Committee to Protect Journalists issues scathing report on Obama administration 

Obama's anti-press measures 'are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration' 

By Glenn Greenwald 
TheGuardian.com 
October 10, 201

It's hardly news that the Obama administration is intensely and, in many respects, unprecedentedly hostile toward the news-gathering process. Even the most Obama-friendly journals have warned of what they call"Obama's war on whistleblowers". 

James Goodale, the former general counsel of the New York Times during its epic fights with the Nixon administration, recently observed that "President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information" and added: "President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom."

Still, a new report released today by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists - its first-ever on press freedoms in the US - powerfully underscores just how extreme is the threat to press freedom posed by this administration. Written by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., the report offers a comprehensive survey of the multiple ways that the Obama presidency has ushered in a paralyzing climate of fear for journalists and sources alike, one that severely threatens the news-gathering process.

The first sentence: "In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press." Among the most shameful aspects of the Obama record:

Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations. Still more criminal investigations into leaks are under way. Reporters' phone logs and e-mails were secretly subpoenaed and seized by the Justice Department in two of the investigations, and a Fox News reporter was accused in an affidavit for one of those subpoenas of being 'an aider, abettor and/or conspirator' of an indicted leak defendant, exposing him to possible prosecution for doing his job as a journalist. In another leak case, a New York Times reporter has been ordered to testify against a defendant or go to jail."

It goes on to detail how NSA revelations have made journalists and source petrified even to speak with one another for fear they are being surveilled:

'I worry now about calling somebody because the contact can be found out through a check of phone records or e-mails,' said veteran national security journalist R. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity, an influential nonprofit government accountability news organization in Washington. 'It leaves a digital trail that makes it easier for the government to monitor those contacts,' he said."

It quotes New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane as saying that sources are "scared to death." It quotes New York Times reporter David Sanger as saying that "this is the most closed, control freak administration I've ever covered." And it notes that New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan previously wrote that "it's turning out to be the administration of unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press."

Based on all this, Downie himself concludes:

The administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate. The 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent."

And this pernicious dynamic extends far beyond national security: "Ellen Weiss, Washington bureau chief for E.W. Scripps newspapers and stations, said 'the Obama administration is far worse than the Bush administration' in trying to thwart accountability reporting about government agencies." It identifies at least a dozen other long-time journalists making similar observations.

The report ends by noting the glaring irony that Obama aggressively campaigned on a pledge to usher in The Most Transparent Administration Ever™. Instead, as the New Yorker's investigative reporter Jane Mayer recently said about the Obama administration's attacks: "It's a huge impediment to reporting, and so chilling isn't quite strong enough, it's more like freezing the whole process into a standstill."

Back in 2006, back when I was writing frequently about the Bush administration's attacks on press freedom, the focus was on mere threats to take some of these actions, and that caused severe anger from vocal progressives. Now, as this new report documents, we have moved well beyond the realm of mere threats into undeniable reality, and the silence is as deafening as the danger is pronounced.

Related matter

Along with David Miranda, I testified yesterday before a Committee of the Brazilian Senate investigating NSA spying, and beyond our latest revelations about economic spying aimed at Brazil, one of the issues discussed was the war on press freedoms being waged by the US and UK governments to prevent reporting of these stories. The Guardian, via Reuters, has a two-minute video with an excerpt of my testimony on that issue.

UPDATE

Edward Snowden was awarded this year's Sam Adams Whistleblower Award, and several of his fellow heroic whistleblowers - including Thomas Drake, Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley - traveled to Moscow to present it to him. An excellent photo of that event is here.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/10/cpi-report-press-freedoms-obama 

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Chipotle's Choice: A Shift Away From Responsibly Raised Beef

For a company that markets itself by lambasting the industrial food system, Chipotle's offerings are starting to look a lot like many other fast-food chains out there, complete with growth hormones, feedlots, GMOs, and more.

