Imprisoning Journalists

[professorpan]

Really chilling article about Gonzalez's "journalists are the enemy" jihad against investigative reporting.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/imprisoning-journalists.html">glenngreenwald.blogspot.c...lists.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Virtually every issue of political controversy during the Bush administration has been the result of the disclosure to a journalist by a concerned Government source that the administration is engaging in illegal, improper and/or highly controversial conduct. Whatever criticisms one wants to make of the American press -- and such criticisms are numerous -- it is still the case that what we do know about this Administration's conduct is the result of the press. Literally, if George Bush had his way -- if government sources were sufficiently intimidated out of disclosing classified information and journalists were sufficiently intimidated out of writing about it -- we would not know about any of these matters:<br><br>* Abu Ghraib<br><br>* The Bybee Torture Memorandum<br><br>* The use of torture as an interrogation tool<br><br>* The illegal eavesdropping on Americans without warrants<br><br>* The creation of secret gulags in Eastern Europe<br><br>* The existence of abundant pre-war information undermining and even negating the administration's WMD claims<br><br>* Policies of rendering prisoners to the worst human rights-abusing countries<br><br><br>Our Government would be engaging in all of this conduct, and worse. But we would not know about any of it. We would just be going merrily along our way, completely ignorant of the fact that the Bush administration has undertaken the most unimaginably radical and disturbing conduct in the name of the United States. We would all be Hugh Hewitt and John Hinderaker -- incapable of doing anything other than obediently praising the Commander-in-Chief and reciting the view of the world which the administration wants us to have because we would not know any better.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[sunny]

thanks for posting that, professorpan. I love Greenwald and he doesn't get nearly enough attention around here. <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

I think it was Judy Miller who claimed lately that some of her sources were leaking to her because they knew they couldn't couldn't get in through the front door, so to speak, so they were hoping to get crucial information to the president by way of the the back door of the press. Of course, who knows when Judy is spinning? Anyway, what's interesting is how this administration has sought to have such absolute, iron-fisted control on information (even archaic information), and then doesn't even let the president in on it, supposedly. And the control is always for political purposes. Information is the most treasured, rarest commodity in DC today. These people are really freaky. <p></p><i></i>