Showing posts with label Freedom of Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freedom of Press. Show all posts

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Chelsea Manning exposes U.S. military role in restricting freedom of the press

The U.S. role in voter fraud and election corruption in post-invasion Iraq photo 2010-Iraq-Election-Voter-Fraud-The-NYTIMES-0615MANNINGsub-superJumbo_zps6738ae3d.jpg

Chelsea Manning on the Obama administration's police of making the U.S. Military control and restrict Media Freedom

RELATED


If a reporter’s embed status is terminated, typically she or he is blacklisted. (The Fog Machine of War : Chelsea Manning on the U.S. Military and Media Freedom * The New York Times)

Mushroom clouds, duct tape, Judy Miller, Curveball. Recalling how Americans were sold a bogus case for invasion. (Lie by Lie : A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq * Mother Jones)

"The Justice Department has completely lost sight of the First Amendment." (A Radical Departure on Press Freedom * The Wall Street Journal)

From her prison confines in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, former United States Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has written a scathing editorial, published in today's Sunday edition of The New York Times.

"WHEN I chose to disclose classified information in 2010, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others. I’m now serving a sentence of 35 years in prison for these unauthorized disclosures. I understand that my actions violated the law.

"However, the concerns that motivated me have not been resolved. As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan. I believe that the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance."

Fromer PFC Manning, now jailed by the Obama administration as part of the White House crackdown against government corruption whistleblowers, provides a needed reality check -- really really REAL TALK -- on how the government bullies journalists into reporting government propaganda in the mainstream media, deceiving the public about the government's actions. Her editorial is a must-read for any First Amendment activist, blogger, and voter.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Obama Administration Is “Greatest Enemy" of Freedom of the Press

NYTimes Reporter : Obama White House Is ‘‘Greatest Enemy of Press Freedom’’ Today

From Poynter :

New York Times reporter James Risen, who is fighting an order that he testify in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer accused of leaking information to him, opened the conference earlier by saying the Obama administration is “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.” The administration wants to “narrow the field of national security reporting,” Risen said, to “create a path for accepted reporting.” Anyone journalist who exceeds those parameters, Risen said, “will be punished.”

It's not known, though, if staff reporters at The New York Times are able to give voice to the serious constitutional violations by the Obama administration, then why won't the newspaper's political editor allow reporters to fully report the truth as news ?

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

NYPD Sends Subpoena To Reporter, Reporter Fired, NYPD Ticket Fixing, Other Free Press Updates

The First Amendment On The Ropes

''In what The New York Times described as a 'broadly worded, five-page subpoena,' New York City lawyers are demanding that former Village Voice reporter Graham Rayman turn over tape recordings police officer Adrian Schoolcraft made of his superiors at the NYPD’s 81st precinct in Brooklyn," Time magazine is reporting, adding, "The tapes were the basis for Rayman’s book, The NYPD Tapes, which alleges officers manipulated crime data in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn."

It's questionable why city lawyers are infringing on Mr. Rayman's free press protections under the First Amendment, and many are concerned that the NYPD is trying to harass Mr. Rayman in retribution for Mr. Rayman's exposé of police corruption. Because of the legal wrangling with the city, one activist, Suzannah B. Troy, wondered whether the litigation was an excuse used by the new owners of the Village Voice to lay-off Mr. Rayman.

Investigating the NYPD of corruption is something that rarely happens. Many have called for a federal commission to come in and investigate the New York City police force. After many unfounded shootings of innocent people, no police ever gets convicted. One recent scandal, a massive, illegal operation involving ticket-fixing, has only resulted in one officer losing his job.

Aside from the subpoena served on Mr. Rayman, the NYPD has also tried to harass Mr. Schoolcraft. A judge ruled that Mr. Schoolcraft can't be hit by a countersuit from his former supervisor. At every step of the way, the NYPD are trying to suppress any corruption investigation of its police officers.

The duplicity of NYPD, tasked with enforcing the law, but which now is acting to suppress a free press, somewhat parallels the duplicity of the Obama administration. At the same time when President Obama is secretly obtaining the phone records of Associated Press reporters, in an effort to suppress a rigorous free press from investigating his administration, Vice President Joe Biden registered complaints with Chinese government officials over hacking and other threats against foreign journalists. Give me a break.

All of this is taking place against a backdrop where New York City officials and the Obama administration refuse to comply with freedom of information requests.

