Barack Obama: the secrecy president

At Democracy Now, Amy Goodman converses with Daniel Elsberg about the Obama Administration's crackdown on those who seek to distribute information (accurately) putting the military action in Afghanistan in a bad light.

Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning’s arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration’s campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information.

Manning has made his motives clear. Sunshine is the best disinfectant:
Manning has claimed he sent Wikileaks the video along with 260,000 classified US government records. Manning, who was based in Iraq, reportedly had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East. During an internet conversation prior to his arrest, Manning explained his actions by writing, quote, "I want people to see the truth, regardless of who they are. Because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
It's too bad that Barack Obama, Oslo's "Peace President" doesn't listen to his own campaign speeches and act on them. In this same Democracy Now video, Daniel Elsberg calls the leakers "patriots," and I concur. Someone needs to stand up and stop the indiscriminate series of Afghanistan murders that officially go by the name of "war." By the way, if the U.S. military is doing so damned much good over in Afghanistan at a cost of several billion U.S. dollars per week, where are the photos of all of those good things? It is more clear than ever that the U.S. is knowingly doing despicable acts in our names in Afghanistan and working feverishly to keep them secret. What kind of danger are the leakers facing? Daniel Elsberg comments:
[Bradley Manning is] in danger of more than arrest. Arrest is probably the major thing, even though it’s not clear what he would be arrested on. But he—I have to say that as of now, under this president, he’s under danger of kidnapping, rendition, enhanced interrogation, even death. The fact is that this president is the first in our history, in any Western country that I know of, who has claimed the right to send military forces not just to apprehend, but to kill suspected, even American citizens. Bradley Manning is probably more safe now being in custody than he would have been if he himself were eluding arrest. Assange, I would say, is in some danger. And even if it’s very small, it should be zero. It’s outrageous and humiliating to me as an American citizen to have to acknowledge that someone like that is in danger from our own government right now . . .

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How to force access to public records through freedom of information acts

Given the journalistic collapse of much of the commercial media, and especially given the disturbing absence of investigative journalism, it is increasingly up to bloggers and other citizen journalists to expose the wrong-doing of public entities. But what can you do if government agencies won’t hand over their public records? You force them to hand them over by making use of the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or by making use of your state’s public records act. After all, the information possessed by government entities doesn’t belong to the government; it belongs to you and me. This principle that records should always be open and available to the public has been articulated by almost every prominent politician. Consider this quote:

Fundamental to our way of life is the belief that when information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and---eventually-incapable of determining their own destinies.

Who said this? Richard M. Nixon. How does one learn how to make use of the various public records acts? One could go to the kind of seminar I recently attended. David Cuillier gave such a talk in St. Louis. Cuillier is the Chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists. He provides ongoing news and tips about FOI here and here. During his talk Cuillier offered quite a few resources for those wanting to force the production of such records. Most of those resources are contained in a pamphlet, titled “Unlocking the Power of Public Records.” Cuillier specifically invited those attending to freely publish this immensely helpful resource on the Internet. Thus, I am making it available here. Cuillier indicated that ¾ of journalists are generally not doing the work to force the production of information that could be valuable to their stories. He offered a long list of important stories based on public records. For instance, the Seattle Times reported that in 2003, 159 coaches were reprimanded or fired for sexual misconduct in one state, yet 98 of them were rehired in comparable positions. He also mentioned an immensely important story regarding toxins in drinking water written by Charles Duhigg at the NYT. Consider this excerpt:

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.

