Leaks that embarass the U.S. vs. leaks that make the U.S. look good.

Is the Obama Administration uniformly clamping down on leaks? Not at all, says Glenn Greenwald.

But the worst part of this whistleblower war, beyond the obvious threats it poses to transparency and a free press, is how purely selective it is. Just as Lynndie England went to prison for her detainee abuse while Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and John Yoo went on lucrative book tours for theirs, it is only low- to mid-level leakers who are punished by the Obama DOJ, and then only for the crime of embarrassing the U.S. Government rather than glorifying it. High-level Obama administration leakers disclose classified information at will, without the slightest fear of punishment. One can pick up a newspaper or listen to a television news broadcast almost every day and find examples of leaks from Obama’s high-level officials far more serious than those allegedly committed by the Bradley Mannings and Thomas Drakes of the world. From today’s New York Times article on Syria:
In Washington, a senior American official who is tracking Syria closely said Thursday that American intelligence reports had concluded that Syrian forces were moving some parts of their chemical weapons arsenal to safeguard it from falling into rebel hands, not to use it. “They’re moving it to defend it in some of the most contested areas,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified intelligence reports.

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Why is Jerry Sandusky News?

I was sitting in the barber chair this morning, where they had on some national news show that spent the entire time I was there discussing the ongoing trial of (alleged) pedophile Jerry Sandusky. I've been hearing about this on news stations for months. They are spending as long on the nightly news discussing this trial as they do on the collapse of the European economies or the coups in various major oil-producing nations. I am truly puzzled about the coverage. There are likely several pedophiles on trial any given day. Why are they not newsworthy? Is it because he is a coach? Many of them are. Was it because he was a winning coach? I just don't understand why this one (alleged) pedophile is as newsworthy as wars deposing dictators to replace them with democratically elected Islamist regimes. Are both events shaping the course of civilization?

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Glenn Greenwald: The presence of military leaders makes journalists stupid

You'll need to look long and hard to find a journalist who, while interviewing a U.S. military leader, takes that leader to task. Glenn Greenwald offers a recent example of a journalist hero-worshiping a military leader instead of practicing real journalism: This incident involves Scott Pelley (of Sixty Minutes) pretending to interview Leon Panetta. Unfortunately, this phenomenon of pretend-journalism is not unusual:

There’s no effort even to pretend they’re doing journalism. They just proudly put it right out there: we’re going to spend the next 15 minutes paying homage to your government leaders and their war-fighting machine.

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Democracy is attacked when the federal government prosecutes Wikileaks.

As Glenn Greenwald explains, an attack on Wikileaks is an attack on traditional investigative journalism.

A coalition of leading journalists and media outlets in Australia have explained: WikiLeaks “is doing what the media have always done: bringing to light material that governments would prefer to keep secret” and prosecuting them “would be unprecedented in the US, breaching the First Amendment protecting a free press“; they added: “To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks . . . is a serious threat to democracy.” The Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter to Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder expressing “deep concern” over “reports about a potential WikiLeaks prosecution,” which “would threaten grave damage to the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and the press.” Although American journalists were reluctant at first to speak out, even they have come around to recognizing what a profound threat an Assange indictment would be to press freedoms, with The Washington Post Editorial Page denouncing any indictment on the ground that it “would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk responsible media organizations,” and even editors of the Guardian and Keller himself — with whom Assange has feuded — are now vowing to defend Assange if he were to be prosecuted.
To take it a step further, an attack on investigative journalism is an invitation for the government to act unaccountably, in secret, which is absolutely in conflict with the notion that the U.S. government is being run by the citizens. To connect the dots, a federal criminal prosecution of Wikileaks is an attack on democracy. For more see this post, and see this article demonstrating that Wikileaks is doing nothing different than the New York Times when the Times is doing its job well.

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Wacky Conspiracy

Sure, the Birthers and Truthers are ramping up their positions this election year. But how about this? Step one: Note an uptick in gun violence as the weather warms up (as recently has been reported in places like Seattle). Step Two: Encourage the "Liberal Media" like Fox News and CNN to run with the statistical spike, rolling out regular stories about gun violence. Step Three: Sit back as the predictable political posturing by liberal politicians results in writing moderate gun control legislation. Step Four: Respond in the early fall with a fervent campaign push saying, "See? We Told you Obama is after your guns!" Result: Getting out the conservative voters who otherwise wouldn't bother voting for that Mormon not-conservative-enough Romney.

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