Would any of the NPR staff or Mr. Suarez would like to explain just what happened here?
I'll take a stab: milk spills, people trip, shit happens.
They probably didn't mean it.
But who knows.
My best guess is shit happens, but my criticism was aimed at the rather ironic situation where a topic about a topic being censored was, itself, censored. Now, I wouldn't necessarily have taken that second "censored" quite as seriously as Mr Suarez has in his E-Mails, but I suppose "censor" might have a very serious connotation in the news business (deliberateness, conspiracy, etc.). It is clear that he is, at least, aware of the fact that the bill passed under questionable circumstances. He probably took my pre-screen literally as "he wants to talk about this wire tap thing again, but I've already covered it in a previous show". In any case, the point is precisely what Dan Gillmor in San Jose Mercury (and also in the interview with Market Place) said: It's not what was passed; it's how it was passed and when it was passed, and the deliberate attempt to keep the public from knowing much about it. Notice that all the news talk today about the FCC discussing the new mobile wire tap provision has pretty much assumed that the 1994 $500M Digital Telephony (a.k.a. CALEA) bill was passed matter of fact. No one mentioned that it was passed also at the last minute under questionable circumstances during 11th hour budget deals. No one even questions the fact that Louis Freeh and Janet Reno claimed that civil libertarians and phone companies were exaggerating the >$2B price and were absolutely sure the $500M was more than adequate. Does anyone believe that a >$2B CALEA would have passed? Even in the dark of night? The lesson here to the FBI is, go ahead ... exaggerate ... lie if you have to ... no one is going to call you on it. Ern