The very idea of a republic implies rights conveyed to citizens to meet and consult one another, and to petition their government, if they so choose. How can citizens exercise their rights to free speech, to assemble, and to petition, when the government restricts, delays, or prevents the sharing of information necessary for our citizen activities ? Our guarantees to free speech are being diminished, shortened, and restricted by conditions created by harassing reporters, retaliating against whistleblowers, and denying freedom of information requests.


A Fox News reporter will not have to divulge the confidential sources who provided information for her story on the 2012 mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater, New York's highest court ruled on Tuesday. (Reporter Allowed to Keep Sources Secret in Colorado Theater Shooting * The New York Times)

(Updated : Friday 13 Dec 2013 19:48)

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Media Pushing Back Against Obama Censorship and Propagandizing White House Communications

Reporter Bob Franken Blasts Obama on MSNBC: ‘Most Hostile’ to Press ‘in U.S. History’

Earlier today on MSNBC, during a segment moderated by anchor T.J. Holmes, the seasoned journalist Bob Franken described the Obama administration's efforts to control the media as the "most hostile to the media that has been in United States history."

This is not surprising.

Dana Milbank, from The Washington Post, spoke about a report published last week in which Mr. Milbank asserted that President Barack Obama is propagandizing White House communications.

Meanwhile, Amy Holmes said that the White House was trying to censor the media. She pointed out that Jay Carney had a media background, and now that he was the White House press secretary, he should know better about White House efforts to only get "happy talk" reported by the media.

Mr. Milbank pointed out that President Obama made promises of "new transparency." Instead, Mr. Milbank said that the Obama White House is now prosecuting reporters under the Espionage Act.

You can see the Obama administration's clamping down on the First Amendment in how it refuses to honor the Freedom of Information Act request filed in the case of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" hero Lt. Daniel Choi.

Read more : Reporter Bob Franken Blasts Obama on MSNBC: ‘Most Hostile’ to Press ‘in U.S. History’

Monday, April 8, 2013

Quinn Hires Stroock To Violate NY1 Freedom Of Press

On the same day when the civic group called NYC Is Not For Sale 2013 produced and paid for a TV ad that criticised Christine Quinn's mayoral campaign, Speaker Quinn hired a very expensive law firm to bully NY1 into pulling the plug on the TV ad. Now, the NY1 program The Call is dedicating an entire hour to the topic of Speaker Quinn's questionable ethics.

Speaker Quinn's lawyer threatened NY1 with the possibility that it would lose its broadcast license if it did not remove the TV ad.

2013-04-08 Christine Quinn NY1 Stroock Threatening Letter

Why doesn't Stroock go after the artist and blogger Suzannah B. Troy ? Maybe because Ms. Troy's videos tell the truth ? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

For years before Speaker Quinn's campaign threatened NY1 with losing its license, entire blogs, entire YouTube channels, and several individual YouTube videos, which have been critical of Speaker Quinn, have been censored. The Christine Quinn parody puppet show video was censored by YouTube for several months.

And the No Third Term blog was censored, as well.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

U.S. Demands to Assassinate Assange

High-level U.S. government officials, including Clinton and Biden, demand for the assassination of Assange and to list WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization. In this country, do we prosecute whistleblowers ?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

ASIO Spied On Julian Assange


Quoted entirely from The Age :

Assange told of ASIO snooping

Philip Dorling
March 16, 2011

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange is believed to have been tipped off more than seven months ago about Australian intelligence scrutiny of his whistleblowing activities.

Senior government ministers yesterday claimed to have no knowledge of co-operation between Australian intelligence agencies and the United States government concerning Assange after WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of secret documents leaked from the US Defence Department.

But sources within Wikileaks have told The Age that an Australian intelligence official privately warned Wikileaks on August 11 last year that Assange was the subject of inquiries by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and that information relating to him and others associated with Wikileaks had been provided to the US in response to requests through intelligence liaison channels.

The Australian intelligence official is also claimed to have specifically warned that Assange could be at risk of ''dirty tricks'' from the US intelligence community, including the possibility of sexual entrapment.

The information is said to have been provided to WikiLeaks by means of a submission through the website's electronic ''drop box'' on the day Assange flew from London to Stockholm to speak on freedom of the press.

Nine days later, on August 20, a Swedish newspaper reported that Assange was wanted by Swedish police for questioning in relation to sexual assault allegations involving two women in Stockholm. Assange immediately tweeted on the WikiLeaks Twitter page: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one.''

