‘Grave threat’ to US national security
p2pnet.net news:- Predictably, the Bush administration is deeply worried about a congressional proposal aimed at protecting reporters, including bloggers.
Under the Free Flow of Information Act, the identities of confidential sources would remain confidential, a prospect the outgoing US government finds alarming.
Its latest draft, “would pose a grave threat to national security and federal criminal investigations by protecting far too large a segment of the population,” according to Rachel Brand (right), assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s office of legal policy, quoted by CNET News.
“The definition is just so broad that it really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web,” she told the House Judiciary Committee, also arguing it would protect “a terrorist operative who videotaped a message from a terrorist leader threatening attacks on Americans”.
The hearing, “highlighted again the tensions that have arisen as the traditional mainstream media continues to overlap and collide with Internet-based upstarts,” says the story.
But New York Times columnist and former Nixon administration speech writer, “praised the bill’s current definition because he said it focuses on the actions characteristic of journalists, not their affiliations.”
Whether you’re a blogger or on The New York Times or CBS or The Wall Street Journal, “if what you are doing is aimed at informing the public, then you’re a journalist, whether you get paid for it or not,” CNET has Safire stating.
The New York Times, the National Association of Broadcasters and other journalism groups have endorsed the latest bill, according to its sponsors, adds the story.
Also See:
CNET News – Bush administration attacks ’shield’ for bloggers, June 14, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
June 15th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
The ‘Grave threat’ to US national security is Bush and his buddies. The sooner he goes goes the better.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Grave threat to US national security are food producers and credit companies. With the fattest, the dumbest and having the most personal debt, the country gonna pay one day, unless these issues are addressed.
June 16th, 2007 at 11:07 am
” The ‘Grave threat’ to US national security is Bush and his buddies. The sooner he goes goes the better. ”
You and others believe this to be true.
” Grave threat to US national security are food producers and credit companies. With the fattest, the dumbest and having the most personal debt, the country gonna pay one day, unless these issues are addressed. ”
You and others believe this to be true.
” “The definition is just so broad that it really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web,”
This covers both of you.
If Bush and buddies want to, they could then come after you ..
for having that opinion and voicing it.
Wealthy food producers and credit card companies could force
out your identity and sue you, for voicing your belief.
Bush and buddies, and wealthy corporate interests WANT to
be able to do this .. they NEED to.
It’s not national security that is the issue, that’s the smokescreen.
The security of the dishonest and the secretive, that’s what’s
at stake. Just think about how many things would never have
happened, if someone on the net hadn’t been able to blow the
whistle .. get the truth out in the open.
The RIAA is getting KILLED by PR, and they control all the major
media outlets. How … the folks on the internet are making sure
that the WHOLE truth is known.
The same happens to the dishonest in politics .. the internet
community outs them for what they are.
There are no secrets on the web.
It needs to stay that way.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Perspective indeed. Bush has already shown through out his time in office what he thinks of disagreement with “his policies”. Protest zones for those that disagree with him to prevent them from being seen by the media, replacement of government qualified workers with his unquestioning followers, spying without oversight nor regard for the laws of the land, and the idea that he can just go in and override the constitution at and for his convince without regard to legality. That legality being nothing short of a thorn to his ideas and directions he wishes to head in.
It’s a media event every time he is in public and takes time to make a public speech. The media never knows what day or event will provide the next public spectacle and fodder for the comedians from a president that can’t really be said to be the master of a single language. You would think that would be a requirement for such a position to at least be able to express oneself adequately.
The vaunted Letters Of National Security used by the FBI have with the forced exposure of the practices shown that they have been used illegally and with the slightest pretext of need, often without justification. Included within the letters are mandatory requirements that the receiver of such a notice to maintain strict silence so that even the act of doing illegal things under the cover of such letters is not to be revealed. How did this come to be? The Patriot Act of course…that needed legislation sponsored by Bush to curb terrorist activities, along with a new branch of government called Homeland Security. Both have proved to be embarrassments to the citizens of this land as it is discovered the terrorists they are interested in are the citizens of this nation with no other connection to terrorism than they exist and live in this land.
Bush and the neocons are an embarrassment to the nation. So bad a one that the only concern other nations have at present is how to survive the remaining days before he leaves office without tarred and feathered as being in association with this potential would be king.
It is being mentioned today that we are in a crisis of education. That the needed physicists, scientists, mathematicians, and other high caliber jobs of technical expertise aren’t being produced for the next generation. How can it be otherwise when religion supported creationism is replacing long accepted and proven theories in schools today, denying time needed to learn real science in favor of religion sponsored agendas? The tend for the future is guaranteed second class production of technological advances. The first place holders will go to the European nations or to China, India, and the other Asian countries while we slip back into obscurity trying to make good our debt that the politicians past and present have racked up in our name while having wars on credit and porkbarrel projects without regard to true finances.
What Bush is concerned with is that his approval ratings are plummeting into areas not seen before for presidential offices, even Nixon at his time of impeachment held better ratings. Congress is no better, in fact they are rated with even a lower approval percentage than Bush. I would suggest this is the reason Bush wants the emergency powers that allow him executive powers over all branches of government in times of emergency is that they are worried about the public’s reaction to continued business as usual. Think about it. The only way they lose this power is if the public revolts. So now you have police with the power to arrest you for nearly anything, the power of the government to hold anyone without charge for any length of time by simply labeling them a terrorist. Worse the government is moving around doing whatever they wish without accountability to anyone but who pulls the reigns of power at the top.
With this in mind it is no wonder Bush thinks that bloggers should not have any protection. It is the bloggers spreading the word of what is going on. Media being in the pocket of the megacorporation is assuring you are not hearing what is going on from where you should. The public media is no longer to be trusted for anything other than bread and circuses.
June 16th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Here is an article that shows where we are going in respect to home enthusiasts who want to learn some basic chemistry as a kid.
http://memepunks.blogspot.com/2006/06/americas-war-on-science.html?dupe=with_honor
When I was a young lad, I had one such chemistry set. It had all the goodies in it one expected to find. Of course I got into trouble with it. Not from making explosives but from making rotten egg smell that stunk up the house. I was also into model rocketry. Even going so far as to launch my own homemade 3 stage rocket complete with a frog passenger who survived the experience of a launch in the payload section. The parachute worked just fine. Today I would not have been able to do these as a kid with the current mania about terrorists infiltrating our laws. Who ever in the world heard of having to register a glass beaker for a science experiment? No wonder we are lagging in science.
I submit to you the terrorists have won. They have drastically altered our lifestyle in ways still yet to be comprehended. You know what the amazing thing is about this? We had ONE 9/11. During WWII Britain had them every night in the form of buzz bombs coming in. Talk about an over reaction!!!