De NSA doet precies datgene, wat de vroegere Stasi zo graag had gewild.
Trouw-lezeres Ninel. Snowden: Massa-surveillance grootste bedreiging mensenrechten. 8 april 2014
Nog steeds geldt: liever een spiedende Amerikaan dan een Chinees of Iraniër.
Paul Brill. Volkskrant. 15 juni 2013
De onrust over de afluisterpraktijken van de Amerikanen groeit nog altijd. Maar hoe verrassend is het nu helemaal dat de VS alles nalopen?
Paul Brill. Volkskrant. 2 juli 2013
Under the regime of neoliberalism, especially in the United States, war has become an extension of politics as almost all aspects of society have been transformed into a combat zone. Americans now live in a society in which almost everyone is spied on, considered a potential terrorist, and subject to a mode of state and corporate lawlessness in which the arrogance of power knows no limits. The state of exception has become normalized. Moreover, as society becomes increasingly militarized and political concessions become relics of a long-abandoned welfare state hollowed out to serve the interest of global markets, the collective sense of ethical imagination and social responsibility toward those who are vulnerable or in need of care is now viewed as a scourge or pathology.
What has emerged in this new historical conjuncture is an intensification of the practice of disposability in which more and more individuals and groups are now considered excess, consigned to zones of abandonment, surveillance and incarceration. Moreover, this politics of disappearance has been strengthened by a fundamental intensification of increasing depoliticization, conducted largely through new modes of spying and the smothering, if not all-embracing, market-driven power of commodification and consumption.
Henry A. Giroux. Neoliberalism and the Machinery of Disposability. 8 april 2014
Telkens weer is het verschil van inzicht opvallend tussen wat Henk Hofland de 'politiek-literaire elite' in Nederland noemt en de intelligentsia in belangrijke cultuurlanden. Door het poldermodel-denken bezit de ontwikkelde Nederlander niet de fundamentele scepsis die elke democraat tegenover de macht dient te hebben. Dit typisch Nederlandse gebrek werd in 1988, overigens onbewust, treffend verwoord door de politicus Frits Bolkestein toen hij het volgende verklaarde:
Bolkestein wist niet dat dit begrip niet afkomstig was van de kritische Noam Chomsky, maar van twee steunpilaren van het Amerikaanse establishment, te weten Edward Bernays en Walter Lippmann, die dit proces omschreven als 'the art of manipulating people.' Daarentegen betitelt Bolkestein, geschoold in de eufemismen van het poldermodel, het manipuleren van het publiek als het creëren van een 'draagvlak.' Dat dit onherroepelijk leidt tot collaboratie met de macht, bleek opnieuw tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog toen procentueel tweemaal zoveel joodse burgers uit het 'tolerante' consensus zoekende Nederland werd gedeporteerd als uit België en drie maal zoveel als uit Frankrijk.
Het gebrek aan scepsis tegenover de macht is één van de grote gevaren voor de toekomst, aangezien de macht in steeds minder handen is terechtgekomen, de neoliberale democratie alleen in naam nog een werkelijke democratie is, en opiniemakers als Paul Brill in een zogeheten kwaliteitskrant kan stellen 'een spiedende Amerikaan' te prefereren boven 'een Chinees of Iraniër,' niet beseffend wat de consequenties van zijn bewering waren. Zoals gesteld: de 'intellectuelen' van de polderpers wijken in hun opvattingen fundamenteel af van de intelligentsia in grote cultuurlanden. We zien dit nu weer met de Oekraïne-kwestie. Laat ik ditmaal als voorbeeld de artikelen van de Amerikaanse econoom Paul Craig Roberts geven. Hij
was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost.