By James McWilliams'
Pacific Standard
October 9, 2013

Fast-food empires—McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and so on—fuel the engine of agribusiness. They support an industrialized supply stream clogged with hormone-laden beef, genetically modified corn and soy, and an endless flow of processed “food-like substances.” They support the alienation and mistreatment of farm laborers, who are paid a pittance for their neck-down work. They support meals weighted with alarming quantities of sodium and fat, leading to an obesity and diabetes crisis. Fast food means high volume and high volume means industrial agriculture and industrial agriculture means food that’s bad for animal welfare, bad for the environment, and bad for people’s health (PDF). For any conscientious consumer, this paragraph is, unfortunately, very old news.

Perhaps more surprising, though, is the fact that Chipotle Mexican Grill—the foodie’s alternative for a relatively quick and responsible meal—is often complicit in these culinary crimes and misdemeanors. Despite the company’s savvy effort to brand itself otherwise, it inevitably finds itself ensnared in an industrial system that effectively churns out a smorgasbord of meat, beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, tomatoes, salsa, and a steady flow of condiments. Insisting that, as spokesperson Danielle Winslow told me, “our first priority is to accommodate our customers”—which effectively means supplying all ingredients at full capacity all the time—Chipotle has yet to roll a burrito that evades the reach of factory farming.

You’d never know this from the company’s successful promotional campaigns. Through advertising endeavors such as its “Food With Integrity” program, or its declaration that a Chipotle burrito is a “hand crafted, local farm supporting, food culture changing cylinder of deliciousness,” or in-store signs that declare “no prescription needed” (if the meat is antibiotic-free), or, most recently (and virally), a short video—"The Scarecrow"—thoroughly lambasting the industrial food system, the publicly traded company with 1,500 stores nationwide has established a reputation so deeply infused with agrarian virtue that many consumers simply assume that the company really is leading a revolution to produce burritos high in rectitude, low in guilt, and wrapped in responsibility. For the effectiveness of its advertisements, Chipotle is in a league of its own.

To its credit, the company hasn’t ignored the disparity between its advertised ideals and actual choices. It’s usually the first to recognize its shortcomings and, as conversations with company representatives reiterate, transparency seems genuinely valued. Generally, it adopts a sensible “we’re doing our best under the circumstances” approach to external criticisms about its linkages to industrial agriculture, arguing that by demanding “all-natural” and “humanely raised” meat it’s incentivizing the current food system to scale down, decentralize, and return to more authentic methods of production. This position seems reasonable enough, if not revolutionary, given that it’s coming from “the third largest publicly traded restaurant in terms of market capitalization” behind McDonald's and Yum! Brands.

But here’s the deal: The logic only sticks if the company decides to buck up and honestly adhere to the sustainable food movement’s most basic tenets, ones to which it so vigorously appeals in its marketing endeavors. Two precepts in particular—eating what’s in season and deciding that when the supply of one responsibly sourced ingredient declines you make up for it with another responsibly sourced ingredient—are, according to the movement that Chipotle has so successfully tapped into, critical to achieving the genuine change it promotes. When it comes time to walk this walk, though, Chipotle goes risk averse.

Consider Chipotle’s recent response to declining supplies of “responsibly raised” beef. In 1999 the company started sourcing “all-natural” beef from producers that raised animals mostly on pasture and eschewed antibiotics and growth hormones. Over the years Chipotle has formed strong relationships with smaller-scale beef producers including Niman, Country Natural, and Meyer. Last August, however, the beef supply lagged. This was not an unusual experience. Historically, when pork supplies declined, the company waited patiently until they resumed. Beef, however, is a more popular menu choice than pork. So Chipotle now faced a critical decision: it could accept the diminished supply of all-natural beef or it could replace it with what Winslow called “commodity beef”—that is, factory farmed beef.

Chipotle chose the latter. A month before its influential anti-factory farm video went viral Chipotle co-CEO Steve Ells, citing declining supplies of all-natural beef, said in a press release that, with regards to allowing antibiotics back in the company’s beef supply, “we are certainly willing to consider this change.” 

