On 11/19/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If anyone has not heard Democracy Now, this morning, be sure to track
Greenwald writes: "A truly superb New York Times editorial this morning
mercilessly shames the despicable effort by U.S. government officials to
shamelessly exploit the Paris attacks to advance long-standing agendas."
CIA director John Brennan. (photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
NYT Editorial Slams "Disgraceful" CIA Exploitation of Paris Attacks, But
Submissive Media Role Is Key
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
19 November 15
A truly superb New York Times editorial this morning mercilessly shames the
despicable effort by U.S. government officials to shamelessly exploit the
Paris attacks to advance long-standing agendas. Focused on the public
campaign of the CIA to manipulate post-Paris public emotions to demonize
transparency and privacy and to demand still-greater surveillance powers
for
themselves, the NYT editors begin:
It's a wretched yet predictable ritual after each new terrorist attack:
Certain politicians and government officials waste no time exploiting the
tragedy for their own ends. The remarks on Monday by John Brennan, the
director of the Central Intelligence Agency, took that to a new and
disgraceful low.
The editorial, which you should really read in its entirety, destroys most
of the false, exploitative, blame-shifting claims uttered by U.S. officials
about these issues. Because intelligence agencies knew of the attackers and
received warnings, the NYT editors explain that "the problem in [stopping
the Paris attacks] was not a lack of data, but a failure to act on
information authorities already had." They point out that the NSA's mass
surveillance powers to be mildly curbed by post-Snowden reforms are
ineffective and, in any event, have not yet stopped. And most importantly,
they document that the leader of this lowly campaign, CIA chief John
Brennan, has been proven to be an inveterate liar:
It is hard to believe anything Mr. Brennan says. Last year, he bluntly
denied that the CIA had illegally hacked into the computers of Senate staff
members conducting an investigation into the agency's detention and torture
programs when, in fact, it did. In 2011, when he was President Obama's top
counterterrorism adviser, he claimed that American drone strikes had not
killed any civilians, despite clear evidence that they had. And his boss,
James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has admitted
lying
to the Senate on the NSA's bulk collection of data. Even putting this lack
of credibility aside, it's not clear what extra powers Mr. Brennan is
seeking.
Indeed, what more powers could agencies like the CIA, NSA, MI6 and GCHQ
get?
They've been given everything they've demanded for years, no questions
asked. They have virtually no limits. Of course it's "not clear what extra
powers Mr. Brennan is seeking." It's like trying to buy a Christmas gift
for
Paris Hilton: what do you give to an omnipotent, terrorism-exploiting
agency
that already has everything it could ever dream of having?
Space constraints likely required the NYT editors to leave several specific
CIA lines of deceit unmentioned. To begin with, there's literally zero
evidence that the Paris attackers used encryption. There are reasons to
believe they may not have (siblings and people who live near each other
have
things called "face-to-face communications").
Even if they had used encryption (which, just by the way, the U.S.
government funds and the GOP protected in the 1990s), that would not mean
we
should abolish it or give the U.S. government full backdoor access to it -
any more than face-to-face plotting means we should allow the government to
put monitors in everyone's homes to prevent this type of "going dark."
Silicon Valley has repeatedly said there's no way to build the U.S.
government a "backdoor" that couldn't also be used by any other state or
stateless organization to invade. And that's to say nothing of all the lies
and false claims that I documented several days ago embedded in the
Snowden-is-to-blame-for-Paris trash - a low-life propaganda campaign that
is
not principally about Snowden but really about scaring Silicon Valley out
of
offering encryption lest they be viewed as ISIS-helpers.
But there's one vital question the NYT editors do not address: Why do the
CIA and other U.S. government factions believe - accurately - that they can
get away with such blatant misleading and lying? The answer is clear:
because, particularly after a terror attack, large parts of the U.S. media
treat U.S. intelligence and military officials with the reverence usually
reserved for cult leaders, whereby their every utterance is treated as
Gospel, no dissent or contradiction is aired, zero evidence is required to
mindlessly swallow their decrees, anonymity is often provided to shield
them
from accountability, and every official assertion is equated with Truth, no
matter how dubious, speculative, evidence-free, or self-serving.