Als voormalig staatssecretaris van Financiën onder president Reagan, en naderhand onder andere redacteur van de neoliberale Wall Street Journal is hij alles behalve een linkse radicaal te noemen. Dat betekent geenszins in de VS dat een intellectueel dan ogenblikkelijk dezelfde rechtse praatjes verkoopt als Paul Brill, die, voordat hij naar de Volkskrant overstapte, jarenlang redacteur was van het als progressief afficherende weekblad De Groene Amsterdammer. Kenmerkend van een echte intellectueel is dat hij kritisch en sceptisch blijft en tracht zo rationeel mogelijk naar de werkelijkheid te kijken. Maandag 7 april 2004 berichtte Rusland's grootste persbureau RIA Novosti:
OPINION: US Using WTO, Dollar Payments System to Control Russia and NATO
MOSCOW, April 7 (RIA Novosti) – Washington is using the World Trade Organization (WTO) and international dollar-denominated financial systems to control Russia and its NATO allies, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts wrote on his personal website Sunday.
“The rest of the world now has the best possible reason to exit the WTO and to avoid the trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic ‘trade agreements,’” wrote Roberts, who works as a columnist.
“The agreements are not about trade. The purpose of these ‘trade agreements’ is to establish the hegemony of Washington and US corporations over other countries,” he added.
For example, the Obama regime is using WTO trade agreements to continue NSA spying by labeling an EU proposal to terminate relationships with some US companies a “violation of law,” he wrote.
“Washington in all its arrogance has told its most necessary allies that if you don’t let us spy on you, we will use WTO to penalize you,” Roberts said.
Washington is now opposing a Russian-Iranian oil deal which could help Moscow depart from the dollar system. The US objection is a clear sign that Washington is seeking to preserve the dollar’s role as the world reserve currency to control other countries, the former assistant treasury secretary concludes.
The US is just a failed empire that cannot even pay its own bills, but which will stop at nothing to save its position in the world, Roberts said. He listed such provocative US actions as illegally building up NATO forces on Russia’s borders and organizing a coup in Ukraine.
“Let’s pray this recognition occurs before the arrogant inhabitants of Washington blow up the world in pursuit of hegemony over others,” the columnist concluded.
Tensions between Russia and the West became strained after a regime change in Ukraine in February when the parliament ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and announced early presidential elections for May 25.
Russia has described the uprising in Kiev as an illegitimate fascist coup and a military seizure of power, which resulted in Moscow taking steps to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine and reunify with Crimea following a referendum in the region.
The steps were heavily criticized by the US and EU, who imposed sanctions against several Russian officials and suspended cooperation in specific areas.
On April 1, NATO ended all practical cooperation with Russia. The foreign ministers of NATO member countries are to review the alliance’s relations with Moscow at their next meeting in June.
Moscow called the move reminiscent of the Cold War.
Ondertussen probeert de NAVO onder leiding van Washington de spanning met Rusland zo maximaal mogelijk op te voeren om daarmee zijn eigen bestaan te rechtvaardigen, zoals ondermeer blijkt uit de volgende woorden van de Nederlandse Commandant der Strijdkrachten, generaal Tom Middendorp in Trouw. Op 8 april 2014 waren zijn volgende woorden te lezen onder de kop 'Investeer in Defensie want vrijheid is niet gratis,'
De explosieve situatie in Oekraïne maakt duidelijk dat aan de tijd van bezuinigen op Defensie een einde gaat komen. Dat stelt generaal Tom Middendorp, de hoogste militair in Nederland in een interview met Trouw…
Voor een procent van ons bruto binnenlands product (bbp) hebben we een verzekeringspolis, een goedkope polis waarvoor we Navo-dekking in huis halen.
De illegale inval in Irak zal door Trouw nooit beschreven woorden als een 'explosieve situatie' die Rusland duidelijk maakte 'dat aan de tijd van bezuinigingen op Defensie een einde' moest komen, maar nu de Russische inwoners van de Krim zich voor aansluiting bij de Russische federatie hebben uitgesproken is er ineens een 'explosieve situatie' ontstaan. Trouw verzwijgt hoe dit te verklaren is. Ik zal daarom opnieuw de insider Paul Craig Roberts aan het woord laten, die van binnenuit de Amerikaanse geopolitieke overwegingen kent. Op 7 april 2014 schreef hij onder de aanhef 'Obama Issues Threats To Russia And NATO' het volgende:
Washington's provocative military moves against Russia are reckless and dangerous. The buildup of NATO air, ground, and naval forces on Russia's borders in violation of the 1997 NATO-Russian treaty and the Montreux Convention naturally strike the Russian government as suspicious, especially as the buildups are justified on the basis of lies that Russia is about to invade Poland, the Baltic States, and Moldova in addition to Ukraine.
