the key to getting consumers' attention. Historically, this wasn't so hard. Information was in short supply, and by comparison, time was cheap. Not long ago millions waited through entire newscasts just to learn who won a game or what tomorrow's weather would be. This was ideal for advertisers: They had a captive audience.

Now we're swimming in information. We can call up nearly every bit of news, music, and entertainment we want on demand. In fact, there's so much of it that we need filters to block the boring or irrelevant stuff and help us find the bits we need or desire. This has created what many call the "Attention Economy." Says Bernardo A. Huberman, director of the Information Dynamics Laboratory at Hewlett-Packard: "The value of most information has collapsed to zero. The only scarce resource is attention." So how do we figure out where to direct it?

The easiest way is to get tips from friends. They're our trusted sources. At least a few of them know us better than any algorithm ever could. Little surprise, then, that the companies most eager to command our attention are studying which friends we listen to. Online friendship is a hot focus for Facebook, Google, and Yahoo. They joust to hire leading sociologists, anthropologists, and microeconomists from MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley. Microsoft just established a research division focused on social sciences in Cambridge, Mass.

Statistically, friends tend to behave alike. A couple of years ago researchers at Yahoo found that if someone clicked on an online ad, the people on his or her instant chat buddy list, when served the same ad, were three to four times more likely than average to click on it. It makes sense. Friends share interests.

But it raised lots of questions. Which types of friends have the most meaningful correlations with each other? People have always confided in a small circle of intimates, often only two or three. They've also had wider circles of experts for specific advice, whether on cars or cooking. Then there's a broader circle of acquaintances whose opinions count far less but who can still generate buzz about a new restaurant or senatorial candidate. By studying patterns of interactions on networks—often scrutinizing us only as anonymous bits of data—researchers are working to predict which friends we trust and which we pay attention to in each area of our lives. The data can be hard to interpret, says danah boyd, a Berkeley PhD who just signed on at Microsoft Research. (She changed her name to lower case). "You may e-mail your mother less frequently than a colleague, but it's not that she's trusted less."

In an office above Palo Alto's University Avenue, a lean 32-year-old PhD from MIT's Media Lab pores over the data connecting millions of dots. Cameron A. Marlow, a research scientist at Facebook, has perhaps the greatest lab in history for studying friendship. He can study social media communications including wall posts, shared photos, pokes, and friend requests among 200 million people.

IGNORING THE ADS
For all its popularity, Facebook has yet to prove itself as an advertising platform. Visitors, it seems, focus on their friends and pay scant attention to ads. Few click on them, and advertisers pay pennies for page views. Consequently, Facebook, with its estimated revenue of $300 million this year, brings in scarcely a dime a month per member.

The hope is that if Marlow and his team manage to track the paths of influence among its communities, the company might be able to offer more effective and lucrative advertisements and promotions.

An early step is to separate each user's friends into clusters. Marlow pulls out a chart illustrating the social network of one of his colleagues, Alex Smith. It shows different groups of dots and their connecting links. One big and busy group represents fellow workers at Facebook. Others are high school friends, family, in-laws, frat brothers. Understanding these types of relationships could provide valuable context.

Marlow's team recently carried out a study to determine how close we are to our friends online. They looked at how often people clicked on their friends' news or photos, how often they communicated, and if the communications traveled in both directions. Studying this data, they determined that an average Facebook user with 500 friends actively follows the news on only 40 of them, communicates with 20, and keeps in close touch with about 10. Those with smaller networks follow even fewer. What can this teach advertisers? People don't pay much attention to most of their online friends. By focusing campaigns on people who interact with each other, they'll likely get better results.

It's an inexact science, to be sure. But that's not stopping a host of startups from hitching friendship analysis to advertising and media campaigns. A New York company, 33Across, has partnerships with social networks, instant chat providers, and makers of online applications known as widgets. Each of these partners tags users with bits of tracking code known as cookies. These let 33Across stitch together friendship profiles of tens of millions of people, says CEO Eric Wheeler. The people remain nameless numbers, but the company knows which ones are connected to which, how strong the connection is, and how many others are in their circles. Working with packaged goods companies, 33Across has focused on thousands of people who have bought a product online, sprinkling ads for the same item along the online pathways of millions of their friends.

FRIENDSHIP DATA
In an industry where the majority of ads go unclicked, even a small boost can make a big difference. One San Francisco advertising company, Rapleaf, carried out a friend-based campaign for a credit-card company that wanted to sell bank products to existing customers. Tailoring offers based on friends' responses helped lift the average click rate from 0.9% to 2.7%. Although 97.3% of the people surfed past the ads, the click rate still tripled.

Rapleaf, which has harvested data from blogs, online forums, and social networks, says it follows the network behavior of 480 million people. It furnishes friendship data to help customers fine-tune their promotions. Its studies indicate borrowers are a better bet if their friends have higher credit ratings. This might mean a home buyer with a middling credit risk score of 550 should be treated as closer to 600 if most of his or her friends are in that range, says Rapleaf CEO Auren Hoffman.

Such intelligence could prove useful for a financial company. While no one would automatically green-light borrowers based on their friends, the friendship data could lead them to assign a human to see if the mathematical model is missing something. "They pay more than $100 in marketing to [attract] customers," Hoffman says. "If they reject you, they lose it."

Friendship data promise insights into not only the marketplace but also the corporation. Researchers can trace the hidden networks, identifying both the people who transmit valuable information and those who appear to block it—and how workers bypass them. By studying these patterns, managers can promote effective networkers and try to bring less communicative colleagues—outliers—into the flow.

To build up communication within the company, IBM Research scours its networks for employees with similar interests and expertise—and suggests them as friends. One key laboratory for IBM is its internal social network called Beehive, in which nearly 60,000 employees discuss patents, critique software code, and even post photos of pets.

Researcher Werner Geyer and his team sift through Beehive for correlations. Working with a control group of 3,000 employees, Geyer's team analyzed the words employees used, friends they had in common, blogs they left comments on, and many other variables. Then they suggested possible friends. Their most successful group added an average of 3.68 new friends to their networks, more than three times the average of the control group. The idea: Each new friend plugs an IBM worker into another sphere of knowledge and human contacts. "These could be valuable mentor connections," says Geyer.

For many, the question is not how to interpret friendship data but how to manage these networks and fit them into careers. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's founder, has built his entire company on extending webs of relations. The idea is that while each of us likely will switch jobs seven or eight times in our careers, we continue to build a network of friends that can sustain us.

LinkedIn's Hoffman sees himself as a test case for the value of casual friends. He says he has 1,864 contacts on LinkedIn. While he has met almost all of them personally, he admits that it sometimes takes a moment or two to recall some of them. "I think of them as light alliances," he says. But they have a value. According to studies, the contacts outside of our close friendships are more likely to lead us to new opportunities. Their networks have less overlap and extend into different areas.

Hoffman looks at friendship as a marketplace in which we trade favors. He says he can create an opportunity for someone by taking 30 seconds and whipping off an introduction to a friend. It's a small investment of time with a potentially big payoff. Both of his contacts benefit, and they have Hoffman to thank. His reputation inches up. But consider the risks. If Hoffman has misread one of his weak ties, the person he recommends might end up being a loafer, or worse. In that case, Hoffman's reputation takes a hit.

All of networked humanity mingles in this vast marketplace, trading information, creating alliances, doing favors. We may not think of our connections in such mercantile terms. But for business and individuals alike, the value in online friendship is poised to grow.

Return to the Future of Tech Table of Contents

Baker is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_22/b4133032573293.htm?link_position=link2

WaPost: Media Wink at Torture

2009-05-18T02:12:00.001-04:00

No wonder mainstream media are goin down;...

Sun May 17, 2009 9:05 pm (PDT)

http://maruthecrankpot.blogspot.com/2009/05/no-wonder-print-media-is-going-down.html
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32027

First Published 2009-05-13

Media Wink at Torture

Even as the power balance has shifted - and many readers have dumped their subscriptions - the Washington Post has chosen to remain a neocon bastion, turning its op-ed page into something of a clearinghouse for the excuses from all the ex-President´s men, says Robert Parry.

These days, the Washington Post has the look of one of those Southern newspapers in the 1960s standing firm for segregation as the wave of civil rights swept across the region. Except for the Post, the blind commitment is to neoconservatism.
The Post editors probably believe they are upholding some twisted journalistic principle, defying the views of most readers in a city that has a large African-American population, voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, and shows little sympathy for the neocons who rode roughshod over so many when George W. Bush was in power.
Even as the power balance has shifted - and many readers have dumped their subscriptions - the Post has chosen to remain a neocon bastion, turning its op-ed page into something of a clearinghouse for the excuses from all the ex-President´s men.
It also remains a comfortable home for pundits who pushed the Iraq War and seem to get a kick out of Muslims getting stripped naked and waterboarded.
The latest Post columnist to weigh in sympathetically on torturing Muslims labeled "unlawful enemy combatants" by the Bush administration is Richard Cohen in a classically dimwitted column entitled "What If Cheney´s Right?"
Cohen argues that former Vice President Dick Cheney had a point when he asserted that "enhanced interrogation techniques," including the near-drowning experience of waterboarding, elicited important intelligence information from the suspects and thus saved American lives.
Cohen, who apparently considers himself quite clever and the issue of torture rather funny, starts the column off with the quip, "Blogger Alert: I have written a column in defense of Dick Cheney." He later adds about the torture debate, "this is not merely some political catfight conducted by bloggers."
While agreeing that torture is morally wrong, Cohen writes that "where I reserve a soupçon of doubt is over the question of whether `enhanced interrogation techniques´ actually work. That they do not is a matter of absolute conviction among those on the political left, who seem to think that the CIA tortured suspected terrorists just for the hell of it."
Cohen apparently views himself as much more of a free-thinker than "those on the political left." He notes that Cheney - through his declaration that critical intelligence was extracted by these means - "poses a hard, hard question: Is it more immoral to torture than it is to fail to prevent the deaths of thousands?"
Bogus Intelligence
However, Cohen regrets that Cheney´s credibility is lacking due to his pre-Iraq War claims, such as when Cheney "insisted that `the evidence is overwhelming´ that al-Qaeda had been in high-level contact with Saddam Hussein´s regime when the `evidence´ was virtually non-existent."
If you were expecting that the next paragraph would observe that Cheney´s "evidence" for Hussein´s contact with al-Qaeda was based on a coerced confession from one of the CIA´s "high-value detainees," Ibu al-Sheikh al-Libi, you would be disappointed.
Though al-Libi´s case is precisely on point - and he is in the news since he reportedly just died (a purported suicide) at a Libyan prison - Cohen doesn´t mention al-Libi, who concocted those stories about Hussein assisting al-Qaeda to escape torture.
Al-Libi´s false claims had horrendous consequences, including the loss of much more life than occurred on 9/11.
A June 2002 CIA report cited claims by al-Libi that Iraq had "provided" unspecified chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda operatives. Al-Libi´s information also was inserted into a November 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.
Al-Libi´s claim found its way into Vice President Cheney´s public presentations and into then-Secretary of State Colin Powell´s infamous speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003.
But the Bush administration´s confidence about al-Libi´s information went against the suspicions voiced by the Defense Intelligence Agency. "He lacks specific details" about the supposed training, the DIA observed. "It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers."
The DIA´s doubts proved prescient. In January 2004 - nearly a year after the United States invaded Iraq - al-Libi recanted his statements and claimed that he had lied because of both actual and anticipated abuse, including threats that he would be sent to an intelligence service where he expected to be tortured.
Al-Libi said he fabricated "all information regarding al-Qa´ida´s sending representatives to Iraq to try to obtain WMD assistance," according to a Feb. 4, 2004, CIA operational cable. "Once al-Libi started fabricating information, [he claimed] his treatment improved and he experienced no further physical pressures from the Americans."
Despite his cooperation, al-Libi said he was transferred to another country that subjected him to beatings and confinement in a "small box" for about 17 hours. He said he then made up another story about three al-Qaeda operatives going to Iraq "to learn about nuclear weapons." Afterwards, he said his treatment improved. [For details, see our book, Neck Deep.]
Lost Lives
Al-Libi´s false confessions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,200 American soldiers who have died in Iraq. Though such a point would appear crucial in evaluating the moral conundrum that the Post´s Cohen posed - regarding torture and saving lives - Cohen leaves it out and no Post editor put it in.
Besides the unreliability of tortured confessions, abusive treatment of detainees has stirred anti-Americanism and contributed to the death toll of American troops in Iraq, according to US military officers.
Former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora told the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008, "there are serving US flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of US combat deaths in Iraq - as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
Having ignored these crucial points - reliability of intelligence and recruiting of new terrorists - Cohen goes on to praise Cheney´s eagerness to have a full and open debate on torture. "He is right about that," Cohen writes of Cheney.
Amazingly, however, Cohen defends Cheney´s position by citing the lack of a robust debate prior to the Iraq War.
"The run-up to the disastrous Iraq war was notable for its smothering lack of debate," Cohen writes. "That served us poorly then and it would serve us poorly now if people who know something about the utility, not to mention the morality, of enhanced interrogation techniques keep their mouths shut."
Perhaps Cohen thinks he is cleverly hoisting Iraq War critics on their own petard, but he is ignoring the role that Cheney, the Post and indeed his own columns played in silencing that dissent.
In the months before Bush´s invasion of Iraq, the Post editorial and op-ed pages were packed with a neocon consensus about the justifications for war and only ridicule for those who raised doubts.
For instance, in September 2002, when former Vice President Al Gore objected to the rush to war, Post columnists distorted and mocked what Gore had said.
Michael Kelly called Gore´s speech "dishonest, cheap, low" before labeling it "wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible." Charles Krauthammer added that the speech was "a series of cheap shots strung together without logic or coherence." There was no countervailing opinion published.
After Powell´s UN speech, the Post judged the presentation "irrefutable," adding: "it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction." That judgment was reinforced by a phalanx of Post columnists, including Richard Cohen, all hailing Powell´s speech.
Cohen laughed at anyone who still doubted that Saddam Hussein possessed hidden WMD stockpiles.
"The evidence he [Powell] presented to the United Nations - some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail - had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn´t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them," Cohen wrote. "Only a fool - or possibly a Frenchman - could conclude otherwise."
After the US invasion of Iraq and the failure to discover the imaginary WMD stockpiles, Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt made a rare and grudging apology. Hiatt acknowledged that the Post should have been more skeptical.
"If you look at the editorials we write running up [to the war], we state as flat fact that he [Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction," Hiatt said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review. "If that´s not true, it would have been better not to say it." [CJR, March/April 2004]
Nevertheless, the Post´s editorial pages continued to attack American citizens who dared challenge Bush´s case for war, such as the Post´s assaults on former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson whose criticism led the Bush administration to expose Wilson´s wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA officer. [See Consortiumnews.com´s "WPost Is a Neocon Propaganda Sheet."]
Cohen´s Obtuse Record
On the Plame case, Cohen also took up the neocon banner, defending Cheney´s former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with Plame´s outing. Cohen joined an Inside-the-Beltway pundit riot against Libby´s 30-month jail sentence and helped build up support for Bush´s decision to commute Libby´s sentence, sparing him jail time.
Cohen called the Libby case "a mountain out of a molehill" and poked fun at Americans who thought the invasion of Iraq might have been a bad idea.
"They thought - if `thought´ can be used in this context - that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to [columnist] Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel and this would show . . . who knows? Something," Cohen wrote.
That Cohen was wrong about WMD and the case for war in Iraq should not have come as a surprise. His cluelessness is almost legendary. On nearly every major development of the past couple of decades, Cohen has missed the point or gotten it dead wrong.
For example, during the Florida recount battle in 2000, Cohen cared less about whom the voters wanted in the White House than the Washington insiders' certainty that George W. Bush would be a uniter, not a divider.
"The nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse," Cohen wrote. "That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush." [For more, see Consortiumnews.com´s "Is WP´s Cohen the Dumbest Columnist?"]
Perhaps even more troubling than the Post's stupidity, however, is the racism that seems to underlie the smirking attitude within the Post´s editorial offices about the humiliation, torture and slaughter of Arabs and other Muslims.
Do Richard Cohen and his editors think it´s funny that Cheney and Bush saw nothing wrong with subjecting Muslim detainees to forced nudity (often in front of women), to days on end of sleep deprivation, to confinement in painful stress positions and to waterboarding?
If not, why the snotty tone of Cohen's column? "Blogger Alert"; "political catfight conducted by bloggers"; "soupçon of doubt"?
It is hard to imagine if the victims of the torture and abuse were of any other racial, religious or ethnic group that such a lighthearted tone would be acceptable. But anti-Muslim racism appears to be part of the Post´s editorial mindset, reflected in a similar lack of outrage over civilian deaths during Israel´s 2006 war in Lebanon and the 2008-09 assault on Gaza.
As the Post faces today´s economic crisis amid talk that it may not survive as a going-concern, the newspaper may look for sympathy from the community that it purports to serve. But the Post´s endless excuses for the crimes of the Bush administration have left many readers with an ambivalent sense of whether the Post deserves to survive.
Even some journalists privately feel such disgust at the Post´s neocon positioning that they tell me that if they woke up tomorrow and the Post had ceased to exist, they wouldn´t shed a tear.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush , can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
ConsortiumNews

Journalist Freed

2009-05-11T23:44:00.000-04:00

Petition Signers,

I'm writing with joy and relief to let you know that petition signatures helped to make a difference: American journalist Roxana Saberi is free!