None of this could have been done without extensive use of public records. I’ll mention a few of the most important resources discussed by Cuillier. The site of IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) offers “great information” that is searchable. It also offers “tip-sheets,” which are handouts from the IRE conferences (“these alone are worth the cost of membership in IRE”). He also recommends the SPJ website, which is loaded with resources. PIPL is a “private site offering valuable information assisting the investigation of people (Cuillier is correct—I PIPL’ed myself and it did offer quite a bit of information). An unusual site Cullier mentioned is Government Attic. Cuillier describes this as a site created by an “eccentric guy who puts lots of FOIA records online.” Yet another site getting accolades from Cuillier is “OGIS,” “a great federal agency that helps requesters.” Open Government Guide offers links to guide you through the open records laws of each of the states. This resource is extremely impressive. Those from Missouri (my state) might also want to consider the Missouri Municipal League, which offer guidelines to Missouri municipalities (but these can also be helpful to those seeking information from municipalities. Cuillier explained that getting police department records is much more difficult today than it was several decades ago. Several veteran reporters in the room concurred. Cuillier explained “This is dangerous—we need to take back government from the secret police departments that are growing.” For much more information, view the attached pamphlet and visit the many websites linked above. Beware that there are many hurdles erected by many government entities (e.g., exorbitant copy fees for the records), but there are also many strategies for overcoming these hurdles.

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How the Israelis control news reporting regarding the Gaza aid flotilla

The Israelis don't trust other people to describe what really happened. Therefore, they seized the evidence. Amy Goodman reports:

Who frames the narrative? After the Israeli military raided the Gaza aid flotilla and killed nine of the activists onboard, they detained almost everyone else—700 activists and journalists—hauled them to the Israeli port of Ashdod, and kept them largely out of communication with family, press and lawyers for days. The Israeli government confiscated every recording and communication device it could find, devices containing almost all the recorded evidence of the raid. The Israelis selected, edited, released footage they wanted the world to see.
Here's more, including discussion by Paul McGeough, chief correspondent, Sydney Morning Herald and Kate Geraghty, photographer with the Sydney Morning Herald:
KATE GERAGHTY: Yes. I was photographing, standing right next to Paul. And I was looking over the side of the boat, as the commando came—an Israeli commando came up towards us. So I was photographing and basically got hit on the arm just above my elbow, which knocked me about a meter, about a meter and a half. And then, I was immediately sick. And then the commando came toward me and— AMY GOODMAN: Sick, you mean—you mean you were throwing up? KATE GERAGHTY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then a commando wrestled my camera off me. And they had guns, so, you know, we just said basically, as Paul mentioned, that we’re Australian journalists, we’re with the Sydney Morning Herald. And that didn’t make any difference. [More . . . ]

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What’s In A Label?

Conservative. Liberal. We act as if we know what these labels mean. Conservatives are traditionalists, fiscally opposed to anything that smacks of gambling, private, often religious, and pedantic on what they consider “appropriate” in either government or personal conduct. Liberals, on the other hand, are often taken for progressive, willing to spend social capital to repair perceived problems, tolerant, agnostic if not atheist, and overly-concerned with a definition of justice that ought to be all-encompassing rather than what they perceive as sinecure for the privileged. Well. Over on Facebook I posted a brief quote (my own) to boil down the actual underlying distinctions. Conservatives are those who don’t like what other people are doing, Liberals are those who don’t like what other people are doing to other people. It was meant to be taken as humorous. But I’m not being entirely flip here. When you look at it, and try to define the common factor in much that passes for conservative posteuring—of any country, any background, anywhere—it always comes down to one group trying to stop another group from Doing Things We Don’t Approve. I heard a news report this morning (on NPR—I unabashedly don’t pay attention to any other news source, I find them all utterly biased) from Pakistan about the university scene there, and one bit caught my attention—at a campus in Punjabi, conservative students who find men and women sitting too close together interfere and move them apart. At a game of Truth or Dare, conservative students pulled participants out and beat them. How does this apply here? Well, here’s a clip from P.Z. Meyers’ Pharyngula to illustrate: Rising Sun School in Maryland has the standard default take-it-for-granted attitude that Christianity is just fine — there’s the usual well-funded and usually teacher-promoted evangelical groups, like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — and when one student tried to form a club for non-religious students…well, you can guess what happened.

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