These lies are transparent. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asked NATO for an explanation, stating: 'We are not only expecting answers, but answers that will be based fully on respect for the rules we agreed on.'
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Washington's puppet installed as NATO figurehead who is no more in charge of NATO than I am, responded in a way guaranteed to raise Russian anxieties. Rasmussen dismissed the Russian Foreign Minister's request for explanation as 'propaganda and disinformation.'
Clearly, what we are experiencing are rising tensions caused by Washington and NATO. These tensions are in addition to the tensions arising from Washington's coup in Ukraine. These reckless and dangerous actions have destroyed the Russian government's trust in the West and are moving the world toward war.
Little did the protesters in Kiev, called into the streets by Washington's NGOs, realize that their foolishness was setting the world on a path to armageddon.
Maar omdat Paul Brill als opiniemaker van een commercieel dagblad en Tom Middendorp als Commandant der Strijdkrachten een commercieel belang hebben bij het opvoeren van internationale spanningen verzwijgen ze angstvallig de ter zake kundige informatie van de Amerikaanse oud-staatssecretaris Paul Craig Roberts. Op 8 april 2014 schreef hij onder de kop: 'US Cold War Propaganda: How the CIA Made Dr. Zhivago into a Weapon':
American Cold War propaganda had little, if anything, to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, by dramatizing Soviet mendacity it made the world blind to Washington’s mendacity.
What strikes me about the CIA memos is how similar the United States government is today to the Soviet government of 1958. The chief of the CIA’s Soviet Division described in a July 1958 memo why Dr. Zhivago was a threat to the Soviet government. The threat resided in 'Pasternak’s humanistic message that every person is entitled to a private life and deserves respect as a human being.'
Tell that to the National Stasi Agency and to Homeland Security and to the detainees in Guantanamo and the CIA’s torture prisons. In the US individual privacy no longer exists. The NSA collects and stores every email, every credit card purchase, every telephone conversation, every Internet search, every use of social media of every citizen. Pasternak had far more privacy than any American has today. Soviet travelers were not subjected to genital groping and porno-scanners. Penalties Soviet citizens paid for uttering truths inconvenient for the government were no more severe than the penalties imposed on Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden.
Today Russian citizens are more free to have private lives than are Americans, and the Russian press is more lively and more critical of government than the American press.
As I wrote in one of my columns, when communist East Germany dissolved, the Stasi moved to Washington.
Paul Brill en Tom Middendorp hebben een direct belang bij zelfs in het uiterste geval: oorlog, de Amerikaanse intellectueel Paul Craig Roberts niet. Zijn land heeft sinds '45 geen enkele oorlog gewonnen, behalve dan de invasie van Greneda, het op tien na kleinste eiland ter wereld. Het verschil tussen de twee Hollanders en de Amerikaan is de voornaamste reden waarom eerst genoemden hun dwaasheden vrijelijk in de Nederlandse mainstream pers kunnen ventileren, en Paul Craig Roberts niet. De polderpers zou liever ten onder willen gaan dan buiten de regels van de consensus te treden. Bolkestein had gelijk toen hij met een kolderieke pedanterie verklaarde dat de 'manufacture of consent' hier in de polder het creëren van een 'draagvlak' heet. En wie anders dan de polderpers kan voor de 'creation of consensus' zorgen?
Zou de NRC inmiddels alweer doorverkocht zijn, of wil niemand de 'kwaliteitskrant' bezitten? Misschien moet de redactie Paul Brill gratis erbij leveren. Dan kan hij uiteenzetten waarom hij de Stasi-praktijken van de NSA niet erg vindt. Later meer.
Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
Global Research, April 07, 2014
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/seeds-of-destruction-the-hidden-agenda-of-genetic-manipulation-2/9379
http://www.globalresearch.ca/seeds-of-destruction-the-hidden-agenda-of-genetic-manipulation-2/9379
Get your copy of this important book on the Global Research online store!