Individuals around the world, including the almost 28,000 activists who signed our petition, have pressured the Iranian government to free Roxana Saberi. Ms. Saberi appeared in court to have her appeal heard yesterday and her charges were reduced. She walked out of prison in Iran today and was reunited with her parents.

You can read more about Ms. Saberi's appeal and release on the BBC. You can also visit FreeRoxana.net to read more about the global campaign to support Ms. Saberi and the Committee to Protect Journalists to learn about the journalists who remain imprisoned in Iran and around the world.

Thank you so much to all who signed the Free Roxana Saberi petition - we helped to make a difference.

Rebecca Young,
Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team

Freedom of the press declines in every region in 2008

2009-05-04T23:44:00.000-04:00

By Joe Byrne

Published: May 3, 2009
Updated 8 hours ago

Freedom House' annual 'freedom of the press report' analyzed the state of the news media in 195 countries; advocates found that the freedom of the press declined in every region for the first time since the annual report was published.

The report, which can be found at the Freedom House website, recorded the seventh straight year in overall declines in freedom of the press worldwide.

The report categorized countries in one of three groupings: free, partly free, and not free. 36% of countries were 'free' for the media, 31% were 'partly free,' and 33% were 'not free,' according to Freedom House. Myanmar, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan were the countries with the worst rating for freedom of the press.

Other important changes to media freedom in the past year include the demotion of Israel to 'partly free' status, due to travel restrictions on reporters, attempts to influence media coverage, and "greater self-censorship and biased reporting, particularly during the outbreak of open war in late December." Israel was once the only state in the Middle East and North Africa to have 'free' status; now there is none.

News media based in Hong Kong and countries within the former Soviet Union also suffered from authoritarian governmental control in the past year.

The End of Times?

2009-04-25T10:00:00.000-04:00

The nation's largest left-wing newspaper and the bible for network news producers and bookers may be going under. This week, The New York Times announced more staggering losses: nearly $75 million dollars in the first quarter alone. The New York Post is reporting that the Times Company owes more than $1 billion and has just $34 million in the bank. A few months ago, the company borrowed $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at a reported 14 percent interest rate. With things going south fast, pardon the pun, Slim might want to put in a call to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

The spin from Sulzberger is that the Internet is strangling the newspaper industry, and there is some truth to that. Why read an ideologically crazed paper when you can acquire a variety of information on your computer? But other papers are not suffering nearly as much as the Times, so there must be more to it.

There is no question that the Times has journalistic talent. This week the paper won five Pulitzers. It's true that the Pulitzer people favor left-wing operations (the past eight Pulitzer Prizes for commentary have gone to liberal writers), but New York Times journalists often do good reporting.

The problem is that under Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller, the Times has gone crazy left, attacking those with whom the paper disagrees and demonstrating a hatred for conservatives (particularly President Bush) that is almost pathological. The Times features liberal columnists in every section of the paper, and they hit low, often using personal invective to smear perceived opponents.

That unfair and unbalanced approach has alienated a large number of readers and advertisers. According to a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, 46 percent of Americans define themselves as conservative. Just 34 percent say they are liberal. In this very intense marketplace, insulting half the country on a daily basis may not be a great business plan.

The Times company also has a major problem with The Boston Globe, which Sulzberger bought back in 1993. That paper is on the verge of bankruptcy and recently told its employees that it will cut their pay and health benefits. Since the Times and the Globe are big on "universal" health care, that caused some giggling in anti-Times precincts.

Over the past few months, newspapers in Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and Denver have either folded or filed for bankruptcy. With the exception of The Rocky Mountain News, all the papers were committed left-wing enterprises. The truth is that most Americans are traditional-minded folks. They believe their country is noble; they want respectful discourse. Fanaticism of any kind is not the American way.

The New York Times is most definitely a committed left-wing concern that is openly contemptuous of the conservative, traditional point of view. That is the primary reason the paper may soon dissolve. And all the cash in Carlos Slim's fat wallet is not going to change that.

Journalism vs. Commentary

2009-04-21T12:34:00.000-04:00

Alec Baldwin, HuffPost

A lot of huffing and puffing here about my last post. The reading comprehension here can be rather surprising at times.
I said I was a fan of both Keith and Rachel. Watch them all the time. I suppose I hold them to a higher standard as I feel that now is our time. A time for real change. I didn't vote for Obama to savor the thrill of having our first black president. I did so because I thought he was smart and tough. I want Obama to undo much of what was done these past eight years by the crypto-fascists in the Bush administration. And a good part of that would involve a press that was on the ball. On the case. Keeping an eye on what is going on. Making sure that Americans are properly informed about what our government is doing. Something that was scarce during the Bush years.

Journalism is what is required now. And, yes, some commentary. But more journalism than commentary. That's what a newspaper does. That's why newspapers are quoted so often as the sources of actual news on this very site. Newspapers are about journalism. The internet, and sites like this, are about commentary. People sign on and give their opinion. But that is not journalism. That is commentary, internet style, whereby most people are not trained as journalists and the comments of many posters here are anonymous. You can piss on anyone you want, say anything you want, and so long as it is within the boundaries of HuffPo politesse, you are in.

The sine qua non to understanding the garbage barge of the internet is the AOL home page. The AOL home page, which makes Us Weekly look like Paris Match, wants its readers to focus on the latest unflattering photos of stars or their DUIs. The AOL home page is where polls rated George W. Bush as one of the ten greatest presidents, even as late as last fall. The AOL home page is where they wrote that I had "picked a fight" with Maddow and Olberman.

Perhaps this comes as no surprise, but there are never, ever any names that appear as authors of the monstrously boring and mind-numbing content on the home page of this popular server. Never. Ever. AOL just keeps churning out all of that trash on their digital welcome mat, and you never find out who is responsible.

That's the Internet. Some great, serious, lofty thinking, one click away. The AOL home page, like a filthy dinner plate, just begging to be scraped and washed, another click away.

I'll take the Times any day. Judith Miller, or no. As for Keith and Rachel, I would never pick a fight with them. You think I want Keith Olbermann gnawing on me on national television? You haven't been gnawed till you've been gnawed by Keith. And Rachel? I love Rachel. Doesn't everyone? But just as I don't want root beer for dinner, I like my "news programming" a little straighter, at least during these times.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/journalism-vs-commentary_b_186212.html

DC Reporting : Myths, Fabrications & Whitewash

2009-04-20T09:12:00.001-04:00

DC Reporting : Myths, Fabrications & Whitewash
When creating D.C. myths, Washington reporters aren't interested in actual
data.

I was reading _this_
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992058646826949.html) [link fixed], the zillionth "analysis" of political populism from a
Washington, D.C.-based reporter, when I came upon this pretty perfect example
of how Beltway journalists just make shit up:

The country today is different. America has an enormous middle class that
is heavily invested in the financial system and is hardly about to organize
for its overthrow...
People who have lost half the value of their 401(k) plans, in other words,
want to regain it by having the economy rebound, not by seizing the assets
of ExxonMobil Corp.

If this reporter was even the slightest bit interested in whether this
banalia was true, he would have spent all of 5 seconds on the Google and found
that actually, empirical public opinion data shows that Americans are quite
supportive of "seizing the assets" of oil companies like ExxonMobil.

As _USA Today_
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-31-energy--poll_N.htm) reported a few months ago, a windfall profits tax -
ie. a tax to seize oil company assets - is wildly popular, according to
its surveys. This was the_same finding as ABC News' earlier poll
(http://www.pollingreport.com/energy.htm) . Indeed, even the conservative-leaning
_Rasmussen_
(http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/gas_oil/just_47_oppose_nationalizing_oil_industry)

found that just 47 percent of
Americans oppose complete and total nationalization of the entire oil industry.
But, you see, when creating D.C. myths - in this case, the myth that
Americans celebrate being ruled by corporate special interests, want no change,
are completely happy with the status quo, and love oil companies -
Washington reporters aren't interested in actual data. They live in a world of
six-figures and lobbyists and cocktail parties - a cloistered gated community
whose residents are nauseated by the idea of "seizing assets" of the
wealthiest corporations in the world. And so these reporters assume the consensus
of that gated community is the consensus of the majority of Americans who
live outside that gated community - even when the hard data says exactly the
opposite.

I wonder if instead of working in the factual world, I should just start
making shit up. It would save me so much time in my work to not have to, ya
know, verify anything. I could write entire columns just saying the first
piece of conventional wisdom that came into my mind, without even bothering
to see if it was true. Wow...what an easy life that would be.

The Corporate TakeOver of Americas Newspapers

2009-04-18T12:06:00.000-04:00

Read All About It: The Corporate Takeover of America's Newspapers is an institutional acknowledgement of what many wary readers have known for years: Corporate control is ruining our daily newspapers.

Oh, excuse me: I didn't mean to say "our" newspapers. It's just that I've always thought of daily newspapers as the guardians of our -- meaning the public's -- right to know. The guardians of truth, justice, the public welfare and all that.
But who am I fooling. America's daily newspapers don't belong to us. Nor, for that matter, do they even seek to serve us any longer. They have more important concerns now: appeasing advertisers and enriching stockholders. Read All About It, by James D. Squires, the editor of the Chicago Tribune from 1981 to 1989, explains why.

Click on title above for full article;
http://www.criticism.com/md/crit1.html

Website Demonizing Goldman-Sucks Raises Firms Ire

2009-04-18T11:01:00.002-04:00

An irate adviser/blogger has created Goldmansachs666.com to vent against the firm
By Jamie Burns

April 17, 2009, 3:35 PM EST

With all of the frightening numbers being thrown around these days — five million jobs lost, an 8.5% unemployment rate — no numerical value conjures up evil more effectively than 666.

One angry adviser is relying on the number of the beast to illustrate his frustrations with The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on his website, Goldmansachs666.com.
The New York financial giant — which posted positive earnings late Monday, has responded to creator Mike Morgan, a Jensen Beach, Fla. adviser, by demanding that he stop using the Goldman Sachs trademark within the URL of his site.

Although the site, launched March 26, states that it has no affiliation with Goldman Sachs, the company demanded in a letter sent April 8 that Mr. Morgan remove the company's trademark by tomorrow or face legal action.

“We always act to protect our firm,” a spokesman for Goldman Sachs said.

“This is not about Mr. Morgan’s rights to publish his views; it’s about his use of the Goldman Sachs trademark. It’s a domain issue, not a content issue.”

Mr. Morgan says he plans to fight for his domain name, as well as his First Amendment rights.

"We have followed all of the legal requirements to own and maintain the website under the address we have selected," he wrote on his blog.

"It's just another example of how a bully like Goldman Sachs tries to throw their weight around and this is a clear violation of our constitutional rights."

According to Mr. Morgan, Goldman Sachs did not mention the content of his site in the letter. “We’ve been very careful with the content,” he said in a media conference call.

Mr. Morgan says he hopes to inform readers about Goldman Sachs’ role in the economic crisis through blog posts and comments.

He hopes to write a book entitled, "How Goldman Sachs Destroyed the World" from information gathered through Goldmansachs666.com, according to the site.

Mr. Morgan and a team of volunteers are looking to expand their critique of the financial industry by franchising their 666.com brand.

He posted a list of links to upcoming sites that are in development to give other large financial institutions with the 666.com treatment, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Pacific Investment Management Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc., both of New York.

As of April 17, GoldmanSachs666.com has received more than 236,000 hits.

http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090417/REG/904179963

Prof. takes questions on cybercrime and the Net

2009-04-18T10:48:00.001-04:00

April 1 was to be the day that a destructive Web virus, dubbed Conficker, unleashed its full power upon unsuspecting Net denizens. While the day passed with no sign of calamity, worry about the virus, coupled with recent revelations of the threat of cyberespionage, have stoked fears about the impact of cybercrime. University of Toronto professor Ron Deibert is part of a crack team of Canadian researchers who
revealed this weekend a network, dubbed GhostNet, of more than 1,200 infected computers worldwide that includes such "high-value targets" as Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Kuwait, as well as a dozen computers in Canada.

Who is behind GhostNet? Along with Rafal Rohozinski, Prof. Deibert wrote in the Globe and Mail: "The most obvious explanation, and certainly the one in which the circumstantial evidence tilts the strongest, would be that this set of high-profile targets has been exploited by the Chinese state for military and strategic-intelligence purposes. Indeed, many of the high-confidence targets we identified are clearly linked to Chinese foreign and defence policy, particularly in South and South East Asia."

China, for their part, dismissed the report as lies intended to stoke anxiety over Beijing's growing influence in world affairs.

Nevertheless, following the publication of the GhostNet research, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan warned Monday that cyberwarfare will be a "growing threat" for the foreseeable future, as he urged Canadian corporations to start patching potential holes in their networks.

How immediate is the threat posed to governments by cyberespionage? With so many digital worms creeping over the Web, what is the best way to respond to viruses like Conficker? How real in these cases is the threat to our own personal privacy? Prof. Deibert is joining us live to help separate the facts from the hype. Feel free to submit your questions using our comment tool or via Twitter @GlobeTechnology.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Matt Frehner, globeandmail.com: Thanks a lot for joining us today, Professor Deibert. Following warnings from Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan concerning the "growing threat" of cyberwarfare, what should policymakers be doing to try to limit the reach and frequency of cyberspy and other botnet systems? What do you see as Canada's role in this?

Ron Deibert writes: The question of what should be done at a policy level is an important one to me personally, and to us at the Information Warfare Monitor. For many years (and at least as far back as a 2003 comment piece I wrote in the Globe and Mail) I have been warning of increasing militarization of cyberspace and that we need to begin thinking about arms control in cyberspace. Part of the solution is to focus on securing critical infrastructures, and to create incentives for manufacturers of computer and software equipment to take security seriously. But that is only part of the solution. Arms control in cyberspace is going to be very challenging, in part because the "actors" involved include more than just states, and involve criminal organizations and even individuals. How do you get all of those actors involved in any possible arms control agreement? Another vexing problem is the one of attribution. Although the GhostNet study lays out quite powerful circumstantial evidence against China, we also lay out alternative explanations. Indeed, one of the defining features of cyberspace is the ease by which the perpetrators of these sorts of attacks can mask their identity and real location.

I see a great potential for Canada in this area. Long ago, we were widely known for taking a lead in pushing for arms control as part of a broader "human security" agenda, both in terms of arms control negotiations and verification. There was a small, but very influential area of expertise within the Department of Foreign Affairs on arms control verification, called the Verification Research Unit. That unit no longer exists, and our interest in promoting arms control and human security has diminished somewhat in recent years. In the area of cyberspace, I think it's natural for Canada to lead, both because of our past experience but also because of our historical experiences with telecommunications. We are a large land mass, and have depended on telecommunications, and we have a long and distinguished intellectual history around the study of telecommunications, beginning with Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan.

Matt Frehner, globeandmail.com: With so many digital worms creeping over the Web, and the release of reports such as yours, how can the average computer user separate the hype surrounding viruses like Conficker from legitimate threats?

Ron Deibert writes: This is an excellent question and is at the heart of one of the aims of the Information Warfare Monitor -- to separate hype from reality. We are an evidence based organization, and that is why we were very careful to avoid speculation and hyperbole, and also to be cautious about making attribution. Some other organizations out there have been quick to identify China as the culprit, and the evidence does seem powerful, but it is not conclusive and there are alternative explanations. The answer is a combination of field investigations, technical scouting, and data analysis. This is a new field of inquiry we are helping to pioneer and I believe it is going to become more important as we move forward in dealing with the challenges of controlling arms races in cyberspace.

Roman Spears from St. Catharines Canada writes: With identity theft and hijack programs being threats to the average home user, what recommendations can you make to help us all be more secure online? Who is making the detection programs that can find this malicious code and rid the internet of it?

Ron Deibert writes: For the average Internet user, the GhostNet report -- and others like it -- has undoubtedly caused concerns, and we have been blitzed with many emails from individuals, activists, and NGOs, asking if they are infected, whether we can help, and what we might recommend for security online. We are not a service organization, but a research and development laboratory, so there is a limit to what we can do. There are many organizations out there whose job it is to provide information security, particular for consumers. But one of the remarkable aspects of our investigation was that the main tool used by the attackers was only identified by 11 of the 34 virus scanners we employed. That is a big problem. Many of the machines that were infected by GhostNet were using Windows, and of course most of the viruses out there disproportionately affect Windows operating systems. Switching to an open source operating system, like Linux, is now highly recommended for government ministries for this reason alone.

For NGOs and activists, there are many information security resources and training organizations out there that I would recommend, including Tactical Tech and Frontline Defenders and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others.

Albin Forone from Canada writes: I trust and use the Canada Revenue Agency site more or less as confidently as I use my bank and brokerage sites, and I'd be inclined to assume government sites with national security data at stake are pretty secure. So given that there are nefarious government or terror groups with internet crowbars, how much concern do you have about the quality of the government site and communications internet security measures.

Ron Deibert writes: We place a great deal of trust in our governments' communications systems when we communicate sensitive information to them, and hope that they take the issues of information security seriously. What GhostNet reveals, though, is that a large swath of high impact political and economic targets can indeed be compromised, including ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, and international organizations. Many of these organizations were compromised for many months, without their knowledge, and the attackers had potential access to all sorts of sensitive documents, and even had the ability to eavesdrop on classified meetings through the activation of web cameras and listening devices. Although most governments have invested heavily in secure methods of communication, many have not. This is particularly the case in the developing world where information security is often a distant priority next to other goals, such as the elimination of poverty or even simply access to information.

