Glenn Greenwald has been working around the clock to shed meaningful light on the media claims, many of them lies, regarding Wikileaks. Here's Greenwald's comment on the biggest and most common lie one hears these days:
Anyone listening to most media accounts would believe that WikiLeaks has indiscriminately published all 250,000 of the diplomatic cables it possesses, and Gitlin -- in the course of denouncing Julian Assange -- bolsters this falsehood: "Wikileaks’s huge data dump, including the names of agents and recent diplomatic cables, is indiscriminate" and Assange is "fighting for a world of total transparency." The reality is the exact opposite -- literally -- of what Gitlin told TNR readers. WikiLeaks has posted to its website only 960 of the 251,297 diplomatic cables it has. Almost every one of these cables was first published by one of its newspaper partners which are disclosing them
Greenwald also exposes a corrupt frame being pushed by the media - that Wikileaks is perpetrating a massive injustice. This has it upside-down, according to Greenwald:
To recap "Obama justice": if you create an illegal worldwide torture regime, illegally spy on Americans without warrants, abduct people with no legal authority, or invade and destroy another country based on false claims, then you are fully protected. But if you expose any of the evils secretly perpetrated as part of those lawless actions -- by publishing the truth about what was done -- then you are an Evil Criminal who deserves the harshest possible prosecution.
You'll find a hot list of media lies
exposed by Glenn Greenwald here. And you'll find much more at this same link. See also,
the video interview of Greenwald by Amy Goodman of
Democracy Now.
What are the government attacks on Wikileaks really about? Greenwald argues that these attacks on WikiLeaks constitute "a literal war over who controls the Internet and the purposes to which it can be used." Western governments have made it clear that citizens cannot freely band together to launch honest and blistering criticism against their government. Without even being accused of any crime, western governments, led by the United States,
have used extra-judicial means to take Wikipedia off the Internet. And see here. You can sense the government end game in your bones: The Internet will be for sports and entertainment, not for free-wheeling citizen journalism. In short, the U.S. government will use its massive power to make sure that the Internet becomes just like most newspapers and radio and television stations. Don't you dare tell citizens that we are pumping out an unrelenting stream of lies! Don't you dare tell them that we are killing twice twice as many civilians as we are admitting! Don't tell them that we are spilling blood and treasure to prop up corrupt leaders. Go back to your sports events, soap operas and so-called reality shows!
Greenwald also points out the hypocrisy of the mainstream media:
Journalists cheering for the prosecution of Assange are laying the foundation for the criminalization of their own profession, or at least of the few who actually do investigative journalism. There is simply no coherent way to argue that what WikiLeaks did with these cables is criminal, but what the NYT, the Guardian and other papers did is not.
In conclusion, Greenwald mentions that the U.S. Department of State is
purportedly preparing to celebrates "World Press Freedom Day.
arbitration clauses in their contracts. A new Missouri CLE Deskbook for lawyers was released yesterday and it features a highly detailed chapter on arbitration clauses. I was one of two co-authors, along with John Campbell with whom I have the honor of working at the Simon Law Firm in St. Louis, Missouri.
This manual is geared to help Missouri consumer lawyers, but it could be valuable for anyone who wants to know the state of the law of consumer arbitration. It worth noting that Missouri law has paralleled the arbitration law of many other states, especially on the issue of unconscionability (John and I argued for the winning side of the August 31, 2010 case decided by the Missouri Supreme Court, Brewer v. Missouri Title Loans).
If you are interested in taking a look at this chapter, I would assume that you will soon be able to find this book in most law libraries and on the library shelves of many law firms.
For a glimpse of how complicated this topic of arbitration has gotten, I'm printing out the Table of Contents below:
[More . . . ]