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Fearing Government Surveillance, US Journalists Are Self-Censoring
binarstu writes "Suzanne Nossel, writing for CNN, reports that 'a survey of American writers done in October revealed that nearly one in four has self-censored for fear of government surveillance. They fessed up to curbing their research, not accepting certain assignments, even not discussing certain topics on the phone or via e-mail for fear of being targeted. The subjects they are avoiding are no surprise — mostly matters to do with the Middle East, the military and terrorism.' Yet ordinary Americans, for the most part, seem not to care: 'Surveillance so intrusive it is putting certain subjects out of bounds would seem like cause for alarm in a country that prides itself as the world's most free. Americans have long protested the persecution and constraints on journalists and writers living under repressive regimes abroad, yet many seem ready to accept these new encroachments on their freedom at home.'"
Continuing to believe that is a sign you're delusional, not 'free'.
CSI is on TV right now, can this wait?
How many Americans even know? Any how many Americans give a shit about anything outside of their job, football, and beer. Feel free to replace those last two things with video games, art, wine, assorted other drugs, etc.
... but their actions tend to contradict what they say.
Torture and the taking of political prisoners are touted as flaws of third world dictatorships and communists v. waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay and attempts to arrest Snowden and others who have taken a political stance they don't like.
The other three out of four were too fearful of their survey answers being logged by the NSA...
Of the liberal "Freedom" promised by the Obama administration....
Many people now see government as the organizing force in their lives, the primary pursuit of civilizations, and the primary provider of comfort and security in their lives. They no longer look at it as the organization that does the menial work that the people otherwise organize spontaneously to do. They dare not question the font of all that largess.
But, but ... they got a legal opinion that said it wasn't torture, so it's all above board, right?
Of course, I'm sure the people putting that opinion forth never actually tried it themselves.
That the US might now be exerting a little extra muscle around people for simply disagreeing with them is definitely scary. When your press starts to self-censor, you are rapidly becoming anything but free.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
American journalists have long since proven to be lying sacks of crap anyway, so who cares anymore? Oh, they're lying about fewer subjects now? Well whoopdefriggindo.
no text, due to self-censoring
More music, fewer hits
People are not accepting the encroachments. What they do accept, and accepted a long time ago, is there's next to nothing meaningful you can do to combat it. They are hopeless and helpless. Don't confuse that with complicity.
As one editor of the New York Times once said,
"The New York Times is not 'All the News That's Fit to Print' but all the news 5 people in a room think is fit to print."
So while not censorship the capital business model under which these papers are run also semi dictates their content. For example if the editors of the paper think an article is going to disturb their advertisers too much and make them pull out, then the article won't be run. Is this censorship, no just self interest. The freedom of the press is tied to profit from publishing the material. If the US government suddenly makes it much more complicated for them to do reporting and investigating then as business they won't be interested in actually covering those stories. The freedom of the press is only freedom so long as they continue to make money and be able to continue printing.
Tell them to come to the UK and they can see _real_ journalism in action.
In America, you have Ferengi style capitalism and call it "freedom".
In the UK, we are certainly not perfect, but we also have capitalism, but with a social conscience, because we understand that in the long run, our way of doing things leads to more freedom for a greater number of people
We also have a habit of telling people who would harm us to go and procreate with themselves. In America, a few thousand people are sadly killed and you cower in terror and throw away everything which made you so respected.
In the UK, we have 7/7/2005 and then the citizens of London rode the tube in a large display of defiance sending a giant f***-you to the terrorists. Your journalists need to come over here and experience _our_ way of life.
Oh, and Edward Snowden, a true American hero, trusted a _British_ newspaper to reveal the truth.
That fact makes me proud to be British.
Journalists have for years been censoring information - roughly 90% of them are Democrats (really statists), and many are loathe to present any Democratic official in a negative light. Stories negative to Democrats or the expansion of federal government are usually buried, any chance to pillory a Republican (or non-statist like many libertarians) is sized with glee.
So it's not hard to imagine that people already heavily censoring work would expand what they decided to censor. It's also hard to be sorry for them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe if the so-called press had done their job in the the first place over the last 20 years we would be in this mess.
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Man, this is some [GOOD NEWS]. I hope congress quits [WORKING TOO HARD FOR THEIR OWN GOOD], pulls their [HARD WORK AND COURAGE] out of their own [LOVE FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE] and finally [TAKES THAT PAID VACATION THEY ALL WELL DESERVE].
I'm complaining about the War on Drugs, started by Nixon, which made US law subservient to UN drug policies.
When my father was a Luftwaffe Soldier/POW in US custody, he saw a German POW's foot being overrun by a US Army (or Army Air Force) truck on purpose. "To make the POW confess the killing of a downed US airman.
So, torture is NOT new for U.S. forces.
By voting for which party in our political duopoly? The whole American political system is a mess because with the two entrenched parties, there is almost no ballot space for new ideas.
Yet ordinary Americans, for the most part, seem not to care...
It may only seem that way. Ordinary Americans are worried about suveillance too.
I'm even wondering if I should post this comment anonymously.