Last three or four years have seen a number of books, documentaries and articles on the dangers of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds. Majority has focused on adverse health and environmental impact; almost none on the geo-politics of GM seeds, and particularly seeds as a weapon of mass destruction. Engdahl has addressed this issue but the crop seed is one of the many “Seeds of Destruction” in this book.
Engdahl carefully documents how the intellectual foundations of ‘eugenics,’ mass culling of the sick, coloured, and otherwise disposable races, were actually first established, and even legally approved, in the United States. Eugenics research was financially supported by the Rockefeller and other elite families and first tested on Jews under Nazi Germany.
It is purely by chance that world’s poorest nations also happen to be best endowed with natural resources. These regions are also the ones with growing population. The fear among European ruling families, increasingly, integrating with economic and military might of the United States, was that if the poor nations became developed, the abundant natural resources, especially oil, gas, and strategic minerals and metals, may become scarcer for the white population. That situation was unacceptable to the white ruling elite.
The central question that dominated the minds of the ruling clique was population reduction in resource rich countries but the question was how to engineer mass culling all over the world without generating powerful backlash as it was bound to happen. When the US oil reserves peaked in 1972 and it became a net oil importer, the situation became alarming and the agenda took the centre stage. Kissinger, one of the key strategists of Nixon, nurtured by the Rockefellers, prepared what is known as National Security Study Memo (NSSM#200), in which he elaborated his plan for population reduction. In this Memo he specifically targets thirteen countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand, and The Phillipines.
The weapon to be used was food; even if there was a famine food would be used to leverage population reduction. Kissinger is on record for stating, “Control oil, you control nations; control food and you control the people.” How a small group of key people transformed the elitist philosophy, of controlling food to control people, into realistic operational possibility within a short time is the backdrop of Engdahl’s book, the central theme running from the beginning till the end with the Rockefellers and Kissinger, among others, as the key dramatis personae.
He describes how the Rockefellers guided the US agriculture policy, used their powerful tax-free foundations worldwide to train an army of bright young scientists in hitherto unknown field of microbiology. He traces how the field of Eugenics was renamed “genetics” to make it more acceptable and also to hide the real purpose. Through incremental strategic adjustments within a handful of chemical, food and seed corporations, ably supported by the key persons in key departments of the US Government, behemoths were created that could re-write the regulatory framework in nearly every country. And these seeds of destruction of carefully constructed regulatory framework- to protect the environment and human health- were sown back in the 1920s.
Pause to think: a normal healthy person can at the most go without food for perhaps seven days but it takes a full season, say around four months, for a seed to grow into food crop. Just five agri-biz corporations, all US based (Cargill, Bunge, Archer Daniels, et al), control global grain trade, and just five control global trade in seeds. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, and Dow Chemicals control genetically engineered seeds. While these powerful oligopolies were being knocked into place, anti-trust laws were diluted to exempt these firms. Engdahl writes, “It was not surprising that the Pentagon’s National Defense University, on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, issued a paper declaring: ‘Agribiz is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East.’ Agribusiness had become a strategic weapon in the arsenal of the world’s only superpower.” (page 143)
The “Green Revolution” was part of the Rockefeller agenda to destroy seed diversity and push oil and gas based agriculture inputs in which Rockefeller’s had main interest. Destruction of seed diversity and dependence on proprietary hybrids was the first step in food control. (See my notes, Box 1)
It is true that initially Green Revolution technologies led to spurt in farm productivity but at a huge cost of destruction of farmlands, bio-diversity, poisoned aquifers and progressively poor health of the people and was the true agenda of ‘the proponents of Green Revolution.’
The real impetus came with the technological possibility of gene splicing and insertion of specific traits into unrelated species. Life forms could be altered. But until 1979, the US Government had steadfastly refused to grant patent on life form. That was changed [my comment: helped much by a favorable judgment in the US Supreme Court granting patent protection to oil eating bacteria developed by Dr Ananda Chakraborty]. Life forms could now be patented. To ensure that the world surrendered to the patent regime of the seeds corporations, the World Trade Organization was knocked into shape. How it conducted business was nobody’s business, but it forced the world to accept intellectual property right of these corporations. There is opposition but these firms are too determined as Engdahl describes.