As citizens, we should be diligent to ensure that our government in Canada is doing the best possible job to secure our critical infrastructures, particularly when it comes to sending and receiving our own private confidential information, and that they are handling the latter with the utmost care. We should do the same with respect to the companies that provide us with our connectivity. We live in a world deeply permeated by digital technologies, much of which is serviced by private third parties and hosted on servers beyond our immediate control. We put a lot of trust in those organizations when we communicate with and through them.

O.A. from Toronto writes: To what extent would restrictions designed to limit such malicious networks also have the overlapping effect of censoring or limiting everyone else's freedom on the Internet?

Ron Deibert writes: This is an excellent question, and one that is vexing me personally. I worry that some of the conclusions that may be drawn from the GhostNet report and others like it will end up leading to pressures to over-regulate of the Internet. For example, the difficulties around identifying the perpetrators of attacks like GhostNet may lead some to propose the elimination of anonymous communications. However, the ability to surf the Internet and communicate anonymously is often very important, especially in the cases of whisteblowers and human rights advocates, and it is intimately linked with the right to privacy. Recently, there were discussions being held at the highest levels, and including the national security organs of both China and the United States, for some kind of IP (Internet Protocol) trace-back system in which owners of machines connected to the Internet could be positively identified. Although I believe the proposal is ultimately unworkable and undesirable, the fact that both China and the United States were on the same side of this question is worrisome.

Ultimately, I worry that in order to deal with some of these emerging problems in cyberspace, regulations will be made that will ruin the Internet and turn it into something else altogether. We must avoid that while finding ways to deal with cyber-espionage, denial of service attacks, and the growing spread of viruses, trojan horses, and worms.

M.L. from Canada writes: In terms of stemming the infiltration of cyberspys, Are there steps individual users can take, or is the problem of cyberespionage largely one that governments need to combat?

Ron Deibert writes: Actually, I'd like to begin my answer by turning that question on its head (if you do not mind). One of the characteristics of cyberspace is that the capabilities to engage in the attacks described in GhostNet are now readily available on the Internet. The main tool that was used in the GhostNet attack was a trojan horse software program
called Ghost Rat that is widely available for free download on the Internet. It was written by Chinese programmers, and has since been translated into English. It has a very nice graphical user interface (GUI) and is very simple to operate. The same sort of tools and malware kits for virus and worm production are also easily obtained. One no longer need an NSA-size organization and budget to engage in sophisticated cyberespionage. The Internet has democratized many things, including apparently signals intelligence. The same goes for denial of service attacks and computer network operations.

I do believe that this is going to be one of the most vexing problems of controlling the militarization of cyberspace: getting agreement among ~200 states is one thing, but how do you get the agreement of individuals?

Governments and individuals both have a role to play. All of us need to understand that cyberspace is a precious commons, one that we will need in order to solve the many shared global problems that present themselves today. We need a shared communications medium through citizens around the world can communicate freely and safely. Right now, that medium is in the process of being degraded by Internet content filtering, censorship, surveillance, computer network attacks, privacy violations, and bandwidth throttling.

In terms of solutions, I think we need to begin locally here in Canada, and start pushing for laws that, for example, enshrine network neutrality, protect privacy, create free zones of access to the Internet for all people (especially in rural areas) and protect access to information and freedom of speech. From there, we need to encourage other jurisdictions to follow suit and hope a global regime of cyberspace protection ultimately emerges. Right now, regrettably, the opposite is the case.

Matt Frehner, globeandmail.com: That's all the time we have today. I'd like to finish off with one final question: Looking forward, can you tell us a little bit about how you see these threats developing in the next 5 or so years? What kind of a role to you see cyberwarfare playing in future conflicts between states?

Ron Deibert writes: In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in incidences of cyberwarfare, in conflicts that include Russia, Georgia, Estonia, China, Tibet, Burma, Israel, and others. Many states and non-state actors are investing heavily in cyber warfare capabilities, including the United States and China. Military doctrines now speak openly about fighting and winning wars in cyberspace and recognize the strategic importance of the information domain. At the same time, the number of states actively intervening to block access to information and services online is growing. Another research project I am involved in, the OpenNet Initiative, tracks Internet censorship and right now we are finishing up tests in 71 countries. I expect the number of instances we find of states blocking access to information will number in the dozens. That includes governments blocking access to the websites of political opposition groups and news organizations.

Alongside of all of this, the ease by which personal information can be harvested, fused, and analyzed from the digital traces we leave is growing. Surveillance is now widespread and facilitated by the private entities that service our communications, including Internet Service Providers and other communications companies.

Essentially, cyberspace is being carved up and militarized at the same time that it is being heavily monitored.

Together, these trends point to an ominous development and a troubling brew. I do believe that thinking about protecting the Internet as a forum for free expression, privacy, and access to information is one of the major issues of the next few decades.

Thanks for all of the questions!

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=256919400&mode=cnc&tag=3.7441%3Ficx_id%3D%2FRTGAM.20090401.wgtdiscussion0401%2FBNStory%2FTechnology%2F

Iran convicts Fargo journalist of spying

2009-04-18T08:55:00.000-04:00

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI , Associated Press

Last update: April 18, 2009 - 7:13 AM

TEHRAN, Iran - An American journalist jailed in Iran has been convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison, her lawyer said Saturday, dashing any hopes for her quick release.
The verdict was the first time Iran has found an American journalist guilty of spying, and it was unclear how the conviction would affect recent overtures by the Obama administration for better relations and engagement with Washington's longtime adversary.

Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the United States.

She appeared before an Iranian court behind closed doors on Monday in an unusually swift one-day trial. The Fargo, North Dakota native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

"Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in jail. I'll definitely appeal the verdict," lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi told The Associated Press. It was not immediately known when she was convicted.

The United States has called the charges against Saberi baseless and has demanded her release, and the conviction and prison sentence could put strains on efforts to improve ties.

President Barack Obama has said it wants to engage Iran in talks on its nuclear program and other issues — a departure from the tough talk of the Bush administration.

Iran has been mostly lukewarm to the idea, but on Thursday Iran's hard-line president gave the clearest signal yet that the Islamic Republic was also willing to start a new relationship with Washington.

In a speech Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was preparing new proposals aimed at breaking an impasse with the West over its nuclear program.

But it was uncertain how Washington would react to Saberi's conviction. On Thursday, the State Department said Saberi's jailing was not helpful and that Iran would gain U.S. good will if it "responded in a positive way" to the case.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Iran after its 1979 Islamic revolution and takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for arresting journalists and suppressing freedom of speech. The government has arrested several Iranian-Americans in the past few years, citing alleged attempts to overthrow its Islamic government through what it calls a "soft revolution." But they were never put on trial and were eventually released from prison.

Iran has released few details about the charges against Saberi. Iranian officials initially said she had been arrested for working in the Islamic Republic without press credentials and she had told her father in a phone conversation that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine.

An Iranian investigative judge involved in the case charged that Saberi was passing classified information to U.S. intelligence services.

Her parents, who traveled to Iran from their home in Fargo in a bid to help win their daughter's release, could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.

Click on title above for full story;

http://www.startribune.com/local/43220407.html?elr=KArksUUUU

Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger's site

2009-04-14T14:02:00.000-04:00

Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.

By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:16PM BST 11 Apr 2009

Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled "Facts about Goldman Sachs" - the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com - just a few weeks ago.

In that time Mr Morgan, a registered investment adviser, has added a number of posts to the site, including one entitled "Does Goldman Sachs run the world?". However, many of the posts relate to other Wall Street firms and issues.
According to Chadbourne & Parke's letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site "violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights" and also "implies a relationship" with the bank itself.

Unsurprisingly for a man who has conjoined the bank's name with the Number of the Beast - although he jokingly points out that 666 was also the S&P500's bear-market bottom - Mr Morgan is unlikely to go down without a fight.

He claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website - and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank.

On a special section of his blog entitled "Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan" he predicts that the fight will probably end up in court.

"It's just another example of how a bully like Goldman Sachs tries to throw their weight around," he writes.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Morgan explained how he went through a similar battle with US homebuilder Lennar a few years ago after he set up a website to collect information on what he alleged was shoddy workmanship in its homes. The pair eventually settled out of court.

"Since I went through this with Lennar, I've had advice from some of the best intellectual property lawyers, and I know exactly what I can and can't do. We're not going to back down from this," he promises.

Mr Morgan adds that if Goldman manages to shut down his site, he has a number of other domain names registered.

. Speculation is mounting that Goldman Sachs is set to raise several billion dollars via a share sale, possibly next week, in order to pay down a $10bn (£6.8bn) US government loan, as revealed in The Sunday Telegraph last week.

The AP's Desperate Attempt To Outlaw Search Engine Links

2009-04-13T03:21:00.001-04:00

By Rich Ord / WebProNews - Fri, 04/10/2009 - 18:59

An AP win could kill "fair use" and change the Internet as we know it.

The AP is launching an all out assault on any use of its content that is not licensed (purchased) for use by Internet publishers and search engines. As I have said in the past, the AP is not just focusing on the blatant violators such as spam blogs or sites that quote paragraphs without attribution or link. On the contrary, the AP is specifically going after bigger mainstream blogs, Internet publications and believe it or not search engines such as Google.

Do you agree with the AP's actions? What do you think?

The AP believes that desperate times call for desperate measures and that means demanding royalties from any company profiting from any aspect of their content. When Google links to an AP story in a search result with an Adwords ad on the page the AP expects to be paid. Include a rewritten headline link to an AP story Matt Drudge and you will be sued for payment by the AP. Add a paragraph snippet of content from an AP article in your PaidContent.org blog post and be ready for a call from an AP lawyer demanding their share of your ad revenue.

From the AP's perspective, the concept of fair use is primitive and counter to their desperate desire to prevent their demise in an ad supported Internet content economy. The Associated Press Board of Directors, which is made up mostly of newspaper executives, has issued a member call to arms against anyone and everyone who misappropriates AP content.

The release quotes AP Chairman Dean Singleton who spoke at the AP annual meeting in San Diego, "The news cooperative would work with portals and other partners who properly license content – and would pursue legal and legislative actions against those who don‘t." Mr. Singleton added, "We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories."

Exactly what misguided legal theories Mr. Singleton was referring to became more clear as reports and interviews were published by other media. The New York Times quotes AP executives as stating, "They were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report". In other words, they are challenging the long held assumption that search engines or news aggregation sites have a right under fair use principles to republish headlines or small snippets of content without permission or payment. Should the AP be paid? Comment.

If you don't believe the AP is really going after Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Live Search for republishing AP content in search results read what Sue Cross, a senior vice president of AP told reporters as printed in the New York Times:

" When asked if The A.P. would require a licensing agreement before a search engine could show specific material, Ms. Cross said, “that could be an element of it,” but added, “it’s not that formed.”"

Obviously, the AP doesn't consider a link that goes with the republished headline or snippet sufficient payment. The AP's stated goal is to make it illegal either through the courts or by new laws to link (with a quote) to copyrighted content on the Internet without the permission of the copyright holder. However, in the case of the Drudge Report where most headlines are rewritten, apparently even a link to their content without permission may need an AP license agreement.

If the AP is successful, and they clearly believe they will be, then the Internet will be changed as we know it. Linking (with snippets or not) to the content of others could become a permission based concept where one only links (and quotes) after they have received the appropriate approval.

If content owners like the AP can sue search engines for unauthorized use of their content and win a share of their ad revenue, then the Google apple cart could be turned upside down.

>>> Is the AP justified in their fight? Should search engines share their revenue with content providers?

... Share your thoughts below.

------ ------ ------

Author Perspective: The author of this article, Rich Ord, is the founder and CEO of the iEntry Network which includes this publication, WebProNews. In 1996 Mr. Ord started NewsLinx.com which linked via republished headlines to selected Internet business and tech related articles as they were published. NewsLinx was the first news aggregation site of its kind and spawned many similar sites such as Topix.net, Techmeme and Google News.

News aggregation was not understood or immediately appreciated by most mainstream news organizations in early 1996. At that time most newspaper websites only published a fraction of their articles online and many were experimenting with pay-for-access concepts.

Soon after the launch of NewsLinx, Mr. Ord was contacted by numerous news organizations including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, etc... asking if NewsLinx had permission to "deep link" directly to stories within their site. The answer given by Mr. Ord was that the Internet was based on links and that NewsLinx was really no different than a search engine and therefore had the right to republish headlines and link direct to the article web page.

However, to avoid action on what sounded like legal threats to Mr. Ord he offered to stop including their headlines at their request. The typical response in 1996 was that they did not want NewsLinx to stop publishing their headlines and linking to their articles.

Click on title above for article and place to leave comments on WebPro..... http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/04/06/the-aps-desperate-attempt-to-outlaw-linking#comment-73702

Father of N.D. journalist charged with espionage in Iran will stay till daughter is freed

2009-04-11T00:22:00.000-04:00

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI , Associated Press

Last update: April 9, 2009 - 5:49 AM

TEHRAN, Iran - The father of an American journalist charged by Iran with espionage called on Iran Thursday to free her and said in an exclusive interview with Associated Press Television News that he will not leave the country until she's released.
"I demand them to release my daughter as soon as possible so that she can return to her normal life and continue her job," Reza Saberi said. "I will stay here until she is freed."

Roxana Saberi has been living for the last six years in Iran, working as a reporter for such organizations as National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp. The 31-year-old freelance reporter was arrested in late January.

A judge announced Wednesday that she had been charged with spying for the United States, a far more serious development than earlier statements by Iranian officials that she had been arrested for working without press credentials — and her own assertion in a phone call to her father that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine.

The judge told Iranian state TV that Saberi was passing classified information to U.S. intelligence services.

"Under the cover of a journalist, she visited government buildings, established contacts with some of the employees, gathered classified information and sent it to the U.S. intelligence services," said the judge, who under security rules was identified only by his surname, Heidarifard.

"Her activities were discovered by the counterespionage department of the Intelligence Ministry," Heidarifard said.

Reza Saberi and his wife arrived in Iran Sunday and visited their daughter Monday in Evin prison, which often holds political prisoners, north of Tehran.

"We were allowed to visit her for about 20 minutes. We talked to her. She was spiritually better than before. However, she was physically extremely thin and weak but she said she eats now and is going to exercise. This gave us the hope that she will become better," Reza Saberi said.

Saberi will stand trial next week, the judge said, though he did not specify which day.

The journalist grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. The Iranian judge in the case told state TV that Saberi's American nationality had not yet been ascertained for the Iranian judiciary, but her father said she was definitely an American citizen.

"She is certainly an American national. She also came to Iran and received an Iranian ID card and passport and according to Iranian law, she is Iranian too. She is actually a dual citizen," her father said.

Saberi's father, under advisement from the lawyer representing his daughter, would not comment on whether he accepted the charges or not.

The journalist's arrest comes at a time when President Barack Obama has expressed a willingness to talk with Iran after many years of rocky relations under the former U.S. administration.

On Wednesday, administration officials said U.S. diplomats would attend group talks with Iran over its suspect nuclear program. That would be a major departure from President George W. Bush's policy of isolation from a nation it once deemed to be evil.

The U.S. has also been pushing for Saberi's release, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the U.S. was deeply concerned by the reported charges and was seeking information from Swiss diplomats in Tehran. The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Iran following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Saberi was one of three missing or detained Americans mentioned in a written message passed by American officials directly to Iranian diplomats last month at an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, Netherlands, that Clinton attended.

Iran has yet to respond to the message, which sought information about the three.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for arresting journalists and suppressing freedom of speech. The government has arrested several Iranian-Americans in the past few years, citing alleged attempts to overthrow its Islamic government through what it calls a "soft revolution."

In another indication of the seriousness of the case, Saberi's lawyer also learned this week that it would be reviewed by Iran's Revolutionary Court, which normally handles cases involving threats to national security.

Saberi's lawyer, Abolsamad Khorramshahi, said Thursday that he had not yet been allowed to read the text of the indictment, which he expects to see by Saturday.

Saberi will stand trial next week, the judge said, though he did not specify which day.

The journalist grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. The Iranian judge in the case told state TV that Saberi's American nationality had not yet been ascertained for the Iranian judiciary, but her father said she was definitely an American citizen.

"She is certainly an American national. She also came to Iran and received an Iranian ID card and passport and according to Iranian law, she is Iranian too. She is actually a dual citizen," her father said.

Saberi's father, under advisement from the lawyer representing his daughter, would not comment on whether he accepted the charges or not.

The journalist's arrest comes at a time when President Barack Obama has expressed a willingness to talk with Iran after many years of rocky relations under the former U.S. administration.

On Wednesday, administration officials said U.S. diplomats would attend group talks with Iran over its suspect nuclear program. That would be a major departure from President George W. Bush's policy of isolation from a nation it once deemed to be evil.

The U.S. has also been pushing for Saberi's release, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the U.S. was deeply concerned by the reported charges and was seeking information from Swiss diplomats in Tehran. The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Iran following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Saberi was one of three missing or detained Americans mentioned in a written message passed by American officials directly to Iranian diplomats last month at an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, Netherlands, that Clinton attended.