Proverbs 21:19
nearly one in four has self-censored for fear of government surveillance
That's not exactly what the report said, and I'm just skimming the thing here.
http://www.pen.org/sites/default/files/Chilling%20Effects_PEN%20American.pdf
28% have curtailed or avoided social media activities, and another 12% have seriously considered doing so;
24% have deliberately avoided certain topics in phone or email conversations, and another 9% have seriously considered it;
16% have avoided writing or speaking about a particular topic, and another 11% have seriously considered it;
16% have refrained from conducting Internet searches or visiting websites on topics that may be considered controversial or suspicious, and another 12% have seriously considered it;
13% have taken extra steps to disguise or cover their digital footprints, and another 11% have seriously considered it;
3% have declined opportunities to meet (in person, or electronically) people who might be deemed security threats by the government, and another 4% have seriously considered it.
Boiled down: about one-third of the American press are chickens, about two-thirds are not.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
It is too easy to eavesdrop on communication. There is no way to avoid it happening, whether by corporation, the government, or a criminal gang.
We could decide to keep ourselves safe by self-censorship and accept the loss of freedom of speech. Or, we can continue to act normally. If the government has to contend with 0.1% of the population who are loud malcontents, the malcontents have a problem. If the government has to deal with 90% of the population who are loud malcontents, the government has a problem. They can't put us all in jail or shoot us.
I'll be damned if I let freedom of speech slip away. We didn't get it because of government benevolence (see The Old Issue by Kipling), and we won't keep it by being timid.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Yes, it's all the Democrats fault. The republicans are pure and never do anything wrong.
Nothing at all, like ending the war on poverty and replacing it with the war on drugs. Which has had no consequences to the populace as a whole. Nope none at all.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
And the fascist corporatists need the police state to ensure the continued vassalage of the underclass.
I'll take Bob LaFollette or FDR over Mussolini any time.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
We THOUGHT we were voting for a new FDR in 2008. What we GOT was a new Calvin Coolidge.
Were on the anti-Bush bandwagon, yet happily jumped on the pro-Obama bandwagon once it rolled into town.
I can't believe how short sighted the media is, scratching at the feet of the President wanting approval.
Once again, you're plowing your way though the comments with a reckless lack of perspective. There's no need to run a police state in order to institute universal healthcare, expand education programs, or build on welfare mechanisms. Nor does running a progressive agenda inevitably give way to the construction of a police state. There is nothing inextricable about the two ideas, and as usual, you don't even attempt to back up your flamebaiting claim. Knock it off.
It's always confirmation bias!
"The world's most free" ?? That is a joke. If and when the journalists of a country - the journalists, for crying out loud - stop to mention certain topics on the phone because their government might be interested in the conversation, then that country is by all standards modern NOT free.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
He's not talking about the politicians, he's talking about the journalists themselves (who only skew public opinion, rather than shaping public policy.)
sig: sauer
If Snowden were arrested, it would be for the obvious offense. The one he was well aware he was committing.
Nothing to do with politics.
Journalists have for years been censoring information -
That's why using "censorship" in the new, modern meaning has made it just a flame triggerword useful only to push people's hot buttons. It retains its pejorative connotation but none of the pejorative meaning. Under the current popular definition, as used in this story in particular, "censorship" means "any decision not to say something".
Journalists "censor" themselves every day they write an article. What did they say vs. what didn't they include? Editors censor the journalists, and then the public as a whole when they decide what letters to the editor to publish, how much of each to publish, and any "fixes" they apply for style or grammar.
Librarians censor every time they decide not to buy a certain book for the library. Bookstore owners censor when they choose which books to stock. Magazine/news dealers censor. Slashdot moderators commit censorship when enough of them collectively vote an comment down below the regular reading thresholds. Slashdot posters censor themselves every time they think twice about saying something here for fear of losing karma.
Men in the workplace censor themselves on a regular basis, assuming there is any woman in the same workplace who looks halfway decent. "You look hot today" isn't something they are allowed to say, so most of them censor that kind of comment from their speech. And if they forget, then someone else will happily censor them.
Yawn. Journalists are censoring themselves. News at 11.
And then "conservatives" like you claim to want a small government but then turn around and regulate a woman's body and people's sexual preferences with an iron fist. Your "less powerful government" would simply push the poor off a cliff so that the idle rich can buy a more influence over the government.
But what choice do we have? We speak out or they speak out instead of the death squad you get notified the IRS is going to audit you for however many arbitrary years they now changed the time limit for audits to. Last I heard instead of the 7, it was raised to 10, who knows what it is today or will be tomorrow.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Journalists have for years been censoring information - roughly 90% of them are Democrats (really statists), and many are loathe to present any Democratic official in a negative light. Stories negative to Democrats or the expansion of federal government are usually buried, any chance to pillory a Republican (or non-statist like many libertarians) is sized with glee.
So it's not hard to imagine that people already heavily censoring work would expand what they decided to censor. It's also hard to be sorry for them.
OK.What is your data?
Personally, I go outside of the US media for my information on US politics. And I find that we're pretty right wing - even Obama is right wing by the rest of the World's standards.
