“Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009”, Project Censored Sonoma State University CA

[jody]

“Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009” has links to the reports below.

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
• # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
• # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
• # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
• # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
• # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
• # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
• # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
• #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
• # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
• # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
• # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
• # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
• # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
• # 15 Worldwide Slavery
• # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
• # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
• # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
• # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
• # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
• # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
• # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
• # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
• # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

Given the decay of investigative reporting in the MSM, will this university project and others like it find a market niche in the public’s need for news?

[annabanana]

1. So much that we aren't being told.

And because most Americans don't look. . most Americans don't know.

[Blue_Tires]

2. I'd forgotten about Project Censored...

I do wonder what its future will be in this era of dying hard news...

[Webster Green]

8. I doubt it is going anywhere..

I had the good fortune to work for Project Censored for a couple of years. I designed and built a website for them while I was there. (The current site is not mine, it has since been re-done).

Peter Phillips, who runs Project Censored is great, and there are about 30 or 40 students and several faculty involved. It's a wonderful project and very popular at Sonoma State :thumbsup:

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Shouldn't those be the top censored stories of 2008?

[jody]

4. Yes but I just copied the title as you will see if you visit the site. n/t

[Echo In Light]

6. "For," not "of."

[Echo In Light]

5. K&R for PROJECT CENSORED!!!

[Jim__]

7. Thanks for posting - great info!

[slackmaster]

9. The InfraGard story was never censored, it was just empty bullshit

And hyperbole.

[pleah]

10. K&R Bookmarked. n/t

[mod mom]

11. # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror:

The Japanese parliament viewed several slides from the Pentagon and World Trade Center (WTC) sites as Fujita explained each. The slides showed evidence inconsistent with official explanation: damage in and around the Pentagon was not consistent with the damage a 757 airplane would cause. Fujita noted, “Also, there were more than eighty security cameras at the Pentagon, but officials have refused to release the footage. In any case, as you have just seen, there is no picture of the airplane or of its wreckage in any of these photographs. It is very strange that no such pictures have been shown to us.” A US Air Force official corroborated the fact that the plane executed a U-turn and avoided the Defense Secretary’s office, a feat that would be impossible for an unskilled first-time pilot to maneuver; and no air defense was made in the ninety-minute interval between the initial impact of the planes at the WTC and the Pentagon. Fujita added, “It is baffling that no flight records were found at any of four sites.” On the ground at the WTC sites, both sounds and visual evidence from explosions were verified. Flying debris shot out as far as 150 meters consistent with buildings exploding. A New York fireman during rescue operations confirmed that a series of explosions resembled a professional demolition, and a Japanese survivor heard explosions while fleeing the site. The World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7), forty-seven stories high and located one block away, collapsed into its footprint, seven hours after the main WTC buildings were attacked, in five or six seconds, although no plane struck it and it had minimal fire damage. Not only did the 9/11 Commission fail to mention WTC 7, but the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) made no mention of it in their reports.

Fujita went on to detail proof of insider trading from September 6 through 8, when investors executed “put options” to sell stock in United and American Airlines at a fixed price. Finance specialist Keiichiro Asao responded with confirmation that such complex transaction would be the work of insiders rather than al-Qaeda.

Fujita then addressed Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, “I would like to know why the Prime Minister thinks it was the Taliban who was responsible for 9/11.” He continued, “We need to go back to the beginning and not just simply and blindly trust the US government explanation and indirect information provided by them. . . . We need to look at this evidence and ask ourselves what the war on terrorism really is. . . . We need to ask who the real victims of this war on terrorism are. I think the citizens of the world are its victims.”

-snip

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/24-japan-questions-9-11-and-the-global-war-on-terror/

[glitch]

13. How logical, rational and unemotional (must be a conspiracy theorist! ;). K & R nt

[cliffordu]

12. I read up a little on infragard a while back.

It's a program that allows the creation of a true police state because all the 'good guys' are the police:

It means your cable guy can shoot you in the face and walk away unmolested.

This ain't tin hat material, either...Look it up....

[Echo In Light]

14. An Update on Infragard

UPDATE BY MATT ROTHSCHILD

The Progressive sent out a press release on the InfraGard story, and I was interviewed on Air America, Democracy Now! and lots of other alternative radio shows. But the mainstream media have ignored this story, with the exception of one small wire service report. The FBI hasn’t ignored it, though.

On February 15, the FBI issued a press release denouncing our article.

“The article’s claims are patently false,” said the FBI’s Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry. “InfraGard members have no extraordinary powers and have no greater right to ‘shoot to kill’ than other civilians.”

“No greater right”? That’s odd language, isn’t it? It reminded me of a quote in my article from Curt Haugen, CEO of S’Curo Group, and a proud InfraGard member. When I asked him about whether the FBI or Homeland Security agents had told InfraGard members they could use lethal force in an emergency, he said: “That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened.”

Note that the FBI did not deny that it ever told InfraGard members that they could “shoot to kill.” All that Henry said was that InfraGard members “have no greater right.” That doesn’t exactly blow a hole in my story.

The FBI seemed put out that I did not give enough information about the meeting the whistleblower attended. “Unfortunately, the author of the Progressive article refused even to identify when or where the claimed ‘small meeting’ occurred in which issues of martial law were discussed,” Henry said in the press release. “If we get that information, the FBI certainly will follow up and clarify any possible misunderstandings.”

The reason I didn’t identify where or when the meeting took place is obvious: I didn’t want to reveal anything that would expose my whistleblower.

Incidentally, the press release fails to mention that I received confirmation about discussions of “lethal force” from another member of InfraGard, whom I did name.

I stick by every single word of my story. And I call on Congress to investigate InfraGard and to inspect the plans that the FBI may have in store, not only for InfraGard, but for all of us in times of an emergency.

One final note: since the story appeared, I’ve received several new leads, including one confirming that a private company has been given “lethal powers.”

[cliffordu]

15. So: what's blackwater up to now??

I mean besides helping the DEA in San Diego.

[Echo In Light]

16. bump

[SpiralHawk]

17. "Move along. There's nothing to see here." - Homelander Corporate media

[Uncle Joe]

18. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, jody.

[chknltl]

19. "Iraqi Body Count" has far less than a million deaths

Their count comes in at under 100,000 http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

This particular story is moderately significant to a friendly, ongoing debate I am having with a republican precinct commander. More importantly, these figures are of interest to me because I am an American citizen who is well aware that my country has done a terrific wrong to another country. I would like to know as close as possible how high a toll the Iraqi peoples have suffered due to our fiasco war. Most Americans, if asked can come up with a number that comes close to how many American military lives have been lost since we invaded Iraq. When it comes to Iraqi deaths otoh..... I think those numbers, if under a hundred thousand or closer to a million are numbers all American citizens should know too.

[Echo In Light]

20. Bump

[Reader Rabbit]

21. I'm gonna provide a link to story #12 in reply to every education post that comes up!

I've had it with the people who buy into all that teacher-bashing "accountability" crap.