Subsequently, on August 23, Assange said in a telephone interview with Arab news channel Al Jazeera: ''We were warned on the 11th [of August] by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing.''

Assange is appealing a British court decision to uphold an arrest warrant for him to be extradited to Sweden for questioning about the sexual assault allegations. He and his lawyers have retreated from earlier claims that the allegations are the product of a conspiracy involving foreign intelligence agencies.

WikiLeaks also learnt its Australian intelligence source was aware of the group's intention to seek legal advice from a prominent Melbourne lawyer - information not public at the time and known only to people within WikiLeaks.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard was confronted with a video message from Assange when she appeared on ABC TV's Q&A program on Monday.

Assange asked the Prime Minister whether her government had exchanged information about Australian citizens, specifically people linked to WikiLeaks, with foreign powers.

He asked that if she could not give a straight answer to the question, whether the Australian people should consider her to have engaged in treason.

Ms Gillard replied ''I honestly don't know what he's talking about,'' adding that no one had asked her about Assange during her recent visit to Washington.

''So I'm afraid I can't help him with a full and frank exchange about people who work with WikiLeaks.''

Mr Gillard did acknowledge Australia regularly exchanges information about Australian citizens with other countries in relation to law enforcement matters, but she said in regard to WikiLeaks, ''to my knowledge, it hasn't happened''.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister yesterday declined to say whether Ms Gillard had initiated any inquiries to determine whether Assange's claim was correct.

A spokesperson for Attorney-General Robert McClelland said that the Attorney-General was unaware of information sharing concerning Assange, but said it was ''entirely appropriate'' for the US to investigate the leakage of classified information.

Julian Assange Appeared by Video on Q&A News Program with Prime Minister Julia Gillard


Julian Assange grills Julia Gillard on live television

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard appears on live Australian television program ''Q & A'' and is surprised with a video question from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Epic win. Clip aired on 14 Mar 2011.

Check out an article from The Age, which reports that ASIO was spying on Mr. Assange -- and then sharing that intelligence with the United States.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Egypt And The U.S. : Interference With The Internet #LeakSpin

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak :
The Countdown To Regime Change

The right to Internet access is so critical to citizens' participation in their own governments that the revolution taking place in Egypt has implications for the United States. Tonight, U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the bloody crackdown on the protests in Egypt.

From The New York Times :

Mr. Obama also said that Egyptian officials should "reverse the actions that they have taken to interfere with the Internet, cellphone service, social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century." He added, "going forward, this moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise."

In a 2007 editorial ABC News online, Internet access was described as an important underpinning to democracies. When the governments of Burma and China restricted Internet access, the consequences to freedoms were indisputable. ''Democratic governments understand the connection between human rights and Internet freedom. They have been quick to condemn the Internet crackdown in Burma and China and the lack of Internet freedom in much of the world,'' wrote Leslie Harris.

Remember that before the Egyptian government suspended Internet access inside its country, ''President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States ... .''

Remember that before the Egyptian government shut down cellphone service, President Obama ordered the Justice Department to obtain a secret court order to demand that Twitter turn over, among other things, the ''subscriber names'' of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks, an act that would blatantly deny subscribers their rights to due process.

Earlier today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made a statement to express her request that the Egyptian government restore Internet access.

''Mrs. Clinton also urged the government 'to reverse the unprecedented steps it has taken to cut off communications,' referring to its decision — apparently unprecedented — to cut off all Internet services in the country, as well as mobile phone networks in some areas,'' reported The Times.

For the U.S. government to actualise the exceptionalism that we know it to have, and for the U.S. government to truly support democracy in Egypt, it must be more honest about the dishonesty of the Egyptian government (''GOE''). Today, WikiLeaks published new U.S. Embassy cables, including one that gave some perspective into the inside information available to the U.S. government.

''The GOE has not begun serious work on trying to transform the police and security services from instruments of power that serve and protect the regime into institutions operating in the public interest, despite official slogans to the contrary.''

