Propaganda en deceptie in de massamedia #3

Hier weer verder. Deeltje 2: BNW / Propaganda en deceptie in de massamedia #2

De laatste tijd wordt het mij steeds duidelijker dat de massamedia een zeer grote rol spelen in bepaalde (politieke) zaken die wereldwijd plaatsvinden, dus ik dacht... laat ik hier eens een apart topic aan wijden. Misschien dat dit wel een interessante discussie op kan gaan leveren.

Het is een feit dat de media zich in veel gevallen schuldig maakt aan valse berichtgeving rondom zaken die actueel zijn. Dit is niet nieuw ofzo. Zo ben ik er van overtuigd dat de media regelmatig meewerken aan "psychological operations" (PSYOP) om een bepaald publiek in binnen en/of buitenland (overheden, organisaties, bevolking, groeperingen, idividuen etc.) te voorzien van selectieve informatie om zodoende hun emoties, motieven en objectief redeneren ten gunste van hun eigen doelen te beïnvloeden.

Het kan hierbij gaan om relatief kleine gevallen van valse berichtgeving omtrent bepaalde gebeurtenissen, maar het kan ook goed gaan om grootschalig en veelvuldige valse berichtgeving om bijvoorbeeld goodwill voor bepaalde oorlogen bij het publiek te kweken. Hierbij kan men simpelweg gebruik maken van alle middelen die men ter beschikking heeft, zoals bijvoorbeel het toepassen van Photoshop op foto's, het manipuleren van televisiebeelden, verslag doen van valse gebeurtenissen etc.

Voornamelijk de Amerikaanse media maken zich duidelijk regelmatig schuldig aan dergelijke propaganda. Opzich niet gek als je weet welke 6 grote bedrijven de touwtjes van de massa media grotendeels in handen hebben. Uiteraard is het niet tot de Amerikaanse media beperkt.

Wie hebben in de V.S. de media in handen:


2009 revenues: $157 billion
General Electric media-related holdings include television networks NBC and Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Focus Features, 26 television stations in the United States and cable networks MSNBC, Bravo and the Sci Fi Channel. GE also owns 80 percent of NBC Universal.


2009 revenues: $36.1 billion
The Walt Disney Company owns the ABC Television Network, cable networks including ESPN, the Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime, 277 radio stations, music and book publishing companies, production companies Touchstone, Miramax and Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, the cellular service Disney Mobile, and theme parks around the world.


2009 revenues: $30.4 billion
News Corporation’s media holdings include: the Fox Broadcasting Company; television and cable networks such as Fox, Fox Business Channel, National Geographic and FX; print publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and TVGuide; the magazines Barron’s and SmartMoney; book publisher HarperCollins; film production companies 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Blue Sky Studios; numerous websites including MarketWatch.com; and non-media holdings including the National Rugby League.


2009 revenues: $25.8 billion
Time Warner is the largest media conglomerate in the world, with holdings including: CNN, the CW (a joint venture with CBS), HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, America Online, MapQuest, Moviefone, Warner Bros. Pictures, Castle Rock and New Line Cinema, and more than 150 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Marie Claire and People.


2009 revenues: $13.6 billion
Viacom holdings include: MTV, Nickelodeon/Nick-at-Nite, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, Atom Entertainment, and music game developer Harmonix. Viacom 18 is a joint venture with the Indian media company Global Broadcast news.


2009 revenues: $13 billion
CBS Corporation owns the CBS Television Network, CBS Television Distribution Group, the CW (a joint venture with Time Warner), Showtime, book publisher Simon & Schuster, 30 television stations, and CBS Radio, Inc, which has 130 stations. CBS is now the leading supplier of video to Google’s new Video Marketplace.

Bron: http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main

Hieronder een uitgelekte video die al een tijdje op het internet rond circuleert. Hierin is goed te zien hoe de CNN reporter Charles Jaco in 1991!!! verslag doet van de golfoorlog waarbij CNN je wil doen geloven dat hij er LIVE bij is, maar hij staat in werkelijkheid in een studio een belachelijk toneelstukje op te voeren:


De film WAG THE DOG (1997) kan ook nogal een eyeopener zijn.

