[dave@farber.net: [IP] more on Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts]
----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave@farber.net> -----
The Times sitting on the NSA story for a year needs to be probed: was it the Times or James Risen -- who has been overly close to intel agencies for many years and a while back was supposedly reined in by the Times for his "going too far" intimacy with intel sources, and producing reports as biased as those of Judith Miller. The Times is now again in the position it got itself into by encouraging Miller to sleep with the enemy as the WashPo did with Bob Woodward and Time and others who embed their WHores to get pillow talk, real or imaginary. Then if caught apologize for the 10,000 year old practice, asking for trust just like those it accuses of being distrustful. Sy Hersh has criticized the Times for this duplicity, as did Raymond Bonner, and other ex-Timesers, manh of whom left the Times over being restricted in what they could report by what they termed as senior Times (like WashPo and Time) officials lusting for intimacy with powerful politicians -- or fearful of being excluded at the intimate dinners in DC and NYC and world capitals. Hoover at the FBI swapped dirt with the DC reporters, a 20,000-year-old wedding of enforcers and informants. While minor scandals are being reported for US and Iraqi journalists being paid to report favorably on the Administration, the big scandal is the non-cash rewards earned by world-class media for getting insider exclusives to boost circulation, whether Brian Williams or Jim Lehrer, most recently handling Bush with delicacy, or what Sy Hersh says are the unending information bribes that come his way, especially from intel sources for their own interest but more often for the interests of their superiors all the way to the top who use the spooks to leak policy with an glaze of "anonymous" legitimization, albeit deniable, to those as easily seduced with specialized information as members of Congress. Will there ever be an investigation of the leak racket, the congressional hearing dissimulation, so long as we succumb to its "secrets exposed" allure for what we are trained to think is believable about the press, the Congress, looking after the public interest in opposition to unchecked power?
participants (2)
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Eugen Leitl
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John Young