You know, I have a bunch of personal political interests. And when I see anything labeled as "conservative" or "liberal", I conclude that the author is an idiot. Reality has NO political bias.
Tl;dr: parent is an idiot.
C'mon man. Nixon is long gone. It's silly to even give him some of the blame. You should always be blaming the people who continue it and refuse to exercise the power to stop it. Stop living in the past.
If your statement were true then Germany, Norway, Belgium, and lots of other countries would be police states. If you want to argue for smaller government you're doing it wrong.
Developers: We can use your help.
People used to think there was no ballot space for a black President as well. And then they voted for one, twice. It's not difficult, you just do it. When the right candidate comes along, it will happen.
Hell yeah, like when that Republican president was caught havin' sexual relations in office, the news was EVERYWHERE, damn liberal media putting a negative spin on good Republicans!
Not to mention some other percentages
30%, 64% and even more startlingly a record 92%!
My god
Obviously you have never researched the links between Progressivism and Fascism.
So now if US govt decides to bomb, say, Iran for profit of several corporations, journalists will either spew pro-war propaganda or be silent. Journalism keeping politicians in check was virtually non-existent in the US and This - coupled with hugely oversized army and ultra-agressive politicians, so keen to start new wars, so they cronies can make big bucks - makes an extremely dangerous combination, even more dangerous than Nazi Germany used to be as it spans whole globe, not just limited area.
This surveillance and tracking was initiated by the Bush administration, and brought to full use by the Obama administration. There is simply no reason to vote for a Republican or a Democratic candidate any longer. They have abdicated their responsibilities and deserve to be pushed out of government completely.
If you're wondering why things don't change, and seem to get worse, please remember that next time you mark the box on your ballot. If you picked the R or D candidate you are just prolonging the problem and must accept blame for your actions.
What's the excuse for 2012?
If the the major U.S. news organizations promoted journalists for writing insightful, well researched articles on U.S.-middle east relations there would be plenty journalists writing about it whether or not they were surveilled by the NSA. The mainstream media (propaganda) organizations are more to blame for censorship in the U.S. than the NSA. Take a look at the problems faced by Harvard and University of Chicago professors publishing their work on "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N294FMDok98
We already know they are playing politics in who they audit.
We were spying on you since at least the early 80s.
We just never told you.
Nothing changed.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The Terrorists won.
To be honest, they won as soon as the PAT-RIOT act was approved and signed into law.
Posting AC for the obvious reason.
It just kills me that those in power with their jingoistic cries of "they hate our freedom" are the ones stripping us of our freedom. It kills me even more that we, as a nation, keep electing them. It's as if we are actively doing this to ourselves.
This seems like a good strategy to avoid getting in trouble with one's employer, or potential employers. Keeping a low social media profile is just common sense for anyone who works or might someday want to work for a company concerned about their public image (and more importantly about preserving their precious access to politicians and other business leaders).
Do you have a study or statistics to support your claim? Sounds more like an ignorant anecdote. In my news browsing I see plenty of stories negative to Democrats.
Developers: We can use your help.
Quiet about bothersome topics.
Commager's 1947 takedown on conformity and taboo subjects is an excellent read.
http:// www. commager.org/dev/pdfs/ Who_is_Loyal_to_America.pdf
Yet ordinary Americans, for the most part, seem not to care: 'Surveillance so intrusive it is putting certain subjects out of bounds would seem like cause for alarm in a country that prides itself as the world's most free.
America, land of the free, home of the brave.. Inviting every Tom, Dick and Harry from all corners of the globe to come join America's way of life wasn't such a good thing afterall. It has politicians back peddling like crazy to shore up the borders now. Now that we have clearly let some of those who would love to destroy America move on in.. Why is everyone so surprised by the survellance taking place now being that we are really threatened by these unknown foreigners emigrating and raising their children to hate America?
I'm complaining about the War on Drugs, started by Nixon
No.
Nixon might have ramped things up a bit, but the War on Personal Freedom (thank you, Bill Hicks) technically started with a man named Harry J. Anslinger, America's first drug czar.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
the press consists of obama bots, both communist and socialist, and they are happy to leave "details" to their "dear leader." At least McCarthy was correct about the danger of communism in America. They all sit with hands over their ears, eyes and mouth hoping that their multiculturalism and perversity wet dream comes to "fruit"ion.
The First Amendment is for telling the government what they will do.
The Second Amendment is for closing the loop on the first.
We THOUGHT we were voting for a new FDR in 2008.
Dude, who is this "we" you speak of? If you voted for Obama thinking he was FDR, what was it you were smoking in 2008, 'cause I'd like to partake in some of that now. Obama was an obvious tool in 2008. Were you reading his campaign material instead of following his votes in the Senate around Iraq, Afghanistan, FISA?
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
I guess you have never heard of Fox news or AM radio have you?
I don't believe this damn report for a minute. Something is wrong with it. They asked four people in a noisy room a loaded question, or they sampled food journalists or some other error. But it's just wrong. Self censor? No. More caution? Yes. Fewer candid sources? Unfortunately, Yes. That's where the threat is.