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"54-40 or fight. What does that mean?...Remember the Maine...Tippecanoe and Tyler, too...They're war slogans, Mr. Motss. We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars. Y'know why? Cause it's show business. That's why I'm here. Naked girl, covered in Napalm. Five marines raising the flag, Mount Suribachi. V for Victory, Y'remember the picture, fifty years from now, they'll have forgotten the war. Gulf War? Smart bomb, falling down a chimney. Twenty-five-hundred missions a day, 100 days, one video of one bomb, Mr. Motss. The American people bought that war."

-Conrad 'Connie' Brean (played by Robert De Niro) from the movie Wag the Dog

Nog een voorbeeld van manipulatie wat recentelijk in het nieuws is geweest:





Zoals je ziet is Mubarak netjes geknipt en op de voorgrond geplakt.

In 2006 is aan het licht gekomen dat Reuters zich ook op grote schaal schuldig heeft gemaakt aan beeldmanipulatie:

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The recent discovery that the Reuters news agency released a digitally manipulated photograph as an authentic image of the bombing in Beirut has drawn attention to the important topic of bias in the media. But lost in the frenzy over one particular image is an even more devastating fact: that over the last week Reuters has been caught red-handed in an astonishing variety of journalistic frauds in the photo coverage of the war in Lebanon.

It's important to understand that there is not just a single fraudulent Reuters photograph, nor even only one kind of fraudulent photograph. There are in fact dozens of photographs whose authenticity has been questioned, and they fall into four distinct categories.

The four types of photographic fraud perpetrated by Reuters photographers and editors are:

1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.

2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.

3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.

4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.

Voor meer info over de Reuters foto fraud: http://zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

De technische ontwikkelingen bieden tegenwoordig oneindige mogelijkheden om "Information warfare" op strategische basis toe toe te passen. Het is alleen niet de vraag of dit gebeurt, maar eerder de vraag op welke schaal.

Stukje tekst uit "Information warfare" van professor George J. Stein:

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Let us take just one example of how current technologies could be used for strategic-level information warfare. If, say, the capabilities of already well-known Hollywood technologies to simulate reality were added to our arsenal, a genuinely revolutionary new form of warfare would become possible. Today, the techniques of combining live actors with computer-generated video graphics can easily create a "virtual" news conference, summit meeting, or perhaps even a battle that would exist in "effect" though not in physical fact. Stored video images can be recombined or "morphed" endlessly to produce any effect chosen. This moves well beyond traditional military deception, and now, perhaps, "pictures" will be worth a thousand tanks. Imagine the effect of a nationwide broadcast in banditland of the meeting between the "digitized" maximum leader and a "digitized" Jimmy Carter in which all loyal soldiers are told to cease fighting and return to their homes. The targets of information warfare, remember, are the decisions in the opponent's mind, and the battlespace of the human mind is also the zone of illusion.

Bron: http://www.iwar.org.uk/iwar/resources/airchronicles/stein.htm

Nog een leuke:

1990: Irakese soldaten zouden baby's uit Koeweitse couveuses gehaald hebben om de couveuses als oorlogsbuit naar Irak te sturen. Gestoffeerd met getuigenissen en een officieuze ?hearing? in het Huis van Afvaardiging werd het verhaal door velen - zelfs door Amnesty International - voor waar gehouden en bleek het voor Amerikaanse afgevaardigden en senatoren zelfs een doorslaggevende factor voor hun fiat om een oorlog tegen Irak te beginnen. Uiteindelijk bleek het verhaal een slag in de propagandaoorlog waarbij een aantal Koeweitse hoge functionarissen een groot public relations bureau had ingehuurd om de Amerikaanse publieke opinie naar hun kant te laten overhellen


Kortom: Wat nou babymoorden?

