Guest guest Posted February 5, 2005 Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 " Mark Hull-Richter " <mhull Fri, 4 Feb 2005 13:18:05 -0800 (PST) FW: A Culture of Secrecy A Culture of Secrecy What has happened to the principle that American democracy should be accessible and transparent? " Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. " †" George Orwell, Politics and the English Language By Charles Lewis WASHINGTON, February 3, 2005 †" In the world's oldest democracy, pressure on investigative journalists is usually exerted in sophisticated, non-lethal ways, under the public radar. Every day in Washington, D.C., thousands of government and corporate public relations flaks and lobbyists purvey their " talking points " with a friendly smile, no matter how odious the client, no matter how intellectually dishonest or morally dubious their message. Journalists must trudge through the shameless " spin " -that vanilla word admiringly used these days instead of " lying, " which has a harshly judgmental, jarringly rude ring in Washington power circles. Sometimes the persuasion becomes less subtle. For example, when the Center for Public Integrity obtained and prepared to publish online the secret, proposed draft sequel to the USA Patriot Act, known as " Patriot II, " we got calls from the U.S. Justice Department beseeching us not to publish. Over the years, those unhappy with my investigations have tried just about everything to discourage our work. They have issued subpoenas, stalked my hotel room, escorted me off military bases, threatened physical arrest, suggested I leave via a second-story window, made a death threat personally communicated by concerned state troopers who asked that we leave the area immediately (we didn't), hired public relations people to infiltrate my news conferences and pose as " reporters " to ask distracting questions, attempted to pressure the Center's donors, and even brought expensive, frivolous libel litigation that takes years and costs millions of dollars to defend. (snip) To continue http://www.publicintegrity.org/ga/report.aspx?aid=649 ===== Mark Hull-Richter, U.S. Citizen & Patriot U.S.A. - From democracy to kakistocracy in one fell coup. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm http://verifiedvoting.org http://blackboxvoting.org ___ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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