Category Archives: Blog

Are all bloggers ‘covered’ under House ‘reporter’s shield law’?

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Calling all bloggers: Are you ‘covered’ under House ‘reporter’s shield law’?

Yesterday the House passed by a substantial margin its version of the “reporter’s shield law,” titled the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007. The House version differs from the Senate bill of the same title in its definition of “covered person,” basically the definition of who is a journalist.

The House version reads,

“(2) COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person’ means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial
financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.”

The Senate version reads, “(2) COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person’ means a person who is engaged in journalism and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such person.”

For many reasons, the Senate version looks better.

First, a disclaimer: so far as I know, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t foresee having this kind of problem. Anyone who tried to force me to say something I didn’t want to say, a remote possibility, would be crossing a line; and anyway I tend to favor disclosure in the public interest.

Furthermore, administration ‘sources’ do not call me up to toss Lawrence Lindsey overboard, or  Tom DeLay, or Alberto Gonzales, or any other public official, career or appointee. Nobody tells me anything. Or to put it more precisely, people tell me things, but I usually cite by name unless there’s a general-information kind of paraphrase involved, or just gossip, or some other good reason not to. And while I have been quasi-mugged on the street–by some guy who knocked me down & hit me, etc w/out taking my bags–and
have gotten a certain amount of nasty mail – though the letters of praise by far outnumber the other kind–I have never had anyone lean on me to pry confidential information out of me. It is unlikely to happen, since I’m not what they used to call ‘easy’. Insiders who call up some ‘journalist’ to plant a
smear under cover of ‘confidentiality’ are contemptible (that’s the real story), and journalists should not be serving as our contemporary substitute for the Lion’s Mouth in Renaissance Venice in a behind-the-scenes system of anonymous denunciation.

But to evaluate this reporter’s shield, one has to look  at who IS ‘covered’ under the House definition, and who is NOT. A key passage, as readers may already know, is that bit about “a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain.” Admittedly this passage takes a certain amount of guesswork, since the terms “substantial portion” and “substantial financial gain” do not come with dollar amounts. Still —

Here, in all likelihood, are some of the people NOT COVERED under this definition:
•        Most bloggers, except for reportedly Matt Drudge
•        Many web site editors and producers, especially of left-leaning, ‘liberal,’ green or progressive web sites
•        Almost all web site editors and producers of small web sites across the Net
•        Many or most columnists for small community newspapers such as the Prince George’s Journal, where I published articles from 1996 to 2004, and the Prince George’s Sentinel, where I published articles 2004-2006
•        Many reporters for small community newspapers
•        Many editors for small community newspapers
•        Many publishers of small community newspapers: producing them may involve expense but not necessarily profit, income
•        Any journalist contributing to a periodical on a volunteer basis
•        Many or most freelancers, depending on the time frame for defining finances
•        Retired journalists who weigh in with an occasional column or article at, e.g., the WashPost’s op-ed page
•        Interns who perform journalistic duties at recognized media outlets but without much pay or a job guarantee

Here, on the other hand, are some of the people COVERED under this definition:
•        Almost everyone who works for Fox News
•        Matt Drudge
•        Almost everyone who works for any of the major media outlets–CNN, the three original networks, their subsidiaries; the large daily newspapers; etc.–as long as that person has a good regular salary; see interns and retirees, above
•        Salaried writers and editors working for any of the trade periodicals – insurance, trucking, pharmaceuticals, etc.
•        Talk radio hosts, their writers and producers, if their income comes mostly from the gig

In other words, a ‘covered person’ is basically anyone Bob Novak could tolerate, and not covered is everyone who might hypothetically or even accidentally be perceived as a threat to the Novaks of this world. What could be sweeter? –for Robert Novak. Is it any wonder that this bill was introduced
by the GOP and that it has passed by a whopping margin, in a House full of terrified incumbents? Or that it is supported by the same mediocre media outlets that facilitated GWBush in the White House, the non-investigation of torture in 9/11 investigations, and the Iraq war?

John Conyers (D-Mich.) is one of my personal heroes, one of the best people in Congress, ever, not just for our time but a man for all seasons. I am absolutely confident that he supported this measure for the best of reasons. But the more I look at this language, the more it looks as though opinion makers hired by Richard Mellon Scaife and rewarded by the Bradley Foundation would be covered, and the homeless who write for Street Sense–D.C.’s homeless newspaper–would not be covered.