Goed, ik heb nu niet heel veel tijd om er echt een uitgebreide en goede startpost van te maken, maar ik hoop dat duidelijk is waar ik heen wil. Het is wat mij betreft een zeer gevaarlijke ontwikkeling. De tijd dat het verschil tussen realiteit en fictie duidelijk zichtbaar is, is wat dat betreft gewoon voorbij. Ik zou het dan ook leuk vinden als hier een levendige discussie ontstaat.



[ Bericht 99% gewijzigd door Gray op 05-01-2013 17:03:56 ]

Onze Latijns-Amerikaanse ster-correspondent mag niet meer meedoen van de NOS:

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Marjon van Royen: 'Het is een naar gevoel om niet meer gewild te zijn'

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En dus wilde ook het Nederlandse nieuws aandacht besteden aan deze omwenteling. Kun je niet een Nederlandse ondernemer interviewen die nu investeert in Brazilië, luidde het verzoek meestal vanuit Hilversum. Van Royen: 'Dat kan ik wel, maar dat is een verhaal met een beperkte blik: wat betekent dit voor Nederland? Terwijl er zo veel mooie reportages over de economische vooruitgang te maken zijn. Ik maakte een verhaal over nagellak om te laten zien dat het zo goed gaat met Brazilië. Dit land heeft een nagellakfetisj, maar alleen rijke dames konden zich nagellak veroorloven. Nu hebben de meisjes in de sloppenwijken twintig flesjes op hun make-uptafel staan.'

Toen president Lula werd herkozen, verhaalde ze over een vriendin die haar handen altijd openhaalde bij het wassen van kleding. Eindelijk kon die haar grote droom, een wasmachine, verwezenlijken. 'Zo wil ik het vertellen', zegt Van Royen. 'Dat zegt toch veel meer dan een verhaal over de economie? Ik zoek het kleiner en emotioneler, zoals de meeste vrouwelijke correspondenten. De NOS wil steeds meer puur economische reportages, er heerst daar een mannencultuur.'

Haar contract met de NOS eindigde niet vanwege het meningsverschil over de gedroomde invalshoek. Ze moest weg vanwege het roulatiesysteem dat Hans Laroes, de voormalige hoofdredacteur van NOS Nieuws, voor zijn vertrek invoerde. Voor-taan mogen correspondenten nog maar drie of vijf jaar op een plek zitten, met een mogelijke verlenging van drie tot vijf jaar. Daarna moeten de correspondenten naar een andere standplaats of terug naar Hilversum. 'Zo houden ze de afstand van een buitenstaander en behouden ze een frisse blik', zei Laroes in maart 2010.

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CNN 2.0: 'Minder oorlog en politiek, meer sport en entertainment'

CNN moet minder politiek en nieuws gaan uitzenden, en meer sport, entertainment en persoonlijke verhalen, als het aan de nieuwe baas van de nieuwzender Jeff Zucker ligt.

De Amerikaanse site Politico schrijft dat Zucker af wil van de definitie van de zender als brenger van 'oorlog, honger, ziekteplagen en politiek', zoals CNN-boegbeeld Piers Morgan het onlangs omschreef. Zucker, die in november vorig jaar aantrad, vertelde medewerkers van CNN dat hij de 'definitie van wat nieuws is wil verbreden', waarin sport, entertainment en persoonlijke verhalen belangrijker worden, en politiek juist minder.

Ook moet CNN een nieuw ochtendprogramma krijgen, dat volgens bronnen 'zijn invloed' zal hebben op de primetime-programmering van de zender. Het lukte Zucker al om Chris Cuomo aan zijn zender te binden, medepresentator van het journalistieke magazine 20/20 van ABC. Hij gaat de nieuwe show presenteren.

James Carville en Mary Matalin, die beiden al sinds eind jaren '90 voor CNN werken, verlaten de zender juist. Carville is een bekend politiek commentator, Matalin (zijn vrouw) een van de technisch directeuren van de zender. Erick Erickson, die als conservatief commentator geldt, vertrekt ook, en zou gaan werken voor Fox News. Bovendien stapt Mark Whitaker - een van de hoogste directeuren van CNN Worldwide - ook op, om Zucker 'zijn eigen team en managementstructuur te gunnen en de vrijheid om één duidelijke visie aan de medewerkers te communiceren'.

