Bill O'Reilly's Argument For Abolishing Freedom Of The Press

Daily Kos

Once again, Bill O'Reilly has proven that what he said two years ago regarding his lack of journalistic standards is still true: “There are few journalistic standards left these days as we’ve proven on this broadcast again and again”.

O'Reilly can't contain his disdain for anyone who disagrees with him. His outrage is so intense that it led him to say this:

"The most frustrating part about this is that nothing can be done. The Times has an ombudsman, but he's a joke, and no outside agency has any power over the paper. It can pretty much do what it wants, and does."

Stop the presses! You mean to say that a newspaper can do whatever it wants? How the heck did that happen? Why isn't here an outside agency that has power over these papers? No wonder O'Reilly is tee'd off. He would be much happier if journalists all had to have their work approved by editorial boards that could certify the conservative purity of the message before being disseminated to the people. You know, like the way Fox News does it.

Police handcuff news crew covering traffic accident

Don't mess with Texas

El Paso may have gotten a little more incredible than tv reporter Darren Hunt would have liked when he found himself handcuffed and detained by a police officer this week, just for attempting to report on a traffic accident.

Hunt and cameraman Ric Dupont were sent out to film a flipped semi on the interstate. They parked on the shoulder of the other side of the road as men in military fatigues were helping pull the driver out of the cab.


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House conservatives seek Patriot Act extension

More than a dozen of the GOP’s most conservative members on Thursday introduced a bill to reauthorize controversial Patriot Act provisions (“roving” wiretaps, access to library patron information and expanding FISA) set to expire later this year.

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Pro-Obama Media?

Obviously dated, yet valid points nonetheless: What talk about media favoritism really means...

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Drop the Charges Against Independent Journalists

Outraged over recent arrests of journalists at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions? You should be!

"You won’t hear much about it in the tightly scripted primetime broadcasts from St. Paul, but local law enforcement is rounding up reporters in an aggressive – and sometimes violent – sweep outside the Republican National Convention. Their crime: committing journalism.

"Those arrested Monday while trying to cover street protests include Amy Goodman of the national radio and television program Democracy Now! and two producers from her show, as well as a photographer from the Associated Press. They’ve since been released, but the Democracy Now! team still faces serious charges.

"Other independent journalists have been pepper-sprayed and even held at gunpoint during “pre-emptive” raids aimed at disrupting protesters. Two videographers from Seattle’s Pepperspray Productions and several Kentucky journalism students remain behind bars as of this writing.

"Free Press, the national, nonpartisan media reform group, is calling on St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and local law enforcement officials to immediately release from custody and drop all charges against any journalists arrested while covering events surrounding the RNC. In less than 24 hours, more than 35,000 people from across the country have signed letters protesting this gross violation of free speech and freedom of the press."

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Amy Goodman Arrested at RNC

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were arrested by the Minneapolis Police Department. Charged with conspiracy to riot. Footage from Rick Rowley and Brandon Jourdan.

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FOX News Calls Neo-Nazi Leader a "Free Speech Activist"

On Aug. 4, FOX News aired a segment about the Canadian prosecution of a conservative author for alleged anti-Muslim human rights violations. Fox chose to interview Paul Fromm, who was very identified as a "Free Speech Activist." Fromm is Canada's most notorious extremist: he's a white supremacist, a Holocaust denier and an anti-Semite

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Ex-chairs: FCC must stop "Victorian" indecency crusade

Two former Federal Communications Commission Chairs have asked the Supreme Court to shut down what they call the FCC's "Victorian crusade" against broadcasters.

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BBC adds fuel to 9/11conspiracy theories - Telegraph

A BBC programme investigating the conspiracy theories of September 11 is expected to prolong speculation that the attacks were perpetrated by the American government.

The investigation into the "mysterious" collapse of the third tower of the World Trade Centre will re-examine questions which an official inquiry was designed to answer.

The 47-storey tower collapsed seven hours after the Twin Towers and has become the subject of heated speculation and a host of conspiracy theories which suggest it was brought down by a controlled demolition.

The final official report on the World Trade Centre is due to be published this month and official investigators are expected to conclude that fire caused the collapse of the third tower.

Fuelling the conspiracy theorists, however, a BBC investigation points out that this would be the first and only skyscraper in the world to collapse solely due to fire.

A programme called the Conspiracy Files says it is trying to "explore man unanswered questions to find out what really happened, and why some people think there was a sinister plot to destroy the building."

Another Inventor Of The Internet Wants To Gag It

Lawrence Roberts is just another guy with the title:" Inventor of the Internet" in news articles. According to Wikipedia, he's the father of networking through data packets. And he's turned his attention to everyone's favorite data packet topic: Peer-to-Peer filesharing. He's established a company called Anagran, and says their devices can sort out which file transfers on the tubes are P2P, and — you guessed it — can throttle them in favor of other, more 'high-priority' traffic."

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A Nation of Sheep

I start to worry when mainstream talks logically..

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Why Won't The Candidates Endorse Freedom In America?

When asked to renounce the following if elected: torture; signing statements; detentions of US citizens as enemy combatants; illegal spying on American citizens; executive privilege as a shield against oversight; prosecuting journalists; using secret evidence; suspending habeas corpus; etc, ONLY ONE candidate agreed to sign. Is it any surprise?

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Whitehouse Stonewalls DSCOVR Information Request

If you're not interested in the issue of climate change, fine, but this story is as much about that as it is about a new ruling that further erodes your right to information from your government.

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White House leaked classified info to FOX News, tipped off al Qaeda to secret surveillance, destroyed year-long spy effort.

From a Washington Post story: Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda's Secrets

Unbelievable. Seriously. Leaking national security info to Fox News and destroying a year-long surveillance of Al Qaeda should put someone from the Bush Administration in jail. We are in greater danger because of the continued incompetence of George Bush and his minions.

From the Washington Post: A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

Okay, so we know that SITE has some amazingly important intel. They pass it on to the Bush administration. And, it ends up on Fox News.

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The Police State Is Right Here, Right Now

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As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air—however slight—lest we become unwilling victims of the darkness.~Justice William O. Douglas~

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• In each instance she compares and contrasts how America’s adherence to the pattern compares or contrasts with the pattern in pre-World War II Germany. The 10 steps are:
• • Invoking an external and internal threat
• • Establishing secret prisons
• • Developing a paramilitary force
• • Surveiling ordinary citizens
• • Infiltrating citizens’ groups
• • Arbitrarily detaining and releasing citizens
• • Targeting key individuals
• • Restricting the press
• • Casting criticism as “espionage” and dissent as “treason”
• • Subverting the rule of law

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