Iran has yet to respond to the message, which sought information about the three.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for arresting journalists and suppressing freedom of speech. The government has arrested several Iranian-Americans in the past few years, citing alleged attempts to overthrow its Islamic government through what it calls a "soft revolution."

In another indication of the seriousness of the case, Saberi's lawyer also learned this week that it would be reviewed by Iran's Revolutionary Court, which normally handles cases involving threats to national security.

Saberi's lawyer, Abolsamad Khorramshahi, said Thursday that he had not yet been allowed to read the text of the indictment, which he expects to see by Saturday.

http://www.startribune.com/local/42663747.html?elr=KArksUUUU

Is The Washington Post Profiting from Brothels?

2009-04-10T11:58:00.004-04:00

From Change.Org; April 10, 2009

Although we at Change.org are practitioners of new media, we still have an affinity for a few old media properties like The Washington Post. But we also call a spade a spade, and this week the co-founder of a leading anti-trafficking organization, Polaris Project, called out The Washington Post in an article on Change.org for its ethically dubious practice of indirectly profiting from brothels.

The Washington Post currently accepts advertisements for massage parlors, which the Post's own reporters have shown are often thinly disguised brothels with women trafficked into the country and forced into prostitution. Because of this frequent connection to human trafficking, The New York Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times refuse advertisements for massage parlors. But The Washington Post has turned a blind eye and continues to profit from these ads, making the paper complicit in the sexual violence of women across our nation's capital.

So before you enjoy the rest of your Friday, or your Sunday paper, we strongly recommend you send a letter to the Post and urge them to stop this practice immediately.

Or, if you want to use newfangled social networking technology to inspire some innovative employee activism, search your network on Facebook, find alumni at your college who work at the Post, and kindly ask them to tell their employer to do the right thing and stop accepting these ads immediately. You can search for The Washington Post employees you're connected to on Facebook here:
http://tinyurl.com/facebookwashpost.

Seems to me there is a question of 2nd ammendment entitlement here. Not to compare animals with exploited women and children, but ar folks fought to keep animal "snuff" flicks, dog-fighting videos and beastiality off of the internet, and lost! The court held that these types of things are constitutionally protected!Cut and paste this link into your web browser to learn more about that case;
Click on title to read more about that case and the idiot judge appointed for life who read the majority opinion;
http://legal-eaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/judges.html

Prof. takes questions on cybercrime and the Net

2009-04-05T08:28:00.002-04:00

Professor Deibert; "Protecting freedom of expression, privacy, and access to information on the net is one of the major issues of the next few decades."

Globe and Mail Update

April 1 was to be the day that a destructive Web virus, dubbed Conficker, unleashed its full power upon unsuspecting Net denizens. While the day passed with no sign of calamity, worry about the virus, coupled with recent revelations of the threat of cyberespionage, have stoked fears about the impact of cybercrime. University of Toronto professor Ron Deibert is part of a crack team of Canadian researchers who
revealed this weekend a network, dubbed GhostNet, of more than 1,200 infected computers worldwide that includes such "high-value targets" as Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Kuwait, as well as a dozen computers in Canada.

Who is behind GhostNet? Along with Rafal Rohozinski, Prof. Deibert wrote in the Globe and Mail: "The most obvious explanation, and certainly the one in which the circumstantial evidence tilts the strongest, would be that this set of high-profile targets has been exploited by the Chinese state for military and strategic-intelligence purposes. Indeed, many of the high-confidence targets we identified are clearly linked to Chinese foreign and defence policy, particularly in South and South East Asia."

China, for their part, dismissed the report as lies intended to stoke anxiety over Beijing's growing influence in world affairs.

Nevertheless, following the publication of the GhostNet research, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan warned Monday that cyberwarfare will be a "growing threat" for the foreseeable future, as he urged Canadian corporations to start patching potential holes in their networks.

How immediate is the threat posed to governments by cyberespionage? With so many digital worms creeping over the Web, what is the best way to respond to viruses like Conficker? How real in these cases is the threat to our own personal privacy? Prof. Deibert is joining us live to help separate the facts from the hype. Feel free to submit your questions using our comment tool or via Twitter @GlobeTechnology.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Matt Frehner, globeandmail.com: Thanks a lot for joining us today, Professor Deibert. Following warnings from Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan concerning the "growing threat" of cyberwarfare, what should policymakers be doing to try to limit the reach and frequency of cyberspy and other botnet systems? What do you see as Canada's role in this?

Ron Deibert writes: The question of what should be done at a policy level is an important one to me personally, and to us at the Information Warfare Monitor. For many years (and at least as far back as a 2003 comment piece I wrote in the Globe and Mail) I have been warning of increasing militarization of cyberspace and that we need to begin thinking about arms control in cyberspace. Part of the solution is to focus on securing critical infrastructures, and to create incentives for manufacturers of computer and software equipment to take security seriously. But that is only part of the solution. Arms control in cyberspace is going to be very challenging, in part because the "actors" involved include more than just states, and involve criminal organizations and even individuals. How do you get all of those actors involved in any possible arms control agreement? Another vexing problem is the one of attribution. Although the GhostNet study lays out quite powerful circumstantial evidence against China, we also lay out alternative explanations. Indeed, one of the defining features of cyberspace is the ease by which the perpetrators of these sorts of attacks can mask their identity and real location.

I see a great potential for Canada in this area. Long ago, we were widely known for taking a lead in pushing for arms control as part of a broader "human security" agenda, both in terms of arms control negotiations and verification. There was a small, but very influential area of expertise within the Department of Foreign Affairs on arms control verification, called the Verification Research Unit. That unit no longer exists, and our interest in promoting arms control and human security has diminished somewhat in recent years. In the area of cyberspace, I think it's natural for Canada to lead, both because of our past experience but also because of our historical experiences with telecommunications. We are a large land mass, and have depended on telecommunications, and we have a long and distinguished intellectual history around the study of telecommunications, beginning with Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan.

Matt Frehner, globeandmail.com: With so many digital worms creeping over the Web, and the release of reports such as yours, how can the average computer user separate the hype surrounding viruses like Conficker from legitimate threats?

Ron Deibert writes: This is an excellent question and is at the heart of one of the aims of the Information Warfare Monitor -- to separate hype from reality. We are an evidence based organization, and that is why we were very careful to avoid speculation and hyperbole, and also to be cautious about making attribution. Some other organizations out there have been quick to identify China as the culprit, and the evidence does seem powerful, but it is not conclusive and there are alternative explanations. The answer is a combination of field investigations, technical scouting, and data analysis. This is a new field of inquiry we are helping to pioneer and I believe it is going to become more important as we move forward in dealing with the challenges of controlling arms races in cyberspace.

Roman Spears from St. Catharines Canada writes: With identity theft and hijack programs being threats to the average home user, what recommendations can you make to help us all be more secure online? Who is making the detection programs that can find this malicious code and rid the internet of it?

Ron Deibert writes: For the average Internet user, the GhostNet report -- and others like it -- has undoubtedly caused concerns, and we have been blitzed with many emails from individuals, activists, and NGOs, asking if they are infected, whether we can help, and what we might recommend for security online. We are not a service organization, but a research and development laboratory, so there is a limit to what we can do. There are many organizations out there whose job it is to provide information security, particular for consumers. But one of the remarkable aspects of our investigation was that the main tool used by the attackers was only identified by 11 of the 34 virus scanners we employed. That is a big problem. Many of the machines that were infected by GhostNet were using Windows, and of course most of the viruses out there disproportionately affect Windows operating systems. Switching to an open source operating system, like Linux, is now highly recommended for government ministries for this reason alone.

For NGOs and activists, there are many information security resources and training organizations out there that I would recommend, including Tactical Tech and Frontline Defenders and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others.

Albin Forone from Canada writes: I trust and use the Canada Revenue Agency site more or less as confidently as I use my bank and brokerage sites, and I'd be inclined to assume government sites with national security data at stake are pretty secure. So given that there are nefarious government or terror groups with internet crowbars, how much concern do you have about the quality of the government site and communications internet security measures.

Ron Deibert writes: We place a great deal of trust in our governments' communications systems when we communicate sensitive information to them, and hope that they take the issues of information security seriously. What GhostNet reveals, though, is that a large swath of high impact political and economic targets can indeed be compromised, including ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, and international organizations. Many of these organizations were compromised for many months, without their knowledge, and the attackers had potential access to all sorts of sensitive documents, and even had the ability to eavesdrop on classified meetings through the activation of web cameras and listening devices. Although most governments have invested heavily in secure methods of communication, many have not. This is particularly the case in the developing world where information security is often a distant priority next to other goals, such as the elimination of poverty or even simply access to information.

As citizens, we should be diligent to ensure that our government in Canada is doing the best possible job to secure our critical infrastructures, particularly when it comes to sending and receiving our own private confidential information, and that they are handling the latter with the utmost care. We should do the same with respect to the companies that provide us with our connectivity. We live in a world deeply permeated by digital technologies, much of which is serviced by private third parties and hosted on servers beyond our immediate control. We put a lot of trust in those organizations when we communicate with and through them.

O.A. from Toronto writes: To what extent would restrictions designed to limit such malicious networks also have the overlapping effect of censoring or limiting everyone else's freedom on the Internet?

Ron Deibert writes: This is an excellent question, and one that is vexing me personally. I worry that some of the conclusions that may be drawn from the GhostNet report and others like it will end up leading to pressures to over-regulate of the Internet. For example, the difficulties around identifying the perpetrators of attacks like GhostNet may lead some to propose the elimination of anonymous communications. However, the ability to surf the Internet and communicate anonymously is often very important, especially in the cases of whisteblowers and human rights advocates, and it is intimately linked with the right to privacy. Recently, there were discussions being held at the highest levels, and including the national security organs of both China and the United States, for some kind of IP (Internet Protocol) trace-back system in which owners of machines connected to the Internet could be positively identified. Although I believe the proposal is ultimately unworkable and undesirable, the fact that both China and the United States were on the same side of this question is worrisome.

Ultimately, I worry that in order to deal with some of these emerging problems in cyberspace, regulations will be made that will ruin the Internet and turn it into something else altogether. We must avoid that while finding ways to deal with cyber-espionage, denial of service attacks, and the growing spread of viruses, trojan horses, and worms.

M.L. from Canada writes: In terms of stemming the infiltration of cyberspys, Are there steps individual users can take, or is the problem of cyberespionage largely one that governments need to combat?

Ron Deibert writes: Actually, I'd like to begin my answer by turning that question on its head (if you do not mind). One of the characteristics of cyberspace is that the capabilities to engage in the attacks described in GhostNet are now readily available on the Internet. The main tool that was used in the GhostNet attack was a trojan horse software program
called Ghost Rat that is widely available for free download on the Internet. It was written by Chinese programmers, and has since been translated into English. It has a very nice graphical user interface (GUI) and is very simple to operate. The same sort of tools and malware kits for virus and worm production are also easily obtained. One no longer need an NSA-size organization and budget to engage in sophisticated cyberespionage. The Internet has democratized many things, including apparently signals intelligence. The same goes for denial of service attacks and computer network operations.

I do believe that this is going to be one of the most vexing problems of controlling the militarization of cyberspace: getting agreement among ~200 states is one thing, but how do you get the agreement of individuals?

Governments and individuals both have a role to play. All of us need to understand that cyberspace is a precious commons, one that we will need in order to solve the many shared global problems that present themselves today. We need a shared communications medium through citizens around the world can communicate freely and safely. Right now, that medium is in the process of being degraded by Internet content filtering, censorship, surveillance, computer network attacks, privacy violations, and bandwidth throttling.

In terms of solutions, I think we need to begin locally here in Canada, and start pushing for laws that, for example, enshrine network neutrality, protect privacy, create free zones of access to the Internet for all people (especially in rural areas) and protect access to information and freedom of speech. From there, we need to encourage other jurisdictions to follow suit and hope a global regime of cyberspace protection ultimately emerges. Right now, regrettably, the opposite is the case.

Matt Frehner, globeandmail.com: That's all the time we have today. I'd like to finish off with one final question: Looking forward, can you tell us a little bit about how you see these threats developing in the next 5 or so years? What kind of a role to you see cyberwarfare playing in future conflicts between states?

Ron Deibert writes: In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in incidences of cyberwarfare, in conflicts that include Russia, Georgia, Estonia, China, Tibet, Burma, Israel, and others. Many states and non-state actors are investing heavily in cyber warfare capabilities, including the United States and China. Military doctrines now speak openly about fighting and winning wars in cyberspace and recognize the strategic importance of the information domain. At the same time, the number of states actively intervening to block access to information and services online is growing. Another research project I am involved in, the OpenNet Initiative, tracks Internet censorship and right now we are finishing up tests in 71 countries. I expect the number of instances we find of states blocking access to information will number in the dozens. That includes governments blocking access to the websites of political opposition groups and news organizations.

Alongside of all of this, the ease by which personal information can be harvested, fused, and analyzed from the digital traces we leave is growing. Surveillance is now widespread and facilitated by the private entities that service our communications, including Internet Service Providers and other communications companies.

Essentially, cyberspace is being carved up and militarized at the same time that it is being heavily monitored.

Together, these trends point to an ominous development and a troubling brew. I do believe that thinking about protecting the Internet as a forum for free expression, privacy, and access to information is one of the major issues of the next few decades.

Thanks for all of the questions!

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=244973898&mode=cnc&tag=3.7441%3Ficx_id%3D%2FRTGAM.20090401.wgtdiscussion0401%2FBNStory

eMail Censorship & a word from Ron Paul

2009-04-02T10:30:00.002-04:00

MORE Proof that liberty defending email is being censored
savefreed0m2005
Wed Apr 1, 2009 12:38 am (PDT)
MORE Proof that liberty defending email is being censored
http://targetfreedom.typepad.com/targetfreedom/2009/03/liberty-defending-email-censored.html

THIS IS POSTED FROM THE WEBPAGE SO AS TO AVOID THE HOP WHERE THE CENSORSHIP FILTER IS INSTALLED. THESE LINKS MIGHT APPEAR TO BE "BROKEN" ON THE FIRST CLICK. JUST REFRESH THEM. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE CENSORSHIP FOR YOURSELF JUST TRY PASSING THIS MESSAGE AROUND.

Censorship PART ONE
(Click on title above to see)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbF5PMsVmO0

Censorship PART TWO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBhU6d0HCJI

Censorship Part 3: Replying to censored political messages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwy8rMUJl6g

Censorship Part 4: Replying to censored political messages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O2PX0bhnwQ

Replying to censored political messages that went to spam folder. Censorship is being disguised as "spam filtering". Earlier we wrote:
"Even a reply to the censored message,
from the main Yahoo server,
will trigger the CAPCHA censorship window."

One of the censors got upset by this, and emailed me this comment:
"Have you seen one of these? ever? If you have seen one, please send me a screenshot, if you personally have never seen it, please stop saying so."

WELL HERE IT IS. I do not need to send this reply directly to him, since he is reading all of my mail anyway. This is what happens every time, except when you cannot even find the message in the spam folder. Usually it just disappears. This is called being "black holed".

Olbermann-FISA, Telecom Immunity and other Crimes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKYadABc14
Update: FISA warrantless wiretapping Bill (HR 6304)
Watch Mark Klein's testimony about this warrantless wiretapping.

Call your Senators through the switchboard at 202-224-3121

or dial direct

Why is the government unwilling to let these facts be aired in open court?

Ben Siegrist, who works for Senator DeMint, told me that Mark Klein's testimony is of no concern. See if you think that this is just a "disgruntled employee".

The Senate could cast its final vote on warrantless wiretapping as soon as today. We need to flood Congress with letters and calls demanding a no vote on the FISA bill. There are relevant amendments to the FISA warrantless wiretapping Bill. Ask your Senator to stand for liberty and the law, and vote in favor of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy Amendment. Dodd-Feingold-Leahy Amendment stops retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

----------------------------------------------------------

Statement on HR 6304, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments

20 June 2008

Rep. Ron Paul, M.D.

Madam Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well.

The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens' communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.

In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration's illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.

Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure.

Google Wont Remove Offending Pages about YOU

2009-03-06T08:38:00.001-05:00

frum Matt Cutts Blog;

If you've been involved with the web for any significant amount of time, there is a good chance there may be pages up somewhere that you're not thrilled about, but are out of your power to remove. Whether it is a page you made in high school or somebody else talking smack about you, you're concerned about your online reputation (as you should be) and would like to see the page removed from Google's index altogether.

Unfortunately, Google cannot be held responsible for this because as they say on the official help page for "How do I remove content from Google Search Results?" they do not own the Internet. The company says, "In order for information within Google search results to change, the information must first change on the website where it appears."

Click on title above to see full article and comments;
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/03/04/google-wont-remove-pages-about-you

UK Man ARRESTED For Posting Comments on Web site

2009-02-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Sent: Mon 2/09/09 2:23 PM
To: ar-news (ar-news@googlegroups.com)

A man has been arrested in connection with comments posted to theactivist news site Indymedia. The postings on January 21 included the personal details of aprominent High Court judge who had earlier that day handed down prisonsentences in a landmark animal testing extremism trial. A spokeswoman for Kent Police said the arrest was made this morning inSheffield. No further details about the man, who has not been charged,were released. His arrest follows Kent Police's seizure of anIndymedia server in Manchester on January 22. The two user comments that prompted the investigation were posted onIndymedia in response to a story about the jail sentences given tomembers of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Mr Justice NeilButterfield handed down sentences of between four and 11 years forblackmail to three women and four men after they were convicted ofharassing
people and companies connected to Huntingdon Life Sciences(HLS).

