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The Bigger Story Behind the AP Spying Scandal
Attack on the Press
You know that the Department of Justice tapped scores of phone lines at the Associated Press.
You might have heard that the Attorney General of the United States isn’t sure how often reporters’ records are seized.
You might have learned that the Department of Justice is prosecuting a whistleblower regarding North Korea … as well as the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News who reported on what the whistleblower told him. As the Washington Post notes:
[Department of Justice investigators] used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.
You might have read that the Department of Justice Inspector General published a new report today saying that former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson, concluding:
We believe this misconduct to be particularly egregious because of Burke’s apparent effort to undermine the credibility of Dodson’s significant public disclosures about the failures in Operation Fast and Furious. We further believe that the seriousness of Burke’s actions are aggravated by the fact that they were taken within days after he told Deputy Attorney General Cole that he took responsibility for his office’s earlier unauthorized disclosure of a document to The New York Times, and after Cole put him on notice that such disclosures should not occur. Burke also knew at the time of his disclosure of the Dodson memorandum that he was under investigation by OPR for his conduct in connection with the earlier disclosure to The New York Times. As a high-level Department official, Burke knew his obligations to abide by Department policies and his duty to follow the instructions of the Deputy Attorney General, who was Burke’s immediate supervisor.
And you may even have caught ABC News' report today that an armed minder trailed reporters ... preventing them from being able to talk to whistleblowers:
As we traveled the public hallways of the building – watched over by security cameras – an armed uniformed police officer with the Federal Protective Service followed us. We were looking for a particular office—of someone who would not want to be seen talking to reporters--but chose to bypass it because of our official babysitter.
Asked why we were being escorted in a public building, the officer identified himself as Insp. Mike Finkelstein and said he was only trying to make sure that the newsmen were not a "nuisance." He brushed aside further questions. The cop said a supervisor would call to explain.
One of the reporters wanted to know if the act of following the journalists was an effort intended to scare off any federal employee who might have considered speaking to the press. That's sure what it looked like; and, even if that wasn't the goal, it was the effect.
As of Friday night, no supervisor had called back.
After ABC News phoned and e-mailed the spokespeople in Washington repeatedly for more than 24 hours, a low-level staffer with Homeland Security finally responded. "After review by a supervisor, it was determined that the inspector acted according to proper security procedures and that no improper conduct occurred," the spokesman said.
But there have been many similar scandals over the last couple of years. For example:
- The Pentagon recently smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda
- Reporters covering the Occupy protests were targeted for arrest
- The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers, bloggers and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war
- After Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge
- An al-Jazeera journalist – in no way connected to any terrorist group – was held at Guantánamo for six years … so the U.S. could find out about the Arabic news network. And see this
- Indeed, reporters who even speak with whistleblowers may be treated as terrorists. And see this
In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of the bank’s wrongdoing, the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this).
Wikileaks’ head Julian Assange could face the death penalty for his heinous crime of leaking whistleblower information which make those in power uncomfortable … i.e. being a reporter.
But – whatever you think of Wikileaks – that was the canary in the coal mine in terms of going after reporters. Specifically, former attorney general Mukasey said the U.S. should prosecute Assange because it’s “easier” than prosecuting the New York Times.
Subsequently, Congress considered a bill which would make even mainstream reporters liable for publishing leaked information.
Journalist and former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald notes today:
The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty [says that "The alternative to 'conspiring' with leakers to get information: Just writing what the government tells you."]
That, of course, is precisely the point of the unprecedented Obama war on whistleblowers and press freedoms: to ensure that the only information the public can get is information that the Obama administration wants it to have. That’s why Obama’s one-side games with secrecy – we’ll prolifically leak when it glorifies the president and severely punish all other kinds – is designed to construct the classic propaganda model. And it’s good to see journalists finally speaking out in genuine outrage and concern about all of this.
