OBAMA ADMINISTRATION STILL PRESSING FOR BROADER USE OF STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE.

In April the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the Mohammed v. Jeppesen case, in which several former suspected terror detainees were suing a subsidiary of Boeing for providing logistical support for their rendition to countries where they were tortured. The court ruled that the state secrets doctrine could only be used to block specific pieces of evidence, (as it was used prior to the Bush administration) rather than to dismiss entire cases. The Obama administration, despite committing to a narrower use of the state secrets doctrine on multiple occasions, asked the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case en banc in the hopes of overturning the courts' decision, which would prevent the Obama administration from abusing the state secrets doctrine in the manner it's become accustomed to doing.

Yesterday the ACLU filed an opposition brief arguing that "the sum and substance of the United States’ position in this litigation is that the government may engage in kidnapping and torture, declare those activities 'state secrets,' and by virtue of that designation alone avoid any judicial inquiry into conduct that even the government purports to condemn as unlawful in all circumstances."

The brief also concludes that "if these plaintiffs are denied a day in court, it is difficult to imagine which torture victims will not be." Indeed, if the court refuses to hear the case, it would be another setback in the administration's attempts to prevent those involved in implementing torture policy from facing any consequences for doing so.

-- A. Serwer

Posted by Adam Serwer on July 7, 2009 9:35 AM

Clearly, journalism itself is not dying. What is dying -- and rightfully so -- is the staid, establishment-serving, passion-free, access-desperate, mindless stenographic model to which establishment journalism rigidly adheres. -- Glenn Greenwald

[emphasis joyfully added]

I am so, so tired of hearing newspapers complain that all of their troubles are because of the Internets. 'Tisn't true.

And this openwheel link was on HuffPo this morning which you included in your list of those worth reading:

Cheney's Lawyer Already Leaked the Content of Cheney's “Privileged” Interview (see sig)

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/07/cheneys-lawyer-has-already-leaked-the-content-of-cheneys-interview/

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-- William Shakespeare

Jack Shafer over at Slate took a look at both the site, Dan's "associated ventures", and his role at Mediaite which raises a a few red flags about the possible value of such an endeavor as currently organized: http://www.slate.com/id/2222338/.

Thought GG and others might be interested.

Gawker is less than enthused for Froomkin, and echoing Glenn's caution, offers an additional wrinkle.

http://gawker.com/5309236/dan-froomkin-becomes-latest-refugee-at-huffington-post

and, at sig

It's telling that the "major media" relish, even crave, "special access" to legislators, administrators, and lobbyists. Does that also entail their complicity in government secrets? I suspect it does.

News is, by definition, new information about influential and important developments. Aside from disasters and the fads of modern culture, what government does is the primary source of news. Having a monopoly, a "special relationship" with the halls of power, which is not available to the average citizen, is a requirement for very profitable media production.

Which is why, I think, major media outlets are handmaidens to the centers of government power and their "journalists" are mere stenographers of opinions, whims, and the vicissitudes of government agents. They thrive on secrecy, closed deliberations, and the totally subjective and whimsical powers granted to legislators and bureaucrats. They are abettors of closed and opaque government processes.

If Obama has abandoned any important component of his campaign positions, it is his failure to aggressively implement govvernment transparency. Is that evasion a requirement for maintaining media support? Of so, it's more than just a craven motive.

for those (like me) who are not enamored of the site...

You can select favorites among the bloggers/columnists and receive an email whenever they've posted something new. There are about a dozen or so that I like to read there, and whenever they've got some new up, I hear about it that way, without having to wade through everything else. [I mostly avoid the comments there, unless I have something particular to say to the author.]

Another potential benefit I see to this change is that Froomkin will be guiding other journalists, young ones, with (still) impressionable minds. That has to be a good thing.

I do predict that a time will come when the DC paper that I continue to refuse to name will begin to rue the day when they decided that Froomkin was dispensable. Hah!

I was thinking about the sources of revenue that used to make newspapers so profitable, and that still sustain those tree-eaters still around. Things like classified ads and such.

Then it occured to me: two big sources are grocery store ads with coupons, and department store ads listing sales.

Department, and grocery stores are now for the most part national. Most of the branded products they sell are (for the most part) available simultaneously across the country.

Why couldn't websites provide these perennial, deep-pocketed advertisers with something similar to those old media pages of ads?

All it would require is for sites to set up tabs or icons on their front pages taking interested users to screens of bargains with printable coupons.

While this wouldn't work in every case (products with primarily regional appeal or locally overstocked items wouldn't be good fits, for example), I don't see why users couldn't, after reading Glenn Greenwald, go back and click a button on Salon's front page, then print out a coupon good for a deal on a nationally advertised product they were going to buy anyway. And there's no reason department stores and clothing companies couldn't adapt to a coupon approach in marketing apparel - just imagine what a boost it would give back-to-school sales if there were coupons available at HuffPost knocking 10% off the cost of striped polos at Macys.

Being on separate screens, the grocery and department stores (not to mention other retailers like Best Buy, Home Depot, Office Depot, etc that might way to participate) wouldn't have to worry about their ads showing up right next to, say, a photo of a tortured Guantanamo detainee. And they'd be reaching out to a new, vast, young-skewing market of people exactly where they spend the most time these days - on line.

People that just don't do Dinosaur.

Hmmm, what would be a good product tie-in to launch something like this? Doritos? Or Hanes Pajamas maybe...

Joking aside, I think this is actually workable. It would just take a little creative marketing from national brands and chains - and maybe a little nose-holding on the part of web sites - to divert a powerful source of Old Media income to those New Media pastures we all love and want to support.