By voting for which party in our political duopoly? The whole American political system is a mess because with the two entrenched parties, there is almost no ballot space for new ideas.
Do something to create that ballot space then! We're working hard to create ballot space for Pirate Parties here in Europe so you're not alone in the fight.
Uhhhh, you seem to be putting the cart before the horse. The UN didn't cause the US to take an anti-drug stance. It was the US that coerced the rest of the world to go along with this "War on Drugs" thing. Don't blame this fiasco on the UN, it's all of our own making.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Romney.
News flash: We do not have a black president. We have a half-white president, who was groomed and approved of by the entrenched party.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
When I was growing up we were told some of the reasons the Soviets were so terrible is because people could not travel without "their papers", the Soviet government spied on its own citizens, the Soviets put people in secret prisons, the Soviets put people in prison without trial. Sounds a lot like the USA today. In the USA today these bad things seem mostly to be limited to "special circumstances", but they set a scary precedent. There are many great things about the USA, but pretending the bad stuff doesn't exist doesn't help the country, it undermines it.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
Arresting someone for what music they listen to is progressive? Oh boy, we're in trouble.
When my father was a Luftwaffe Soldier/POW in US custody, he saw a German POW's foot being overrun by a US Army (or Army Air Force) truck on purpose. "To make the POW confess the killing of a downed US airman.
So, torture is NOT new for U.S. forces.
That is the point of the reference though. Killing and torture happen frequently in theaters of war, unfortunately. Even though torture is a very old practice in human culture, the US has been demonstrably exceptional in refusing to endorse (and actually condemning) the practice as policy.
What the prior comment was highlighting, and what is only implied if you did not follow US policy from 2001 to now, is that such action has basically received official endorsement at the highest levels of government as a necessary method for "gathering intelligence" or whatever it was they made up at the time. That is a huge change from the period between 1791-2001.
I'd be curious to know about the makeup of their sample. Are those two-thirds of non-chicken writers covering the Hollywood and sports team beats, and therefore have nothing to be brave about? Or does their cowardly sample consist primarily of paranoiac bloggers who write lengthy screeds about how they're not allowed to write lengthy screeds?
The set of people who actually do journalism about the government, the ones who could potentially get access to real secrets and understand the context they fit into, is really quite small. The vast majority of people writing on the subject have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and I honestly don't care what they think. But I'd be rather interested to know what the few genuine journalists see and believe.
We just get our news from websites based outside the US since we know the media has been complicit in many of the government's crimes.
Censorship has a flatter connotation to it than bias.
Most journalists are loathe to criticize Obama but will do so just enough lately to maintain some sense of credibility; after all, when a "journalist" fawns and creams himself over a political figure like so many did at the 2008 inauguration, a total 180 is nigh impossible. They publicly bought it hook line and sinker, and now they can't back down.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The motive is they belong to the same class and power structure.
I.o.w. conveeeeeeenient...!
After all, self-censoring has been going on longer than say the past
half a year.
Chomsky anyone?
How about the US Marine Corp's insistence on making a hover F-35 screwed up the F-35 design? How about Karzai's government, and how it is considered the most corrupt government in the world? How about the fact the US army is supposedly of the greatest army in the world, but only a few generals talked about how several hundred thousand troops would be needed to properly occupy Iraq? That was based on troop ratios for counterinsurgencies in the 50s, and 60s, including Vietnam. Even John McCain knew about that. How about the fact most of the Iraqi insurgents were locals, and not radical islamic terrorists as Bush claimed. How about troop training programs in Iraq and Afghanistan continuously failed to match numbers presented to Congress. Hell, why didn't the media go after Senators that made bogus troop claims? Hell, why not Nepotism in the military? How did John McCain's father and grandfather both become Admirals? How did McCain get accepted into a theoretically prestigious Naval Academy. Why did he decide to run for Senate?
Instead, they care about Snowden, and how many people are in Guantanamo.
Stalin killed 50 million of his own citizens. That's a pretty big step up from what's going on in the US.
Journalists are likely not self-censoring out of fear of the government as the only reason - but out of fear of losing their job since their corporate owners have their own agendas in the name of money grubbing and are of course in bed with the current power brokers.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Do you mean to imply that Robert LaFollette was a Fascist? That's tantamount to calling Dick Cheney a Maoist.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
You pinkos have obviously not heard of 9/11
Boiled down: about one-third of the American press are chickens, about two-thirds are not.
A perfect summary.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Why not address the same criticism to the post I was responding to, which blamed progressives for the police state?
That's bad enough! That's like saying 1/3 of police are corrupt. No, that's not an acceptable fraction even if "most of them" aren't.
Such links are drawn using logic like.. Hillary Clinton believes in educating children. Also Fascists believe in educating children. Therefore...
Oh go fuck yourself, junkie. The privilege of low drug regulation thanks to junkies like you leaching off of society. Go die in a fire.
Not all Soviet leaders were Stalin though, original argument still holds.
