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2013 Gala Dinner Featuring Senators Warren and Merkley | ACS

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

acslaw.org - By Editor - Jun. 14 (Speech) - we are at risk at losing this fight.

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Glenn Greenwald on How NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Helped Expose a "Massive Surveillance Apparatus"

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Glenn Greenwald, Amy Goodman - Jun. 10 (News Analysis) - "There is this massive surveillance apparatus being gradually constructed in the United States that already has extremely invasive capabilities to monitor and store the communications and other forms of behavior not just of tens of millions of Americans, but of hundreds of millions, probably billions of people, around the globe," Greenwald says. "It’s one thing to say that we want the U.S. government to have these capabilities. It’s another thing to allow this to be assembled without any public knowledge, without any public debate, and with no real accountability. What ultimately drove [Snowden] forward — and what ultimately is driving our reporting — is the need for a light to be shined on what this incredibly consequential [surveillance] world is all about and the impact it’s having both on our country and our planet."

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Important Facts About the Trial of Bradley Manning

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Alex Kane - Jun. 03 (News Report) - Manning was a source for WikiLeaks, which some have argued functions as a news organization. Regardless of whether WikiLeaks is a legitimate media outlet, the whistleblowing website did fuel major media outlets’ coverage for months and months. And the Manning trial has important implications for how the press does its job.

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Holder involved in decision to ask for search warrant for reporter’s private emails

Fri, 24 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Joe Johns - May. 24 (News Report) - Attorney General Eric Holder was involved in the Justice Department's decision to seek a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen's private e-mails, a Justice official told CNN. The decision to apply for the search warrant was vetted at the department's highest levels, including Holder, the official said, although the decision to issue a warrant was made by a federal magistrate judge.

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Justice search warrant relied on "probable cause" of criminal conduct by Fox News journalist | Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

rcfp.org - By Rob Tricchinelli - May. 23 () - anonymous Justice Department spokesperson: Michael Clemente, Fox News’ executive vice president of news, in a statement Monday. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

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Society of Professional Journalists: SPJ Code of Ethics

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

spj.org - By SPJ ethics committee - May. 22 (Statement) - Seek Truth and Report It - Minimize Harm - Act Independently - Be Accountable -

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Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Mark Sherman - May. 13 (Special Report) - The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news. The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

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China Bans Media from Quoting Foreign News

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Global Voices - By Abby - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - China's media authority announced new regulations banning news outlets and other organizations from reporting on foreign news coverage without permission less than a day after The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its report on the hidden wealth of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's family.

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Obama Whistleblower Prosecutions Lead To Chilling Effect On Press

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Matt Sledge - Apr. 16 (News Report) - It was an investigative story clearly in the public interest, shedding new light on the government’s long-running targeted-killing program in Pakistan. But now Landay, a veteran national security reporter for the McClatchy newspaper chain, is concerned that the Obama administration could next investigate him in hopes of finding the sources for “top-secret U.S. intelligence reports” cited in the story. “Do I think that they could come after me?” Landay asked, in an interview with The Huffington Post. “Yes.”

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Undercover Activist Details Secret Filming of Animal Abuse & Why "Ag-Gag" Laws May Force Him to Stop

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 09 (Special Report) - An animal rights investigator details how he has spent over a decade secretly filming animal abuse and why that work is now imperiled by a wave of laws sweeping the country. Speaking on the condition we conceal his identity, "Pete" has secretly captured animal abuse on farms and slaughterhouses after applying to work at the location. He has released video footage to law enforcement and activist groups such as Mercy for Animals, helping spark national outcry and charges against the abusers. His investigations and footage have led to at least 15 criminal cases and have been used in several documentaries.

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What?! Enviro Activist Re-Imprisoned for Writing a Blog Post

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Steven Hsieh - Apr. 06 (News Report) - McGowan’s wife, Jenny Synan says officials re-jailed her husband for writing a Huffington Post blog piece critical of a controversial prison program designed to restrict inmates’ communication to the outside world.

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At National Conference for Media Reform, Activists Hope to Stop Murdoch, Koch-Backed Consolidation

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman,Juan Gonzalez - Apr. 05 (Special Report) - We broadcast from the National Conference for Media Reform in Denver, where some 2,000 people are expected to gather to look at how media, technology and democracy intersect. One of the major topics this year is media consolidation. As newspapers struggle to survive, billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have expressed interest in buying Tribune Company, which includes the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is also weighing a bid for the Los Angeles Times in a market where he already owns two television stations. We're joined by Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, the main organizer of the National Conference for Media Reform. [includes rush transcript]

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French mother on trial for son Jihad’s T-shirt

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Edward Cody - Mar. 23 (News Analysis) - A T-shirt worn by a 3-year-old nursery-schooler named Jihad has led to an unusual and politically charged criminal trial here that tests the limits of free speech — and common sense — in a France increasingly ill at ease with its growing Muslim population.

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The liberals who defend Israeli apartheid

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

socialistworker.org - By Sandy Boyer - Feb. 24 (Opinion) - A FORUM on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, featuring Palestinian author and activist Omar Barghouti among other speakers, took place on February 7 at Brooklyn College in New York City despite a fierce campaign of political leaders and the media establishment to silence supporters of Palestinian rights. The crusade to shut down the Brooklyn College forum tells us a lot about the attitudes of both mainstream parties in the U.S.--above all that defense of Israel from all critics is still the default position, including among many Democrats who are considered quite liberal.

