David was unable to call me because his phone and laptop are now with UK authorities. So I don’t yet know what they told him. But the Guardian’s lawyer was able to speak with him immediately upon his release, and told me that, while a bit distressed from the ordeal, he was in very good spirits and quite defiant, and he asked the lawyer to convey that defiance to me. I already share it, as I’m certain US and UK authorities will soon see.
“David’s detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the law can be abused for petty vindictive reasons.
It is unclear what the UK government was trying to accomplish by detaining Miranda. Likely, it was meant as some form of intimidation. But surely, it will backfire. Investigating acts of journalism under “terrorism” laws and detaining family members of reporters are hallmarks of authoritarian regimes.
Like ‘terrorism’, it turns out that ‘advocacy journalism’ is a sin committed only by opponents of established power. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – quintessential terrorist acts – are not described as ‘US nuclear terror’. Similarly, reporters and commentators who endlessly obscure and even celebrate their government’s crimes are not described as ‘advocacy journalists’.
That Wikileaks represents journalism in its purest form is clear from the aggressive reaction of the establishment. Any story about Wikileaks or its editor-in-chief attracts large numbers of reader comments. While astroturfers are attracted to the fray like sharks to blood, countless misconceptions and outright lies are regurgitated by large numbers of other posters for public display. Given that the propaganda playbook (focus public attention on the messenger to distract from the story) has been thrown at Wikileaks and Julian Assange in particular, this is hardly a surprise. Every article must contain the obligatory ‘rape allegations’ line and even respected newspapers like the Guardian, which produces so much fine reporting on other issues, churns out error-strewn pieces which are often outright smears.
The goal of these laws, it would appear, is to keep consumers from seeing where modern meat really comes from. Considering that 94 percent of the American public believes that animals raised for food should be free from abuse and cruelty, the modern meat industry has some good reasons to fear the public finding out that Old MacDonald’s farm isn’t so happy these days.
Readers outside the UK may not be aware of what’s been going on in this country in the past few weeks. In a nutshell, our politicians have taken advantage of the long hot lazy days of summer, with lots of people away, to allow in the energy companies to begin exploratory drilling work for shale gas… otherwise known as fracking.
Hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army have once again claimed a high profile scalp, compromising the blogs at British broadcaster Channel 4.
The hackers, who back the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, took over the blog of the station’s veteran news presenter Jon Snow and posted a story about a tactical nuclear strike against Syria.
“The mistreatment of animals can all-too-often be normalised in our society and we regularly see newspapers reporting “cute” or “funny” stories about animals in which the individual animal’s welfare may be compromised. I must say, though, I have never read a news report which takes a clear example of animal abuse, and a potential breach of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and twists it into an attempt to gain cheap laughs from its readership. A person punching, hitting or otherwise attacking an animal is never funny. I am surprised and saddened that a newspaper like the Sun, which has strongly supported animal protection campaigns in the past, has chosen to highlight a serious incident in this thoughtless manner”
What would US foreign, military and so-called “national security” policy look like if the media reported the most important facts about it? There would be a lot fewer corpses abroad and returning home. And we wouldn’t be cutting “meals on wheels” or other nutrition programs for the poor or elderly in order to sustain the world’s most fantastically bloated military budget.
Enjoy this fiery debate between Ken O’Keefe and Lee Kaplan on the crisis in Syria by PressTV
Interview on Russia Today with BSNews Co-Editor Mike Raddie
Discussing the example Edward Snowden has set and the implications for future whistleblowers as well as the fallout from the NSA scandal in the EU and the way the telecoms companies, the backbone of the public internet, have gone above and beyond, effectively serving the interests of the intelligence community rather than their customers.
