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[As] Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler noted recently in the New Republic, when the judge presiding over Manning’s prosecution asked military lawyers if they would ‘have pressed the same charges if Manning had given the documents not to WikiLeaks but directly to the New York Times?,’ the prosecutor answered simply: ‘Yes, ma’am’. It has long been clear that this WikiLeaks-as-criminals theory could and would be used to criminalize establishment media outlets which reported on that which the US government wanted concealed. Now we know that the DOJ is doing exactly that: applying this theory to criminalize the acts of journalists who report on what the US government does in secret, even though there is no law that makes such reporting illegal and the First Amendment protects such conduct. Essentially accusing James Rosen of being an unindicted co-conspriator in these alleged crimes is a major escalation of the Obama DOJ’s already dangerous attacks on press freedom. … It is virtually impossible at this point to overstate the threat posed by the Obama DOJ to press freedoms.

Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes | Glenn Greenwald

… Back in 2006, Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales triggered a major controversy when he said that the New York Times could be prosecuted for having revealed the Top Secret information that the NSA was eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without warrants. That was at the same time that right-wing demagogues such Bill Bennett were calling for the prosecution of the NYT reporters who reported on the NSA program, as well as the Washington Post’s Dana Priest for having exposed the CIA black site network.

But despite those public threats, the Bush DOJ never went so far as to formally accuse journalists in court filings of committing crimes for reporting on classified information. Now the Obama DOJ has.

… If even the most protected journalists - those who work for the largest media outlets - are being targeted in this way, and are saying over and over that the Obama DOJ is preventing basic news gathering from taking place without fear, imagine the effect this all has on independent journalists who are much more vulnerable.

There is simply no defense for this behavior. Obama defenders such as Andrew Sullivan claim that this is all more complicated than media outrage suggests because of a necessary “trade-off” between press freedoms and security. So do Obama defenders believe that George Bush and Richard Nixon - who never prosecuted leakers like this or formally accused journalists of being criminals for reporting classified information - were excessively protective of press freedoms and insufficiently devoted to safeguarding secrecy? To ask that question is to mock it. Obama has gone so far beyond what every recent prior president has done in bolstering secrecy and criminalizing whistleblowing and leaks.

Greenwald is writing in response to this report from The Washington Post.

(via circlingtheroundabout)

(Source: theamericanbear)

dabnotu: Looks like we have another shot at undermining Citizens United. New Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairwoman Mary Jo White is considering a rules change that would require corporations to disclose their political spending. The best part: this solution totally circumvents Congress, which is way too flooded with corporate money to take action. Already ALEC, the Chamber of Commerce, and major oil companies have begun to freak out about the possible change. (Which is usually a good sign we’re doing something right.) […] In the 2012 elections, corporations spent a record $6 billion on electoral spending, much of it funnelled through super-PACs designed to conceal their real source. The secretive nature of campaign spending allows CEOs and boards to spend company money with zero oversight from investors, customers, or the general public. Forcing companies to disclose their political spending would make them answerable to investers, customers, and American citizens. It’s the first step toward saving our democracy from the influence of corporate money. (via Tell New SEC Chairwoman: Force corporations to disclose their political spending | Demand Progress)
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dabnotu:

Looks like we have another shot at undermining Citizens United.

New Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairwoman Mary Jo White is considering a rules change that would require corporations to disclose their political spending. The best part: this solution totally circumvents Congress, which is way too flooded with corporate money to take action.

Already ALEC, the Chamber of Commerce, and major oil companies have begun to freak out about the possible change. (Which is usually a good sign we’re doing something right.)

[…]

In the 2012 elections, corporations spent a record $6 billion on electoral spending, much of it funnelled through super-PACs designed to conceal their real source. The secretive nature of campaign spending allows CEOs and boards to spend company money with zero oversight from investors, customers, or the general public.

Forcing companies to disclose their political spending would make them answerable to investers, customers, and American citizens. It’s the first step toward saving our democracy from the influence of corporate money.