The American political system is made up of the American people. If you want to fix things, fix the primary system and the gerrymandering so that politicians don't have to pander to the extremes of both parties.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Most journalist have benn fully aware, or SHOULD HAVE BEEN fully aware of the propaganda, censorship, and criminalistic behavior of government and the mainstream media, and now those same journalist are looking for a way to excuse themselves, and get excused by others.
Any journalist that censors themselves is not a true journalist, and are only contributing to the problem.
Even if the courts were to excuse you, the people will not. You have made your decisions, chosen your side, made your bed, and now it's time to sleep in it.
I would report the truth, but then (obama, dems, warmists, iran, irs) would not like me!!
Nixon first used the phrase, "War on Drugs". According to wikipedia, "The CSA did not only combine existing federal drug laws but it also changed the nature of federal drug law policies, expanded the scope of federal drug laws and expanded Federal law enforcement as pertaining to controlled substances."
Consider Paragraph 811 "Authority and criteria for classification of substances" of the Controlled Substances Act, written by Nixon's Attorney General, which says, in part:
Thus, US law is subservient to UN drug policies.
Stalin killed 50 million of his own citizens. That's a pretty big step up from what's going on in the US.
So until Obama kills 50 million US citizens, nobody can complain about the US government, is that it?
A frank and open discussion in which we weigh safety, freedom and surveillance looking for a balance that keeps a truly free. A discussion of terrorism as more than just a boogie man the government trots out whenever they want to curtail our freedom with more...wait somebodies at the door. [and another slashdotter is taken to the secret NSA prison.] ;-)
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Because I also recognize that progressivism is inherently authoritarian. It can't be imposed without ultimately backing the imposition with force.
This site has absolutely been invaded by pro government shills. Just witness all the comments, this one being a prime example, by Anonymous Assholes with their idiotic one liners, instantly modded up to +5 courtesy of all the other government robots, while posts like MINE are usually modded down to -1, Troll, Flamebait, or whatever.
Dear NSA:
I can't wait for the day when each and every one of you pieces of shit burns to death in a fire.
Please list some of the things you would like to do but can't because you are not free. I can't think of any.
Of course you can't. That's because you're a fucking slave. Slaves weren't created to think, only to obey.
I'd like to be able to exist, living the way I want to live, without being subject to your bullshit rules, regulations, taxes, fines, fees, penalties, mandates, entitlements, and other garbage.
And no, I don't give a fucking shit about what you think about that. You are garbage. You deserve to catch a hollow point to the dome. I hope one day some Patriot makes that happen for ya.
According to wikipedia's article on the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, there were many competing interests. The United States was part of the "Manufacturing states group" which favored "retaining as much of their own freedom as possible". The "Strict control group" (France, Sweden, Brazil, and the Republic of China) " were willing to sacrifice a degree of national sovereignty to ensure the effectiveness of supranational control bodies."
Note that the Controlled Substances Act, Section 811 (d), was used to schedule Rohypnol automatically in the US. From wikipedia:
The delusion would be about thinking that a gun gives you a good chance against an armoured tank.
Only an idiot like you would try to use a gun against a tank. The rest of us will just fill up a 55 gallon drum with fertilizer and diesel fuel and blow the tracks off the fucker.
The American political system is made up of the American people. If you want to fix things, fix the primary system and the gerrymandering so that politicians don't have to pander to the extremes of both parties.
And how do you propose to do so? By voting? LOL. There is only one course open to us now, to regain our freedoms: violent, bloody revolution.
It is matter of time.
(I hope I'm wrong)
Stalin was no saint, but how about at least *some* nuance here? Where do you even get such ridiculous numbers? The only dips in the Soviet population that could even potentially contain such massacres would be between 1911 and 1920 (Russia lost WWI against Germany, civil war, revolution, isolation, famine), before Stalin, and the period between 1941 and 1946 (WWII! Millions upon millions of deaths, both civilian and military, you don't seriously buy the American fantasy that they "won" the war do you?). This is of course all besides the fact that Stalin died in 1953, only in the very beginning stages of the cold war and most likely long before the GP was growing up, after which began a period of de-stalinization of the Soviet Union.
Yes, it's all the Democrats fault. The republicans are pure and never do anything wrong.
Incorrect. There are plenty of bastards in both wings.
It's just that often when you have a bad apple on the Democrat side, you are told it's really applesauce.
While with Republicans you are told it's pure cyanide.
Both are wrong, but one presents Democrats in a favorable light.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But's it's hella effective when done right.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Stalin killed 50 million of his own citizens. That's a pretty big step up from what's going on in the US.
Whats going on here hasn't been concluded yet. At no point while sliding down the slippery slope will a snapshot indicate the speed, or even the direction of motion.
This is slashdot.. you are supposed to be familiar with more than just basic mathematics. The first order derivative tells us that things are not looking well at all going forward. Its more than just a remote possibility that Stalin was small-time compared to whats coming. This is the most powerful nation on the planet, turning into a full blown dystopian police state, more aggressive internationally than it has ever been, and to round that all out its on the cusp of financial implosion.
But maybe you are right.. nothing to see here. Just keep your eyes forward, your mouth shut, and move along.
"His name was James Damore."