-- full story:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/09/indymedia_shac_arrest/

Readin', Writin' & Reportin' it Right: The BTK / KSN Defamation Case

2009-01-27T12:31:00.004-05:00

The "Bind-Torture-Kill" Case Back in the News;

Kansas Supreme Court hears KSN / BTK Killer defamation lawsuit

Attorneys for the estate of Roger Valadez want a defamation verdict reinstated. KSN wants an outrageous conduct verdict dismissed.

Associated Press
TOPEKA - A Wichita television station that lost a defamation lawsuit for naming a possible suspect in the BTK serial killings told the Kansas Supreme Court on Monday that it did nothing wrong and shouldn't be penalized for its reporting.

But the attorney for Roger Valadez's estate, Craig Shultz, told the justices that the Dec. 1, 2004, report on station KSN amounted to defamation and outrageous conduct, as a Sedgwick County jury decided in October 2006. The jury awarded a combined $1.1 million on the two claims.

Valadez, 66, died a month after the trial, in which Emmis Communications, then the owner of KSN, and its then-news director Todd Spessard were defendants.

The station aired Valadez's name after his arrest at his home on minor outstanding warrants. Valadez never was charged in the BTK case and was released after DNA tests eliminated him as a suspect in the killings.

After Valadez died, a Sedgwick County judge dismissed the defamation verdict and reduced the total damages to $250,000 on the outrageous conduct claim alone.

Attorneys for Valadez's estate want the defamation verdict reinstated. KSN wants that decision to stand but wants the outrageous conduct verdict dismissed.

Dennis Rader was arrested in February 2005 as the BTK killer and confessed to 10 killings in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991. Rader, 63, is serving 10 consecutive life sentences at El Dorado Correctional Facility.

The two main issues during Monday's hearing were whether the station's reporting amounted to outrageous conduct and whether the defamation verdict should have survived Valadez's death.

Bernard Rhodes, a Kansas City, Mo., attorney representing the station, said KSN was correct when it reported Valadez had been arrested, his DNA taken and his home searched by BTK investigators. He said KSN also later reported that the police chief said Valadez wasn't a BTK suspect.

"The overarching issue this case presents to this court is whether the truthful reporting of the name of a criminal suspect as part of a police investigation into a high-profile case can be the basis for imposing liability on the media," Rhodes said.

But Shultz said the evidence "shows the shameful nature of reporting" that was done.

"In a sense, it was like a gamble. The press, KSN in particular, which gave up Mr. Valadez's name, made a bet. They bet they were going to come out right, and they weren't," Shultz said.

The BTK killer -- a name Rader coined for "Bind, Torture, Kill" -- had terrorized Wichita throughout the 1970s and had taunted authorities with anonymous letters. BTK resurfaced with new messages in 2004.

Justice Carol Beier asked if KSN had sources in naming Valadez.

"We had shoe-leather reporting. We did not have a source inside the Police Department," Rhodes said. "We had people on the ground at the house who saw in the middle of the night police conducting the search."

Rhodes said the station knew Valadez owned the house but didn't air his name until it confirmed that he had been jailed and a judge had set a cash bond of $25,000.

"Every other station in town was doing exactly the same thing. How can...," Rhodes told the court before he was interrupted by Justice Lee Johnson.

"That isn't true," Johnson said. "They weren't doing exactly the same thing. They were not identifying Mr. Valadez by name. Your client is the only news media using the name."

Rhodes agreed, again raising the question of whether the truthful reporting of a name is grounds for punishment.

"We have the right to report the facts," he said.

Johnson also questioned Shultz about whether Valadez was a BTK suspect. Shultz agreed that Valadez was a "person of interest" in the BTK investigation.

"There were elements of truth in their report, but this was an all-day deal," Shultz said. "They kept juxtapositioning these things that would imply something that simply wasn't true."

Shultz also said the defamation verdict should be reinstated because the jury reached its decision before Valadez died and that was a final judgment.

Rhodes said the trial judge ruled correctly and that the defamation decision shouldn't be reinstated.

http://www.kansas.com/topstories/story/678198.html

Temple Grandin's "Humane" Slaughter Pen

2009-01-23T14:24:00.000-05:00

The Joys and Pains of Being an Animal
Source: New York Times; By: Dwight Garner

Temple Grandin’s “Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior” (2004) occupies a special place among the animal books of the last few decades. Ms. Grandin’s autism gives her a special understanding of what animals, whether house cats or cattle, think, feel and — perhaps most important — desire. There is a revelation on almost every page, and Ms. Grandin’s prose (she wrote with Catherine Johnson) is ungainly in the best possible way: blunt, sweet, off-kilter and often quite funny.

Ms. Grandin’s new book, “Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals,” also written with Ms. Johnson, picks up where “Animals in Translation” left off. It has a slightly different focus: she concentrates this time on the emotional rather than the physical life of animals, although the two are clearly related.

There is a good deal of rehashing of material from her previous book, and she leans more here on the ideas of others than she did before. But to remark that “Animals Make Us Human” is a slightly lesser book than “Animals in Translation” is like saying Randy Newman's “Good Old Boys” is a slightly lesser album than “Sail Away.” If you liked the first one, you’re going to like the second.

Ms. Grandin bases many of her observations in “Animals Make Us Human” on the work of a Washington State University neuroscientist named Jaak Panksepp who identified a series of core “emotion systems” in animals: seeking, play, care and lust (on the positive side) and fear, panic and rage (on the negative).

“The rule is simple,” Ms. Grandin writes. “Don’t stimulate rage, fear and panic if you can help it, and do stimulate seeking and also play.” Ms. Grandin employs Dr. Panksepp’s terms throughout “Animals Make Us Human,” but they are really only a framework for her more interesting riffing and observations.

There are provocative chapters here on dogs (Ms. Grandin quibbles with some of the alpha-male ideas of Cesar Millan, television’s “Dog Whisperer”) and cats. Ms. Grandin is at her best, however, when she is talking about animals like cows, pigs, horses and chickens, as well as wild animals and those in zoos.

Ms. Grandin has designed humane and stress-free slaughter systems that are used now to process about half of all the cattle in the United States and Canada. There is some cognitive dissonance here. She is often asked, she tells us, “How can you care about animals when you design slaughter plants?”

Her reply is that “some people think death is the most terrible thing that can happen to an animal.” She argues that “the most important thing for an animal is the quality of its life.”

She adds: “The more I observe and learn about how dogs are kept today, I am more convinced that many cattle have better lives than some of the pampered pets. Too many dogs are alone all day with no human or dog companions.”

She worries about the “totally adversarial” relationship between animal advocacy groups and the livestock industry. She has kind words for companies like McDonald’s and Wendy’s (she has consulted for both), which are forcing their suppliers to treat animals more humanely. But she also praises activists. “The big companies are like steel, and activists are like heat. Activists soften the steel, and then I can bend it into pretty grillwork and make reforms.”

One of the major points in “Animals Make Us Human” is the importance of hiring and training good people to work with livestock. Strong, caring managers are needed; bullying and sadistic employees should be fired; and because turnover in these industries is high, constant training and retraining are necessary, as well as constant auditing from the outside.

Ms. Grandin is in favor of almost total openness — she’s among the writers who believe that slaughterhouses should have glass walls. “No animal should spend its last conscious moments in a state of terror,” she writes, and any visitor should be able to observe that they do not.

Ms. Grandin loves solid, declarative sentences: “Cattle hate being yelled at”; “Pigs are obsessed with straw”; “Cows like to learn new things.” So I’ll add one of my own: We’re lucky to have Temple Grandin.

But here’s something I thought about while reading “Animals Make Us Human”: while I would not want Ms. Grandin to discontinue her work with animals, even for a day, as a reader I’d be curious to watch her unusual mind play over other topics.

She has already written one very fine memoir, “Thinking in Pictures” (1995). I can envision a second, with a slightly different focus. Human beings can often be made to feel like cattle, especially in large cities. What would she have to say about subways, housing projects, stadiums, prisons, office cubicles, long-distance buses, shelters for the homeless, elevators or, I dunno, the security line at La Guardia? What are her thoughts about urban planning in general?

I’d spend $26 to find out.

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=197221939&mode=cnc&tag=3.5453%3Ficx_id%3Dbeefmagazine.com%2Fbeef-quality%2F0122-temple-grandin%2Findex.html

Journalist Picked for Surgeon General, Conyers Opposes

2009-01-20T22:23:00.003-05:00

Conyers: Obama Should Not Nominate Sanjay Gupta
January 8, 2009 12:49 PM

Rep. John Conyers has written a letter to Democratic colleagues urging them to join him in publicly opposing the nomination of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General.

Conyers, the veteran Judiciary Committee chairman, writes that Gupta "lacks the requisite experience needed to oversee the federal agency that provides crucial health care assistance," and requests that fellow Democrats join him "in signing a letter to President-Elect Barack Obama that Dr. Sunjay Gupta not be nominated for the post."

Here's the bulk of the Dear Colleague letter:

I join in opposition with respected Noble Peace Prize award wining economist Paul Krugman, who has very serious concerns with having Dr. Gupta be the nation's Surgeon General. [...]

Also, there are highly experienced medical professionals who question whether Dr. Gupta has the necessary experience or even the medical background to be in charge of some 6,000 physicians or more who work in the United States Public Health Service. Gerard M. Farrel, Executive Director of the Commissioned Officers Association, stated in the January 7, 2008 Washington Post that Dr. Gupta will certainly face a "credibility gap" because he never served in the National Health Service Corp, and furthermore, does not have the "experience or qualifications to be the leader of the nation's public health service." Clearly, it is not in the best interests of the nation to have someone like this who lacks the requisite experience needed to oversee the federal agency that provides crucial health care assistance to some of the poorest and most underserved communities in America.

Conyers' letter represents one of the first critical takes on the potential Gupta nomination to come from the Hill. In most quarters, reports about the CNN medical correspondent have been greeted as a smart, if not provocative, pick. Howard Dean, a doctor himself, noted that Gupta's responsibilities would be much the same as those in his current job: explaining medical issues of public concern in a manner that the public could understand.

Outside of government, however, some have begun questioning whether the CNN correspondent has the proper qualifications to be Surgeon General. Krugman, in his post noted that Gupta accused filmmaker Michael Moore of inaccuracies, "when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong." Gupta and CNN would later acknowledge making a mistake and apologize on air. Others have questioned whether he is the right conduit for Obama's health care agenda, and whether or not he has ethical conflicts of interest stemming from the corporate sponsors of his show.

But while Conyers and these individuals have doubts, it's unclear whether the post of Surgeon General will elicit much of a fight, since no Senators (who must confirm the nomination) have spoken critically of Gupta.

Rep. John Conyers has written a letter to Democratic colleagues urging them to join him in publicly opposing the nomination of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General. Conyers, the veteran Judiciary Co...
Rep. John Conyers has written a letter to Democratic colleagues urging them to join him in publicly opposing the nomination of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General. Conyers, the veteran Judiciary Co...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/08/conyers-to-obama-do-not-n_n_156298.html

ND School Board Bans Popular Book

2009-01-19T10:48:00.000-05:00

Orwellian Times

Jan 18 2009 11:54AM
Associated Press
Eds: APNewsNow.

Beulah, N.D. (AP) The Beulah School Board has voted to ban the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," a Best Seller about a Savannah, Georgia murder, from the high school library.

The board voted 4-3 Thursday to remove the copy of the 1994 book by John Berendt, which was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. The story involves four murder trials and an assortment of characters, including a voodoo priestess and a transvestite.

Beulah vocational Agriculture teacher Keith Bohn and Kathy Bohn, a school janitor, asked the school to remove the book after their son brought it home.

Keith Bohn said he did not read the entire book, but he read enough to decide it did not belong in school.

Superintendent Rob Lech said a school review committee unanimously recommended the book stay in the library. That decision was appealed to the School Board.

Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com

http://www.kxnet.com/getArticle.asp?l_s=dailyemail&ArticleId=321440

The Cost of SLAPPing Down Journalism

2009-01-03T14:24:00.001-05:00

Frum Sheldon Ramptons Blog; on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 15:49.

Topics: journalism

Alan Rusbridger, who edits the British Guardian, thinks fear of libel lawsuits from
big corporations may have contributed to journalists' failure to adequately report on the dangerous economic decisions that led to the recent implosion of the global financial system. In an article for the New York Review of Books, he recounts his own paper's "most recent serious brush with the British defamation laws" earlier this year when it was sued for libel by Tesco, one of the largest public companies in Britain and the fourth-largest retailer in the world.

The case centered around a report in the Guardian in which Rusbridger admits that the newspaper got some of its facts wrong. It reported correctly that Tesco was using complex financial deals to avoid paying taxes, but its reporters misunderstood the particulars of the arrangement, and "the sums avoided were much less than we had supposed."

The ensuing libel lawsuit from Tesco consumed more than a million dollars in legal fees, and threatened to go to millions more before it was settled out of court. "A full-scale defamation case develops an awesome momentum of its own," Rusbridger writes. "Letters rain in day after day, week after week -- drafted by counsel, amended by junior partners, redrafted by senior partners, few of them earning less than $500 an hour. Their tone is alternately sneering, bullying, threatening, and demanding. ... All this for a case where any damages would have been relatively insignificant."

Although Rusbridger admits that "this was a case in which the newspaper was on weak ground -- having its facts wrong," he points out that "there is no shortage of cases where news organizations, including several American media companies, have had to risk millions of dollars to protect solid reporting on matters of public interest." Moreover, he says the Guardian's error in this case was not malicious and is understandable, given that "the advanced tax planning undertaken today by most global companies is as intelligible to the average person as particle physics. This state of incomprehension extends to most journalists, editors, parliamentarians, and, importantly, company directors themselves -- executive and nonexecutive. It is the very problem these same people have in trying to understand the epidemic of 'innovative financial products.'"

Of course, the complexity and confusion surrounding modern finance is part of the reason why the system has collapsed this badly. But when journalists have to fear multi-million-dollar lawsuits if they even attempt to understand it all, Rusbridger warns that no one will even dare make the attempt.

This is a problem that John Stauber and I have been talking about for more than a decade. In a 1997 issue of PR Watch, we pointed out that "The corporate technique of suing people into silence and submission has become so popular that it even carries its own cute nickname in legal circles. Such lawsuits are known in lawyer lingo as 'SLAPP suits,' an acronym for 'strategic lawsuits against public participation.'"

This use of legal muscle to strongarm journalists contributes to the dumbing down of society, as reporters find that it is safer to write entertaining but pointless pap about Hollywood celebrities and random street crime than it is to do real investigative journalism about important and often complex issues that actually matter. As Rusbridger warns,

Whether we are dealing with banks, taxation, security, religion, or climate change, we need more than ever to find ways of encouraging, not penalizing, news organizations that try to report matters of the greatest complexity and significance. The financial crisis currently facing newspapers in America and Europe is grave and comes at a time when they are more needed than ever. In years to come people may not question why newspapers got things wrong about such complicated matters as corporate tax structures or the behavior of investment banks; they may express wonder that they even tried.

And corporations don't just SLAPP down journalists. They also use lawsuits to harass and intimidate activists and everyday citizens. Ultimately, therefore, these tactics attack not just journalism but democracy itself.

Click on title above to go to Sheldon Rampton's blog |

http://www.prwatch.org/blog/1

Writer Meets Big Brother at Public Library

2009-01-03T08:44:00.002-05:00

Twanna A. Hines
Posted December 31, 2008 | 05:09 PM (EST)

I'm a Writer, Not a Child Pornographer

I heard Facebook removed an obscene picture of a breastfeeding woman, and Craigslist tightened the reins on their erotic services section. However, like many people, I wasn't overly-concerned with electronic censorship -- that is, until it directly affected me.

Typing in isolation with my tush snuggled against my living room couch's cushions can be alienating; therefore, I prefer to pack my computer inside my red shoulder-strap bag and scout the city. To do my work, I need privacy, space to spread out and a powerful electrical source for my laptop. My partner in crime is old; he usually runs out of juice after an hour or two.

I go to the library because the threesome that includes my work, laptop and little brown me are welcome there. At least I thought we were until we were thrown into the lot with child pornographers.

Settling in for a long day's work at the Mid-Manhattan branch located on 40th Street and 5th Avenue, I ride the elevator to the second floor, set my personal laptop on the docking station table, tap into the free wifi and pull my chair to the table's edge. Creativity, like all living sources, requires feeding; therefore, I write regular entries on my blog, www.funkybrownchick.com, to keep the momentum going.

"The site you are trying to access has been blocked by the New York Public Library," the warning screen shouted. Sites containing visual depictions of obscenity, child pornography, and materials that are "harmful to minors" trigger the block.

I'd been banned, tagged as a "sex" website. Not surprising, I guess. I'm a dating, sex and relationships writer. I scribble articles about men who wear thongs, technology and sex, how to enhance consensual adult play with toys and other juicy topics that (I hope!) bring pleasure to people who read my work.

I've written for Lifetime, New York Press, Nerve, Gen Art, Fast Company, a Turner Broadcasting Company website called The Frisky and elsewhere. NPR, Sirius Satellite radio and Canadian national public radio (CBC) have interviewed me about my dating commentary. I mention some of my writing street cred to alert you I'm not the "oh-I'm-a-I-writer-but-I-never-put-in-the-hard-work-to-actually-get-my-stuff-published" kind. I sincerely care about my work.