Zucker zei tijdens personeelsbijeenkomsten dat CNN meer moet gaan doen met 'de presentator als persoonlijkheid', de presentator als dragende kracht van een programma, zoals bijvoorbeeld Fox News en MSNBC met veel succes doen. Beide concurrenten, die gelden als respectievelijk links en rechts, hebben CNN wat kijkcijfers betreft ook allang ingehaald.

CNN zendt nu, vooral overdag, een tamelijk eindeloze reeks van nieuws uit, de programma's zijn daaromheen bedacht. Programma's moeten wat Zucker betreft veel minder op elkaar gaan lijken. Onder Whitaker was het beleid juist dat CNN zich zou moeten onderscheiden door zich te richten op het enige dat haar concurrenten niet kunnen: hard nieuws brengen, direct en vanuit de hele wereld, schrijft The Wall Street Journal. Die krant schrijft ook te verwachten dat CNN zich meer op de Verenigde Staten zal gaan richten, en minder op het buitenland.

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Zero Dark Thirty detractors condemned by 9/11 families

Group representing victims of 2001 attacks says criticism of torture scenes by media and politicians is 'deeply disturbing'

An organisation that represents friends and relatives of those who died or were caught up in the World Trade Centre has come to the defence of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the makers of Zero Dark Thirty, whose film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden has, they feel, been "badmouthed" by politicians and the press.

The group, 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims, issued a statement condemning those who suggest the drama justifies the use of torture in the hunt for terrorists.

Those singled out for especial shame include senators leading the investigation into whether the film-makers were given access to leaked CIA documents, a handful of film critics, and some actors who have spoken out about the film's use of torture.

Their statement in full:

As a group of 9/11 families sharing a rare moment of justice and elation in the viewing of a film chronicling the search for and ultimate death of Osama Bin Laden, we find it deeply disturbing that some of our elected officials want to discourage other 9/11 families and the public from seeing this outstanding film. Politicians who have criticised the movie and made misleading claims about it stand in the way of engaging a public dialogue for a stirring film which invokes feelings of patriotism and perseverance and honours our military, our country, and the victims of 9/11.

We are greatly concerned that a few pundits, "film critics" and elected officials are badmouthing this movie because of the water boarding scenes and because this film directly confronts the enduring terrorist threat.

We feel this is history – like it or not – and no effort should be made to rewrite or censor it for political correctness. Certainly there should be no organised boycott or suppression of films based on political differences. The word for that is "censorship". How bizarre that members of an industry that suffered so much during the McCarthy era would even consider doing this to their own members!

The use of the term "torture" by elected officials in hopes of dissuading people to endorse or view this film is antithetical to what our government should be all about.

As 9/11 family members whose loved ones were massacred at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, we applaud Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow for presenting a film that honours history, our military, our country, and the victims of 9/11 – through the excellent portrayal of how the US government and Navy Seals worked to apprehend Bin Laden. There is still a constitutional right to freedom of speech in our country, and censoring a film is totally unAmerican and against the tenets of our founding fathers. This film inspires dialogue and no elected official can censor any film. We do not want to allow Senators Feinstein, Levin, and McCain or actors David Clennon and 9/11 Truthers Ed Asner and Martin Sheen to inhibit our fellow Americans from seeing Zero Dark Thirty. Our loved ones died for these freedoms on 9/11 – and no one should ever try to abridge them. All citizens should see this film and make their own decisions about its value. This is what democracy is about.

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Newspapers accused of ‘shameful’ complicity for hiding existence of secret U.S. drone base

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US news organisations are facing accusations of complicity after it emerged that they bowed to pressure from the Obama administration not to disclose the existence on a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia despite knowing about it for a year.