“The clear strategy of Monsanto, Dow, DuPont and the Washington Government backing them was to introduce the GMO seeds in every corner of the globe, with priority on defenceless... African and developing countries,” write Engdahl (page 270). However, Engdahl also describes how US and Canadian farmlands came under GMOs. It was suspected that GMO could pose serious threat to human and animal health and the environment, yet efforts at independent biosafety assessment were discontinued. Scientists carrying out honest studies were vilified. Reputed scientific establishments were silenced or made to toe the line that was supportive of the Rockefeller’s food control and mass culling agenda. The destruction of the credibility of scientific institution is yet another seed of destruction in Engdahl’s book.
Engdahl cites the example of a German farmer Gottfried Glockner’s experience with GM corn. Glockner planted Bt176 event of Syngenta essentially as feed for his cows. Being a scientist, he started with 10% GM feed and gradually increased the proportion, carefully noting milk yield and any side effects. Nothing much happened in the first three years but when he increased the feed to 100% GM feed, his animals “were having gluey-white feaces and violent diarrhea” and “milk contained blood.” Eventually all his seventy cows died. Prof Angelika Hilbeck of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found from Glockner’s Bt 176 corn samples Bt toxins were present “in active form and extremely stable.” The cows died of high dose of toxins. Not if, but when human food is 100% contaminated should be a sobering thought.
In the US unlabelled GM foods were introduced in 1993 and that 70% of the supermarket foods contain GMOs in varying proportions in what should rightly be called world’s largest biological experiment on humans. While Engdahl has clearly stated that the thrust of US Government and the agi-biz is control over food especially in the third world, he has left it to the readers to deduce that American and European citizens are also target of that grand agenda. And there are more lethal weapons in the arsenal: Terminator seeds, Traitor seeds, and the ability to destroy small independent farmers at will in any part of the world, and these are powerfully presented in the book. Engdahl provides hard evidences for these seeds of final destruction and utter decimation of world civilizations as we have known.
It is a complex but highly readable book. It is divided into five parts, each containing two to four short chapters. The first part deals with the political maneuverings to ensure support to Seed and Agri-biz firms, the second deals with what should be widely known as ‘The Rockefeller Plan’, the third deals with how vertically integrated giants were readied for Washington’s silent wars on planet earth, the fourth part deals with how GM seeds were unleashed on unsuspecting farmers, and the final part deals with how the elites is going on destroying food, farmers that would eventually cause mass culling of population. He does not offer any solution; he can’t because it is up to the rest of the world, including Europeans and Americans, to wake up and take on these criminals head on. An essential read for anyone who eats and thinks.
Seeds of Destruction
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research, 2007 ISBN 978-0-937147-2-2
This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”
This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.
The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.
Engdahl’s carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.
F. William Engdahl is a leading analyst of the New World Order, author of the best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century of War: Anglo-American Politics and the New World Order,’ His writings have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
What is so frightening about Engdahl’s vision of the world is that it is so real. Although our civilization has been built on humanistic ideals, in this new age of “free markets”, everything– science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds– have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travelers. To achieve world domination, they no longer rely on bayonet-wielding soldiers. All they need is to control food production. (Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute Institute, Scotland)
If you want to learn about the socio-political agenda –why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World– you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist… (Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia)
The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence… (Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria).
“Freedom of the Press” and “The Shield Law”: “Protecting the Public” from Independent Alternatives to the Mainstream Media
Global Research, April 08, 2014
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/freedom-of-the-press-and-the-shield-law-protecting-the-public-from-independent-alternatives-to-the-mainstream-media/5377081
http://www.globalresearch.ca/freedom-of-the-press-and-the-shield-law-protecting-the-public-from-independent-alternatives-to-the-mainstream-media/5377081
Currently being debated by the Senate, but rarely discussed on mainstream television, is the Shield Law. While on the surface it may seem to be rather innocuous, some of the language in it and its implications are quite problematic for journalists.