It also looks as though the overpaid would be covered, to a man, while any underpaid blogger, freelancer or reporter-editor who has to combine income sources would not be–a cohort disproportionately comprising women, the underemployed, members of poor fundamentalist or other ‘fringe’ groups from right to left, and simply people of modest means.

Too bad about the way it breaks down into people on one side, money on the other. It will be interesting to see what happens in conference, if the Senate passes its version. I’m not too optimistic; good thing I never looked to Congress for protection anyway. More the other way around, as I see it.

Bush administration helped Iranian hardliner get elected

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Bush administration helped the Iranian hardliner get elected

Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, the only major Iranian figure who advocated reaching out to America, made indirect overtures to the Bush administration in the period leading up to the June 2005 Iranian election but was rebuffed, according to American businessman Barry O’Connell, who frequently travels to Iran.

McConnell at the Textile Museum

State Department personnel referred pejoratively to Rafsanjani, the political figure best known outside Iran and most favored by the international business community, as “that old fox” and “that old wheeler dealer,” O’Connell said. Feelers preceding the election last June were conveyed through members of the Iranian legislative assembly via business contacts, reaching the Southeast Asia section of the State Department. According to State Department personnel, O’Connell said, messages that Rafsanjani was interested in talking with the U.S. were relayed “upstairs” to the seventh floor offices of the Secretary of State.

The feelers were ignored. Asked whether the Bush administration opposed Rafsanjani influenced the Iranian election, O’Connell answers, “Very much so.”

In the weeks leading up to the Iranian election, media sympathetic to the administration aired anti-Iran commentary including that of Bill O’Reilly, who has repeatedly attacked Iran on his Fox television program.

Typical

Other impediments to cooperation with moderate, secular or business sector Iranians were imposed in the weeks leading up to the election, including restraints to travel in and out of Iranian air space by companies including federal contractors. These signs were taken by many Iranians around the time of the election to signify that Iran was going to be attacked by America.

The administration rebuffs decreased the ability of Rafsanjani to draw support. “He was almost the only one reaching out to America, and they treated him this way?” O’Connell comments. “They said it to me personally, so they must have said it to others. This administration would not deal with him at all.”

One export of Iran, aside from oil, is Oriental rugs. O’Connell, an authority on Iranian rugs, has a vested interest in keeping the trade linking Europe, the U.S. and Asia alive. Despite sanctions and lists, commerce between the West and Iran still flourishes. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on January 15 that Iranian trade with Europe overall stood at the same level as a year previously, although trade with individual nations has moved up or down.

That makes it more significant that the administration, with strong business connections, declined to show interest in approaching Rafsanjani. Indications that the administration is ginning up some version of assault on Iran have appeared since spring 2005, including sympathetic media representations. Since there are not enough U.S. ground troops for an infantry assault, any attack would have to involve heavy bombings.

Rafsanjani

In response to questions about other Iranian candidates, O’Connell says that the administration did not seem concerned about Ahmadinejad at all. There was no apparent concern, at the policy making level, that a hardliner or radical fundamentalist might be elected in Iran as a consequence of administration policy. The possibility, treated as inevitability in rightwing publications and think tanks associated with White House Middle East strategizing, seems not to have been regarded as an outcome to be avoided.

Since the election, Rafsanjani has increased in his powers, according to O’Connell. “He is not out of power at all.” New President Ahmadinejad gets the spotlight but does not have equivalent power.

The bulk of power is held by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, in office since 1989, and by the head of the expediency committee. Thus power is largely shared among the Supreme Leader, the committee head, Rafsanjani and the new head who has received all the global attention.

These internal divisions in Iran are not reflected in official administration speech about Iran. The White House, Secretary of State Rice, and neoconservatives in media have focused publicly on President Ahmadinejad, whose lurid and inflammatory rhetoric makes the project easy. The National Review, founded by William A. Rusher, who also founded the Concerned Alumni of Princeton and is chairman of the media corporation that launched the most recent attack on Rep. John Murtha, is running articles about Iran that parallel past articles leading up to the Iraq war.

Bouquets, banquets, and saber-rattling

O’Connell points out that, while neoconservatives advocate several months of concentrated bombing Iran, to bomb purported Iranian nuclear sites, those sites are in residential neighborhoods.