(via
newyorker: Ten years after the bombing of Baghdad and the start of the Iraq war, Seymour Hersh asks, what’s up with our Constitution? “How could a small group of hard-line conservatives around President Bush… so quickly throw us over the cliff? It’s not enough to blame it on the fear, anger, and confusion brought on by the 9/11 attacks… Is our Constitution that fragile?” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/ZBToV5   Photograph by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum. See more images from “Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq.”
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newyorker:

Ten years after the bombing of Baghdad and the start of the Iraq war, Seymour Hersh asks, what’s up with our Constitution? “How could a small group of hard-line conservatives around President Bush… so quickly throw us over the cliff? It’s not enough to blame it on the fear, anger, and confusion brought on by the 9/11 attacks… Is our Constitution that fragile?” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/ZBToV5

 

Photograph by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum. See more images from “Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq.”

Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a 1975 conversation with a U.S. ambassador and two diplomats. 

The quote was unearthed by Wikileaks, when they published the world’s largest searchable collection of U.S. diplomatic communications late last night. 

(h/t Salon.com)

(Source: officialssay)

In a land where campaign contributions buy elected officials …

        The profits of American corporations now account for a larger share of the national income than at any time in more than 60 years— while wages account for a smaller share than at any time in almost as long.

One consequence is that U.S. corporations are sitting on a giant pile of cash. The Federal Reserve’s estimate of the cash stockpile of U.S. corporations has varied from around $1.5 trillion to more than $2 trillion— and because the Fed only counts domestic operations, the real figure worldwide is probably close to $5 trillion.

—excerpted from “A Tale of Two Economies” in SocialistWorker (April 2013)

