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 Travel Writers' Resources | May 2006 
The War on Free Press
 Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe
Journalists. Get the rack ready! Our attorney general is coming for us, snarling like a guard dog at Abu Ghraib.
On Sunday, Alberto Gonzales told ABC's "This Week" that he would consider prosecuting reporters who get their hands on classified information and break news about President Bush's terrorist surveillance program. "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility, " Gonzales said, adding at one point, "We have an obligation to enforce those laws."
Asked more specifically if The New York Times should be prosecuted for its initial story on government surveillance without warrants, Gonzales said, "We are engaged now in an investigation about what would be the appropriate course of action."
It is almost funny to see Gonzales scour the statutes to harass journalists. This is the same administration that cannot spell the word law if you spot it the "l" and the "a." It has already set the presidential record in claiming the authority to circumvent the law in more than 750 cases.
Gonzales has been a prime cowboy in circling the wagons against the law. He issued the infamous "torture memo" that advised President Bush to throw the Geneva Convention into the trash can for detainees in the war on terror.
Because the war "is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war," Gonzales reasoned to Bush, "in my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, script (i.e. advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms and scientific instruments."
We saw where Gonzales's desire to deny a detainee a trip to the commissary to get a candy bar and some gym clothes got us eventually: Abu Ghraib, the symbol of America's abuse of global statutes.
Gonzales was a prime force in other matters to seal off the Bush White House from accountability when he was White House counsel. He helped the administration block and drag its feet on the release of presidential papers from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and the papers of John Roberts as he was being considered for the Supreme Court. Gonzales helped to withhold or delay highly classified documents from the president's own 9/11 Commission and from the Government Accountability Office concerning the energy task force of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bruce Craig, executive director of the National Coalition for History, called the Bush roadblocks on presidential papers "a disaster for history." Gonzales remains in the lead of this disastrous presidency. A few weeks before it was revealed that the administration's phone-record collecting was domestic as well as international, Gonzales was asked at a House hearing if he thought the administration could monitor domestic calls without warrants. His answer was, "I wouldn't rule it out."
Now, we have the FBI trying to get the papers of the late columnist Jack Anderson. We already knew what low regard Bush had for the press before he got into the Oval Office. On the 2000 presidential campaign, he told Cheney, "There's Adam Clymer - major-league [expletive] from The New York Times." Cheney responded, "Oh yeah, he is, big time."
Six years later, Gonzales's comment, combined with the past, make you wonder when we are going to hear about a Nixonian enemies list. In Richard Nixon's administration, Watergate masterminds actually thought about killing Anderson with LSD, and Attorney General John Mitchell threatened Katharine Graham, the late Washington Post publisher, by saying she would have her breast caught in a wringer.
We have not heard of anything that incredible yet. But there is nothing to suggest that this administration is going to do anything else but sink deeper into secrecy. On Monday, Bush tried to plug the leaks in his plunging popularity over Iraq by saying "Freedom is moving, but it's in incremental steps."
It is impossible to take Bush seriously on that concept when, at home, he is attempting to circumvent Congress and prosecuting one of the most important institutions for free speech. Gonzales told ABC, "I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to promote and respect, the right of the press." The actions of Gonzales show how little the Bush administration promotes the rights of the press. With every pronouncement, freedom is disappearing, in incremental steps.
The Internet's Long War
Dawn Holian - TomPaine.com
Imagine you're a voter searching the Internet for information about an upcoming election. You go to the candidates' websites, but the videos of their speeches and debates won't load. You log on to an advocacy site that last year had an interesting blog and other interactive tools to help you learn about the candidates and issues - but now it doesn't work properly either. You search for the day's campaign news, but your Internet service provider seems to be steering you to download episodes of Commander in Chief and buy a DVD of The American President.
Far-fetched? Maybe a little. But make no mistake, the telephone and cable companies would like to transform our Internet from a medium that allows people to connect to one another, engage in debate, and learn about the world into little more than a portal to sell goods and transmit television programs, films and games.
And they're likely to get their way unless Congress acts. On Thursday, the House Judiciary will be voting on a key piece of legislation to protect the Internet we know it, an Internet that is in jeopardy because of recent decisions by federal regulators.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) used to protect "network neutrality" - our right to access any information we want on the Internet. But we lost those protections in August 2005, when the FCC decided to change the way it enforced rules dealing with the Internet. As a consequence, there is now no rule or regulation that will prevent the phone and cable companies from doing what they've said they want to do, charge content providers for the right to be on their Internet pipes and make special deals with some companies to ensure that their sites and services work faster and are easier to find..
The Internet Freedom and Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 5417) would restore our rights to a free and open Internet. This bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.,and John Conyers, D-Mich., will ensure that anti-trust law covers the actions of the providers of high-speed Internet by specifically banning discriminatory practices that affect our right to access the information we want. The House Judiciary Committee is set to vote on the bill this Thursday.
Failure to preserve net neutrality now would open the door to allowing Internet service providers to create a two-tiered Internet, with a "fast lane" accessible to only those who can afford to pay the fees to telephone and cable giants. Small businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, political candidates, and local governments would be consigned to the "slow lane." Such a system would stifle the innovation that has brought us Google, eBay, the blogosphere, instant messaging and so much more. If network providers are allowed to control the flow of information, the open and freewheeling nature of the Internet could be lost. For this reason, supporters of net neutrality include not only Common Cause and Consumers Union but also the Christian Coalition and Gun Owners of America.
Why is Common Cause so concerned about a seemingly obscure telecommunications issue? Because we care about the potential of the Internet to spur citizen engagement in their democracy. We know how democratic discourse has benefited from this technological marvel. In 2004, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 63 million Americans went online for political news. An estimated seven million individuals asked for e-mail updates from candidates, and four million donated money online to parties and campaigns. That involvement is only growing.
Millions of citizens access information from advocacy web sites ranging from Amnesty International to the National Rifle Association. And e-activists are transforming the way citizens communicate with their elected officials and have their opinions heard on the most pressing issues of the day.
But this Renaissance will be cut short if access to the Internet is determined by corporations more interested in selling goods and entertainment than in encouraging democratic discourse. The Internet Freedom and Non-Discrimination Act is critical to protecting our digital future.
Dawn Holian is director of media research and public education at Common Cause. |
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