The US has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the entire world -- and by a landslide. Either there is vastly more crime in the US than anywhere else in the world, or the system has been rigged to enrich the power elite at the expense of the common man.
Granted, incarceration is a step below murder, but the end result is the same for a man who deserves neither: x number of years of your life have been stolen from you, by way of violence (physical force).
What about the Controlled Substances Act, created by non-progressivist Nixon, is not inherently authoritarian?
It seems you have a double standard.
The cops and politicians are leaching off drugs, drumming up false fears and propaganda about them to generate funding to keep them in power.
We THOUGHT we were voting for a new FDR in 2008. What we GOT was a new Calvin Coolidge.
A little weak on your history, aren't you? We thought we were getting an FDR but we got... well, not Coolidge, that would be Bush (and if McCain had won, he would have been Hoover). I'd say we wanted FDR and got Jimmy Carter.
I mean, really, do you believe for a second Coolidge would have signed the ACA?
Free Martian Whores!
... Middle East, the military and terrorism? Give it up wingnuts.
Teahdists are getting there, with their War on the Poor.
Self-censoring? Yep. It's rife in mainstream media. The famous linguist Noam Chomsky showed us how tainted journalism was decades ago.
When my father was a Luftwaffe Soldier/POW in US custody, he saw a German POW's foot being overrun by a US Army (or Army Air Force) truck on purpose. "To make the POW confess the killing of a downed US airman.
So, torture is NOT new for U.S. forces.
That is the point of the reference though. Killing and torture happen frequently in theaters of war, unfortunately. Even though torture is a very old practice in human culture, the US has been demonstrably exceptional in refusing to endorse (and actually condemning) the practice as policy.
What the prior comment was highlighting, and what is only implied if you did not follow US policy from 2001 to now, is that such action has basically received official endorsement at the highest levels of government as a necessary method for "gathering intelligence" or whatever it was they made up at the time. That is a huge change from the period between 1791-2001.
in WWII, if word of torture reached up more than a few command levels, someone in charge would condemn it and consider punitive action. These days we just rename "torture" to some sort of weasel word and make it legal.
There's also a definite difference between ad-hoc torture and a systematic program of torment. Not that that's much consolation to the recipient.
For some perception of the scale of the wars that ravaged Russia/the Soviet Union (from Wikipedia):
WW1: 3.3 to 3.7 million dead
Immediately followed by: Russian Civil War: Records incomplete, but at least 3 million dead
WW2: 22-28 million dead
During this time, Russia/the Soviet Union went from basically being basically an agrarian society where industrialization had barely started, to launching manned missions to space even before the US with all its wealth and power, all the while being increasingly isolated from the west. Not too shabby really.
It's an act not an ideology. How about Prohibition?
Fear will keep the local journalists in line. Fear of this data center.
Yes, and we would love to turn back toward freedom so that 50 million more people aren't killed by a US president one day. Just because USA isn't the USSR right now doesn't mean we can't get there sooner or later. It will happen if we don't change how things are done.
No dissent shall be tolerated in Obamamerica.
Of course it's an ideology. The ideology is: I don't do drugs, therefore I will make laws so that you don't either. It is as authoritarian as anything.
Your inability to recognize the authoritarianism of those you support bespeaks cognitive dissonance.
Unless OP is at least 70 years old, he probably didn't hear those stories about Stalin's regime.
Carter was well-intentioned and thoughtful, if inept as a president. Obama is no Carter.
Obama is Bush III, who supports and extends all of the Bush policies and enforces them with more vigor. ...and the ACA mandates that all citizens do business with a corrupt cartel that is in part responsible for the decline of healthcare availability in the US. That's nothing Carter would have signed.
We need to strip government of unneeded power and put ourselves back into proper Constitutional governance. The problem is, progressives need the power of the Police State to enforce their progressive policies. But they are the first ones that complain about the police state.
First of all, don't conflate the Democrats with progressives, we don't have a progressive party in the US. Second, US conservatives are just as (or more) authoritarian as it's so-called liberals. Don't get me wrong, I'm no longer a fan of Obama but Romney would have been no better. Second, look at all the votes for the Patriot Act in 2001 and 2006: the overwhelming majority of nay votes (and those abstaining) were Democrats. Third, who is passing all the laws requiring women to be vaginally probed before they can get an abortion? Who wants to force their religious values on others? Etc... The Republicans want just as big of a police state as the Democrats, they only have a couple of minor differences on what to enforce. The NSA has been with us for a long time, through multiple power shifts and no one has reigned it in.
In summary. The US does not have a party that is "left of center." Democrats suck. Republicans suck more.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
I have no doubt that speech is being altered due to fear of government actions. Really i think it started to be severely altered when people were able to sue film makers and book makers when their idiot kid used a sheet to imitate Superman, jumped off the roof and broke a leg or whatever. These days content publishers have works examined by lawyers to try to avoid law suits. Now the government is even more frightening and people are altering their speech in order to avoid potential conflicts.
The downside is obvious. An out of control government can wreck havoc on a population. Conversely there are surely benefits from living in such a society but those benefits are impossible to measure. We also have no way to predict when our government might turn into a barking mad government hell bent on doing evil. There are no easy answers.