***
Here’s an amazing and revealing fact: after Richard Nixon lost the right to exercise prior restraint over the New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers, he was desperate to punish and prosecute the responsible NYT reporter, Neil Sheehan. Thus, recounted the NYT’s lawyer at the time, James Goodale, Nixon concocted a theory:
“Nixon convened a grand jury to indict the New York Times and its reporter, Neil Sheehan, for conspiracy to commit espionage . . . .The government’s ‘conspiracy’ theory centered around how Sheehan got the Pentagon Papers in the first place. While Daniel Ellsberg had his own copy stored in his apartment in Cambridge, the government believed Ellsberg had given part of the papers to anti-war activists. It apparently theorized further that the activists had talked to Sheehan about publication in the Times, all of which it believed amounted to a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act.”
As Goodale notes, this is exactly “the same charge Obama’s Justice Department is investigating Assange under today,” and it’s now exactly the same theory used to formally brand Fox’s James Rosen as a criminal in court.
Indeed, this is not a partisan issue. Bush was worse than Nixon on unlawful spying and harassment of reporters … but so is Obama.
Whistleblower Witch Hunt
But Obama has gone after whistleblowers more viciously than Bush, Nixon, or any president in history. Indeed, the Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined.
And the government goes out of its way to smear whistleblowers and harass honest analysts.
Even high-level government employees are in danger. For example, after the head of the NSA’s spying program – William Binney – disclosed the fact that the U.S. was spying on everyone in the U.S. and storing the data forever, and that the U.S. was quickly becoming a totalitarian state, the Feds tried to scare him into shutting up:
[Numerous] FBI officers held a gun to Binney’s head as he stepped naked from the shower. He watched with his wife and youngest son as the FBI ransacked their home. Later Binney was separated from the rest of his family, and FBI officials pressured him to implicate one of the other complainants in criminal activity. During the raid, Binney attempted to report to FBI officials the crimes he had witnessed at NSA, in particular the NSA’s violation of the constitutional rights of all Americans. However, the FBI wasn’t interested in these disclosures. Instead, FBI officials seized Binney’s private computer, which to this day has not been returned despite the fact that he has not been charged with a crime.
Other NSA whistleblowers have also been subjected to armed raids and criminal prosecution.
After high-level CIA officer John Kiriakou blew the whistle on illegal CIA torture, the government prosecuted him for espionage.
Even the head of the CIA was targeted with extra-constitutional spying and driven out of office.
The Most Gagged Person in the History of the United States
One example of the extreme gagging of whistleblowers is former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds.
The ACLU described Edmonds as:
The most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.
Edmonds has been deemed credible by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups.
Edmonds’ allegations have been confirmed by numerous Pentagon, MI6 and FBI officials, including 18-year FBI counter-intelligence expert John Cole.
Famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says that Edmonds possesses information “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”.
Ellsberg also said that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11:
Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today’s American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take [former FBI translator and 9/11 whistleblower Sibel] Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations [which Ellsberg calls "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers"].
As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who “sat on the NSA spying story for over a year” when they “could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome.”
“There will be phone calls going out to the media saying ‘don’t even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,’” he told us.
* * *
“I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to ‘How do we deal with Sibel?’” contends Ellsberg. “The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told ‘don’t touch this . . . .‘”
Indeed, the mainstream British newspaper the Sunday Times started publishing a series of articles exposing the scandal which Edmonds had uncovered. But U.S. State Department pressure killed the series.
What are Edmonds’ allegations … that the media is too cowardly to report … that the most famous whistleblower in history calls “more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”?
Among other things, Edmonds says that the U.S. government worked with Bin Laden and his top lieutenant 3 months after 9/11 … as part of an ongoing operation of launching war under false pretenses.
Now that would be a big story if true, wouldn’t it?
The mainstream media is finally awakening to the fact we are flirting with tyranny … and is finally starting to push back.
The best defense is a strong offense, and it is use it or lose it time for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The press should shake of its sleepiness and start talking to the whistleblowers (like Edmonds) it’s been ignoring for years … to find out what the government is working so hard to hide.
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"Indeed, the Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined."
Except for Abraham Lincoln who clearly holds the record of tyranny. He threw hundreds of those who opposed his war policy in jail.