Amid renewed scrutiny over the Obama administration’s secrecy over its targeted killing programme, media analysts and national security experts said the revelation that some newspapers had co-operated over the drone base had reopened the debate over the balance between freedom of information and national security.

On Tuesday, following Monday’s disclosure by NBC of a leaked Justice Department white paper on the case for its controversial targeted killing programme, the Washington Post revealed it had previously refrained from publishing the base’s location at the behest of the Obama administration over national security concerns.

The New York Times followed with its own story on the drone programme on Wednesday, and an op-ed explaining why it felt the time to publish was now.

Het artikel gaat verder.

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Fox News: 'In Duitsland schijnt de zon altijd'

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Op het einde van het gesprek krijgen we daar dan eindelijk ook een verklaring voor van Shibani Joshi, economisch expert bij Fox News. 'Duitsland is een kleiner land en ze hebben veel zon. Juist? Ze hebben veel meer zon dan wij.' Natuurlijk zal het wel werken in Californië, aldus de reporter, maar aan de oostkust zal zonne-energie niet slagen.

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Tesla electric car row goes up a gear as New York Times journalist hits back

John M Broder has responded to claims he deliberately let the electric car run out of power before testdriving the vehicle

The New York Times journalist involved in a war of words with US electric car company Tesla Motors over how far its new $101,000 luxury car can go between charges range has hit back over claims he deliberately let the car run out of power.

The journalist John M Broder drove the Model S car from Washington DC New England for a review published last week, in which he recounted having to have the car taken away on a flatbed truck because the car's battery had run flat, despite a network of fast-charging points designed to make the trip viable. The review sparked a furious response from Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, who subsequently published data logs from the car which he said showed the car "never had a chance with John Broder".

But in a blogpost late on Thursday, Broder launched a defence of his review, in which he said he had not set out to "sabotage" it. He denied having deliberately run the battery down by driving "in circles for over half a mile in a tiny, 100-space parking lot" as Musk had claimed, but said he was driving around in the dark looking for a Tesla charging point which was "not prominently marked".

However, Broder was unable to explain why he had claimed to have set the car's cruise control at 54mph when Tesla's data logs showed he went "65mph to 81mph for a majority of the trip."

"I do recall setting the cruise control to about 54mph," Broder wrote in his post, "[but] I cannot account for the discrepancy."

The story also took on a new twist on Thursday as journalists from CNN retraced Broder's route successfully, saying they had 96 miles of range left on the car's battery at the end. The car is rated as having a 265 mile range between charges, and the Tesla network of fast-charging points are spaced every 200 miles.

Tesla and the NYT's row has echoes of a BBC Top Gear episode where Jeremy Clarkson drove another Tesla electric car, the Roadster, and showed it running out of power in a race. It led to the company sueing the BBC over the "faked" episode.

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Media campaign against windfarms funded by anonymous conservatives

Secretive funding network channelled millions to stop state governments moving towards renewable energy

Conservatives used a pair of secretive trusts to fund a media campaign against windfarms and solar projects, and to block state agencies from planning for future sea-level rise, the Guardian has learned.

The trusts, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, served as the bankers of the conservative movement over the past decade. Promising anonymity to their conservative billionaire patrons, the trusts between them channelled nearly $120m to contrarian thinktanks and activists, wrecking the chances of getting Congress to act on climate change.

Now the Guardian can reveal the latest project of the secretive funding network: a campaign to stop state governments moving towards renewable energy.

The campaign against wind and solar power was led by a relatively new entity, the Franklin Centre for Government and Public Integrity. The Franklin Centre did not exist before 2009, but it has quickly become a protege of Donors Trust.

The Franklin Centre, headquarters barely 1/10th of a mile away from the nondescript Alexandria, Virginia town home of its funders, received $6.3m from the two funds in 2011. It was the second largest disbursement to any entity by the Donors that year, according to tax records.

The largesse to the Franklin Centre signals a shift in priorities for the conservative billionaires who are funding the anti-climate cause towards local and state-level organising.