I am neither obscene, a child pornographer nor harmful to minors. Hell, I receive more graphic and (adult) pornographic content via emails from friends than I do on my blog. So, when my site was banned, I got pissed off and the square keys on my laptop took the beating.

I mouthed off on Twitter, blasting my complaint to more than 1,400 of my followers. Dishing about the incident on my high-traffic blog -- Funky Brown Chick, the same one that NYPL banned -- I typed, "Book burning = bad. Banning sex ed websites = good. Okay. Got it."

To be clear, I don't expect NYPL to give underage patrons access to images of porn.

Where's the line and who decides what's on the wrong side of it?

Even if the ban on my site hadn't been lifted, web-savvy young library patrons could still access it via RSS feeds or anonymous browsing. (I was loath to mention that in my blog post because, more often than not, discussions about censorship workarounds trigger tête-à-têtes about how to fix these "loopholes" rather than constructive conversations about whether bans are necessary.)

In the end, an amazing person who identified himself as Gary says he successfully submitted a request to unblock my site. Hallelujah! Let there be sex.

"[NYPL internet access management systems] are automated, and look for sites that have heavy use of words like [explicative], sex, etc., and/or images related to similar words. But automated=lots of mistakes [...]" he notes in a comment on my blog, going further to mention filters are probably the most ethical way to meet organizational requirements for government cash. In other words, buildings that store our nation's literary documents need money, and they aren't going to risk access to federal funds over a blocked website or two.

I love the New York Public Library. "The very existence of libraries," T.S. Elliot tells us, "affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man." For now, even in times of financial hardship, our cities make it a financial priority to provide adults unfettered access to information. I hope that never changes.

For the record, I've owed overdue library fines for years. After this incident, I paid them. The fees are gone; however, questions about electronic censorship remain. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

The Huffington Post;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/twanna-a-hines/im-a-writer-not-a-child-p_b_154584.html

Wayne Pacelle a Victim of Meat-Industry "Co-optation" Strategy?

2009-01-02T20:56:00.009-05:00

"True Animal Lovers" (who are they?) bashing HSUS Chief Executive Officer Wayne Pacelle accusing him and his org of supporting animal rights "terrorists?" Whether they do or whether they dnt, this vid wreaks of a meat-industry co-optation strategy to divide and conquor us as previously mentioned in the Jan 1st blog entitled " Writing & Fighting & Why We Must Unite;

Click the title above to watch YouTube vid against HSUS and Wayne Pacelle, and see what you think, but remember to check the sources; in this vid, a BIG one is The New York Times so be sure to see the Dec 16 blog about the infamous corporate controlled bias of the NY Times.

Then be sure and read the rather long-winded blurb below where the author is accusing HSUS and its executive director Wayne Pacelle, of NOT supporting animal rights activists......here is a true case of "ya cant please all of the people all of the time," and/or what kind of a "spin" you want to put on it. Whether HSUS or Mr Pacelle support "radical extremists" in any way, or whether they "publickly" denounce them (which is seems to me would be the only "outwardly" right thing to do lest they risk prosecution themselves) my point being that whatever they do or dont do, good or bad, DOES NOT and SHOULD NOT take away from the good that they do and/or the good ideas they grasp. Remember the Westmoreland bust. Was that not a wonderful thing and a giant leap for animalkind?
I am not endorsing or defending HSUS or Mr Pacelle himself personally in any way, just playing "devils advocate" and giving credit where credit is due. Perhaps if we concentrated more on "the good of us" rather than the bad,...it would help to better unite us? I hope I hope I hope.....

-------------
Article

Pacelle is noted for having ‘no hand-on fondness for animals,” and further confesses that “To this day I don’t feel bonded to any non-human animal….’” However, that didn’t stop him from opportunistically grabbing a photo op with a factory farmed non-human animal whose suffering Pacelle’s putrid narcissistic careerism perpetuates.
By Dr. Steve Best ||

8/25/08

In August 2005, when HSUS (hereafter think “H$U$”) Executive Vice President Mike Markarian publicly “applaud[ed]” the FBI for arresting and imprisoning six amazing activists from Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), my outrage over this self-serving betrayal of activists and animals alike inspired me to write “The Iron Cage of Bureaucracy,” a fierce critique of HSUS and its chief executive, Wayne Pacelle. I condemned HSUS for its divisive attacks on animal rights militants, its bureaucratic rigidity, its cowardly conformism, and its disturbingly cozy relationships with the animal exploiters they claim to oppose.

Despite a recent fluff piece in the Los Angeles Times that promotes Pacelle as a consummate animal champion and visionary leader, I am pained to report that his “humane meat” and “cage-free” egg campaigns have promoted more, not less, animal suffering and killing; that HSUS is a collaborationist with, not antagonistic of, various animal exploitation industries; and that HSUS has developed strong ties with law enforcement agencies and the FBI not only to go after animal abusers, but also animal activists, the hard-line militants prepared to do what it takes to stop the torture and murder of innocents. Specialists in political repression, the FBI has a long track record of framing innocent citizens, destroying social justice movements, and even murdering vocal opponents of the state such as Fred Hampton. They say that politics makes for strange bedfellows, but this is downright surreal.

The problems I pointed to in “The Iron Cage of Bureaucracy” have considerably worsened in the last three years, and it is now glaringly obvious that HSUS is part of the problem of, not the solution to, animal exploitation. Pacelle is a “leader” alright, one who is steering this great movement into a cul-de-sac where it is becoming increasingly coopted and ineffectual.

Ever more aggressively, HSUS promotes “humane meat” and “cage free” egg campaigns (marketing its “Certified Humane Raised & Handled” label to meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy producers), rather than advancing the cause of vegan education that Pacelle claims to champion. Symptomatic of its bureaucratic deformities, HSUS raked in tens of million dollars from the 2005 Katrina disaster, but spent only a few million to help the animal victims of that hurricane. In fact, after Katrina, there was a second storm involving the furious backlash of grassroots activists complaining that HSUS obstructed animal rescue efforts, and then commandeered the lion’s share of credit and $30 million in donations. Subsequently, many activists and the Louisiana attorney general called for a criminal investigation into HSUS fundraising and demanded an explanation why this organization – like every other bloated bureaucracy, including the “impeccable” Red Cross – disregarded the clear intent of donors and spent a puny percentage of a mountain of money on helping victims of a catastrophe.

For bureaucratic monoliths like HSUS, a transnational corporation, the financial priorities lie in paying lavish CEO salaries (Pacelle’s annual salary tops $300,000), maintaining costly branches and staff throughout the world, perpetuating fundraising efforts (often absorbing as much as 53% of HSUS’ budget), funding lobbyists, building bank accounts, and inflating investment portfolios. What HSUS did in Louisiana amidst Katrina rescue efforts is what Greenpeace does in Canada or Japan during Captain Paul Watson’s effective tactics against the slaughter of whales, dolphins, and seals. They bully their way onto the scene, exploit the drama for photo opportunities, publish glossy pictures in their newsletters and websites, exaggerate their heroism and “victories,” urge their membership to generously fund future forays, and then laugh all the way to the bank.

In fact, like many corporate environmental organizations (the so-called “Gang of Ten”), HSUS not only does not support grassroots groups (few people are aware that they have no affiliation whatsoever with local “humane societies” and “animal shelters”), they often impede and attack their work. Whether the dirty tactics Greenpeace used against Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society or the constant opprobrium HSUS has heaped upon SHAC and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), corporate bureaucracies seek to dominate their cause, promote their own interests, and block anyone who threatens their hegemony, viewing them as competitors rather than allies fighting the same cause. While grassroots groups and shelters struggle for money, HSUS builds assets of $223 million and operates with an annual budget in excess of one million dollars.

In 2007, Nathan Winograd published a stunning expose, entitled Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America. A trenchant critique of the killing paradigm informing humane societies and shelters throughout the nation, Winograd also goes directly after the big game – the ASPCA, PETA, and HSUS — and in each case documents misuse of funds, cavalier killing of healthy and adoptable animals, and appalling failures to support the no-kill shelter movement gaining ground nationally. In contrast to The Los Angeles Times syrupy tribute piece, Winograd reviles Pacelle as a traitor to the animals and claims that he is “condemned by animal lovers from coast to coast.”

Ironically, Winograd documents, Pacelle is like a dry and detached doctor who tends to patients mechanically, has “no hand-on fondness for animals” and he himself confesses that “To this day I don’t feel bonded to any non-human animal.” Given that enormous compassion and empathy drive most animal activists, one has to ask: Why is Pacelle in the animal protection field? Why did he choose this career? What possible motivations propel him from day-to-day? If it’s not a love for animals, could it be instead a love for money, glory, fame, and power? Could it be that his robotic lack of empathy for animals explains why his organization perfunctorily kills so many animals and spends more time on constructing paltry rationalizations rather than building viable alternatives?

Like PETA, HSUS callously kills countless thousands of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs rather than dedicating their prodigious resources to advancing the emerging no-kill revolution. In 2007, for instance, PETA raised over $30 million, adopted 17 animals, and killed 1,815 cats and dogs. Unlike HSUS, however, PETA at least opposes breeding, whereas HSUS provides advice on “How to Find a Good Dog Breeder”! Like any group involved in mass killing, of humans or animals, HSUS prefers euphemisms to truthful terminology and exists in a perpetual state of denial and rationalization. Thus, just as HSUS unashamedly speaks of the by-product of violent slaughterhouse murder as “humane meat,” so they insist that they “humanely destroy” cats and dogs.

To comprehend the extent to which culpable people in bad faith resort to extreme evasions and ridiculous rationalizations, consider the Orwellian doublespeak of HSUS functionary Penny Cistaro: “We’re not, we’re not killing [cats and dogs]… in that “kill” is such a negative connotation. It’s… we’re not KILLING them. We are taking their life, we are ending their life, we are giving them a good death, we’re humanely destr[oying them] — whatever. But we’re NOT KILLING.”

Without melodrama or hyperbole, I suggest that these words could have been taken from the playbook of the German Nazis. But I might qualify the analogy because the propaganda of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 to 1945, was eminently more sophisticated than Cistaro’s shrill, guilt-ridden rhetoric.

As true of PETA and other animal welfare organizations, the underlying assumption behind HSUS’s pro-kill instead of no-kill policy is that shelters are nasty, overcrowded, filthy hoarding hell-holes where animals suffer greatly, and so the only “compassionate” option is to “humanely destroy” countless of forlorn cats and dogs. The underlying flaw here is an either/or fallacy: either we cause animals needless suffering in shelters, or we “humanely destroy” them. Occluded here is the existence of a genuine third option – building clean, well-managed no-kill shelters where well-treated animals are adoptable and adopted. Winograd’s book, Redemption, argues that no-kill shelters are a pragmatic possibility and a moral necessity.

On this and countless other issues, Pacelle – the consummate politician — talks a good game, but his actions belie his words which seek to mollify his donation base. According to Winograd, “Pacelle says that No Kill must be our goal, than [sic] he refuses to sign the U.S. No Kill Declaration. Wayne Pacelle says that feral cats should live, than [sic] he promotes a vision of sheltering in the Asilomar Accords [an August 2004 meeting of animal welfare industry leaders to reduce companion animal euthanasia numbers] which voted down a proposal to mandate TNR [trap, neuter, and return], claims feral cats are `unhealthy’ and `untreatable’ and are properly put in the same category as hopelessly ill or irremediably suffering animals and often share the same fate—death.”

And don’t we all remember the HSUS heroics during the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal in the summer of 2007? How the suave and unflappable animal champion, Wayne Pacelle, starred on cable news shows night after night, tirelessly condemning Vick’s barbarity? Pacelle tugged on the heartstrings of the nation, and the public, never doubting his sincerity, sent HSUS generous donations along with praise and gratitude. But the story did not end there. For what did Pacelle thereafter argue to the courts? That “it does not make sense to keep these animals alive.” Like the feral cats he condemns as “untreatable,” Pacelle wanted to dispatch Vick’s victims without a fingersnap. Fortunately, other groups – real animal advocates — intervened on behalf of these “kennel trash” pit bulls demonized as dangerous and unfit for human company, and adopted them to loving homes, thereby saving dozens of dogs from the killing clutches of Vick and Pacelle.

The paradoxical Pacelle, the “advocate” with antipathy for animals, easily surpasses Cistaro in his blunt and icy-cold language, as he admits that HSUS has “no problem with the extinction of domestic animals.” One might say that they share the same taste for doublespeak, but in fact the word “extinction” is not a euphemism, it is a frank, brutal, malevolent discourse of a final solution policy, and as cruel and heartless as one could possibly speak – one who happens to run the most powerful and profitable animal “advocacy” organization in the world. Like PETA, HSUS rakes in millions of dollars in the name of “animal protection,” as it does nothing for millions of animals who die annually in nightmarish “shelters” except to lend a killing hand.

Allow me to be brutally frank in speaking directly to Pacelle, Cistaro, and their army of accomplices: When you needlessly take life; when you refuse to seriously pursue alternatives to killing; when you condemn cats and dogs to die with contemptuous complacency; when you lie to the media, the public, your donors, and to the animals; and when you bullshit your way through the whole goddamn bloody process of killing homeless cats and dogs, this is not “humane destruction;” it’s just murder, pure and simple. And Pacelle, you have the gall to call SHAC and the ALF violent? Please, have the decency to at least shut your mouth when others take necessary measures to save animals, and you take unnecessary steps to kill them.

My analogies between HSUS and Nazis are not appropriate at all levels, I don’t think Pacelle is a racist (although you could argue that on his hypocrisy on the Vick case) or an anti-Semite. And whereas Hitler wanted to exterminate entire classes of people, Pacelle does not call for the destruction of cat and dog species; no, in fact, he does his part to support dog breeding and it is only homeless cats and dogs he wants, for the most part, to destroy. But anyone who rationalizes mass murder through the same semantic masks and ploys of Nazis has picked up a malevolent influence they ought to extirpate. I also think the analogy of “humane destruction” and the “final solution” is more than appropriate, because HSUS actually pursues killing as the first solution to dispose of a “problem population” and the final solution to be rid of “unwanted” dogs and cats.

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This hidebound hypocrisy of HSUS now takes me full circle, back to the beginning of my essay. For when three years ago HSUS seemed content to merely “applaud” the state for breaking into activists’ homes – armed and angry men breaking down their doors, stealing and destroying their possessions, separating them from their human and nonhuman families, and locking them away in federal prisons for years — now it seems that HSUS has taken its treachery and complicity one step further, by actually offering a $2,500 reward, in cooperation with the FBI and state and local law enforcement officials, to capture the person(s) who set off firebombs at the homes of two vivisectors in Santa Cruz, California in August 2008.

As one bomb exploded when the researchers and their families were here and someone could have been injured of killed, these actions were clearly not the work of the ALF, which adheres to a strict nonviolent policy that targets the property of animal exploiters but never the exploiters themselves. But in their zeal toward self-congratulatory moral purity and zest for demonizing militant activists and tactics, HSUS did not entertain the very real possibility that the firebombs were actually – recall the case of Fran Stephanie Trutt, who, in 1988, was set up, encouraged, and entrapped by the United States Surgical Company to plant a bomb underneath a car in their parking lot – the handy work of the state. Their clear motivation would be to damage the credibility of the movement and to justify unleashing still more repressive laws against the animal advocacy movement and yet another FBI witch hunt. If this is so, and there is good reason to believe it is true, then HSUS is nothing but an accomplice and extension of a repressive police state.

We must not, as some have counseled, “tolerate” or “appreciate” the diversity of the movement in all its diversity and “balance,” operating like many spokes on a wheel or components of an ecosystem. Rather, the reformist, welfarist, and (industry and state) collaborationist actions of HSUS must be ruthlessly criticized, for it is HSUS – not the ALF and SHAC – which is steering this movement away from substantive and meaningful goals. And while HSUS sucks up activists, other organizations, and barrels of cash, it actively collaborates with — sorry Lee Hall, not to offend your pious Buddhist-pacifist sympathies, but I have no problem with the word – our enemies: to be precise, our sworn implacable enemies in the animal exploitation industry with whom we are engaged in a serious battle because they have waged war against animals.

We must end, as Herbert Marcuse noted, our habituated practice of “repressive tolerance,” whereby tolerance is no longer a virtue (as in liberal diversity and multiculturalism) but rather is a vice. Captive to this mentality, we tolerate what Bush does to the Constitution, as we stomach what HSUS does to pervert the cause of animal rights and the ideal of ethical veganism, as it collaborates with our enemies in the corporate-state complex.

It is a tragedy, a nightmare really, that the largest and wealthiest animal “protection” organization in the world squanders its vast influence and treasure to only pay lip-service to the crucial need to build no-kill shelters while it advocates unjustifiable killing of cats and dogs. As Winograd writes, “HSUS continues to fail miserably in terms of moving this country away from traditional, reactionary, `adopt some and kill the rest’ sheltering practices, despite Mr. Pacelle’s facile claims to the contrary.” Moreover, rather than providing advice on “How to Find a Good Dog Breeder,” HSUS should lead a coordinated attack on animal breeding, for without the decline (and ultimate end) of the practice of breeding, along with aggressive spay-and-neuter and TNR programs, no-kill shelters may only lead – as some critics maintain — to animal warehousing.