Woodrow Wilson comes in a close second for how he treated those who opposed his War in Europe.
AP might be gagged -
but We'll Always Have "The National Enquirer".
But Obama has gone after whistleblowers more viciously than Bush, Nixon, or any president in history. Indeed, the Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined.
THIS has to be stopped. UNTIL the left AND right refuse to allow 'their guy' to get away with the violations...this will only get worse. Where are the democrats DEMANDING answers. Forget that the right didn't do it to Bush...let's stop it ALL. Let's reign in the government's powers, minimize the size of the IRS, DEA, ATF, eliminate DHS, TSA. This is ridiculous BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, the left and the RIGHT have to stop giving 'their guy' a pass because he or she is on their side. Until then, this will go nowhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT7JH_jcEg4&feature=player_embedded#!
have you seen this?
I hadn't...not overwhelmingly shocking considering where we've gone since patriot act (thanks Joe Biden)...
But I think folks on ZH have known this for some time...
Mene mene tekel upharsin. This is on all our heads.
Presstitute fellatio is always fun until someone loses an eye.
Now, the one eyed whores get angry.
I'm having a hard time working up some sympathy here.
I hear complaints about the POTUS, but its the role of the SCOTUS to measure Acts-of-Congress against their validity under the Constitution...the collapse in Civil Liberties is Entirely a function of a lacking executive Judiciary. ...what do you do when the SCOTUS is corrupt?
"...it is use it or lose it time for the Constitution and Bill of Rights."
No George, it is you got it, it's worthless, when you gonna wake up and smell the roses (reality) time of the 2nd Millenium that Law and its Master, Govt, are used by the anarchists (Govt = Anarchy: a small group of human scum running riot across society) to abuse us all
1 Constitution fails miserably, the sheeple demand a 2nd refreshed with more moronic words written on pieces of toilet paper
Look at the big picture, Govt is a monopoly institution and a human sewer throughout history. Time Up. Dump this miserable shit of an organisation where it belongs, in the f'n sewer
CONgress&Senate Dems&Reps Big winners&Not so big winners Smokescreens&Curveballs. Bought&Sold by the same Lobbyists and Special Interests. Divide&Conquer same old same old.
Children&Sibblings of above Elite. . .rinse repeat and rule for another centuary.
Just when the charade and the system is about to be brought down the rulers throw a curveball at us in the guise of a saviour of the 'free world '. Our man in Habama
Murder is our national sport. We murder tens of thousands with our industrial killing machines in Afghanistan and Iraq. We murder thousands more from the skies over Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with our pilotless drones. We murder each other with reckless abandon. And, as if we were not drenched in enough human blood, we murder prisoners—most of them poor people of color who have been locked up for more than a decade. The United States believes in regeneration through violence. We have carried out blood baths on foreign soil and on our own land for generations in the vain quest of a better world. And the worse it gets, the deeper our empire sinks under the weight of its own decay and depravity, the more we kill.
Chris Hedges.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34929.htm
GW. Please stop. Now.
Bush. Nixon. Bush. Nixon. (Shhhh! Obama.)
How about Roosevelt. Johnson. Roosevelt. Johnson. (Shhh! Obama.)
Won't happen. Ever. You know it and I know it.
They are all gone GW. GONE!!!
(Shhhh! Except Obama.)
The press won't be allowed to go to the Correspondence Dinner next year if the they talk to WhistleBlowers. #Priorities #Presstitutes
Nicely appropriate term 'Presstitutes'.
28th Amendment (The Constitutional Emergency Amendment)
Corporations are not persons and shall be granted only those rights and privileges that Congress deems necessary for the well-being of the People. Congress shall provide legislation defining the terms and conditions of corporate charters according to their purpose; which shall include, but are not limited to:
1, prohibitions against any corporation;
a, owning another corporation,
b, becoming economically indispensable or monopolistic, or
c, otherwise distorting the general economy;
2, prohibitions against any form of intervention in the affairs of government by means of;
a, congressional lobbying
b, electoral sponsorship or advocacy
c, educational sponsorship or publication
d, media news reporting
3, provisions for;
a, the auditing of standardized, current, and transparent account books
b, closing the FRB and the establishment of state-owned banks
c, civil and criminal penalties to be suffered by corporate executives et al for violation of the terms of a corporate charter.