A Shield Law is a law which “provides statutory protection for the ‘reporters’ privilege’— legal rules which protect journalists against the government requiring them to reveal confidential sources or other information.”[1] Generally, this is a positive occurrence as journalists are much more able to conduct their work and bring information to public light if they do not need to worry about having to reveal their sources. While Shield Laws have occurred in the past, they have only been on the state level. This currently proposed Shield Law is the first one to reach the federal level and the main goal is to protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources in federal cases.[2]
However, there are certain instances in which journalists will have to reveal sources, such as “(1) The party seeking disclosure has exhausted all reasonable alternative sources of the information; (2) The requested information is essential to resolving the matter; (3) Disclosure of the requested information would not be contrary to the public interest; and (4) In criminal cases, if the requesting party is the federal government, the government must show that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has occurred.”[3]
While overall it may seem like a good bill, there are a number of problems with this Shield Law, officially known as the Free Flow of Information Act of 2013. For starters, this law would “allow the government to seize reporters’ records without notifying them for 45 days – a period of time that could be renewed by a judge 45 additional days – if investigators convince a judge pre-notification ‘would pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of a criminal investigation.’”[4] This power of seizing records without notifying reporters was used most recently in regards to the Associated Press, when the federal government seized their phone records in May of last year, with the government only saying that “they were needed for investigation of an unspecified criminal matter.”[5] Oh yes! What transparency and accountability! Infringing upon the First Amendment rights of reporters and then only giving what is essentially a BS, purposefully vague explanation.
In addition to this, the government can force journalists to give up information in the name of national security.[6] This is quite worrying as the US government has time and time again been involved in operations of entrapment.[7,8] Due to this, they could potentially have a scenario where they create a case of entrapment, label it terrorism, and then force all journalists to give up information on any and all sources as well as seize their records under the guise of national security.
Yet in this current bill, not only can the government continue to engage in the above behavior, but they are also defining who is and who is not a journalist. Initially, the bill defined a journalist as “a person who has a ‘primary intent to investigate events and procure material’ in order to inform the public by regularly gathering information through interviews and observations” and added the stipulation that “The person also must intend to report on the news at the start of obtaining any protected information and must plan to publish that news.”[9] This seems to be rather fine as it would include mainstream and independent journalists. However, the situation became problematic when in September 2013, an amendment to the bill was proposed that- let’s just say- ‘more clearly’ defined who and who was not a journalist.
Kevin Gostolza of Firedoglake discussed this amendment last year and it would be appropriate to quote him now at some length:
A “covered journalist,” under the amendment, would be the following: an employee, independent contractor, or agent of an entity or service that disseminates news or information by means of newspaper; nonfiction book; wire service; news agency; news website, mobile application or other news or information service (whether distributed digitally or other wise); news program; magazine or other periodical, whether in print, electronic, or other format; or through television or radio broadcast, multichannel video programming distributor (as such term is defined in section 602(13) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 522(13)), or motion picture for public showing... That person must also have the “primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information concerning local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest.” Or, that person should be engaged in the “regular gathering, preparation, collection, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing on such matters.” A person would also qualify as a “covered journalist” if they had experience in journalism and had “substantially contributed, as an author, editor, photographer, or producer, to a significant number of articles, stories, programs, or publications” in the past twenty years. As Feinstein said, it would “cover a legitimate journalist such as a Dan Rather who leaves his media entity and takes to publishing freelance stories on the web.”[10] (emphasis added)
Now, let’s begin to take those paragraphs apart and analyze them, bit by bit.
In the first paragraph, the law defines a journalist as “an employee, independent contractor, or agent of an entity or service that disseminates news or information” and then goes on to define the many mediums by which the news can be disseminated. Some of this language seems to be problematic. What exactly do they mean by “independent contractor?” Do they mean a freelancer? Do they mean someone like myself who researches and writes independently?
In the next paragraph, it adds a caveat to the definition of journalist, stating that the individual in question must also “have the ‘primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information concerning local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest.’” Well, how do you prove that this is one’s primary intent? Do you just have to state as such? And what do they even mean by the term “primary intent?” Isn’t the main goal of most if not all journalists to disseminate news to the public?
