I wonder how many newspaper would go as far as the Guardian, battling their government, to protect information. On the other hand, there are not many western democracies would do something so stupid as to force a newspaper to destroy the hard-drives.
We are ruled by idiots at all levels. All management authors I've read so far, were pointing from 2009 that EU is out of real political leaders with any management skill. Watching what is happening to France (SK got ousted by the CIA and France became irrelevant...), the UK (it's hard to even remember Cameron's name without Googling it and it's 4 years since he took office!), Germany has Angela Merkel which is famous for doing nothing, never (Something German voters appreciate apparently, I'm eager to see what will happen in the years to come with German exports decreasing), Italy is non-existent, Spain doesn't matter and Russia is not a democracy anyway... And that's Europe in 2014.
NYT sat on a story for a year because it would anger the state, thus meaning they would be denied access to any gov officials or military so they waited for somebody else to do it. US press is largely neutered. As for Italy their MPs were brawling each other yesterday like drunken yabbos
I agree that the press in the US is neutered. They're petrified of appearing adversarial because they know their access will be cut off.
It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy if they never test the length of their leash-- they could easily make a story out of "we said X and so our access was cut off, this isn't right" but it'd require an ounce of spine.
That's an unfair characterization of NYTimes behavior. They sit on stories when the editors agree that releasing the information would do more harm than good.
> The New York Times has known about the former agent’s C.I.A. ties since late 2007, when a lawyer for the family gave a reporter access to Mr. Levinson’s files and emails. The Times withheld that information to avoid jeopardizing his safety or the efforts to free him. On Thursday, The Associated Press disclosed Mr. Levinson’s role with the intelligence agency. In a statement, the White House said it had urged the wire service not to publish its article “out of concern for Mr. Levinson’s life.” After Thursday’s disclosure, the Levinson family said it had no objection to The Times’s publishing this article.
How can one say the editors did Levinson a favor by holding back the story? Is propagating the idea that Iran or other nation has some innocent civilian when he is really CIA beneficial? Wouldn't that just solidify a potential negative reaction from said government who is apparently rightfully holding a foreign agent who was working on their soil?
In the end your comment seems to support the parent. NYTimes sits on stories at the behest of the US government, only releases it when another agency beats them to the punch.
Censoring stories, partially or entirely, is standard operating procedure.
The most egregious example is when the New York Times delayed publishing revelations of unlawful wiretapping until after the US elections of 2006, on request of the White House. [1] There was no legitimate editorial reason for that decision.
That behaviour has not changed, and the Guardian is no better. According to ACLU attorney Ben Wizner (self-described "chief legal advisor" to Snowden) the New York Times, the Guardian -- and every other publication which got access to the leaked documents -- did not publish a single document without first consulting with the US government. [2,3]
Personally I don't trust any tax-paying organization to publish information the government does not want published.
[2] "The journalists who Snowden gave the information to, have in every single case, gone to the government before they have published something." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs3mFZ4UWME#t=53m (At 53:00.)
[3] "The Guardian has not published a single story that has included NSA classified documents, without consulting with the US government. The same is true for Glenn Greenwald, and the same is true for every foreign journalistic partner. In fact, they put it into their contract, with all of those other publications around the world, that they are not to publish any secret document without giving the US an opportunity to weigh in." http://ww3.tvo.org/video/199289/sentencing-snowden (At 9:40.)
Yet we keep on voting for them. We are the problem,they are just opportunistic b_st_rds. Things will change when everybody acknowledge the fact that we are reponsible for this.
We can only vote for who gets on the ballot. Who gets on the ballot is determined very undemocratically by who has the most money behind him/her. This is so far from one-person-one-vote when 20% have 95% of the financial wealth[1]. Money then skews the final result when millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising (propaganda) can destroy the candidate that money doesn't like.
But if all the splinter third party candidates got their act together and mobilized themselves and developed a solid platform, they could certainly make a run themselves.
I hate to use Jesse Ventura as an example, but he really was a true independent candidate, with a solid platform and didn't act like a politician. What he said resonated with the people of Minnesota who were sick of the politicians, sick of the promises and infighting. He did a lot of good when he was in office and fulfilled his campaign promises.
A lot of people look at the light rail in Minnesota as a huge success, but it was Ventura who believed in the project from the beginning and actually got additional funding to keep it going when both Democrats and Republicans were trying to kill the project.
But if all the splinter third party candidates got their
act together and mobilized themselves and developed a
solid platform, they could certainly make a run
themselves.
Not really. For example, the League of Women Voters used to run the US persidential debate. They've stopped, because the Democrats and Republicans demanded such unfair terms that it would have been a farce. So now the Democrats and Republicans together control the debates.
> But if all the splinter third party candidates got their act together and mobilized themselves and developed a solid platform
Yeah, but, see, the Libertarian Party and the Socialist Party (and those aren't even the most divergent among the non-major parties) aren't going to unite around a common policy platform. In fact, each of them is closer to policy commonality with one of the major parties than they are too each other.
We are ruled by idiots at all levels. All management authors I've read so far, were pointing from 2009 that EU is out of real political leaders with any management skill. Watching what is happening to France (SK got ousted by the CIA and France became irrelevant...), the UK (it's hard to even remember Cameron's name without Googling it and it's 4 years since he took office!), Germany has Angela Merkel which is famous for doing nothing, never (Something German voters appreciate apparently, I'm eager to see what will happen in the years to come with German exports decreasing), Italy is non-existent, Spain doesn't matter and Russia is not a democracy anyway... And that's Europe in 2014.