We are seeing a continuation of this conflict in people complaining about drones. At its root the people want to be able to get away with certain crimes but want others punished for doing next to nothing. You can see this attitude when absurd arguments are put into play. For example a terrorist who is in hiding on foreign soil and a drone that kills him should not be an issue even though the terrorist happens to be an American citizen. You can bet your last penny that there were German and Japanese soldiers killed in combat that were also American citizens, Nobody had the slightest thought about asking if someone was a US citizen before shooting at them or bombing them. And nobody seems to want to know that we killed more than 50,000 civilians on numerous nights during WWII. These days they whine about 14 innocents being killed along with thousands of enemies in a war that has lasted for 12 years.
I'm the OP, I was referring to the mid-70's to mid-80's. My impression, looking back, is of "pity those poor hungry people with so few rights and an oppressive government who get sent to Siberia if they complain" than the full blown cold war paranoia of the 50's and 60's.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
If you think government is the only problem, you're a true fool.
I don't think the USA is on the verge of collapse, but United States history is littered with incidents of major abuse of government power. These abuses include treatment of Native Americans, specifically deliberately infecting them with smallpox, breaking of treaties, and forced relocation. The FBI's COINTELPRO program. Police misconduct in the civil rights movement. McCarthyism. Internment of american citizens of Japanese descent. Torture, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, and detainment without trial in the "war on terror". Sentencing disparities between being convicted of possession of powder cocaine .vs. possession of crack cocaine. This list is just off the top of my head, I'm sure with a little research I could find many more. These things are failures in our ideals, to be regretted and remembered, to remind us of what can happen.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
These people put the traitor on a pedestal. Now his sights are on them, and they don't know whether to behave and hope for the best or attack him and put a goof in his place.
Wow ... I wonder who might be in charge of the executive branch? Slashdot is maintaining radio silence on that point.
So you assume I support Nixon. Hmm. Of course Nixon just signed into law a piece of legislation written by a Democrat, and passed by a Democratic House and Senate.
The real censorship happens a the top. The guy who sits on the board of directors of Viacom, GE and Shell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate http://www.globalissues.org/article/159/media-conglomerates-mergers-concentration-of-ownership#InterlockingDirectorates). That guy tells an assistant to meet the top editors of the WSJ or NYT in the park, and tells him what to push, and what to stay away from. NPR is a collection of puff pieces and entertainment news. Fox, CNN, et al. little more than eye candy. You can find better quality news on CCTV or RT. I never thought I'd live to see that.
So this is the mainstream media in a nutshell. No stories about peak oil or its implications. Nothing about how much the USA's wars cost, or how much military money simply "goes missing." No discussion of how money works, or is created. No coverage of protests, of which there are *many* that never hit the news. No stories about corruption at the federal level. The only reason we know how ubiquitous police brutality is, is because everyone has a camera phone. The internet is still a little unregulated. A little free. For a while.
Fucking rat bastard traitor president you are.
Stalin killed 50 million of his own citizens. That's a pretty big step up from what's going on in the US.
Just wait until Obamacare gets up to full speed. The death panel is still coming. It's called the "Independent Payment Advisory Board". Google it.
Nixon's Attorney General, John N. Mitchell, was a Democrat?
This was Nixon's baby, and authoritatively rejected the Shafer Commisson's recommendations to decriminalize marijuana.
Authoritarianism and promotion of the police state occurs both on the right and on the left. You're the one claiming it's only progressives who are authoritarian. That's the double standard.
Other then the "papers" part the US has been just like Russia, look up your history over secretive FBI, CIA, PENTAGON, programs dating back to WWII over spying on American citizens, and even imprisoning citizens without trial, because they didn't conform to the power that be. They imprisoned Japanese-American natural citizens during the Japan war, despite them signing up for armed US service. The Civil Rights Movement blew these spying programs into the public eye, as they monitored anyone of importance to the movement, and the high profile leaders were all assassinated. (how convenient)
""Americans have long protested the persecution and constraints on journalists and writers living under repressive regimes abroad, yet many seem ready to accept these new encroachments on their freedom at home."" This is a highly delusional statement from the idiot press/media, it is because the media reports little to nothing about anything truthful until its too late. They press/media has been like this since it was founded, and you see it continues, this journalist is an airhead, she needs to research her history of the media before complaining about her colleagues being cowards.
"How's that 'hopey-changey' stuff workin' out for ya?"
Boiled down: about one-third of the American press are chickens, about two-thirds are not.
Not quite correct. What we can say is that these numbers are true for this particular subset of writers. The reason that's important is because as far as I can tell (and I skimmed the relevant sections, so I may have missed it), the survey was NOT exclusively sent to writers covering the fields in question, so we could have writers for sports, culture, entertainment, etc. responding as well, most of whom would never have a need to cover this stuff in their professional work. Their presence would DRASTICALLY skew any results that pertained to changes in professional habits, since their professional habits are largely unaffected by this stuff.