The final paragraph offers an alternative if one is not with a mainstream source by stating that they are covered if “they had experience in journalism and had ‘substantially contributed, as an author, editor, photographer, or producer, to a significant number of articles, stories, programs, or publications’ in the past twenty years.” Does this mean that contributing to sites such as Truthout and Alternet could qualify one as a journalist under this law?
Apparently, in an earlier version of the bill, the law defined “journalists so narrowly that it excludes bloggers, citizen reporters and even some freelancers,”[11] and thus the amendment was added. However, this amendment seems to leave more questions than answers.
In addition to this, many supporters of this bill have been using some rather bellicose language. For example, Senator Dianne Feinstein has been quoted as saying that “real journalists draw salaries”[12] and stating that the First Amendment is “a privilege,”[13] which is rather worrying.
On top of all these other problems, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, has written that this bill would “give judges too much power to decide on their own whether the disclosure of the information would be contrary to the public interest and thus not protected.”[14] This means the issue of deciding whether or not information that is being withheld by journalists, say, sources for example, violates the public interest in the form of national security would be decided by judges. If the judges do decide that the information being withheld does violate the public interest, then the journalist would be forced to hand over that information.
While judges do from time to time uphold the rights of the people, they seem to have often sided with the national security state as of recent. For example in 2010, a federal appeals court “ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information,”[15] last year, the US Supreme Court decided to “allow the National Security Agency’s surveillance of domestic telephone communication records to continue.”[16]
This year it was reported that the US Supreme Court “rejected [the Center for Constitutional Rights] lawsuit against Bush-era warrantless surveillance, which “guarantees that the federal courts will never address a fundamental question: Was the warrantless surveillance program the NSA carried out on President Bush’s orders legal?”[17] Thus, it seems that the situation of on whose side the courts would rule in a case regarding national security is rather iffy. This is made all the more strenuous by the fact that if a case were to make it up all the way to the Supreme Court and they ruled in favor of the US government, it has the potential to set a precedent which could only be overturned by an entirely new Supreme Court case.
As of now, there are conflicting reports about whether or not Chuck Shumer (D.-N.Y.) has the votes to pass the bill in the Senate, with Schumer saying he does and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) saying he doesn’t.[19] However, if it does pass, there is no doubt about it going into law as Obama has already voiced his support for it.[20]
By essentially giving the government the power to define what a journalist is, it has the potential to hurt independent media when it is needed now more than ever. The mainstream media consistently sits on stories to please the US government. It was reported in 2006 that the New York Times made a decision to “[withhold] a story about the Bush administration’s program of illegal domestic spying until after the 2004 election.”[21] More recently, the US media reported again and again that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in Ghouta and that the UN report confirmed it[22], when in reality, the question is still up in the air as new information has come to light that puts the official narrative in doubt.[23]
We need independent alternatives to the mainstream media like Corbett Report, Citizen Radio, and Black Agenda Report to allow people to get a glimpse behind the wall of misinformation that permeates much of the mainstream and get an idea of what is truly going on in the world. If this law gives the government the power to define who a journalist is, we may just lose that.