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Shahbag protesters versus the Butcher of Mirpur

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Tahmima Anam - Feb. 13 (News) - Abdul Quader Mollah has finally been convicted of war crimes committed in Bangladesh in 1971. Now a huge popular protest in Dhaka's Shahbag district is demanding the death penalty It all began with a victory sign. When Abdul Quader Mollah, assistant secretary-general of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami party, emerged from the supreme court on the afternoon of Tuesday 4 February, he turned to the press waiting outside, smiled, and made a victory sign. An odd reaction for a man just sentenced to life in prison. Mollah smiled because for him, a man convicted of beheading a poet, raping an 11-year-old girl and shooting 344 people during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence – charges that have earned him the nickname the Butcher of Mirpur – the life sentence came as a surprise . Earlier this month, a fellow accused, Abul Kalam Azad, who is reputed to have fled to Pakistan, was sentenced to death in absentia . When Mollah emerged from the courthouse, a group of online activists and bloggers ...

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Shocking: Reporting Factory Farm Abuses to be Considered "Act of Terrorism" If New Laws Pass

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Katherine Paul, Ronnie Cummins - Jan. 26 (News) - How do you keep consumers in the dark about the horrors of factory farms? By making it an “act of terrorism” for anyone to investigate animal cruelty, food safety or environmental violations on the corporate-controlled farms that produce the bulk of our meat, eggs and dairy products. And who better to write the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, designed to protect Big Ag and Big Energy, than the lawyers on the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force at the corporate-funded and infamous American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

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Aaron's Law

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Lawrence Lessig - Jan. 16 (Special Report) - A week ago, Aaron Swartz -- social activist, geek genius -- took his own life. Facing the choice between a federal prosecutor who insisted that he either accept the label "felon" and go to jail or fight a million-dollar lawsuit against 13 felony indictments, Aaron took the third option, and hanged himself. And with that we all lost an incredible soul, one who had literally spent half of his 26-year-old life doing nothing except working for (at least his conception of) the public good. Aaron's alleged "crime" was that he used MIT's network to access a database of academic journal articles (JSTOR) and download millions of those articles to his laptop computer. He didn't "hack" the network to secure those downloads: MIT is a famously open network. He didn't crack any special password system to get behind JSTOR's digital walls. He simply figured out how JSTOR was filing the articles that he wanted, and wrote a simple script to quickly gather those articles and then copy them to his machine.

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Censorship Meets Rare Defiance as Journalists Strike in China

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Global Voices - By Gloria Wong - Jan. 08 (Opinion) - January 6, 2013 will be remembered in China's journalism history as the day Southern Weekend, a highly acclaimed newspaper that once lead the wave of media reform in China, fell from grace

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State of Fear

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Chris Hedges - Jan. 08 (Opinion) - McLeish’s story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people—perhaps more—whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus—overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama—that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power.

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Will Americans Be Able to Watch Al Jazeera America?

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

FAIR - By Peter Hart - Jan. 04 (News Analysis) - The New York Times editorial (1/4/13) in support of Al Jazeera included a funny line: Many American policy makers and cable companies have had doubts about the impartiality of Al Jazeera, which is owned and financed by the emir of Qatar. Of course, cable companies happily carry Fox News, which is no one's idea of impartial.The same could be said of liberal MSNBC (which is a lot cheaper to customers). So the problem isn't that American TV viewers might be subjected to news with a point of view. It's news with what many elites might consider the wrong point of view that is the problem.

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The Public Editor: An Empty Seat in the Courtroom

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Margaret Sullivan - Dec. 09 (Opinion) - Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks are a major story for The Times, so why was the paper so late to cover the soldier’s pretrial hearing?

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Julian Assange on WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Cypherpunks, Surveillance State

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 29 (Interview) - Assange vowed WikiLeaks would persevere despite attacks against it. On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that the credit card company Visa did not break the European Union’s antitrust rules by blocking donations to WikiLeaks. "Since the blockade was erected in December 2010, WikiLeaks has lost 95 percent of the donations that were attempted to be transferred to us over that period. ... Our rightful and natural growth, our ability to publish as much as we would like, our ability to defend ourselves and our sources, has been diminished by that blockade."

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Jenkins: The Media Choke on a Twinkie

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. - Nov. 28 (Opinion) - Why nobody is allowed to hear what the bakery union is saying.

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NDAA critic allowed home after being stranded on island

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

rt.com - Oct. 22 (News) - A Mississippi man has been allowed back to the United States mainland after being stranded in Hawaii last week when his name popped-up on a no-fly list mid-flight. Even still, Wade E. Hicks, Jr. says he wants some answers. Hicks, 34, says he’s yet to rec

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Shell Blocks Employee Access to Activist Website

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

yeslab.org - By Mary - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - Early Monday morning, 71,010 Shell employees received an email from the company's "Grassroots Employee Empowerment Division" providing information on Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, a pivotal human rights case being argued in the U.S. Supreme Court. The email contained links to news stories, as well as a tool to help employees tweet their feelings about the case at key US news anchors (and Oprah Winfrey). The only thing is, Shell has no "Grassroots Employee Empowerment Division," and they don't want publicity for the case.

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