Like many people, I've spent years writing about the damage done by how
subservient and reverent many U.S. media outlets are toward the government
officials they pretend to scrutinize. But not since 2003 have I witnessed
anything as supine and uncritical as the CIA-worshipping stenography that
has been puked forward this week. Even before the Paris attacks were
concluded, a huge portion of the press corps knelt in front of the nearest
official with medals on their chest or who flashes covert status, and
they've stayed in that pitiful position ever since.
The leading cable news networks, when they haven't been spewing outright
bigotry and fearmongering, have hosted one general and CIA official after
the next to say whatever they want without the slightest challenge. Print
journalists, without the excuse of the pressures of live TV, have been even
worse: Article after article after article does literally nothing other
than
uncritically print the extremely dubious claims of military and
intelligence
officials without including any questioning, contradiction, dissenters, or
evidence that negates those claims.
Snowden headline from Politico Magazine. (photo: The Intercept)
None of the facts the NYT pointed to this morning to show Brennan is lying
and misleading are esoteric or obscure. They're all right out in the public
domain. Countless other people have raised them. But so many journalists
steadfastly exclude all of that from their "reporting." Especially after a
terror attack, the already sky-high journalistic worship of security
officials skyrockets. Many journalists are in pure servant-stenography
mode,
not reporting and definitely not questioning claims that emanate from the
sacred mouths of these Pentagon and CIA priests. Just look at the reports I
cited to see how extreme this obsequious behavior is. What can excuse
"reporting" like this?
This, of course, is how propaganda is cemented: not by government officials
making dubious, self-serving claims (they'll always be motivated to do
that), but by people who play the role of "journalist" on TV and in print
acting as their spokespeople, literally suppressing all the reasons why the
officials' claims are so questionable if not outright false.
Kudos to the NYT editors for pulling no punches this morning in making all
this deceit manifest. But the real culprits aren't the government officials
spewing this manipulative tripe but the journalists who not only let them
get away with it but, so much worse, eagerly help.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid.
CIA director John Brennan. (photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/18/nyt-editorial-slams-disgraceful-cia-expl
oitation-of-paris-attacks-but-submissive-media-role-is-key/https://theinterc
ept.com/2015/11/18/nyt-editorial-slams-disgraceful-cia-exploitation-of-paris
-attacks-but-submissive-media-role-is-key/
NYT Editorial Slams "Disgraceful" CIA Exploitation of Paris Attacks, But
Submissive Media Role Is Key
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
19 November 15
truly superb New York Times editorial this morning mercilessly shames the
despicable effort by U.S. government officials to shamelessly exploit the
Paris attacks to advance long-standing agendas. Focused on the public
campaign of the CIA to manipulate post-Paris public emotions to demonize
transparency and privacy and to demand still-greater surveillance powers
for
themselves, the NYT editors begin:
It's a wretched yet predictable ritual after each new terrorist attack:
Certain politicians and government officials waste no time exploiting the
tragedy for their own ends. The remarks on Monday by John Brennan, the
director of the Central Intelligence Agency, took that to a new and
disgraceful low.
The editorial, which you should really read in its entirety, destroys most
of the false, exploitative, blame-shifting claims uttered by U.S. officials
about these issues. Because intelligence agencies knew of the attackers and
received warnings, the NYT editors explain that "the problem in [stopping
the Paris attacks] was not a lack of data, but a failure to act on
information authorities already had." They point out that the NSA's mass
surveillance powers to be mildly curbed by post-Snowden reforms are
ineffective and, in any event, have not yet stopped. And most importantly,
they document that the leader of this lowly campaign, CIA chief John
Brennan, has been proven to be an inveterate liar:
It is hard to believe anything Mr. Brennan says. Last year, he bluntly
denied that the CIA had illegally hacked into the computers of Senate staff
members conducting an investigation into the agency's detention and torture
programs when, in fact, it did. In 2011, when he was President Obama's top
counterterrorism adviser, he claimed that American drone strikes had not
killed any civilians, despite clear evidence that they had. And his boss,
James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has admitted
lying
to the Senate on the NSA's bulk collection of data. Even putting this lack
of credibility aside, it's not clear what extra powers Mr. Brennan is
seeking.