thepeoplesrecord: actualscratch: thepeoplesrecord: In response to this post. Sorry…but without elaboration, I don’t really know at all what you’re saying about the ‘law of commons’. I think in order to identify a solution, we have to pin-point the source of the problem. As I see it, the problem is a ‘private’ sector. Meaning, collaboratively run enterprises/spheres-of-society (not talking about your private home, but the actual wealth-producing entities in society) in which democracy is not only not-required, it is rarely thought about as a possibility.  So I think we need a system that doesn’t have a segment of society immune to democracy, a system that doesn’t prioritize profit accumulation over human interest. I could imagine a number of acceptable scenarios to get rid of the private sector.  Where I’m at right now, what I imagine that could deliver the best possible results with the least blood-shed & social turmoil would be a shift toward democratic workplaces, an eventual union of those democratic workplaces, and eventually using that union (or those many democratic-workplace unions) to abolish structures in society that are not democratic.  This, I think, would be beneficial to the social consciousness, personal fulfillment, and intellectual/mental-stimulation of all people in society (all of whom would be part of the decision-making-process about what to produce, how to produce, etc at their jobs), and it would be a buffer against a lot of the problematic aspects of globalized capitalism, now in its grotesque monopoly-accumulation stage. But this isn’t the only potential solution and it may not be the one that ends up being most-appealing to most people. Maybe something like an actually international Trotskyist revival. I think syndicalism seems a little more realistic/do-able, but Trotskyists would certainly disagree. I’m open to whatever could bring us to the abolition of profit-driven-interests trumping human-interests (like the health and welfare of the planet we live on). Either way, the point is to put the decision making power in the hands of people, not profit-driven-non-human entities and not in the hands of a few, very-powerful people who own most of the wealth in society and who, for whatever reason, are driven to hoard resources and destroy anything, including the planet, that stands in the way of more profit$. I had never thought about the fact that capitalism relegates democracy to *just* the government. Huh. This is true, and makes sense. That’s the best kind of feedback. You have no idea how happy it makes me to see that sometimes the information & realizations that get exchanged on Tumblr actually help shape & change perspectives & inspire realizations in others. Talking about these things, in as many ways and through as many mediums as possible is important to shaping the direction of our collective futures. When I was younger & more nihilistic, I thought fundamental change was impossible. I don’t know when this happened, but somewhere down the line I came to understand that society is changing, whether we’re silent & apathetic or actively engaged in the most important conversations of our time. History is moving; if we work purposefully & collectively we can nudge, push or shove it in the right direction.
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thepeoplesrecord: actualscratch: thepeoplesrecord: In response to this post. Sorry…but without elaboration, I don’t really know at all what you’re saying about the ‘law of commons’. I think in order to identify a solution, we have to pin-point the source of the problem. As I see it, the problem is a ‘private’ sector. Meaning, collaboratively run enterprises/spheres-of-society (not talking about your private home, but the actual wealth-producing entities in society) in which democracy is not only not-required, it is rarely thought about as a possibility.  So I think we need a system that doesn’t have a segment of society immune to democracy, a system that doesn’t prioritize profit accumulation over human interest. I could imagine a number of acceptable scenarios to get rid of the private sector.  Where I’m at right now, what I imagine that could deliver the best possible results with the least blood-shed & social turmoil would be a shift toward democratic workplaces, an eventual union of those democratic workplaces, and eventually using that union (or those many democratic-workplace unions) to abolish structures in society that are not democratic.  This, I think, would be beneficial to the social consciousness, personal fulfillment, and intellectual/mental-stimulation of all people in society (all of whom would be part of the decision-making-process about what to produce, how to produce, etc at their jobs), and it would be a buffer against a lot of the problematic aspects of globalized capitalism, now in its grotesque monopoly-accumulation stage. But this isn’t the only potential solution and it may not be the one that ends up being most-appealing to most people. Maybe something like an actually international Trotskyist revival. I think syndicalism seems a little more realistic/do-able, but Trotskyists would certainly disagree. I’m open to whatever could bring us to the abolition of profit-driven-interests trumping human-interests (like the health and welfare of the planet we live on). Either way, the point is to put the decision making power in the hands of people, not profit-driven-non-human entities and not in the hands of a few, very-powerful people who own most of the wealth in society and who, for whatever reason, are driven to hoard resources and destroy anything, including the planet, that stands in the way of more profit$. I had never thought about the fact that capitalism relegates democracy to *just* the government. Huh. This is true, and makes sense. That’s the best kind of feedback. You have no idea how happy it makes me to see that sometimes the information & realizations that get exchanged on Tumblr actually help shape & change perspectives & inspire realizations in others. Talking about these things, in as many ways and through as many mediums as possible is important to shaping the direction of our collective futures. When I was younger & more nihilistic, I thought fundamental change was impossible. I don’t know when this happened, but somewhere down the line I came to understand that society is changing, whether we’re silent & apathetic or actively engaged in the most important conversations of our time. History is moving; if we work purposefully & collectively we can nudge, push or shove it in the right direction.
Zoom

thepeoplesrecord:

actualscratch:

thepeoplesrecord:

In response to this post.

Sorry…but without elaboration, I don’t really know at all what you’re saying about the ‘law of commons’. I think in order to identify a solution, we have to pin-point the source of the problem. As I see it, the problem is a ‘private’ sector. Meaning, collaboratively run enterprises/spheres-of-society (not talking about your private home, but the actual wealth-producing entities in society) in which democracy is not only not-required, it is rarely thought about as a possibility. 

So I think we need a system that doesn’t have a segment of society immune to democracy, a system that doesn’t prioritize profit accumulation over human interest. I could imagine a number of acceptable scenarios to get rid of the private sector. 

Where I’m at right now, what I imagine that could deliver the best possible results with the least blood-shed & social turmoil would be a shift toward democratic workplaces, an eventual union of those democratic workplaces, and eventually using that union (or those many democratic-workplace unions) to abolish structures in society that are not democratic. 

This, I think, would be beneficial to the social consciousness, personal fulfillment, and intellectual/mental-stimulation of all people in society (all of whom would be part of the decision-making-process about what to produce, how to produce, etc at their jobs), and it would be a buffer against a lot of the problematic aspects of globalized capitalism, now in its grotesque monopoly-accumulation stage.