Supposing the administration were to bomb millions of Iranians, for two or three months, as neoconservatives propose. “If we start another war,” in Iran this time, “how do we get out of it?”

Right now, the U.S. maintains a tenuous hold in Iraq because of the majority Shia population which, led largely by Ayatollah Sistani, has chosen to participate in politics in Iraq. But Shia in Iraq would react against the bombing of millions in Iran, where Shia are 89 percent of the population.

Shia Islam has two main schools of thought. The more theocratic school of thought predominates in Iran, and the school that more supports separation of church and state predominates in Iraq. Administration policy seems to aim at driving the two populations together in opposition to the U.S. This would approach the goal of war with all Islam, global war between the West and Muslims, advocated by some neoconservatives and also by Osama bin Laden.

 

bin Laden

Iran has no embassy in the U.S. But it does have an Iran Interest Section in the embassy of Pakistan. Protests have erupted across Pakistan at the deaths of Pakistani civilians in recent U.S. military strikes.

Following a speech on January 14 by President Ahmadinejad defending Iran’s nuclear research, Iranian officials complain that CNN translated a phrase “nuclear weapons” that should have been translated “nuclear technology.”

Meanwhile, a Russian government official said on January 15 that Russia is continuing its military and technological cooperation with Iran.

 

[This article, deleted by the system among hundreds of articles and blog posts in summer 2011, is re-posted using archives and Word files.]

 

 

What is the ‘centrist’ number of Americans and Iraqis killed in Iraq?

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In 1971, decorated Vietnam War veteran turned antiwar activist John Kerry asked a Senate committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last man killed in Vietnam?”

Today we need to ask an updated question: what is the centrist number of people killed in Iraq?

[Example headline: “Democrats Push Toward Middle On Iraq Policy,” WashPost Sept. 13, 2007]

Twentieth-century physics upended previous ideas about time,
space and mass. Mass converts into energy; energy changes rather than being
gained or lost; time and space are relative to each other. Albert Einstein, he
of the adorable face, space-physics hair, and loving eyes, combined some
premier principles into one simple formula.

Einstein

Heading into the 21stcentury–and stuck in Iraq, unless we the people do something about it–we need to apply some equally lucid conversion principles to the Iraq war.

Here is the simple formulation: the more time we spend in Iraq, the more lives lost.

Time translates to death. More time translates to more death and injury. Less time translates to less death and injury.

This is the formulation that the White House, the GOP in Congress, and most Republican candidates for the White House, with the honorable exception of Ron Paul, do not want mentioned. They keep trying to change the real formulation – more time means more fatalities – into the bogus alchemy of self-serving rhetoric – less time means ‘failure,’ while for unspecific reasons more time in Iraq means ‘success.’ Pulling out – that is, reducing our losses of life, limb and treasure suffered–means ‘losing,’ and staying means–again, for unspecified reasons– ‘victory.’

The real loss was going in. The real failure was the immoral, illegal and unconstitutional invasion of another country.

 

Meanwhile, top-crust administration figures and their allies in the large media outlets keep using a similar head-banging Orwellian lexicon to characterize the big argument about the war. People who want us out of Iraq, in this War-Is-Peace twist, are “left”–never mind public survey polls showing that a solid majority of Americans want us out of there. People who insist on our staying in Iraq, on whatever omigod pretext, are characterized as “conservative”–never mind that Congressman Paul (R-Texas) and many of his supporters are conservative, as are publications such as Chronicles Magazine that have consistently opposed the war.

Most grating of all, officeholders and candidates for office who keep us stuck in Iraq by waffling publicly, temporizing instead of taking a stand, are characterized as “centrists,” or “moderates” as in a series of Washington Post items about Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, designated “the anguished moderate.”

Virtually all the big media outlets have adopted this terminology, even though this kind of language desecrates the very notion of language– English–as communication.

More time in Iraq means more casualties. Less time in Iraq means fewer casualties. It’s that simple. So what is the ‘moderate’ number of young American servicemen and servicewomen to be injured or worse? Even aside from the fact that we are currently nearing the 4,000 mark, what was the ‘moderate’ position on the acceptable amount of death, injury, psychological trauma, sexual assaults and domestic violence, and all the other ills connected with war, going into Iraq? Now that we are nearing the 4,000 mark for deaths, what is the ‘moderate’ quota for American death in Iraq and Afghanistan? What, for that matter, is the moderate quota for killed and wounded Iraqis?