And, in fact, it looks like that may be exactly what happened. The numbers you're citing are some of the least damning in the entire report, and they all have something in common: they're the ones primarily dealing with changes to professional habits as a result of the issues being described. If you read through the rest of the appendix (and I strongly suggest everyone at least skims through it just to see the numbers), your eyes will be bombarded with figures like:
- 92% believe their personal data will be subject to abuse for years to come because it will never be completely erased
- 73% say they have never been as worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are today
- 57% suspect or know that the government is monitoring their charitable donations
-78% reject the view that “The government’s primary concern is monitoring communication with foreigners – it’s not really interested in domestic eavesdropping.”
I'm not just cherry-picking high ones either. The numbers are consistently high, with the exception of the dip in the section you cited that pertains to their professional work. The remainder of the questions appear to apply broadly, however, and if the results are anything to go by, it looks like writers are terrified of the state of things.
Progressive policies requiring a police state doesn't mean that Neo-Con policies don't require a police state. They both do. I find the Progressive version less obnoxious, but each implies the other, given a slight change in management.
If I could decentralize the government, I would. As I can't, I wish it would use it's power to the benefit of the average person. Actually, I wish it would use it's power to the benefit of those without much power. But I also recognize that I can't make this happen either.
I consider the main problem with the government is that those with power are not held to a higher standard of conduct than those with less power. I consider that to do this would require a degree of transparency that both parties have proven themselves unwilling to do more than promise. And that neither party is willing to use the power of the government to remove those who are abusing their power. Not even when it's to the extent of breaking laws. (N.B.: "It's legal" should never be considered an excuse for governmental action. It should be a part of the "necessary, but not sufficient" conditions.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's not that there's no space. There's LOTS of space. It's that in a plurality wins voting system, only the top two candidates have a plausible chance of being elected. This is why some form of majority wins voting is superior. Instant Runoff Voting is the easiest to explain, even though Condorcet Voting is theoretically superior. (The difference isn't large.) Plurality wins is nearly the worst voting system around. (The exception is "Only approved candidates can run" which is worse, and which we also have to a minor degree.]
Given our voting system the decision making it easier to start third parties actually weakened the potential for new ideas to affect the current parties. Especially as it was accompanied by an FCC decision saying the the TV networks didn't need to make equal time available to all candidates.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Stalin killed 50 million of his own citizens. That's a pretty big step up from what's going on in the US.
That's just a cosmetic flaw. Things have improved. It's no longer necessary to terminate one's life, instead one is made a zombie to the system. Zombie without own will or courage to question what is going on. Zombie is no more threat to the government than a dead man but in these financially challenging times having zombies vs dead bodies saves the trouble and cost of burying the bodies.
The government is not the only problem, but it is also an enabler of many other problems.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
No it isn't the same. A slave in prison can be profitable to hire. And profitable to rent.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Which one?
We have to ask: is the current American populace truly worthy of the ignored warnings of both Benjamin Franklin and Edward Snowden?
Honestly, how do you save people that don't want saving?
Maybe more people would care about journalists being censored if people didn't think they weren't a bunch of sensationalist liars anyway. For those journalists who think this is unfair you only have your bosses, and Ted Turner, to blame for creating a 24 news cycle.
You make the mistake of thinking that Neo-Conservative is the only alternative to Progressive. In fact, they both lie on the same side of the political compass. A better, truly different, alternative would be liberal. Progressives try to claim that their policies are liberal, some people buy into that tripe. Considering the etymology of the word, it couldn't be further from the truth. Other than that I agree with much of what you say.
You mean, all those "I vote present" votes? Those votes alone should have been enough to disqualify him from consideration IMHO. Anyone not willing to take a stand to gain additional power is evil. Period.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Obama is wholly incompetent, worse than Bush was. Remember, Bush came across as stupid, but was in fact evil genius. Obama comes off as genius but has proven himself completely incompetent.
The problem is, any significant level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
I don't view Obama as evil like I do Bush, I just find he is completely incapable of paying attention to what really matters. Here is a perfectly good example: He has spend more time dedicated to picking Basketball Brackets than he has spent with Sebelius while she was rolling out ObamaCare (ACA), which is his signature "legacy". He doesn't give a shit about the ACA, and that is borne out in his actions. And his words mean absolutely nothing, because he doesn't know anything, yet talks with authority, which comes across as "lies". There is a reason the right thinks he "lies", because he is incompetent and it is hard to tell the difference.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
When I was growing up, Stalin was dead, and we still talked about the Soviet Union in those terms. Later Soviet rulers were unpleasant and totalitarian, but they didn't commit that sort of mass murder.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Journalists are overwhelmingly Democrats, and owners of media outlets are generally Republicans. This results in lots of stories being at best de-emphasized, regardless of which party they favor. It also means that lots of people blast the mass media for biased coverage, but they don't actually agree on the bias. Beware confirmation bias.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Go research "The water cure". It was a tourturing device American troops were instructed to use during interrogation on people of the Phillipines during U.S. occupation of that country post Spanish American War. This was something that existed in actual instructional pamphlets given to U.S. soldiers.
Learn your history. The U.S. has been run by imperialistic sadistic sociopaths since much before 2001.