8 ways the Obama administration is blocking information

[TheNutcracker]

8 ways the Obama administration is blocking information

AP 09/19/2014 by Erin Madigan White

The fight for access to public information has never been harder, Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee said recently at a joint meeting of the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press Media Editors and the Associated Press Photo Managers. The problem extends across the entire federal government and is now trickling down to state and local governments.

Here is Buzbee’s list of eight ways the Obama administration is making it hard for journalists to find information and cover the news:

1) As the United States ramps up its fight against Islamic militants, the public can’t see any of it. News organizations can’t shoot photos or video of bombers as they take off — there are no embeds. In fact, the administration won’t even say what country the S. bombers fly from.

2) The White House once fought to get cameramen, photographers and reporters into meetings the president had with foreign leaders overseas. That access has become much rarer. Think about the message that sends other nations about how the world’s leading democracy deals with the media: Keep them out and let them use handout photos.

3) Guantanamo: The big important 9/11 trial is finally coming up. But we aren’t allowed to see most court filings in real time — even of nonclassified material. So at hearings, we can’t follow what’s happening. We don’t know what prosecutors are asking for, or what defense attorneys are arguing.

4) Information about Guantanamo that was routinely released under President George W. Bush is now kept secret. The military won’t release the number of prisoners on hunger strike or the number of assaults on guards. Photo and video coverage is virtually nonexistent.

5) Day-to-day intimidation of sources is chilling. AP’s transportation reporter’s sources say that if they are caught talking to her, they will be fired. Even if they just give her facts, about safety, for example. Government press officials say their orders are to squelch anything controversial or that makes the administration look bad.

6) One of the media — and public’s — most important legal tools, the Freedom of Information Act, is under siege. Requests for information under FOIA have become slow and expensive. Many federal agencies simply don’t respond at all in a timely manner, forcing news organizations to sue each time to force action.

7) The administration uses FOIAs as a tip service to uncover what news organizations are pursuing. Requests are now routinely forwarded to political appointees. At the agency that oversees the new health care law, for example, political appointees now handle the FOIA requests.

8) The administration is trying to control the information that state and local officials can give out. The FBI has directed local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology the police departments use to sweep up cellphone data. In some cases, federal officials have formally intervened in state open records cases, arguing for secrecy.

http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2014/Journalists-criticize-White-House-for-secrecy

[sadoldgirl]

2. All of this started very early and

don't forget Whistle blowers get punished - as far as I heard - more than before.

Consider how differently FDR used the media!

[WillyT]

3. Hope & Change... Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !!!

[MissDeeds]

7. [phone]

Along with "transparency in government".

[whereisjustice]

4. are we feeling safer yet?

[obxhead]

5. Transparency

The BOG group should be along any second now to explain how much different things are.

[Cha]

6. Ohhhh

And, when they report it, they always get it wrong anyway. poor things.

[sheshe2]

8. Bwaaaaaaaaahaahahahaha~

Brava, you are spot on as always, Cha. It's why I love you.

[Cha]

14. Then we have those siding with the US mediawhores because their

ODS is that strong, she.

Hey buddy Or should I say "BOGGY"?

[sheshe2]

17. BOGGY!

LOL...I like that.

Are you back up and running at home or still using the library~

[Cha]

18. I'm up and running at home but

it's taking me a little bit to get back in the fray again.

[sheshe2]

19. YAY !

We always seem to be fraying here Cha.

[msanthrope]

12. The DC press corp misses being spoonfed by Bush...now they have to do their

jobs, and that's difficult for them.

[Cha]

15. You know they miss strenographing for Bushits.

They treat President Obama like shite and wonder why he's not patting them on their little mediawhore 'eads.

[johnnyreb]

9. #9) Maintaining Bush's bogus classification of the 2002 Joint Inquiry's 28 page chapter

that followed the money. http://28pages.org/

[KurtNYC]

10. then they flip around and say we are going to war because 2 journalists were killed

HASKELL WEXLER: Amy, I’m pissed off. I am angry. I am—I see how the American public is being confused, lied to and given theater, to make us buy that war is the way to have peace, and to use a journalist like Jim Foley, who was truly a journalist—wants to search for the truth, actually was out amongst them, and volunteered to work with my film group in Chicago, which were there documenting an anti—anti-NATO demonstration. In fact, he himself took a camera, and I have 30 minutes of film of him talking to people in Chicago, so that he was not a person detached, objective journalist. He realized that our foreign policy is destructive, when you had a humanitarian crisis that hurt him deeply that he saw in Syria.

And a funny thing is, the government knew what his position is, with all the surveillance, was—and on just students in Chicago who were opposing NATO and the war, the taking of their computers, certainly the look into journalists and their points of view. If they didn’t know before, when James Foley took a camera to work with me and my fellow Chicago filmmakers in an anti-NATO film, there’s no question on what side of the fence he’s on. And the government functions on "you’re either 100 percent for us, or you’re the enemy." And that’s why a lot of our discussions and other interviews was Jim talking about the other, how authorities can establish who the other is, and once they’re other, they’re less than human, they’re less than smart, and you can do anything to them, because you have to teach them a lesson. So, for them to use him as a poster boy for more violence is obscene, and I think that the country has to know it’s obscene.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/12/james_foley_on_the_dehumanization_of

[msanthrope]

11. Media complains the have to do their job! It's not like when Bush

embedded them in Iraq and they kissed his ass.

[Cha]

16. Exactly, The Bushes and the US Mediawhores were in lockstep in Iraq.. without the so called

Press banging the drums of war loudly .. there might not have been a War on Iraq.

[bahrbearian]

13. K&R for Cha and sheshe2