But this isn’t the only potential solution and it may not be the one that ends up being most-appealing to most people. Maybe something like an actually international Trotskyist revival. I think syndicalism seems a little more realistic/do-able, but Trotskyists would certainly disagree. I’m open to whatever could bring us to the abolition of profit-driven-interests trumping human-interests (like the health and welfare of the planet we live on).

Either way, the point is to put the decision making power in the hands of people, not profit-driven-non-human entities and not in the hands of a few, very-powerful people who own most of the wealth in society and who, for whatever reason, are driven to hoard resources and destroy anything, including the planet, that stands in the way of more profit$.

I had never thought about the fact that capitalism relegates democracy to *just* the government. Huh. This is true, and makes sense.

That’s the best kind of feedback. You have no idea how happy it makes me to see that sometimes the information & realizations that get exchanged on Tumblr actually help shape & change perspectives & inspire realizations in others. Talking about these things, in as many ways and through as many mediums as possible is important to shaping the direction of our collective futures.

When I was younger & more nihilistic, I thought fundamental change was impossible. I don’t know when this happened, but somewhere down the line I came to understand that society is changing, whether we’re silent & apathetic or actively engaged in the most important conversations of our time. History is moving; if we work purposefully & collectively we can nudge, push or shove it in the right direction.

Sat Apr 06, 2013 at 10:59 AM PDT Exxon orders sheriffs to disperse reporters with threats of arrest

stopkillingourworld:

Reporters covering the oil spill from ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, are reporting that they’ve been blocked from the site and threatened with arrest.

On Friday morning, Inside Climate News reported that an Exxon spokesperson told reporter Lisa Song that she could be “arrested for criminal trespass” when she went to the command center to try to find representatives from the EPA and the Department of Transportation. On Friday afternoon, I spoke to the news director from the local NPR affiliate who said he, too, had been threatened with arrest while trying to cover the spill.

Michael Hibblen, who reports for the radio station KUAR, went to the spill site on Wednesday with state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. McDaniel was in the area to inspect the site and hold a news conference, and Hibblen and a small group of reporters were following him to report on the visit. Upon arrival, representatives from the county sheriff’s office, which is running security at the site, directed the reporters to a boundary point 10 feet away that they should not pass. The reporters agreed to comply. But the tone shifted abruptly, Hibblen told Mother Jones on Friday:

    It was less than 90 seconds before suddenly the sheriff’s deputies started yelling that all the media people had to leave, that ExxonMobil had decided they don’t want you here, you have to leave. They even referred to it as “Exxon Media”…Some reporters were like, “Who made this decision? Who can we talk to?” The sheriff’s deputies started saying, “You have to leave. You have 10 seconds to leave or you will be arrested.”

One of the most fascinating and disturbing issues that comes up again and again around fracking is the multitude of exemptions and entitlements that have been handed to the industry at the expense of citizens. Exemptions from the federal drinking water law. Exemptions from citizen challenges. Exemptions from local land use standards and licenses that have protected private property and neighborhoods. These are all troubling. But one of the most alarming is the fact that overzealous protections for the limited economic interests of oil and gas companies are prioritized over the broad property rights that Americans have enjoyed for most of the nation’s history (based in part on ideas of law, property and the public interest going back to the Magna Carta).

Henry Henderson: Fracking vs. Democracy: State Laws Subvert Home Rule and Property Rights

Remember the woman in Texas who was arrested for protesting the pipeline on her own property? Same sort of thing.

What we have to really remember is that our government is not there for us.  Our judicial system is not there for it. They are there for progress, development, growth, and corporations.  Now, they may state that indirectly is for you - for your pension, your 401k, your savings, and especially for JOBS!  

So how’s that workin out for all y’all?

(via stopkillingourworld)

PETITION TO SEC: Taking Wall Street banks to trial is necessary for real accountability. As Elizabeth Warren says, trials allow the public to learn the truth and allow regulators to better do their job of protecting the public. We call on you to end your practice of ‘too big for trial.’

http://act.boldprogressives.org/survey/survey_warren_sec/?akid=12500.170149.SRWDjt&rd=1&source=e2-warr-24mo-fin&t=2

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