The backers of the anti-climate cause have eased off in their support of DC-centric thinktanks, said Whitney Ball, the chief executive and president of Donors Trust. "They are not as prominent any more."

Instead, it appears the donors are banking on an aggressive anti-climate media strategy, led by the Franklin Centre, to push back against climate action.

In 2011, Donors Trust helped the Franklin Centre expand its media operations to Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, the Centre for Public Integrity reported in an investigation on conservative funding networks.

The Franklin Centre purports to be a hub for a network of "citizen journalists" and "watchdog" groups reporting from state capitals. It claims on its website to provide 10% of all daily reporting from state capitals across the country. It says it is on a mission to uphold a media culture of "transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility at the grassroots level".

But the Pew Research Centre's Project for Excellence in Journalism has ranked Franklin's watchdog.org affiliates as "highly ideological". Many of the media organisations listed on Franklin's website as affiliates are ultra-conservative groups.

Among them are several that have been active in the past year or two to stop the expansion of solar power and wind farms.

In North Carolina, the two Franklin affiliates, the John Locke Foundation and the John W Pope Civitas Institute, also led effort for a ban on the term "sea-level rise". The state legislature eventually voted in June last year to bar state agencies from taking into account future sea-level rise in development planning.

The groups have also led opposition to offshore wind development in North Carolina, organising workshops against windfarms.

Another Franklin affiliate, the New Jersey Watchdog, pushed for the state to drop out of a regional emissions cutting programme.

Other Watchdog affiliates have cast doubt on the link between extreme weather and climate change.

CPI found multiple ties between the Franklin Centre and groups such as Americans for Prosperity, which has been funded by Donors Trust as well as the conservative oil billionaire Koch brothers. Some of the Franklin Centre's blogs have received funds from AFP. There was also cross-over of board members in the two groups.

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'Als er één beroepsgroep is die niet moedig is, dan is het wel het Nederlandse journaille'

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Indrukwekkende column van Max Pam vandaag in de Volkskrant. Pam verhaalt over zijn vader die in de oorlog werkloos journalist werd omdat hij als jood werd kaltgestellt door de Kulturkammer. Van de 2500 journalisten vonden 1500 het geen enkel bezwaar om zich te laten muilkorven en op commando te likken en schikken voor de bezetter. In een merkwaardige laatste alinea verwijst Pam naar het Bevrijdingsdagconcert op de Amstel van afgelopen 5 mei en het 'blasfemische' lied dat Nick & Simon voor de nieuwe koning ten gehore brachten, met daarbij de vraag: 'Of het gros van de journalisten moediger is dan toen, daarvoor durf ik mijn hand niet in het vuur te steken'.

Ik kan Max Pam beslist aanraden zijn hand hiervoor niet in het vuur te steken want als er één beroepsgroep is die niet moedig is, dan is het wel het Nederlandse journaille. Ik zou haast zeggen dat sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog journalisten in Nederland vooral naïever, dwazer, banger en laffer zijn geworden en meer dan ooit bereid zijn te schikken, likken, knipmessen en buigen voor iedereen die misschien wel een bedreiging vormt voor hun salaris en voor iedereen die de juiste hoeveelheid status en macht voor de journalist in het vooruitzicht kan stellen.

Het artikel gaat verder.

Dachten we dat het voldoende was om de media te kopen? Think again:

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AP boss condemns US government for 'unconstitutional' phone seizures | World news | guardian.co.uk

Gary Pruitt tells CBS Justice Department grab sends message that 'if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you'


The Obama administration's decision to seize phone records from the Associated Press was "unconstitutional" and sends a message that "if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you", the news agency's boss Gary Pruitt said Sunday.

AP revealed last week that the Justice Department had obtained two months' worth of phone records of calls made by reporters and editors without informing the organisation in advance. The move was an apparent effort by US officials to identify the source of a story about the CIA foiling an alleged terrorist plot by an al Qaida terrorist affiliate in Yemen.

News of the seizure has caused a political firestorm and comes amid a widening scandal into the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party groups over their tax exemptions and the White House's handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack last year.

Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Pruitt, AP's president and chief executive officer, said the government's seizure of the phone records was "unconstitutional" and was already clearly harming the press's ability to do its job.

"We don't question their right to conduct these sort of investigations. We just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretly, so abusively and harassingly and over-broad that it constitutes, that it is, an unconstitutional act," he said.

"We are already seeing some impact. Already officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they are a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government. We are already seeing that. It's not hypothetical," said Pruitt.

The government investigation was seemingly triggered by an AP exclusive about a joint US-Saudi spy operation that had foiled a plot involving an improved version of the "underwear" bomb that failed to detonate properly on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009. AP agreed to delay publication after officials cited national security concerns.

Pruitt said he would normally expect dialogue with government officials ahead of any decision to ask for or demand records relating to the news organisation's activities. Those requests would usually be subject to negotiation and if an agreement could not be reached, they would be put before a judge, he said.

In this case, the Justice Department has claimed it made every reasonable effort to obtain the information through alternative means, as is required by law. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws," it said in a statement.

Pruitt said he had not received any explanation as to why AP had not been consulted ahead of the seizure. "I really do not know what their motive is. I know what the message being sent is, it's that if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you," he said.

Pruitt said the Justice Department had acted "as judge jury and executioner, in secret".

If the government restricts the "news gathering apparatus" then "the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know. And that's not what the framers of constitution had in mind when they wrote the first amendment," Pruitt said.

The White House has denied knowledge of the Justice Department's move. It comes as officials face mounting criticism over an IRS investigation into Tea Party groups. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the IRS controversy demonstrated a "culture of intimidation" by the administration.

Bron: www.guardian.co.uk

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US government targeted Fox News reporter as 'co-conspirator' in spying case | World news | guardian.co.uk

Washington Post reports FBI sought phone records and emails of James Rosen as part of spying case against goverment official

The Obama administration has investigated a reporter with Fox News as a probable "co-conspirator" in a criminal spying case after a report based on a State Department leak.

The Justice Department named Fox News's chief Washington correspondent James Rosen "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" in a 2010 espionage case against State Department security adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. The accusation appears in a court affidavit first reported by the Washington Post.

Kim is charged with handing over a classified government report in June 2009 that said North Korea would probably test a nuclear weapon in response to a UN resolution condemning previous tests. Rosen reported the analysis on 11 June under the headline 'North Korea Intends to Match UN Resolution With New Nuclear Test'.

The FBI sought and obtained a warrant to seize all of Rosen's correspondence with Kim, and an additional two days' worth of Rosen's personal email, the Post reported. The bureau also obtained Rosen's phone records and used security badge records to track his movements to and from the State Department.

Rosen has not been charged with a crime in the case. Kim was indicted in August 2010 on charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, one of a batch of six cases in which the Obama administration began to use the first world war-era spying law to prosecute suspected government whistleblowers.

Even in cases of historic import in which the Espionage Act was used to prosecute whistleblowers, notably the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, the government did not, in spite of strenuous efforts, find grounds to prosecute the media for publishing the results of a leak. The government has not charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for the publication online of an unprecedented amount of classified material. However, Assange, who has taken refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, has said he expects to be charged.

The government has prosecuted and even imprisoned journalists in leak cases in the past for the journalists' refusal to disclose a confidential source. In such cases, notably the 2005 Judith Miller case, journalists have been charged with contempt of court.

Instead of relying on the threat of a contempt charge to get journalists to divulge their sources, the Obama administration has used warrantless wiretapping and dragnet records seizures to identify who is talking to whom.

Last week it emerged that the Department of Justice had seized phone records for more than 20 lines used by the Associated Press, in possible violation of regulations governing such seizures. There have been no reports of the government accusing journalists of criminal activity in that case.