Optional: (or possible 29th amendment)
The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution is hereby repealed and Congress shall re-write the U.S. Code to reflect the changes embodied herein.
Which has anything to do with anything, how?
Do you not undestand, you profound buffoon, that 2(d) of your legislation authorizes every single abuse that GW writes of?
We are all dumber for having read your post. Now go sit down and think about what you've done.
you may have heard there was a tornado in Oklahoma today. {the president called the gov [R] of OK. the MSM interviewed her, what do you need. she said a lot of things, prayers, state mobilization, but what she didn't say was FEMA and a bunch of Feds crawling all over the place}. maybe after Christie got run through the [political] ringer over the NJ hurricane, she thought i ain't going there.
question: the IRS is the bottom or the tip of the iceberg?
She should just ask for the 60 billion Obama gave to New Jersey for her people....quid pro quo.
I keep seeing the MSM, congress and other bought and paid for entities using words like shocked, appalled, chilling, etc. Yet almost nothing is being done except talking.
When the hell is the whole criminal gang going to be rounded up and thrown in jail without bail until they are tried?
Does anyone left that has been temporarily granted lawful authority by the people still have the balls to step up and take action?
There would be massive race riots if the Pharoah is impeached or jailed for his crimes
Na. You don't have to impeach him. In fact, I'd keep him in place and humiliate him and use him and his kind as an object-lesson for the next 3 years!
Would love to go one on one with a weasel like you! You're a clueless fuckwit! Obama done nada for Anyone bar himself so a clown like yourself should STFU. Sorry for my bad language everyone but this jerk's BS prevents our united front against tyranny.
So you think we can unite with the hoodlums that would burn cities if Onazi is brought down? Dream on. Or are you objecting to the substance of the statement - that 'inner city folk' would burn cities down if someone touched Obama (and I'll add: if that were to happen, the reason would be solely because he's black, not because he does anything for said folks). Either way you come across as a lackwit. The 'inner city folk' don't know ANYTHING about what's really going on with Onazi, or much else for that matter. They may know that the government is corrupt, but they can't tell you why with any clarity. Their lives revolve around a tiny group of fellow hoodlums and leeches; it's all about looking tough and getting 'your thing' on. Until white liberals got involved with their lives, blacks were still lagging whites in terns of education and income, but were advancing faster. No longer. Now it's all about racial identity. If you think otherwise, take a nice stroll into an 'inner city' community and be ready for a stomping - solely because of your pigment. There are few places in the country where blacks can't go, but there are literally hundreds where being white will get you trip to the hospital. As for Onazi: he's a brother from another mother, and if he falls it will be the fault of 'racist crackers'. Cities WILL burn, no matter how egregious his crimes. He knows he has this army to protect him. It's part of what makes him such a smug POS.
The "united front against tyranny" can never congeal because of profoundly different preferences about what exactly should replace that tyranny. Facile abstractions like "liberty" and "less government" won't cut it for the simple reason that the population of the U.S. is deeply divided over moral values that communities should live by ("freedom" to foster group reproductive success as opposed to "freedom" to engage in and recruit to vices that destroy it), and also by economic policies that effect the living standard of the middle class, such as unrestrained immigration and export of jobs. Even a Federal leviathan cut in half is likely to burden or outlaw values and community standards of which it dissaproves and is likely to shape the laws to benefit the top .01% by lowering the living standard of the vast majority to third world levels.
In short, there will still be winners and losers under any regime that replaces "tyranny" and sensible people will want to know who the winners and losers are going to be.
Not "the Pharoah" it's just... Pharoah.
but we am to stoopid to no we am fuct.
i went too amerkin skools an am smarder than most. i no we am fuct.
Star Chamber
The Republic - and Constitution - is dead and has been for some time. The Empire that replaced it was short lived and is collapsing.
