Juan Cole: Top Ten Ways US TV News Screwing Us Again on NSA Surveillance Story (Iraq Redux)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/06/screwing-surveillance-redux.html

Top Ten Ways US TV News are Screwing us Again on NSA Surveillance Story (Iraq Redux)

Published on June 24th, 2013
Written by: Juan Cole

- snip -

Now, corporate television news is repeating this shameful performance with regard to the revelations by Edward Snowden of massive, unconstitutional government surveillance of Americans’ electronic communications. The full failure to do proper journalism was on display on Sunday (when, unfortunately, critical voices such as Rachel Maddow are absent). Here are the propaganda techniques used to stack the deck on Sunday:

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4. Ignore important breaking stories that impugn the government case. For instance, The Guardian broke the story Saturday morning that the NSA PRISM program was small compared to the TEMPORA program of GCHQ, its British counterpart, which Snowden alleged has attached sniffers to the fiber optic cables that stretch from New York to London, and is vacuuming up massive amounts of email and telephone conversations. A Lexis Nexis search in broadcast transcripts for Sunday showed that no US news broadcaster mentioned TEMPORA or GCHQ. This was true even though the NSA has 250 analysts assigned to TEMPORA and even though that program sweeps up and stores exactly the kind of material (telephone calls, emails) that President Obama denied were being collected.

5. Skew the guest list. Television news interviewed Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and a gaggle of retired FBI and CIA figures. All of them without exception were cheerleaders for the Iraq War. Glenn Greenwald was virtually the only voice allowed on the other side. He was cut short on CNN and was at a disadvantage on television because he was on the phone from Rio. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Gore, Steve Wozniak, Pierre Omidyar, and a whole host of figures supportive of Snowden having told us what is going on were not invited on the air to balance the hard liners interviewed.

- snip -

7. Ignore past government misuse of classified information. Television news has studiedly avoided referring to Dick Cheney’s outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA field officer (and therefore outing of all the CIA field officers who used the same dummy corporation as she did as a cover,as well as all local informants known to be connected to that dummy corporation). Television anchors seem to think that the government is always trying to ‘protect’ us and is on the side of the angels, and sidestep the question of whether secret information can be used for private or shady policy purposes. Plame, by the way, is warning about the intelligence-industrial complex.

8. Continually allege or allow guests to allege that Snowden could have taken his concerns to the NSA or to Congress internally. None of his predecessors had any luck with that approach. Even sitting senators of the United States of America like Ron Wyden have been muzzled and cannot conduct a public debate on these abuses.

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[Pholus]

1. Number 1 is HIGHLY relevant to the DU debate on this.

Thanks, good link. Cole was spot on about the run up to Iraq...

[Rise Rebel Resist]

2. rec & kick

[cantbeserious]

3. TEMPORA - 250 NSA Analysts Assigned - Collects Calls From Fiber Optic Cables - Never Mentioned

eom

[fasttense]

4. We can trade with Hong Kong, China and Russia but Snowden is a traitor for going there???

I don't know how many times I've seen this exact argument made on DU.

"2. Smear Snowden with ad hominem fallacies. His transit through Moscow was held up as a sign of disloyalty to the United States, as though nowadays American business people and government officials don’t transit through Moscow all the time. The US ships significant amounts of military materiel for Afghanistan through Russia. Is that treasonous?"

The posters who claim Snowden a traitor because he dare, oh my, go to Hong Kong, or a part of China, or Russia, don't declare the thousands of American born CEOs, executives and businessmen who visit there regularly and sell their slave wage crap here in the US as traitors. No it's fine and dandy to use those countries for capitalist purposes but don't let private citizens avoid becoming political prisoners by going there. Oh no that's treason.

Snowden is a hero and he has renewed my faith in America. Imagine a man who can NOT be bought.

[cantbeserious]

5. The Duplicity Is Staggering Here And Elsewhere

eom

[chimpymustgo]

6. How can anyone here at DU align themselves with these LIARS and MURDERERS?? K&R!!

The Sunday talking head puppet shows were quite informative:

http://www.juancole.com/2013/06/screwing-surveillance-redux.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29

Top Ten Ways US TV News are Screwing us Again on NSA Surveillance Story (Iraq Redux)

Posted on 06/24/2013 by Juan Cole

-edit-

5. Skew the guest list. Television news interviewed Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and a gaggle of retired FBI and CIA figures. All of them without exception were cheerleaders for the Iraq War. Glenn Greenwald was virtually the only voice allowed on the other side. He was cut short on CNN and was at a disadvantage on television because he was on the phone from Rio. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Gore, Steve Wozniak, Pierre Omidyar, and a whole host of figures supportive of Snowden having told us what is going on were not invited on the air to balance the hard liners interviewed.

6. Accuse journalists of treason for reporting Snowden’s revelations. This was the absolutely shameful tack taken by David Gregory on Meet The Press, when he asked Greenwald, “To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” The “to the extent” and “aided and abetted” language isn’t journalism it is shilling for the most despicable elements in Congress (and that is way over on the despicable scale).

-edit-

[MNBrewer]

7. The 10th propaganda point is definitely in evidence here on DU.

"Focus the discussion on the alleged criminality of Snowden’s disclosures instead of on the obvious lawlessness of programs such as Tempora, which sweep up vast amounts of personal information on private individuals and store them in data bases. ... narrowing the debate to “how illegal were Snowden’s actions?” instead of allowing the question, “how legal are the NSA’s actions,”

[Octafish]

10. Destroy the messenger. Ignore the fact the government is spying on everyone.

Which. Is. Against. The. Law.

[MNBrewer]

13. Not if you secretly re-interpret the law to make it legal

Abracadabra! POOF!! Secret legality.

[Octafish]

14. Like magic.

Presto change-o. We're all republicano all of a suddenly.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022673617

Except, we're not. And we won't. No matter what anybody says.

[Babel_17]

8. The guest lists will remain biased

If people stop lending their eyeballs to an increasingly irrelevant media dog and pony show then that might change.

Though of course they then might just invite the most wild eyed anti-establishment guests that are available.

[Hissyspit]

9. Kick nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

11. Juan Cole is a racist who hates Obama. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. It is amazing at times

But he hit the proverbial nail