Nevertheless, when very important facts drop out of popular accounts of the recent historical record, one can only wonder whether it was a routine editorial decision, a blunder or an omission based on covert string-pulling.
Such omissions are so numerous these days that we may be justified in a bit of Orwellian paranoia.
A case in point is Jeffrey Toobin's best-selling The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Doubleday 2007/8), an insider-style record of Supreme Court decision-making and the personalities behind the judging. The book covers, essentially, the Rehnquist court from the Reagan years to Rehnquist's death in 2005.
Toobin focuses on a number of important trends and issues, including abortion and the rights of Guantanamo detainees. But nowhere does the book mention the hugely important constitutional issues of congressional term limits or the presidential line item veto.
Had the top court let the states set limits on its federal delegates, the world would be very different today. Had the court not struck down the election year enactment of a line item veto, the power balance between Congress and the executive would have tilted wildly.
This was really important constitutional law, and Toobin doesn't breathe a word about it.
Toobin, a seasoned journalist and Ivy League law school graduate, is about to release The Oath, which concerns the court in the Obama years.
I looked for the CNN analyst's email address in order to ask him about the peculiar omissions, but no luck.
I do recall that mainstream Eastern media tried hard to ignore the issue of term limits until it had become too big to continue blockading.
What will the new federal internet political blacklist come to include? Tea Partiers and Glenn Beck, maybe? Or 9/11 skepticism? Or this blog, Lifting the Veil?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
Syria is no friend of press liberty.
http://info.ifex.org/View.
Arsonist flames Vilks exhibit.
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/
Leakers face faulty Wikileaks software, reports Threat Level.
http://www.wired.com/
Soldier charged with Wikileaks leak.
http://www.truth-out.org/
Viets step up china-style net censorship.
http://news.theage.com.au/
Citizen freedom of net choice nixed, despite Aussie Labor shakeup.
http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/government-tech-policy/40053-conroy-re-commits-to-filter-slams-lundy
Anti-censorship shelter to aid harassed reporters.
http://en.rsf.org/reporters-without-borders-unveils-25-06-2010,37809.html
Though Tom Eley is hard-left, his BP coverup facts are correct. He writes:
There are by now countless reports of journalists and citizens being ordered away from beaches or blocked from viewing the spill from the land, air and sea by BP, the Coast Guard and hired security agents. In mid-June, the White House banned airplanes from flying over the spill zone at altitudes below 3,000 feet, and helicopters below 1,500 feet, without a special exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported last week that journalists have been repeatedly barred from a government mobile hospital in Venice, Louisiana that is treating clean-up workers.
BP and its supplier Nalco, have even refused to reveal to scientists the chemical composition of Corexit, the dispersant that has been dumped by the hundreds of thousands of gallons into the Gulf to break up the oil, because, they say, it is a trade secret. BP simply defied an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) order issued one month ago, to cease use of Corexit pending further testing. Obama decided not to pursue the matter.
For nearly two months, BP and government stonewalling made it impossible even to assess how big the blowout was. Insisting from the first that BP was “in charge” of the clean-up, the administration colluded with the oil giant to block independent analysis of the gusher one mile beneath the surface of the Gulf. Only under steady criticism from scientists did the administration repeatedly revise upward the rate of the oil erupting from the sea floor. The spill is now, by all accounts, the largest in history.
Columbia spook held in journalist's slaying.
http://info.ifex.org/View.aspx?id=213300&q=219619918&qz=c1692
Turks bar online magazine.
http://www.ifex.org/united_arab_emirates/2010/07/05/hetta_blocked/
Mexican journalists slain.
http://laht.com/article.asp?
Concerns on Kagan's record on liberty:
From the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704334604575339364028211970.html
From EPIC's newsletter:
In anticipation of Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings this week, EPIC sent a letter to Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL). In addition to asking the Senators to consider Kagan's record on privacy, the letter encouraged them to ask the nominee probing questions about her views on body scanners, consumer privacy and the Fourth Amendment, among other emerging privacy issues. As Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for the Clinton Administration, Kagan wrote on several privacy issues with present-day analogues. She wrote in support of "hand held gun detector devices" that would enable "police...[to] potentially scan people in public places without their knowledge." Kagan also proposed guidelines to "allow officers to scan liberally, particularly in airports, train stations and traffic stops." She expressed these views pre-September 11, 2001, and the writings hint at her views on controversial new search techniques like the TSA's full body scanner program. Also during her time under President Clinton, Kagan expressed views on consumer privacy. She gave her support to the Administration's health care agenda, including " consumer protection reforms (to ensure quality, prevent discrimination, and protect privacy." Kagan also supported privacy protection legislation to "establish strong federal standards to ensure the confidentiality of medical records." More recently, as Solicitor General under President Obama, Kagan argued against two important lower court rulings, Comprehensive Drug Testing v. United States and City of Ontario v. Quon. In Comprehensive Drug Testing, the Ninth Circuit set forth five guidelines meant to protect privacy for law enforcement when conducting electronic searches. Kagan argued that the Comprehensive Drug Testing standards are too cumbersome, and that they will undermine the ability of law enforcement to catch criminals. Kagan also filed an amicus brief on behalf of the petitioners in Quon. In it, she argued that the government has no obligation to limit searches of text messages to protect individual privacy. This position is in direct opposition to the position taken in EPIC's amicus in Quon, which argued that petitioners' searches were overbroad and unnecessary. Solicitor General Kagan did make several comments during the hearing about Constitutional interpretation and the Fourth Amendment. In response to the first question she received from Chairman Leahy, Kagan said that the framers of the Constitution were wise to use broad terms. She noted that they, "didn't live with bomb sniffing dogs and heat detecting devices." The statement was a reference to two important Supreme Court cases, Illinois v. Caballes (2005) and Kyllo v. US (2001). EPIC, Letter to Senators Leahy and Sessions http://epic.org/privacy/kagan/ EPIC, Elena Kagan and Privacy http://epic.org/privacy/kagan/ EPIC, City of Ontario v. Quon http://epic.org/privacy/quon/ EPIC, Amicus Brief in City of Ontario v. Quon http://epic.org/privacy/quon/ Kagan's Amicus Brief in Support of Reversal in City of Ontario v. Quon http://epic.org/privacy/quon/ |
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