#CableGate, #LeakSpin, #09CAIRO79

Egypt Takes Actions To Shut Down The Internet

Egypt Uprising : Government Shuts Down The Entire Internet

''Confirming what a few have reported this evening: in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet,'' reported the blog, AnonOps Communications. In a separate media report, it was confirmed that internet services and cell phone text messaging have been cut across the African country to prevent the organizers of the protests from further connection, AFP reported on Friday.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Of Benazir Bhutto #LeakSpin

After The WikiLeaks Publications, What Needs To Be Explained About The Assassination Of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007 to prepare for the 2008 Pakistan national elections ; the BBC reported that Ms. Bhutto's return was the result of a ''power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf.'' She was assassinated on 27 December 2007. One day after the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, Hana Levi Julian published a report in IsraelNationalNews.com that the governments of each of Israel, the U.S., and Great Britain had ignored Ms. Bhutto's appeals for protection. Yet, after the publication by WikiLeaks of U.S. State department diplomatic cables, the exact role of the U.S. in Ms. Bhutto's October 2007 return to Pakistan, and her obvious need for protection, needs to be explained. For, in one of the cables, Asif Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower, recounted how Ms. Bhutto ''had returned despite the threats against her because of support and 'clearance' from the U.S.''

Moreover, several months following Ms. Bhutto's assassination, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had kicked the proverbial hornet's nest after it came to light that Mr. Khalilzad was providing advice and counsel (in some form or another) to Mr. Zardari. In the diplomatic confusion that played out in the news article published in The New York Times, it was reported that :

''Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf, and there is concern within the State Department that the discussions between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, could leave the impression that the United States is taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.''

If the U.S. was, indeed, remaining ''neutral,'' as The Times had reported, then what did Mr. Zardari mean when he said that his late wife ''had returned despite the threats against her because of support and 'clearance' from the U.S.?''

The foreign policy in play by the U.S. during the time leading up to, and following, Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan, and her subsequent assassination, reveal the doomed U.S. strategy in Pakistan, and, to some extent, in Afghanistan. After having invested billions of dollars in planning a strategy of the war in Afghanistan on an expectation of a partnership with Pakistan, and in particular with then-President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration was surely already ''taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.''

Militants Set The Agenda

Following the coördinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush became obsessed with causing regime change in Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. After it became apparent that the president did not believe that diplomacy alone was going to lead to regime change in Iraq, the president mobilised a unilateral first-strike in March 2003 against Iraq, in spite of opposition from the United Nations. This, and other belligerent examples of U.S. foreign policy under the Bush administration, would leave no cause to doubt that the Bush administration wanted to single-handedly ''control'' the circumstances of individual countries, during the prosecution of the war on terror. So, naturally, in August 2008, when John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, became ''angry'' over news that the U.S. United Nations Ambassador Khalilzad was offering counsel to Mr. Zardari in the time leading up to the Pakistan national elections, it was precisely because the aim of U.S. involvement in Pakistan was never to promote democratic elections, but to reserve the channels of communication and assistance between Pakistan and the U.S. solely at the hands of Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Boucher, Anne W. Patterson, the American ambassador to Pakistan, and Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State.

Notwithstanding Ambassador Patterson's remarks to Mr. Zardari, wherein she said that, ''we continue to support the [Pakistan People's Party] and our shared struggle against extremism and in favor of the democratic process in Pakistan,'' the U.S. couldn't even tolerate any kind of assistance or counsel that was being provided to Mr. Zardari or to the Pakistan People's Party, as evidenced by the backlash faced by Ambassador Khalilzad.

On the one hand, the U.S. wanted regime change in Iraq, but it could not, on the other hand, support democracy-building in Pakistan.

A Limited Strategy Of Containment

Many members of the U.S. Congress maintained close relations with Ms. Bhutto, according to one of the cables. Not only that, but three unnamed U.S. Senators also interceded on behalf of Ms. Bhutto's safety, when she requested President Musharraf for '' 'basic security,' including vehicles with tinted windows and private guards in addition to police guards. '' What is more, even as Ms. Bhutto's life was in danger, the CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was in possession of information about the danger Ms. Bhutto was in, but he chose not to report about it until after she was killed.

If it was true that the Bush administration did not want any non-State Department channels of communication or support to be involved in the Pakistan national elections, then how did the Bush administration react, officially or unofficially, with the 3 U.S. Senators and the reporter, Mr. Blitzer ?

Beyond that, now that we are in the midst of the Cablegate news cycle, will the Obama administration deal with Julian Assange's role in the publication of the State Department cables the same way that the Bush administration dealt with the trading of sensitive information regarding Ms. Bhutto's safety, which would no doubt have risen to be considered, at the very least, sensitive State Department information, by the 3 U.S. Senators and the reporter, Mr. Blitzer ? Whatever the approach that the Obama administration takes in respect of Mr. Assange, it will look like a selective and arbitrary application of restrictions that would apply to Mr. Assange, but not to Mr. Blitzer.