Pacelle has as much credibility in his claim to “save animal lives” as Bush does in his rationale for invading Iraq. It is a farce that HSUS “applaud[s]” FBI repression of our movement and condemns those who take effective actions to liberate – not “humanely destroy” — animals, even if there is a disagreement on tactics. HSUS also says they oppose “violence” yet have no problem working to promote “Certified Humane” animal flesh, milk, and eggs. Again, Pacelle & Co. have no grounds for criticizing the ALF, who destroy property without injuring lives, whereas HSUS is directly responsible for the gratuitous killing of countless animals.

Pacelle has not only failed to advance the national momentum for no-kill shelters, he has impeded the efforts, and he bears significant responsibility for the five million cats and dogs that will be killed in “shelters” this year. As Winograd observes, Pacelle “has no idea how to lead the humane movement. It is clear he cannot see the future for himself. At the same time, we need to send a very strong message to Mr. Pacelle that we can see through his thinly veiled comments, his insincerity on the issue, his failure to truly challenge the status quo, to fight for the rights of shelter animals to their very lives, and to truly reform what has been a long sordid history of draconian HSUS policies as it relates to dogs and cats in shelters.”

For those who believe in the professionally crafted persona of Wayne Pacelle and the carefully managed public image of HSUS, I encourage them to read Winograd’s exposes of “The Real Wayne Pacelle,” to examine his critiques of PETA and the ASPCA as well, and to ponder the inherent self-serving, money-making, propaganda producing nature of any bureaucratic organization, whether the Red Cross, Greenpeace, or HSUS.

Pacelle is an animal killer, a traitor to animals and activists alike, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a tool for the state and corporate front groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom, and an accomplice (witting or unwitting) of repressive law enforcement agencies and the paralegal thugs known as the FBI. While I have serious problems with PETA, I appreciate Ingrid Newkirk for her undying support of the ALF and for funding the legal counsel of numerous animal rights activists. For those like Gary Francione who throw HSUS and PETA into the same boiling pot of damnation, the difference here could be not clearer: PETA supports animal rights political prisoners, while HSUS seeks to create more of them, and Pacelle would probably be delighted –as would peaceniks like Francione and Hall — if the FBI rounded up every SHACtivist and ALF member and locked them away in Guantanamo Bay forever. Whereas PETA criticizes the corporate-states use of “terrorism” discourse for the biased and repressive framework that it is, HSUS uncritically and pompously employs it toward the same ends of the Bush administration and state – to demonize those individuals and groups it doesn’t like. But both HSUS and PETA, as well as countless other animal organizations, need to get out of the 17th century paradigm and enter the 21st century world moving toward the realization of no-kill shelters.

There are things about Winograd also that invite skepticism, such as granting an interview with the Center for Consumer Freedom, sworn enemies of the vegan and animal rights movements. His claim that “pet overpopulation” is a “myth” seems exaggerated and based on dubious assumptions that shelters can take in an unlimited amount of animals and every home in the country will adopt a cat or dog. While specifics in his proposals may be problematic, his vision is laudable and far ahead of the “leaders” of the animal advocacy movement. Winograd has emerged as a positive catalyst for a national no-kill shelter movement, whereas Pacelle remains an obstacle in the path of this and many other progressive changes for animals. As I am not uncritical or Winograd, nor is my critique of Pacelle and HSUS unqualified. Among other accomplishments, HSUS ballot-initiatives to ban cockfighting in the holdout states such as New Mexico (won in March 2007) and Louisiana (won in August 2008) were successful (such that cockfighting is now banned throughout the entire nation) and a May 2008 undercover expose of the Hallmark/Westland slaughterhouse in Chino, California brought national attention to the dire plight of animals in slaughterhouses and led to the largest meat recall in US history.

My argument is not that HSUS is an unqualifiedly regressive force, but rather that it mostly squanders its prodigious resources, that its “certified” “humane meat” and “cage-free” eggs campaigns promote more not less suffering and killing of animals (as “guilty carnivores” jump off their vegetarian wagons in droves and run en masse to their local steak joints and diners), and that on the whole it does more harm than good. Just as HSUS works with meat and egg industries at the expense of animals, so they cooperate with law enforcement agencies and the FBI to the detriment of fellow activists.

I was inspired to write this article because I saw no outrage or criticism of HSUS’s ambitions to help catch underground activists such as the courageous warriors in the ALF who have saved countless animals, shut down numerous exploiters, and obtained invaluable evidence of systemic cruelty in laboratories and other demonic dungeons. And while few animal advocates support bombing vivisectors, we all ought to be smart enough to identify a potential state frame-up rather than an actual underground action. But HSUS exploited the bombings for their own purposes, as part of their endless efforts to convince the animal exploitation industries, cops, FBI, and public alike that they are good, pure, and unalloyed moral forces, unlike those with bricks and bullhorns who corrupt the movement’s gilded goals and norms. In fact the problem lies with Pacelle and HSUS — deeply mired in the muck of bureaucratic corruption, corrupt and compromised to the point of complete crisis.

I’m alarmed, moreover, that few people (1) are sufficiently aware of the history, modus operandi, and true goals of the FBI, which is to suppress dissent at home, as the CIA performs the same dirty work abroad; and (2) are concerned about the consequences of the largest “animal advocacy” group in the world developing close ties with the repressive state apparatus, such that it could become an extension of the FBI or a friendly home to police informants. Let us not forget that the FBI elevated the ALF (along with the ELF) to the “number one domestic terrorist threat” in the country and that they fully intend to stop not only the ALF, but also the animal advocacy movement as a whole.

When an individual cooperates with the cops or the FBI, he or she is denounced as a “fink,” “informant,” “rat,” or “mole,” and is ostracized or perhaps worse. But what do we call it when an organization develops ties with corrupt cops and the FBI and offers cash rewards for the capture of an underground warrior? One term is “collaborationist,” and it is important to recognize that HSUS is not only in bed with many animal exploiters, they are also in league with the repressive state apparatus. In their slick, reformist, compromising campaigns, Pacelle has betrayed animals and animal activists alike, as HSUS prefers to develop closer ties with exploiters and cops than grassroots advocates and anti-speciesists.

I encourage people to send HSUS a polemic not a check, and to donate their hard-earned money not to robotic raconteurs but rather to ardent activists who fight on the front lines of the emerging war over nature with substantial results. I’m talking, for instance, about small groups such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society; amazing activists like Anthony Marr or Gary Yourofsky, who foment revolutionary change on a shoestring budget; and stellar local animal rescue groups. People should research, explore, and support the best no-kill shelters they can find rather than fuel hypocritical killing machines and bureaucratic behemoths. Every dollar given to HSUS is a dollar that could have saved, not ended, the life of a cat or dog; that could have promoted veganism, not “humane meat”; and that could have supported, not undermined, our civil liberties which the state and FBI seek to annihilate.

As stated above, Wayne Pacelle was quick to step up and help feed a media frenzy calling for the demonization of Michael Vick and the rise of an overt and pervasive form of animal cruelty for which Vick became the poster child. Lost in this rightful attack on dog fighters and the like, however, is that Pacelle is no saint outing sinners. A pre-eminent member of DC-insider lobby culture, he was quick to learn self-serving, profit-making, power-play politics, as he perfected the art of sound bites and media charm. But let us not be fooled. This cunning cum-laude graduate of the Machiavellian school of politics will throw potential allies — and certainly movement competitors and opponents like Rod Coronado and Kevin Jonas — under the bus if it can earn him a penny of financial or moral capital.

Pacelle is a one-dimensional bureaucrat, a CEO and President of a huge global conglomeration that serves animals in name but pursues money and power in reality. He preaches nonviolence as he pulls the switch on thousands of cats and dogs; he praises democracy and rights as he bankrolls witch-hunts that ally him with the most repressive state apparatus in US history.

I’ve seen great activists hired and coopted by Pacelle, and witnessed their sad transformation from vibrant, iconoclastic, edgy, risk-takers into defanged, muzzled, and collared bureaucrats, party-line ideologues, corporate-yes men and women, and zombified conformists. They morph from critical thinkers into True Believers who think we can win animal liberation (in whatever bastardized form they conceive it) through welfare policies, reforms, collaboration with industries, and turn against the radical elements of their own movement — the important role of which they have absolutely no understanding.

However, billions of enslaved animals don’t give a damn about Zogby polls, FOX News commentaries, or tactics that might alienate the masses. They don’t want bigger cages, better euthanasia, or “humane” labels attached to their dismembered bodies. The animals want freedom. If they could speak our language, they would unquestionably applaud the ALF and condemn the corporate entities who seek to continue the oppression though misguided thinking and opportunistic policies.

Editor’s Note: Thomas Paine’s Corner posted Dr. Best’s substantial revision of this article today to replace the original version which appeared on 8/19/08. Therefore some of the reader comments do not mesh with the essay as it now stands. I take responsibility for the miscommunication which resulted in running Dr. Best’s piece before he had honed it to this final version—Jason Miller

NOTES:

1 Steven Best, “The Iron Cage of Movement Bureaucracy” at: http://www.drstevebest.org/Essays/TheIronCage.htm.

2 “Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2008, online at: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pacelle19-2008jul19,0,4840426.story.

3 It is important that activists have knowledge of the history, goals, modus operandi, and real nature of the FBI, rather than the “good-guy” cartoon portraits one finds on TV series and the media generally. For excellent books exposing the FBI as the US version of the KBG, see Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. Boston, South End Press, 2001; Brian Glick, War at Home: Covert action against U.S. activists and what we can do about it. Boston, South End Press, 1999; and Nelson Blackstock, Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1988.

4 See Nathan Winograd, “The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy,” at: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-wayne-pacelle-legacy.html.

5 “Red Cross, Humane Society Under Investigation,” March 26, 2006, The Washington Post, at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032501002.html. See this article for Pacelle’s defense of HSUS actions for Katrina-victim animals and his claim to responsible use of donation money.

6 On the contemptible approach Gang of Ten organization have taken toward environmental grassroots groups, see Mark Dowie, Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. There are incredibly important lessons here for serious animal activists if they wish to avoid the same problems that led to the cooptation and defeat of the US environmental movement, such as already threaten the animal advocacy movement in this country and others.

7 See the “Charitable Solicitations Program Charity Profile Report” of HSUS, at: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/charities/search_detail.aspx?charity_id=5458. According to his biography, Winograd “is the Director of the national No Kill Advocacy Center. He is a graduate of Stanford Law School, a former criminal prosecutor and attorney, was director of operations for the San Francisco SPCA and executive director of the Tompkins County SPCA, two of the most successful shelters in the nation”
http://www.nathanwinograd.com/nathanwinograd_002.htm.

9 Winograd, at: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-wayne-pacelle-legacy.html.
10 Pacelle cited at: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-wayne-pacelle-legacy-part-ii.html.

11 For their enlightening recommendation, see:
http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_adoption_information/how_to_find_a_good_dog_breeder/.

12 Cited at: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/05/will-real-wayne-pacelle-please-stand-up.html.

13 Winograd, at: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/05/will-real-wayne-pacelle-please-stand-up.html.

14 See “Government Makes a Case, and Holds Dogs as Evidence,” August 1, 2007, The New York Times at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/sports/football/01vick.html?_r=1&oref=slogin; “HSUS & Wayne Pacelle -Vick’s Dogs Must Die,” August 22, 2007, Dog Politics, at: http://www.dogpolitics.com/my_weblog/2007/08/hsus-wayne-pace.html; and “The Fate of Michael Vick’s Dogs,” August 23, 2007, at: http://network.bestfriends.org/stopbsl/news/18124.html. As these websites document, HSUS and PETA share the same killing sentiments.

15 See for instance the superb work of Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit Bulls (BAD RAP), at: http://www.badrap.org/rescue/. The contrast between the compassionate outlook of BAD RAP and the cold attitudes of HSUS and PETA is dramatic.

16 Pacelle cited in Animal People, May 1993.

17 For a detailed argument that the post-Mandela South African government never addressed – they only worsened – the problem of ”species apartheid” and use Nazi-like, eugenic, and eco-fascist arguments that elephants “need” to be culled allegedly to protect biodiversity , see Steven Best, “The Killing Fields of South Africa: Eco-Wars, Species Apartheid, and Total Liberation,” at
http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/2_2/best.html.

18 On the August bombing of a vivisector’s house in Santa Cruz see: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-attacks5-2008aug05,0,519903.story. On HSUS’s treacherous betrayal of activists and animals by offering a $2,500 reward and thereby cooperating with law enforcement agencies that protect animal exploiters and persecute liberationists, see http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/hsus_offers_reward_in_ca_arsons_080408.html. On some credible evidence that the recent Santa Cruz bombing may indeed have been a plant by animal exploiters and/or the feds to delegitimate the movement and authorize a new series of witch hunts on activists; see Rick Bogle’s blog, at: http://primateresearch.blogspot.com/2008/08/august-2-2008-santa-cruz-firebombings.html

19 See Herbert Marcuse, “On Repressive Tolerance, at: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm. This brilliant essay published in 1965, in the ferment of the new social movements and counter-culture, is more relevant today than ever today, both for general social conditions and for continuing social and ecological crisis, and the dilution, perversion, and cooptation of animal rights/liberation goals.

20 http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2007/11/same-as-it-ever-was.html.

21 See www.certifiedhumane.org.

22 http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2007/11/same-as-it-ever-was.html.

23 See http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-wayne-pacelle-legacy.html, and http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-wayne-pacelle-legacy-part-ii.html.

24 Again, on the logic, needs, and operations of bureaucratic organizations, see my essay, “The Iron Cage of Bureaucracy,” at: http://www.drstevebest.org/Essays/TheIronCage.htm.

25 Winograd’s interview with CCF, “The Book HSUS and PETA Don’t Want You to Read,” is online at: http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm/article/183. The most detailed critical response to Winograd I could find was PETA’s polemic, “Nathan Winograd’s Redemption: `No-Kill’ or No Clue?” online at: http://www.helpinganimals.com/f-Winograd-No-Kill.asp?hanwnkggl&gclid=CJap6qm1mZUCFQ4hnAodeiFSgA.

26 To be sure, HSUS offers (and often gives out) $5,000 rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in activities such as cockfighting or dogfighting, which is a positive use of their largess (see “HSUS Rewards,” at http://www.hsus.org/acf/cruelty/publiced/hsus_rewards.html); it is just unfortunate they try also offer rewards for potential frame-ups. Unlike peaceniks like Erik Marcus who praised HSUS’s actions and rigidly adhere to clichés such as “violence only breeds violence,” some in the animal exploitation industry saw through HSUS’s transparent motives and the disparity between their grave moral tone and laughably diminutive reward fee. On these opposing views, see Paul Davis, “The Misunderstood Vegan,” August 13, 2008, Bohemian.com, at: http://www.bohemian.com/metro-santa-cruz/08.13.08/features-0833.html#

27 To contact and support these amazing activists, and get the biggest bang for your buck, see: Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, at: http://www.seashepherd.org/; Anthony Marr’s Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) at: http://www.all-creatures.org/hope/index.htm; and Gary Yourofsky’s Animals Deserve Protection Today and Tomorrow (ADAPTT), at: http://www.adaptt.org/

Best is Cyrano’s Journal Special Editor for Animal Rights, Speciesisim and Human Tyranny over Nature.

Award-winning writer, noted speaker, public intellectual, and seasoned activist, Steven Best engages the issues of the day such as animal rights, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media, globalization, and capitalist domination. Best has published 10 books, over 100 articles and reviews, spoken in over a dozen countries, interviewed with media throughout the world, appeared in numerous documentaries, and was voted by VegNews as one of the nations “25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians.” He has come under fire for his uncompromising advocacy of “total liberation” (humans, animals, and the earth) and has been banned from the UK for the power of his thoughts. From the US to Norway, from Sweden to France, from Germany to South Africa, Best shows what philosophy means in a world in crisis.

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Writing & Fighting & Why WE MUST Unite!

2009-01-01T12:49:00.005-05:00

From the journals of Inspector Lohmann

9.22.2004

Co-optation, Radicals, Idealists, Realists, and Blogging

I Came across GOEBBELS' PRINCIPLES OF PROPAGANDA via Tutor and it's a fascinating read.

Then Tutor had this to say:

I am saying that the vocabulary of marketing, branding, and political speech (one way, two way or emergent) is systematically debased, and so is our critical intelligence. We the propagandized herd(s), whoever's brand we carry on our behinds, whether we bandy the memes up, down or sideways, are the product of our society - and a sorry commentary on it. Wealth Bondage knows no party, and favors no product. Its motto is "whatever works." It is the grammer of contemporary thought, that without which the contemporary mind is blank. And that is the measure of our slavery.

Tutor is right — "whatever works" is indeed it's motto. And one of their most potent tools in implementing this in a democracy — especially as it pertains to preventing social justice — is called "co-optation". Here, from John Stauber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stauber) via Ratical, is an example of how it works:

...[C]orporate charity can buy the tacit cooperation of organizations that might otherwise be expected to criticize corporate policies. Some PR firms specialize in helping corporations to defeat activists, and co-optation is one of their tools. Some years ago, in a speech to clients in the cattle industry, Ron Duchin, senior vice-president of the PR firm Mongoven, Biscoe, and Duchin (which represents probably a quarter of the largest corporations in the world), outlined his firm's basic divide-and-conquer strategy for defeating any social-change movement. Activists, he explained, fall into three basic categories: radicals, idealists, and realists. The first step in his strategy is to isolate and marginalize the radicals. They're the ones who see the inherent structural problems that need remedying if indeed a particular change is to occur. To isolate them, PR firms will try to create a perception in the public mind that people advocating fundamental solutions are terrorists, extremists, fearmongers, outsiders, communists, or whatever. After marginalizing the radicals, the PR firm then identifies and "educates" the idealists -- concerned and sympathetic members of the public -- by convincing them that the changes advocated by the radicals would hurt people. The goal is to sour the idealists on the idea of working with the radicals, and instead get them working with the realists.