Bron: www.guardian.co.uk

Film over de gebroeders Koch gecensureerd:

quote:

Jane Mayer: How Far Did PBS Go to Avoid Offending a Sponsor? : The New Yorker

A television producer knowledgeable about ITVS said that “there had been no concern” until the Gibney documentary aired, and that few executives there had watched the rough cut. Suddenly, many ITVS officials seemed desperate to see it. Lessin and Deal were told to send a password-protected video link of the unfinished film to ITVS. Within days, the video had been played almost thirty times. “It was a real problem, because of ‘Park Avenue,’ ” a public-television official aware of the situation said. “Because of the whole thing with the Koch brothers, ITVS knew WNET would never air it. Never.”

According to the television producer, it seemed like ITVS executives “didn’t want it to get to higher levels at PBS” that another Koch film was in the pipeline: “They were trying to hide things. They didn’t want ITVS’s name connected to it at Sundance. They were afraid of two things—that PBS would catch wind of it, and that Lessin and Deal would go to the press and say that PBS didn’t want them talking about David Koch.”

Lessin and Deal took notes on their phone conversations with ITVS officials, which show that they were pushed to drop the Koch name from the title and to place less emphasis on the brothers’ political influence. On December 7th, the filmmakers’ notes indicate, Lois Vossen, the vice-president and senior series producer at ITVS, warned Lessin and Deal that the title “Citizen Koch” was “extraordinarily problematic.” Vossen’s job is to select films for “Independent Lens” and then pitch the programs to PBS. She told Lessin and Deal that the new title would make it exceedingly hard for her to champion the film at PBS, saying, “I would say I feel as though I would have both hands tied behind my back, and probably duct tape over my mouth.” (Vossen, reached for comment, said that she was just getting off a plane and would try to call back. She never did.)

The messages from ITVS officials grew confusing. Aguilar again praised the film as “great,” and said, “I think you’ve preserved the anger of the film, which I love.” Other officials, though, kept urging the filmmakers to change the title, add negative material about Democrats, and delete an opening sequence that showed Sarah Palin speaking at a rally sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs’ main advocacy group. Several times, Lessin and Deal asked ITVS officials if Koch’s trusteeship at WNET was a factor. During the phone meeting on December 7th, Vossen said, “I can absolutely assure you that ITVS does not want your film to be buried.” She said of the title, “I think you understand why it’s problematic. . . . We live in a world where we have to be aware that people with power have power.”

During a conference call on January 14th, Jim Sommers, the senior vice-president of content for ITVS, acknowledged to Lessin and Deal that, after Gibney’s film aired, there was “one station that gave us a lot of push-back about it.” Was the station in New York? He said, “Ha, ha, ha, that might be it.” According to the television producer, “They kept using words like ‘balance,’ but what they really meant was ‘Get rid of the Koch story line.’ ”

Lessin said of ITVS staffers, “These are good people. Our sense was that there was something bigger than them going on. They weren’t being straight with us.” Deal said, “They’re not supposed to be spineless bureaucrats. ITVS was set up by filmmakers to have a voice in the public-broadcasting universe. Their mission statement basically says, ‘Be brave, be independent.’ We never thought they’d back down.”

Michael Moore remembers Lessin and Deal fondly: Lessin got arrested while working with him on a documentary about labor issues at Disney World, and Deal found file footage of Paul Wolfowitz getting his hair slicked down by an aide, after Wolfowitz helpfully spat on his own comb. (The bit appeared in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”) Moore said that he’s not surprised that the two ran into obstacles in public television, given Koch’s trustee role, adding, “The words ‘chilling effect’ came immediately to mind.”

In January, the film débuted at Sundance, where it was respectfully reviewed. A critic at Variety argued that “Citizen Koch,” still in unfinished form, had too many plot strands, but concluded that it “vividly displayed” the “warping effect” of the Citizens United decision.

Lessin and Deal began to suspect that ITVS was dragging out negotiations. But they kept editing the film, following notes that ITVS had given them. Deal said, “Although we made many changes, they never looked at the new cut. They just kind of stopped.” On April 15th, ITVS notified Lessin and Deal that it had “decided not to move forward with the project.” Lessin said, “We were in shock. We had a deal.”

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Bron: www.newyorker.com