Indeed, what more powers could agencies like the CIA, NSA, MI6 and GCHQ
get?
They've been given everything they've demanded for years, no questions
asked. They have virtually no limits. Of course it's "not clear what extra
powers Mr. Brennan is seeking." It's like trying to buy a Christmas gift
for
Paris Hilton: what do you give to an omnipotent, terrorism-exploiting
agency
that already has everything it could ever dream of having?
Space constraints likely required the NYT editors to leave several specific
CIA lines of deceit unmentioned. To begin with, there's literally zero
evidence that the Paris attackers used encryption. There are reasons to
believe they may not have (siblings and people who live near each other
have
things called "face-to-face communications").
Even if they had used encryption (which, just by the way, the U.S.
government funds and the GOP protected in the 1990s), that would not mean
we
should abolish it or give the U.S. government full backdoor access to it -
any more than face-to-face plotting means we should allow the government to
put monitors in everyone's homes to prevent this type of "going dark."
Silicon Valley has repeatedly said there's no way to build the U.S.
government a "backdoor" that couldn't also be used by any other state or
stateless organization to invade. And that's to say nothing of all the lies
and false claims that I documented several days ago embedded in the
Snowden-is-to-blame-for-Paris trash - a low-life propaganda campaign that
is
not principally about Snowden but really about scaring Silicon Valley out
of
offering encryption lest they be viewed as ISIS-helpers.
But there's one vital question the NYT editors do not address: Why do the
CIA and other U.S. government factions believe - accurately - that they can
get away with such blatant misleading and lying? The answer is clear:
because, particularly after a terror attack, large parts of the U.S. media
treat U.S. intelligence and military officials with the reverence usually
reserved for cult leaders, whereby their every utterance is treated as
Gospel, no dissent or contradiction is aired, zero evidence is required to
mindlessly swallow their decrees, anonymity is often provided to shield
them
from accountability, and every official assertion is equated with Truth, no
matter how dubious, speculative, evidence-free, or self-serving.
Like many people, I've spent years writing about the damage done by how
subservient and reverent many U.S. media outlets are toward the government
officials they pretend to scrutinize. But not since 2003 have I witnessed
anything as supine and uncritical as the CIA-worshipping stenography that
has been puked forward this week. Even before the Paris attacks were
concluded, a huge portion of the press corps knelt in front of the nearest
official with medals on their chest or who flashes covert status, and
they've stayed in that pitiful position ever since.
The leading cable news networks, when they haven't been spewing outright
bigotry and fearmongering, have hosted one general and CIA official after
the next to say whatever they want without the slightest challenge. Print
journalists, without the excuse of the pressures of live TV, have been even
worse: Article after article after article does literally nothing other
than
uncritically print the extremely dubious claims of military and
intelligence
officials without including any questioning, contradiction, dissenters, or
evidence that negates those claims.
Snowden headline from Politico Magazine. (photo: The Intercept)
None of the facts the NYT pointed to this morning to show Brennan is lying
and misleading are esoteric or obscure. They're all right out in the public
domain. Countless other people have raised them. But so many journalists
steadfastly exclude all of that from their "reporting." Especially after a
terror attack, the already sky-high journalistic worship of security
officials skyrockets. Many journalists are in pure servant-stenography
mode,
not reporting and definitely not questioning claims that emanate from the
sacred mouths of these Pentagon and CIA priests. Just look at the reports I
cited to see how extreme this obsequious behavior is. What can excuse
"reporting" like this?
This, of course, is how propaganda is cemented: not by government officials
making dubious, self-serving claims (they'll always be motivated to do
that), but by people who play the role of "journalist" on TV and in print
acting as their spokespeople, literally suppressing all the reasons why the
officials' claims are so questionable if not outright false.
Kudos to the NYT editors for pulling no punches this morning in making all
this deceit manifest. But the real culprits aren't the government officials
spewing this manipulative tripe but the journalists who not only let them
get away with it but, so much worse, eagerly help.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