Realists, according to Duchin, are people who want reform but don't really want to upset the status quo; big public-interest organizations that rely on foundation grants and corporate contributions are a prime example. With the correct handling, Duchin says, realists can be counted on to cut a deal with industry that can be touted as a "win-win" solution, but that is actually an industry victory.

And why does this strategy work so effectively? He continues:

In part, because we don't have a watchdog press that aggressively investigates and exposes PR lies and deceptions. Its success is also a reflection of the sorry state of democracy in our society. We really have a single corporate party with two wings, both funded by wealthy special interests. On the critical issues -- taxation, health care, foreign policy -- there's rarely much disagreement. If there is, more special-interest money floods in to make sure the corporate agenda wins out. On a deeper level, we all want to believe these lies. Wouldn't it be great to wake up and find ourselves living in a functioning democracy? To be truly represented by our so-called Representatives? Not to have to worry about the destruction of the biosphere or the safety of the water we drink and the food we eat? I think we all buy in because we want to believe things aren't as bad as they really are.

The reality is, though, that the U.S. political and social environment is corrupt and deeply dysfunctional. Structural reforms must be made in our political and economic system in order to assert the rights of citizens over corporations. But since big corporations dominate the media, we're not going to hear about this on network news or in the New York Times. We're not going to hear about it from politicians who are bought and paid for by wealthy interests. The beginning of the solution is for people to recognize that it's not enough to send checks in response to direct-mail solicitations from politicians and public-interest groups. We need to become real citizens and get personally involved in reclaiming our country.

Tutor points to a more epistemological solution:

To think straight, regardless of your own self-interest - impossible? No, the measure of the mind.

But that assumes a structural re-adjustment that values and inculcates critical thinking in its citizens. And it's not going to happen by itself.

Lawrence Goodwin, once again via Ratical, shows us one possible way to get there:

Imposing cultural roadblocks stand in the way of a democratic movement at every stage of this sequential process, causing losses in the potential constituencies that are to be incorporated into the movement. Many people may not be successfully “recruited,” many who are recruited may not become adequately “educated,” and many who are educated may fail the final test of moving into autonomous political action. The forces of orthodoxy, occupying the most culturally sanctioned command posts in the society, can be counted upon, out of self-interest, to oppose each stage of the sequential process -- particularly the latter stages, when the threat posed by the movement has become clear to all. In the aggregate, the struggle to create a mass democratic movement involves intense cultural conflict with many built-in advantages accruing to the partisans of the established order.

Democratic movements are initiated by people who have individually managed to attain a high level of personal political self-respect. They are not resigned; they are not intimidated. To put it another way, they are not culturally organized to conform to established hierarchical forms. Their sense of autonomy permits them to dare to try to change things by seeking to influence others. The subsequent stages of recruitment and of internal economic and political education...turn on the ability of the democratic organizers to develop widespread methods of internal communication within the mass movement. Such democratic facilities provide the only way the movement can defend itself to its own adherents in the face of the adverse interpretations certain to emanate from the received culture. If the movement is able to achieve this level of internal communication and democracy, and the ranks accordingly grow in numbers and in political consciousness, a new plateau of social possibility comes within reach of all participants. In intellectual terms, the generating force of this new mass mode of behavior may be rather simply described as “a new way of looking at things.” It constitutes a new and heretofore unsanctioned mass folkway of autonomy. In psychological terms, its appearance reflects the development within the movement of a new kind of collective self-confidence. “Individual self-respect” and “collective self-confidence” constitute, then, the cultural building blocks of mass democratic politics. Their development permits people to conceive of the idea of acting in self-generated democratic ways --
as distinct from passively participating in various hierarchical modes bequeathed by the received culture. In this study of Populism, I have given a name to this plateau of cooperative and democratic conduct. I have called it “the movement culture.” Once attained, it opens up new vistas of social possibility, vistas that are less clouded by inherited assumptions. I suggest that all significant mass democratic movements in human history have generated this autonomous capacity. Indeed, had they not done so, one cannot visualize how they could have developed into significant mass democratic movements.

Does blogging hold a key for "people who have individually managed to attain a high level of personal political self-respect" to "develop widespread methods of internal communication within the mass movement"?

On the surface, yes. But let's assume "the movement is able to achieve this level of internal communication and democracy, and the ranks accordingly grow in numbers and in political consciousness, [and] a new plateau of social possibility comes within reach of all participants."

Is there a flawed and deeply inherent contradiction in creating a movement that:

relies on the very structural edifice we wish to challenge, one that provides us with the tools by which such "internal communication" is possible?

creates de-centralized, non-localized, non bio-regional "communities" of solipsists, where actors only know each other virtually?

transcend the medium's inherent virtuality to achieve practical results? (Ghosts can see furniture, but they can't move it.)

Social change through telekinesis?

If blogging (and, by extension, the web itself) provides the means by which such a community for social change can form how does it move to the next level?

I'm still new at blogging, and these are new, inchoate thoughts. I just wanted to record them here and now while they flit through my mind.

Hence I welcome the opportunity for additional thoughts to clarify and flesh out my own. I'm sure others have thought greatly about this, and I would appreciate both flashlights and maps.

[Note: all blockquoted emphases are Insp. Lohmann)
# posted by Inspector Lohmann at 11:12 AM
Inspector Lomanns Blog;

http://inspectorlohmann.blogspot.com/

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."

— Dan Quayle, Vice President of the United States of America

'The New York Times' Bias Journalism Covers Up True Facts

2008-12-16T21:16:00.000-05:00

The Advocate
By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin

Published: Monday, December 15, 2008

This column will explain why The New York Times has probably killed more people than Hitler.

That might sound outlandish at first, but it is a conservative estimate based on what The Times has done. It was instrumental in covering up the millions murdered by Stalin in his enforced famine in the Ukraine and by his various purges. That’s a well-established fact of history (See A. J. Taylor, Stalin’s Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times’ Man in Moscow. The Times helped give power and credibility to Fidel Castro, whose dictatorship continues to kill and enslave (see Anthony Depalma, The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba and Herbert L. Matthews in The New York Times).

The Times, then as now the leading paper in America, covered up the Holocaust, by treating it only in tiny back-page stories (See Laura Leff, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper). Had The Times exposed the unspeakable horror of that Holocaust, it might have been prevented or drastically minimized. And The Times is now giving aid and comfort to our enemies in general and terrorists in particular. And when I say The Times you can add the mainstream media, as it follows the same party line. 

But there’s good news. The New York Times is dying but it can’t die fast enough. So help it along. It is now clearly so pro-terrorist and so anti-American and hate-America that it has to be viewed as a dangerous enemy to America that has to be fought and defeated. Don Feder, who heads a new attempt to boycott The New York Times, put it perfectly in a column published on its site at www.boycottnyt.com: “The Times is notorious for its attacks on patriotism, the market economy, religion, national morality and national security. Thus whatever weakens The New York Times strengthens America. For the Gray Lady, let the bad times roll.”

The boycott is sponsored by one of the best of the media watchdogs, Accuracy in Media (AIM). The Times has a long history of getting important issues wrong, but when it becomes virulently pro-terrorist and anti-American, it’s time for Americans to wake up and do what they have to do to an enemy of America — boycott The Times. You can start by signing the petition that is being managed by the Boycott The New York Times site (the address appears in the preceding paragraph) and canceling your subscription to The Times. Boycott The Times, its advertisers, its Web site, and its hard copy edition. 

But what makes this even more shocking is that The Times is just the one media outlet that is the icon of the pro-terrorist hate-America movement. It is just the pyramid top of the mainstream media, which follows the same line and often echoes The Times. That would include most of the nation’s major papers such as The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

It would include the major television networks that have news shows such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and PBS. You can add NPR, national public radio. And there are the big weekly news magazines, Time and Newsweek. Boycott them all.

But let’s come back to The Times. Recall it’s history on some major issues: Its Moscow correspondent, Walter Duranty, was responsible for covering up Stalin’s genocidal campaigns, including forced starvation in the Ukraine, and purges in the 1930s that cost millions of lives. Another Times reporter, Herbert Matthews, was responsible for giving Fidel Castro power and success. Finally, The Times virtually ignored the Holocaust, and covered it only with back-page and short stories. Even The Times has been forced to admit these errors. 

But now it has gone too far with its journalism that is not only biased but is also totally dishonest, all in support of those who would destroy America. As one book on the subject suggested in its title, The Times can no longer be trusted (See Bob Kohn, Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why it Can No Longer Be Trusted.) 

Mr. Feder and the Boycott The New York Times campaign is doing an important public service by documenting the abuses that the once great newspaper commits. The Times can only be described as residing at the bottom of the journalistic sewer. 

In one of Mr. Feder’s latest postings on the Boycott Web site, he shows how The Times is firmly on the side of the terrorists. He does this by his analysis of how the Times reported on the recent Mumbai massacre.  From Nov. 27, 2008 to Dec. 1, in six “alleged” news stories The Times refused to call the terrorists Muslims or Islamic extremists. Instead, they were called “gunmen,” “militants,” “assailants,” and “terrorists.” 

The only hint of the terrorists’ motivation came when they were directly quoted, complaining about the treatment of Muslims in India and Kashmir, or when they were calling for the release of “mujahedeen prisoners.” The Times refuses to recognize the connection between Islam and worldwide terrorism. This is so despite the fact that virtually all the terrorists are Muslims and they even use names that admit their Muslim connection — jihad-this or Islamic-that. What’s more, they seem to automatically quote the kill-the-infidels verses of the Quran.

Mr. Feder calls this “the greatest denial of reality in the history of journalism.” If that’s not bad enough, The Times often gets the facts wrong or seems to tell outright lies. The Nov. 30 story described the murders as “indiscriminate.” How indiscriminate could they have been when Muslims were released and non-Muslims were murdered? How indiscriminate could they be when Americans, British and Jews were specifically targeted? How indiscriminate could it be when the medical examiners said that the Jewish victims were subject to the most extreme torture? Of course, The Times in thousands of words of coverage never bothered to mention that the victims’ bodies showed signs of torture.

The Times is not content to give aid and support to the worldwide Islamofascist war to kill all Americans and destroy Western civilization. In their love of terrorists and America haters, they even give platforms to unrepentant domestic terrorists.  

The boycott site has a devastating critique of an op-ed piece by unrepentant terrorist William Ayers (the close associate and friend of our president-elect) that The New York Times ran on Dec. 6. On Boycott The New York Times Web site, Mr. Feder writes, “The Real Bill Ayers’ published on Dec. 6 is sickeningly dishonest and so easily refuted that no newspaper that adhered to even minimal standards of journalism would run it So, naturally, it was published in The New York Times.”  Again, Mr. Ayers repeats that lie, “I never killed anyone.” Translated that means you can blow up buildings and it’s quite OK if you never killed anyone (by luck rather than design). Mr. Ayers then says that the organization he founded, Weather Underground, only placed “several small bombs in empty buildings.”

Translation: You can go around bombing the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol if you use only several small bombs rather than many big ones. Mr. Ayers and the demented The New York Times apparently think that unless you use many big bombs, you’re only engaging in civil disobedience when you blow things up. And here’s the real kicker, from Mr. Ayers: “The Weather Underground crossed the lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense.” Dig that. He’s not even sure if blowing up the U.S. Capitol crosses the line of common sense. Well, perhaps it did, but Me. Ayers by his language is not sure. And I guess that means blowing up buildings isn’t terrorism but merely sort of an innocent trespass. Now you know why they say liberalism is a mental disorder, one that certainly afflicts Mr. Ayers and The Times. Now you know how Mr. Ayers and The Times live in the land of Orwell, where lies are called truths and where terrorist bombing is called peace making.   

Here are the facts that Mr. Ayers and The Times ignored in sanitizing, euphemizing, rationalizing, and justifying terroristic murders by Mr. Ayers, as compiled by Mr. Feder: 

l. “He says the Weather Underground was created after a bomb exploded in Greenwich Village, taking the lives of ‘three of our comrades.’ The bomb was intended for an upcoming dance at Fort Dix, where it could have killed hundreds of soldiers.”

Mr. Feder doesn’t mention another key fact. Witnesses to Weather Underground planning, say Mr. Ayers personally told bomb makers to put in nails and other metal parts to maximize injury and pain to victims. And they also said, when someone told Mr. Ayers what they were doing might kill people, he replied that such incidental damage is inevitable because of what they were trying to accomplish.

Mr. Ayers and The Times knew that the WeatherUnderground planned to kill and maim and in fact did so. But like The Times, Mr. Ayers is an adept liar. The Chicago way apparently includes not only corruption but also pathological lying. 

2. “In the Weathermen’s ‘Days of Rage’ (Chicago 1969), 300 of the Marxists storm troopers attacked police and the public, and destroyed millions of dollars of property through arson and vandalism.

3. “The organization, of which Ayers was the co-founder, planted 30 bombs and was responsible for bombing of the New York City police headquarters, the Capitol and the Pentagon. In a 2002 commentary (also in The Times) Mr. Ayers wrote, ‘I feel we didn’t do enough.’ 

4. “The Weather Underground was a self-proclaimed revolutionary community organization. As a fellow community organizer perhaps that’s why Mr. Ayers and Barack Obama got along so famously. 

5. “One policeman died in the police headquarters bombing. A bank guard and two policemen were murdered in the course of a Weatherman bank robbery. There were hundreds of injuries resulting from the terrorism of Ayers and his buddies, including a U.S. Attorney who was paralyzed for life. 

6. “In the op-ed, Mr. Ayers claims he was demonized during the 2008 campaign, in an effort — to smear Mr. Obama. In fact, Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama’s relationship was a legitimate issue. Either Mr. Obama is incredibly dense or he didn’t care about the bloody trail Ayers and Co. cut across the ’60s and ’70s.”

As we’ve learned already on many occasions, Mr. Obama, the smartest man on the planet in the eyes of his supporters, never has the foggiest ideas about the bad things his associates always seem to be about. I don’t know about you, but in view of the above accounting, I view the mainstream media and its support of terrorists and hate-America types as a mortal threat to national survival, and as a personal threat to every single American.

That’s why I put such a high priority on exposing the biased, dishonest and fraudulent journalism of the Times and the rest of the mainstream media. That’s why everyone should get involved. Here are a few items to consider for starters: 

1. Go to boycottnyt.com and sign the petition. 

2. Boycott The Times it hard copy and online edition, and its advertisers. And boycott the rest of the mainstream media which follow The Times party line. You might want to start with The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

3. Start getting more of your information from alternative media, so you get some balance and so you see more than the loony left positions advocated by the mainstream media. There are all kinds of Internet sites such as townhall.com, frontpage.com and hotair.com.

There are all kinds of good newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, The Bulletin and Investor’s Business Daily. There are solid conservative magazines such as The Weekly Standard and the National Review.

Among the most valuable sources are the conservative talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Bill Bennett, Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, Michael Savage, Monica Crowly and Mike Gallagher. 

4. Support some of the organizations that are fighting the biased mainstream media and the stealth jihad. One of my favorites is David Horowitz’s The Freedom Center. You might consider a contribution to the boycott, which can be made at its Web site. 

5. Educate yourself on media bias. One of the best sites is maintained by Accuracy in Media (AIM) at www.aim.com, and its boycott The Times site, which is also rich in media bias information. There are two good Web sites that specialize in reporting out of the Middle East: camera.org and honestreporting.com. 

The likes of The New York Times are literally putting you in real and direct danger of murder and mayhem by terrorists. So act accordingly. And start now.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2008/12/15/commentary/herb_denenberg/doc4945ccfa59b20611707511.txt

Reading Test

2008-12-15T17:37:00.000-05:00

Suggeston from a Reader and Our Reply

2008-11-03T19:09:00.004-05:00

just a suggestion -

i read the HORSE SLAUGHTER petition you've designed.. (click on title above to see petition) there are some very good points, but the EMPHASIS and dramatization and "call-outs" you've got in your letter, EVEN THOUGH it is written very well, comes off some what amateur and makes the reader (me) want to dismiss it.

i used the above changes in type style and emphasis in the paragraph above to try to show you what other readers might see and think. you write very well, very. but the added emphasis and 'shouting' are unnecessary and even detrimental to your purpose i think. also, there are several typos.

good luck w/ your petition. it's a great idea.

judy dodds

OUR REPLY

Judy,

Most people who are familar with our work expect that kind of "emphasis & punKed'ctuation (sic)....lol . They know that "we" are in fact amateurs and our main concern in writing is getting our message across. We noticed that you have a habit of writing proper nouns all in lower case and are wondering whats up with that?
As for our mispeeleings and tpyos, we have let it be known FOR YEARS that we are in need of editorial services - but so far no one has come forward to volunteer for the job. Can you help? lol
Thanks for your input and your kind and encouraging words anyways.
CJ/MK

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Suggeston from a Reader and Our Reply