What is the ‘centrist’ number of deaths in Iraq?

On May 4, 2006, the Attorney General opened up access to DOJ criminal investigations to Cheney

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The excellently well-prepared Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), probably one of the best senators in Congress, offered up a real eye-opener in today’s Senate Judiciary hearing. The hearing ostensibly dealt with politicization in the Department of Justice but provided little new regarding Gonzales.

Mean, harsh, repetitive and stupidly thuggy Sens Arlen “Bash Anita Hill” Specter (R-PA) and Chuck “check kiting” Schumer (“D”-NY) did their usual thing — 90% wasting time, 10% good points or what should have been, and 100% self-dispay — while as usual making me feel sorry for Gonzales.

Critics of the administration have good points to make, to put it mildly. They should act that way. Grandstanding and meanness make them sound as though they themselves do not actually what’s wrong about politicizing the Department of Justice. Congress had the option of reining in the administration back in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. That it largely waited until GWBush was down in opinion polls with hospital waste does not speak well for its grasp of essentials. Hectoring someone like Alberto Gonzales, who clearly misplaced his trust in Bush and genuinely does not handle aggression well — like many of us — proves only that individuals like Specter and Schumer never should have been elected.

Whitehouse asked questions about two memorandums from two Attorneys General, Ashcroft and Gonzales, and provided print copies of the memos. The first, dated April 15, 2002, was signed by John Ashcroft. The second, dated May 4, 2006, was signed by Gonzales. Both enunciated the position, “It is imperative that there be public confidence that the laws of the United States are administered and enforced in an impartial manner,” and laid out procedures for communication between the Department of Justice and the White House.

The memorandum Gonzales signed on May 4, 2006 — and who knows who wrote it — drastically widened channels of communication, if you call them that, between DOJ and White House regarding criminal investigations and cases.

The Ashcroft memo allowed as-needed communications on criminal matters only “between the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and the Office of the Counsel to the President,” and on appellate matters only between president’s counsel and either the Deputy AG or the Solicitor General.

The May 4, 2006, memo opened the floodgates re info on criminal investigations. Communications were newly allowed between the DOJ and — not just president’s counsel, but the entire EOP (Executive Office of the President). And then there’s a footnote, as pointed out by Senator Whitehouse:

“As used in this memorandum, the term ‘EOP’ means the White House Office, the Office of Policy Development, the Executive Residence, the Office of Administration, the National Security Council staff, the Homeland Security Council staff, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Council on Environmental Quality, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. For convenience, the executive functions of the Vice Presidency are referred to in this document as the “office of the Vice President” or “OVP,”   AND THE PROVISIONS OF THIS MEMORANDUM THAT APPLY WITH RESPECT TO COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE EOP WILL APPLY IN PARALLEL FASHION TO COMMUNICATION WITH THE OVP.” [emphasis added]

In other words, from at least May 4, 2006, on — assuming this isn’t just a de jure ratification of something that had already been going on de facto for almost four years — the Office of the Vice President had access to presumably anything the Department of Justice knew about any criminal investigation. There is every reason to believe that the OVP had access to any continuing investigation into, for example, the Plame-CIA leak case.

It is not known whether the Office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was given this information.

And yet we have the hideous rightwing noise machine brazenly arguing that the Special Counsel was going on some kind of fishing expedition. If anything, the CIA leak investigation was taking place in a giant goldfish bowl, where anyone liable to be affected by it probably knew almost everything that could happen — except for individual talent and conscientiousness on the part of prosecutors, jurors and judge in the matter.

More on that May 4 date later. For now, the work to do with Gonzales is not to keep dragging him in as a witness before the Specters and Schumers of Congress, bashing him as a substitute for doing anything effective for the American people. For a start, there is already more than enough evidence that the Judiciary Committee should unite across party lines to censure Bush and Cheney. Any decent Republican would do it in reaction to what Bush-Cheney have put Gonzales through.

As to the Democrats, they had ample help recognizing that the Bush White was “politicizing” agencies of government starting as early as 2001; I among other local writers noted it. New members of Congress were of course not able to do anything back then, but any claim by members like Schumer that he is somehow newly shocked by politicizing federal entities is bogus and should be treated as such.