Information control, or, How to get to Orwellian governance

Why not say the government could unleash the storm troupers and lock us all down if we get out of line?

I'm not fear mongering, I'm having a discussion.

Fear mongering would be advocating people to not trust the gov't due to their secretive ways. And I only do that on Wed. afternoons.

Quote:

Why not say the government could unleash the storm troupers and lock us all down if we get out of line?

The gov't does not actually have stormtroopers; they actually do have control of fiber optic cables which run the 'net. Therefore, infinitely more likely to occur than a non-existent threat.

I would note that there is some indication that secret monitoring of net traffic has been going on for some time; more than a little Orwellian, that. I do however find your post about the wide-spread dissemination of info thanks to the internet to be compelling; it's harder today to keep things under control than it used to be thanks to this connective force.

Cycloptichorn

Hi-yah blatham,

To address your queries directly: I have no concrete way of making direct comparisons between various US administrations as to which have operated more secretively and which have not. Precisely by what barometer do you make such (presumably) objective assessments?

It is always worrisome as per excess consolidation of media, but (due to my technology / knowledge base arguments) whether that is at present a real-living-breathing-serious long term trend that will choke-off free expression is an open question indeed, of which (I again remind you) you have yet to supply fuel for your views.

For example: I argue newspapers and magazines are already to some fair degree passé, and that trend (as per the decline of traditional media) will increase exponentially.

With the advance in technology on record keeping, I doubt there's any relationship between 1950 and now.

A Tug of War On Presidential Papers' Release

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007; Page A11

A bipartisan proposal targeting White House rules on the release of presidential papers would claw back power over public records from the executive branch, advocates of the bill say.

The House measure, introduced yesterday, would overturn President Bush's 2001 executive order adding layers of review before presidential papers are made public. Historians and archivists say the order has kept thousands of documents from public view.

Bush's order "gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely," Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a bill sponsor, said in a statement yesterday. Waxman's co-sponsors include Reps. Todd R. Platts (R-Pa.), William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.).

Bush issued the order after the White House held up the release of 68,000 pages of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library documents in 2001. Under the previous system, the president, former presidents or designees had 30 days to review documents and lodge objections. Bush added reviews by the families of former presidents to the process, and removed the 30-day deadline. He also broadened the rules to encompass vice presidential papers....

Thomas S. Blanton, chief of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said that waiting time for documents from the Reagan Library has soared from 18 months to more than six years since the Bush order, because of the review process and factors such as understaffing at the National Archives.

The New Republic's odd new owner
by Eric Boehlert

Even though it's Canada's largest and most influential media conglomerate, it's likely that some staffers at The New Republic are still only vaguely aware of CanWest Global Communications, the Great North media giant that announced it had purchased the 93-year-old Beltway opinion journal.

The good news is that CanWest, run by the Asper family, is expected to beef up TNR's resources both in print and online. Yes, the magazine, whose circulation has cratered in recent years, is scaling back to just twice a month. But CanWest promises to redesign the magazine, introduce more illustrations, and try to make TNR look like a real consumer magazine. (TNR is the only stand-alone magazine amidst the multibillion-dollar media behemoth that's brimming with more than 100 Canadian newspapers and dozens of television and radio properties worldwide.)

That's the good news. The bad news for TNR staffers is that CanWest's recent history is littered with lawsuits, gag orders, and byline strikes, buffered by a steady stream of columnists, reporters, and editors who complain CanWest actively censors its employees who stray from the company's conservative, pro-war, pro-Israel blueprint. On paper, that's not a problem for The New Republic, since it was proudly pro-war and pro-Israel under its previous ownership. But TNR editor Franklin Foer told The New York Times that the CanWest deal cements the magazine's "center-left" philosophy. And more importantly TNR remains, in theory, a publication dedicated to open debate and would likely recoil at any kind of top-down editorial litmus test. Yet that's precisely what Canadian journalists have been complaining about for years with CanWest.

"The Asper family of Winnipeg is violating Canada's cherished tradition of a free media," wrote Haroon Siddiqui, a columnist for the Toronto Star, in 2002. "CanWest has spawned a culture of fear and self-censorship among journalists."

Writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2005, columnist Joel Connelly, looking across the border, noted that CanWest's "news coverage has been so slanted that Vancouver's daily papers should be read at a 45-degree angle. ... With its blatant biases and recent cuts in staffing, CanWest demonstrates the perils of having a daily paper monopoly in Seattle."

It will be curious to see how TNR, particularly during the upcoming election cycle, fares under the traditionally heavy-handed ownership of CanWest. Here's a look at the laundry list of conflicts that have arisen in recent years as CanWest tried to muzzle its own journalists:

In December 2001, CanWest's Winnipeg headquarters announced the chain's 14 daily metropolitan newspapers were to begin running the same unsigned "national editorials." CanWest prohibited the publication of conflicting local editorials. Turmoil ensued when furious journalists at the Montreal Gazette launched a two-day byline strike in protest of the new policy. CanWest executive David Asper then attacked Gazette staffers as "bleeding hearts" and "riff-raff" who engaged in "pathetic politics" and a "childish protest." CanWest quickly imposed a gag order on all its Gazette employees.
Months later, employees at CanWest's The Regina Leader-Post in Ottawa began their own byline strike after editors there rewrote a news article about speech given by a media critic who claimed CanWest censored free speech. Ten participating journalists were reprimanded with suspensions and pay cuts. "I will not tolerate an employee who is not loyal to his employer," said CanWest founder Izzy Asper. (Izzy died in 2003; his son, Leonard, now serves as president.) "I happen to think the sanction should be much more strong." CanWest extended its Gazette gag order to include all of its news outlets.
Stephen Kimber quit his job as a columnist for The Halifax Daily News in 2002 after being censored by his CanWest editors: "It was very direct, [they said] 'You can't say anything that would not be supportive of the government of Israel, that might be supportive of the Palestinians, you can't say anything that would reflect badly on CanWest, and you can't talk about [then-Canadian Prime Minister] Jean Chrétien.' " (The Aspers were close political allies of Chrétien.)
Montreal Gazette columnist Lyle Stewart quit the newspaper in 2002 after three of his weekly columns were spiked. Stewart publicly complained about the "thought police in the CanWest ministry of truth." He also bemoaned "the atmosphere of censorship and intolerance that the Aspers have encouraged throughout the [CanWest] chain."
In June 2002, Russell Mills, longtime publisher of The Ottawa Citizen, was fired after his paper ran an editorial calling for the resignation of Chrétien for his role in a conflict-of-interest scandal. Mills claimed that CanWest executives resented the fact Mills failed to submit the critical editorial to company headquarters prior to publishing it. Mills later filed legal notice, insisting he was libeled by CanWest president Leonard Asper in the wake of the firing. (Mills later settled for an undisclosed amount of money.) In response to Mills' firing, more than 40 ex-publishers and executives of CanWest's Southam Newspapers chain took out a full-page newspaper ad accusing CanWest of limiting freedom of the press by forcing centralized editorials to run in its daily newspapers.
In October 2003, a Quebec arbitrator ruled against CanWest by finding that Montreal Gazette journalists had the right to withhold their bylines "as they see fit."
In February 2004, CanWest was forced to un-gag the Montreal Gazette journalists who had protested the company's central editorial policy. The arbitration settlement reaffirmed the journalists' freedom of speech and their right to "contribute to and participate in open public debate" over the paper's policies.
Unfortunately, when it comes to reporting on the Middle East, CanWest outlets seem averse to "open public debate," with the Asper family often demanding editorial purity on the topic. CanWest is "unabashedly" pro-Israel, company executive Murdoch Davis once famously announced.

The problem is blatham that the owners of this Canadian media company can impose any style of reporting, focus on content, and editorial policy they want. The employees of the acquired company, however much they hold themselves in esteem, were operating a sinking ship. The new owners have the right, and by law, the obligation to improve the economic performance of the paper, by whatever methods they choose - as long as they are not expressedly prohibited by law.

The same, of course, goes for the owners of the New York Times, The Nation, and other vehicles of the left wing press. These rules also apply to George Soros' investment and political funding activities.

Do you propose that all of these things be regulated by government? What other changes to our Constitution and basic freedoms would you propose?

... what Blatham is talking about, which unsurprisingly is lost on you, George, is that there is a greater need for these people to report the news, NOT openly present themselves as shills for one group/viewpoint.

Do you understand, do you have the most elementary grasp of the basic and important difference between reporting and editorializing?

The problem is blatham that the owners of this Canadian media company can impose any style of reporting, focus on content, and editorial policy they want. The employees of the acquired company, however much they hold themselves in esteem, were operating a sinking ship. The new owners have the right, and by law, the obligation to improve the economic performance of the paper, by whatever methods they choose - as long as they are not expressedly prohibited by law.

The same, of course, goes for the owners of the New York Times, The Nation, and other vehicles of the left wing press. These rules also apply to George Soros' investment and political funding activities.

Do you propose that all of these things be regulated by government? What other changes to our Constitution and basic freedoms would you propose?

Perhaps you would, justifying your opinion as principled, suggest that the FCC be dismantled and all regulations/legislation pertaining to media ownership caps be erased. If so, then I'll just let William Safire call you 'deeply stupid' and leave it at that.

Come on george. You are smart enough to cease with the false dilemmas. You already allow for government regulation of human behavior in myriad ways so stop waving your flag and pretending that you're a lone voice for freedom and the only one with a desire or receipe for workable liberty.

Perhaps you would, justifying your opinion as principled, suggest that the FCC be dismantled and all regulations/legislation pertaining to media ownership caps be erased. If so, then I'll just let William Safire call you 'deeply stupid' and leave it at that.

If, on the other hand, you would prefer some/any limits on media consolidation and monopolies, then you have to explain why you would. Then you are into this conversation rather than avoiding it through pretending that a silly absolutist ideology solves all your problems for you.

In the first place the FCC regulates only broadcast media. It powers to do so are based on the notion that the airwaves are a public commodity, requiring (or more accurately, permitting, regulation of access to them by private individuals or companies by government in the public interest.

The problem is blatham that the owners of this Canadian media company can impose any style of reporting, focus on content, and editorial policy they want. The employees of the acquired company, however much they hold themselves in esteem, were operating a sinking ship. The new owners have the right, and by law, the obligation to improve the economic performance of the paper, by whatever methods they choose - as long as they are not expressedly prohibited by law.

The same, of course, goes for the owners of the New York Times, The Nation, and other vehicles of the left wing press. These rules also apply to George Soros' investment and political funding activities.

Do you propose that all of these things be regulated by government? What other changes to our Constitution and basic freedoms would you propose?

blatham wrote:

Perhaps you would, justifying your opinion as principled, suggest that the FCC be dismantled and all regulations/legislation pertaining to media ownership caps be erased. If so, then I'll just let William Safire call you 'deeply stupid' and leave it at that.

I don't know about George, but I do happen to believe one could dismantle the FCC. In its place, Ebay could allocate channels through simple auctions, and the Justice department could regulate media ownership through plain, generic antitrust law. I also think I can survive Bill Safire's scathing verdict for holding this opinion.