The Predictable Election Cycle Offensive

Even though the Bush administration was conveying, through The New York Times article about Ambassador Khalilzad, that the Bush administration did want to be seen being involved in the Pakistan national elections, in one of the State Department cables, we find that Mr. Zardari was thanking the visiting Congressional Delegation of U.S. Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) for U.S. government ''support of credible national elections'' in Pakistan. Further, the U.S. government should have reasonably expected, even without Mr. Zardari's mentioning, that ''what happens in Pakistan has a spillover effect in Afghanistan, Iran, and India.''

Indeed, not only was Mr. Zardari requesting ''U.S. blessing for his leadership,'' but, at the time of his meeting with the U.S. Congressional delegation, Mr. Zardari was also ''struggling'' with how to explain to ''rank and file'' of the Pakistan People's Party the ''idea of continuing to work with a superpower which supported Musharraf.''

Whereas the ''official'' narrative of the U.S. State Department was that the U.S. had ''remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf,'' in reality, the fingerprints of the U.S. government were all over Ms. Bhutto's return to Pakistan -- and on the meetings Mr. Zardari had, in an effort to build support for his campaign.

The ''official'' U.S. State Department narrative was a sham.

Scenesetter For The Rest Of The World

One day after Ms. Bhutto was killed, Ambassador Patterson filed a cable in which the U.S. was assessing the qualifications of Chaudhry Pervais Elahi, the Pakistan Muslim League's presumed candidate for Prime Minister. About one month later, on January 25, 2008, Mr. Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower, met with Ambassador Patterson. During the meeting, Mr. Zardari described the US as Pakistan's ''our safety blanket.''

But this meeting of 25 January 2008, and the intelligence and requests that were being gleamed from it, were coming too late, if one were to believe that the U.S. would be taking action to support democracy and a stable government in Pakistan. Otherwise, this meeting was coming right on time, if one were to believe that the U.S. would remain ''neutral,'' meaning that the U.S. would be taking no action to support democracy and a stable government in Pakistan.

Little more than one week later, Ambassador Patterson dispatched a cable to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen. In the cable, Ambassador Patterson expressed a need for Adm. Mullen's help with setting the scene for ''necessary reforms'' in Pakistan's military. She added :

''A year ago, Musharraf's popularity was high; we were working together to support a smooth transition to a civilian government. Beginning with his decision to fire the Chief Justice in March 2007, Musharraf has made repeated political blunders culminating in a state of emergency (SOE) and temporary suspension of the constitution. He is increasingly isolated after firing long-time advisors who disagreed with some of these decisions.''

After all of the hemming and hawing, we find out from Ambassador Patterson that, ''We can work with any of the likely candidates for Prime Minister. But it may take weeks or even months after the election before a new Prime Minister is chosen and Pakistan again has a functional government that can focus on tackling extremism and necessary economic reform.'' Too bad that Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari believed, during the time that it mattered to Ms. Bhutto's safety and to the integrity of the Pakistan national elections, that Ms. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan with any real '' 'clearance' from the U.S.''

In his meeting with the Congressional Delegation, Mr. Zardari expressed the motivating fear of the Pakistani people : '' Zardari described the general distrust of the U.S. by the public and in political circles, 'fearing you will leave us again.' '' To the detriment of the democratic elections of our partners in the war on terror, the U.S. was playing both sides of the involvement coin. And this would not have been known, either officially or unofficially, by U.S. taxpayers, some of whom are paying the ultimate price for the war on terror, until Mr. Assange published the State Department cables.

#CableGate, #LeakSpin, #10ISLAMABAD416, #07ISLAMABAD5388, #08ISLAMABAD405, #08ISLAMABAD525, #08ISLAMABAD1998, #09ISLAMABAD236, #09ISLAMABAD1438

Author's Notes

This analysis is the first edition of research, based on a review of cables released as of 17 December 2010, which originated from Islamabad. A future edition may be published, provided that further releases of related cables are made. Please check here for a link to the publication of any subsequent editions : (placeholder intentionally left blank ; no updated edition is yet available). If no updates are yet available, you will not yet see a hyperlink in the immediately-preceeding placeholder. Not all of the listed cables are referred to in this analysis, but they were considered in the composition of this analysis.

This analysis and research is published under the constitutional right of freedom of the press, which allows for communication and expression of ideas and thoughts. As a blog that operates as a form of social media journalism, this blog posting is made under the rights and freedoms afforded under the First Amendment.