Ike nailed it when he left office. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY
Pursh back?? Ha! The MSM is already starting to circle the wagons for Obama. 2 weeks from now you will only hear scandal stories critical of the Obama Administration in the conservative and non-aligned press. Such stories will disappear from the MSM.
"The mainstream media is finally awakening to the fact we are flirting with tyranny"
Flirting?
flirting is when you kiss the whore on the lips afterwards
Trying to be polite ... they're GOING STEADY, okay?!
Owned would be my call.
Operation Mockingbird, bitches.
Whats the name of the judge who granted the AP tracking ect
It's a secret, and anyone who "leaks" this information will no doubt get the next warrant by the same judge. Funny how that works.
Hold that thought a second, there's a knock at my door.
"As we traveled the public hallways of the building – watched over by security cameras – an armed uniformed police officer with the Federal Protective Service followed us. We were looking for a particular office—of someone who would not want to be seen talking to reporters--but chose to bypass it because of our official babysitter.
Asked why we were being escorted in a public building, the officer identified himself as Insp. Mike Finkelstein and said he was only trying to make sure that the newsmen were not a "nuisance." He brushed aside further questions. The cop said a supervisor would call to explain.
One of the reporters wanted to know if the act of following the journalists was an effort intended to scare off any federal employee who might have considered speaking to the press. That's sure what it looked like; and, even if that wasn't the goal, it was the effect. As of Friday night, no supervisor had called back.After ABC News phoned and e-mailed the spokespeople in Washington repeatedly for more than 24 hours, a low-level staffer with Homeland Security finally responded. "After review by a supervisor, it was determined that the inspector acted according to proper security procedures and that no improper conduct occurred," the spokesman said.'
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-scandal-stonewalled-cincinnati/story?id=19206140&page=2
Nothing to see here, move along.
"We were looking for a particular office—of someone who would not want to be seen talking to reporters--but chose to bypass it because of our official babysitter."
What happened to park benches, smokey bars and underground garages? These guys had their budget cut or something?
"Insp. Mike Finkelstein." A commissar in the soviet mold set to watch over the lesser cattle working in the carrels of the federal bureaucracy making sure they don't speak to reporters, and selected as in the days of Lenin following 1918 from a group who will understand and enforce the real, unwritten agenda without having to be told what that agenda is. Tells you volumes about the seriousness of this mission of silencing the press. And yet you have to wonder how long the demographics of this group of less than 2% of the U.S. population with a completed birth rate of 1.3 per woman can sustain this role of policing all of the govenmental institutions of power.
The demographic clock is ticking.
Tic tock, tic tock.
Exactly! But it's against the new ZH policy to point things like that out in black and white.
re:
But yet in the halls of power and positions of influence across all fields of endeavor(but especially banking/finance) this group is well over represented in relation to their portion of the general population.
I blame a twisted (13th) tribal system of nepotism and patronage, not that they are smarter or more hard working than the rest of us...or that some mythical sky 'God' has chosen them above the rest of humanity.
There, I fucking well said it. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's book 200 Years Together can tell you more about the "Inspector Mike Finklesteins" of the world.
And a big FUCK YOU to the legal gnomes in Switzerland.
To you Jews who are just common folk(pawns like the rest of us) maybe it's time to rein in the more 'chosen ones' of your tribe instead of buying in to the myths, because guess which portion of your tribe will see the most shit rain down on their heads eventually. It will be the pawns, same as it ever was...
Thanks ... I'll add
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Don't see anything in there saying "except for leaks."
And as for religion, it does not say "only 501(c) certified and approved religions."
See, more proof that the government criminals don't care to read and the sheeple won't.
hujel
Employees of the MSM need to wake up and realize they are aiding and abetting tyranny.
"...aiding and abetting tyranny."
It pays well and always has.
unfortunately these employees salaries are subsidised by that said tyranny!
They won't care about "tyrrany" until their necks are in the noose. And that will be sooner than they think.
In the USSR they were called useful idiots
Useful journalists, same difference.
Nice to know they are reading this as I type, ask me if I give a shit
It is...liberating...isn't it? ;-)