[governance] Associated Press condemns US telephone record seizure
Riaz K Tayob
riaz.tayob at gmail.com
Thu May 16 02:40:01 EDT 2013
This is a caricature of the post, if addressed to my email.
The 'Peculiar Internationalism' presented by McT and Mueller invite this
kind of analysis as to the general and particular state of law and
practice in the US. ON THE LOGIC used to derive this critique, I can
only wonder what the dialectic would be for critiques of the poor Third
World countries? I cannot go into this without going to motive, and so
will avoid that.
What I can say is that if asserting Peculiar Internationalism is ok,
then so is interrogating the context in which it operates. If the
response is, this is US bashing, then this is emotive and not reason.
All I can say, like the Wikileaks discussion (or to a lesser extent
Shwartz), there is a deep values divergence in practice if the US,
Wikileaks War Crime Exposure, Schwartz's Leviathan monster, and
regulatory capture. These are matters imminently within the scope of
critique of Peculiar Internationalism. This even with my Peculiar Single
Rooter position (not to be confused in ANY way with McTim's - not ad
hominem, just precise).
What concerns me about the post is the need for defensiveness on this
issue, and what this implies about the Worldview that informs it and its
relation to the Third World. This kind of characterisation of critique
simply cannot be reasoned with. Nor is the post tangential to what
happens as it informs Freedom of Speech (media rights) in the US, which
is the law under which ICANN and the likes operate. I mention this to be
absolutely clear about how relevance here is understood. So in THIS
specific context, if this is USA bashing then I am a basher, along with
many other Americans, including the AP affected by this seizure. And no
complaints should flow when the Third World basher name calling is
brought out...
As you can see, there is not much room for discussion in this vein
(except scoring political points)...
Riaz
On 2013/05/15 07:10 AM, McTim wrote:
> This isn't the venue for standing against that sort of thing...this is
> the CSIGC, not the Down With The USA Caucus!
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> McTim
> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
> route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 11:38 PM, Chaitanya Dhareshwar
> <chaitanyabd at gmail.com <mailto:chaitanyabd at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Anyone standing yet? I assumed the US of A to be a country that
> has great respect for the Bill of Rights - afterall it's oft cited
> as the cause of every major riot, civil war, external military
> campaign - "need to enforce Human Rights as per the Bill of
> Rights" - coincidentally 22 hours ago I was just arguing with my
> sister (she's in the US) about this very point :)
> -C
>
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Riaz K Tayob
> <riaz.tayob at gmail.com <mailto:riaz.tayob at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> How very droll... will the American's that take their Bill of
> Rights seriously please stand up... from Guantanamo lawyers
> who have attorney client privilege violated by being bugged
> through to the Leviathan monster that ate Aaron Schwartz (may
> he and his family know peace), the priorities even of some
> Libertarians (as I see from the outside) are misaligned...
>
> 14 May 2013 Last updated at 01:29 GMT
>
>
> Associated Press condemns US telephone record seizure
>
> Man looks at his phone outside the offices of the Associated
> Press in Manhattan, New York (13 May 2013) The government
> would not say why it sought the Associated Press telephone
> records
> Continue reading the main story
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22519776#story_continues_1>
>
> The Associated Press has described the US government's secret
> seizure of its journalists' telephone records as a "massive
> and unprecedented intrusion".
>
> Chief executive Gary Pruitt said AP was told on Friday the
> justice department had gathered records of outgoing calls from
> more than 20 phone lines
> <http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2013/Govt-obtains-wide-AP-phone-records-in-probe>.
>
> Mr Pruitt said there could be "no possible justification for
> such an overbroad collection".
>
> The justice department has provided no explanation for the
> seizure.
>
> However, officials have previously said the US Attorney's
> Office in the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal
> investigation into information contained in an AP story last year.
>
> Published in May 2012, the article was about a CIA operation
> in Yemen that foiled an al-Qaeda plot to blow up a US-bound
> airplane.
>
> Confidential sources
>
> The story was embarrassing to the government, coming shortly
> after it had informed the public that there was nothing to
> suggest any such attack had been planned, says the BBC's David
> Willis in Washington.
>
> Continue reading the main story
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22519776#story_continues_2>
>
>
>
> “Start Quote
>
> I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear
> the government's explanation”
>
> Senator Patrick Leahy Judiciary Committee chairman
>
> Records for the phone numbers of five reporters and an editor
> who were involved in the AP story were among those obtained in
> April and May 2012.
>
> AP said the seizure of records for general switchboard numbers
> and a fax line at its offices in New York, Hartford, in
> Connecticut, Washington DC and the House of Representatives
> was unusual and largely unprecedented.
>
> "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad
> collection of the telephone communications of the Associated
> Press and its reporters," Mr Pruitt wrote in a letter to US
> Attorney General Eric Holder
> <http://www.ap.org/Images/Letter-to-Eric-Holder_tcm28-12896.pdf>.
>
> "These records potentially reveal communications with
> confidential sources across all of the newsgathering
> activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period,
> provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and
> disclose information about AP's activities and operations that
> the government has no conceivable right to know."
>
> It is not clear if the records seized included incoming calls
> or the duration of the calls. Nor is it clear whether a judge
> or grand jury approved the subpoenas.
>
> News organisations are normally notified in advance if the
> government is seeking such information and are given time to
> negotiate.
>
> The Obama administration has aggressively investigated
> disclosures of classified information to the media, bringing
> more cases against people suspected of leaking such material
> than any previous administration, our correspondent adds.
>
> 'Press intimidation'
>
> Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the investigative
> House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform
> Committee, criticised the seizure of records.
>
> "They had an obligation to look for every other way to get it
> before they intruded on the freedom of the press," he told CNN.
>
> Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate
> Judiciary Committee, said in a statement emailed to AP: "I am
> very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the
> government's explanation."
>
> The American Civil Liberties Union accused the Obama
> administration of "press intimidation".
>
> In a statement, the US Attorney's Office in the District of
> Columbia insisted it took seriously its obligations to "follow
> all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of
> Justice policies".
>
> "Those regulations require us to make every reasonable effort
> to obtain information through alternative means before even
> considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of
> the media," it said.
>
> "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always
> careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right
> balance between the public interest in the free flow of
> information and the public interest in the fair and effective
> administration of our criminal laws," it added.
>
>
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