Notes
1: Society of Professional Journalists, Shield Law 101: Frequently Asked Questions, https://www.spj.org/shieldlaw-faq.asp
2: Rem Reider, “Media Shield Law Moves Forward,” USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/12/senate-judiciary-committee-approves-media-shield-bill/2807045/ (September 12, 2013)
3: Chris Palmer, Josh Stearns, “The Journalism Shield Law: How We Got Here,” Free Press, http://www.freepress.net/blog/2013/08/06/journalism-shield-law-how-we-got-here (August 6, 2013
4: Steven Nelson, “Holes in Media Shield Law Worry Opponents, and Even Some Supporters,” US News, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/18/holes-in-media-shield-law-worry-opponents-and-even-some-supporters (September 18, 2013)
5: Roger Yu, “Feds Seize AP Phone Records For Criminal Probe,” USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/13/justice-department-associated-press-telephone-records/2156521/ (May 13, 2013)
6: Zoë Carpenter, “Flawed Media Shield Law Goes to the Senate Floor,” The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/blog/176166/flawed-media-shield-law-goes-senate-floor(September 13, 2013)
7: Alex Newman, “FBI Celebrates Foiling Its Own Terrorist Plot, Again,” The New American, http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/13263-fbi-celebrates-foiling-its-own-terror-plot-again (October 18, 2012)
8: Glenn Greenwald, ”The FBI Again Thwarts Its Own Terror Plot,” Salon, http://www.salon.com/2011/09/29/fbi_terror/ (September 29, 2011)
9: Tim Cushing, “Sen. Feinstein During ‘Shield’ Law Debate: ‘Real’ Journalists Draw Salaries,” Techdirt, https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130807/13153224102/sen-feinstein-during-shield-law-debate-real-journalists-draw-salaries.shtml (August 8, 2013)
10: Kevin Gosztola, “Media Shield Law, Which Aims to Protect Only ‘Real Reporters,’ Moves Onward to the Senate,” Firedoglake,http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/09/12/media-shield-law-which-defines-covered-journalists-moves-onward-to-the-senate/ (September 12, 2013)
11: Free Press, (August 6, 2013)
12: Morgan Weiland, “Why Sen. Feinstein Is Wrong About Who’s a ‘Real Reporter,’” Electronic Frontier Foundation, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/why-sen-feinstein-wrong-about-whos-real-reporter (August 9, 2013)
13: Mark Whitney, “Dianne Feinstein First Amendment Is A Special Privilege,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bywtn9RIDRw
14: Jacob Gershman, “Mukasey: Beware the Proposed Media-Shield Law,” Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/12/02/mukasey-beware-of-the-proposed-media-shield-law/ (December 2, 2013)
15: Charlie Savage, “Court Dismisses a Case Asserting Torture by C.I.A.,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/us/09secrets.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (September 8, 2010)
16: Bill Mears, “Supreme Court allows NSA to continue looking at telephone records for now,” CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/18/politics/supreme-court-nsa-phone-records/ (November 8, 2013)
17: Kevin Gosztola, “Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case That Would Have Challenged NSA Warrantless Surveillance of Lawyers,” Firedoglake,http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/03/04/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-case-that-would-have-challenged-nsa-surveillance-of-lawyers/ (March 4, 2014)
18: Fox News, Schumer: Senate Has Votes for Media Shield Law, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/21/schumer-senate-has-votes-for-media-shield-law/(March 21, 2014)
19: Hadas Gold, “Cornyn: Schumer Doesn’t Have Votes for Shield Law,” Politico, http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/03/cornyn-schumer-doesnt-have-votes-for-shield-law-185862.html (March 27, 2014)
20: David Jackson, “Obama backs ‘Shield Law’ for Reporters,” USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/15/obama-schumer-associated-press-shield-law/2161913/ (May 15, 2013)
21: Barry Grey, David Walsh, “A Damning Admission: New York Times Concealed NSA Spying Until After 2004 Election,” World Socialist Web Site,http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2006/08/nyti-a22.html (August 22, 2006)
22: Bill Chapel, “U.N. Report Confirms Chemical Weapons Were Used In Syria,” NPR, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/12/250572623/u-n-report-confirms-chemical-weapons-were-used-in-syria (December 12, 2013)
23: Matthew Schofield, “New Analysis of Rocket Used In Syria Chemical Attack Undercuts U.S. Claims,” McClatchy,http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/15/214656/new-analysis-of-rocket-used-in.html (January 15, 2014)
Devon DB is a 22 year old independent writer and researcher. He can be contacted at devondb[at]mail[dot]com.
Noam Chomsky: No reason was given for going to war that could not be refuted by a literate teenager in about two minutes. That again is the hallmark of a totalitarian culture. It ought to frighten us, but we are so deeply totalitarian that we can be driven to war without any reason being given for it...
Over the last ten years, every year or two, some major monster is constructed that we have to defend ourselves against. There used to be one that was always readily available: the Russians. You could always defend yourself against the Russians. But they're losing their attractiveness as an enemy, and it is getting harder and harder to use that one, so some new ones have to be conjured up.
Noam Chomsky. Media Control. The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. 1991
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