A repressive embarrassment (Ashcroft & freedom of the press)

[pinto]

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7315676733687&Avis=TO&Dato=20031213&Kategori=OPINION02&Lopenr=112130159&Ref=AR

Anyone who thinks the administration and its law enforcement chief, Attorney General John Ashcroft, aren’t out to impede a free press need only hear how the federal government is treating foreign journalists coming to this country on assignment.

Without notification to foreign media outlets, the immigration and customs people are arresting, detaining, and deporting journalists arriving here without special visas. This is so even when they come from nations whose citizens can stay for up to 90 days without a visa if they are arriving as tourists or on business.

If that threatening form of registration is not enough, members of the press arriving without the visas, which no one told them they needed, are treated like criminals, handcuffed as they’re marched through airports, photographed, fingerprinted, and their DNA taken.

Peter Krobath, chief editor for the Austrian movie magazine Skip, was held overnight in a cold room with 45 others who arrived without the visa. The room had two open toilets, a metal bench, and a concrete bench. He was here to interview movie star Ben Affleck and see the movie Paycheck.


more...
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7315676733687&Avis=TO&Dato=20031213&Kategori=OPINION02&Lopenr=112130159&Ref=AR

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pinto]

2. what's your point?

[karnac]

3. Hard to say

If it is true somebody screwed up with ATTA, then somebody SERIOUSLY
screwed up in the Clinton Administration. I for one doubt it simply because the Repugs would have had a field day with this allegation if true and we wouldn't have heard the end of it to this day. Jumping out of a window of a hirise would have been a good option for us. :D


Back to the question at hand.

It is an true that many in our "free" world have been given carte blanche in their travels. Journalists and reporters are part of this and I can understand it. we NEED them to report at a moment's notice,wherever and whenever, so we can be well informed.

Unfortunately things have changed.

Terrorists/freedomfighters/whatever have started using this chink in our armor. If you have noticed, the opposition in Iraq have started to dress up as the press, wearing press badges and clothes to get close to their targets. Just like they are now using red cross uniforms and vehicles. We are going to have to be extra careful. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY is ever going to get special treatment from now on.

However, if so-called journalists are singled out, treated badly, BECAUSE they ARE journalists its something else. Then the originator of this thread has a good point.

Karnac

[pinto]

4. I think the press is being seen as "obstructionist" especially those not

"embedded".....the report you saw about "insurgents as press", if it was yesterday, turned out to be actual Reuters reporters/cameramen. They are still being held....

[Elidor]

5. Yes

It's not hard to draw a line between the extremely critical reporting on the US by media around the world and the abusive tactics they've been singled out for by Ashcroft - tactics also used on protesters, dissidents, outspoken grandmothers and many dark men. Bushco has taken the Nixon administration as a role model and expanded the whole concept of the use of government agencies to harrass percieved political enemies.

The most dramatic demonstration of the administration's utter hatred of real reporters (and even those phony embedded tools) is the routine use of deadly force against them in Iraq. Time and again, camera crews witnessing inconvenient incidents have been shot at, detained and even killed. And how many times did we bomb Jazeera's Baghdad HQ? If at first you don't succeed and all that...