 Winslow made it clear in a phone interview that this change had been considered and a decision had been made. The “short-term disruption” in the supply of beef from smaller suppliers, she said, “has forced us to use commodity beef.” Twenty percent of the company’s beef will now come from producers that typically use GMO-based feed, antibiotics, growth hormones, feedlots, and all the other unsavory aspects of industrial animal agriculture that Chipotle condemns as loudly as anyone else. The company, which insists the change is only temporary, will alert consumers with in-store notices.

Chipotle is a company that’s trying to buck the fast-food norm. It should be commended for doing so. But it must understand that reforming the food system means more than supporting responsible choices. It also means rejecting irresponsibly produced choices—something that a relatively small (20 percent) drop in one ingredient suggests it could do. Having once removed commodity meat from its supply chain, Chipotle should, as a matter of immutable policy, never let it back in. My guess is that patrons would happily accept this stance, as well as the inconvenience that might follow.

To do otherwise is to acknowledge industrial animal agriculture as a viable choice. And when a fast-food chain trying to change the game does that, when it legitimates industrial animal agriculture as an option in the breach, there will be no food revolution. Not even close. If Chipotle decides that, as a publicly traded company beholden to shareholders, it cannot operate without constant access to industrial agriculture, that’s fine. In fact, it’d be perfectly understandable. But then it should stop making ads that suggest otherwise.

Source:  http://www.psmag.com/environment/chipotle-mexican-grill-fast-food-beef-sustainable-agriculture-67867/ 

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Google: Doing Evil with ALEC

Quietly, Google has joined ALEC—the American Legislative Exchange Council—the shadowy corporate alliance that pushes odious laws through state legislatures.

By Norman Solomon
Nation of Change
October 12, 2013

Google Inc. is now aligned with the notorious ALEC.

 In the process, Google has signed onto an organization that promotes such regressive measures as tax cuts for tobacco companies, school privatization to help for-profit education firms, repeal of state taxes for the wealthy and opposition to renewable energy disliked by oil companies.

ALEC’s reactionary efforts -- thoroughly documented by the Center for Media and Democracy -- are shameful assaults on democratic principles. And Google is now among the hundreds of companies in ALEC. Many people who’ve admired Google are now wondering: how could this be?

Well, in his recent book “Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy,” Robert W. McChesney provides vital context. “It is true that with the advent of the Internet many of the successful giants -- Apple and Google come to mind -- were begun by idealists who may have been uncertain whether they really wanted to be old-fashioned capitalists,” he writes. “The system in short order has whipped them into shape.”

McChesney adds: “Any qualms about privacy, commercialism, avoiding taxes, or paying low wages to Third World factory workers were quickly forgotten. It is not that the managers are particularly bad and greedy people -- indeed their individual moral makeup is mostly irrelevant -- but rather that the system sharply rewards some types of behavior and penalizes other types of behavior so that people either get with the program and internalize the necessary values or they fail.”

Google has widely mythologized itself as some kind of humanistic techno-pioneer. Obscured in a fog of digital legend is the agenda that more than ever is transfixed with maximizing profits while capitalizing on anti-democratic leverage of corporate power. Google’s involvement in ALEC is consistent with the company’s mega-business model that relentlessly exploits rigorous data-mining of emails, online searches and so much more.

Yet image-conscious companies can be skittish about public pressure. That helps to explain why dozens of firms withdrew from ALEC during the last year.

A few days ago -- when my colleagues at RootsAction.org sent out an email alert about news of ALEC’s connection with Google as well as with Facebook and Yelp -- more than 25,000 people quickly signed a petition urging those companies to “stop funding ALEC.” Several thousand of the petition signers added comments that can be read online along with the petition.

Those comments reflect widening comprehension of Google and the significance of its alignment with ALEC. Here’s a sampling:

“I expected better. Maybe that was naive.” James C., San Jose, CA

“What happened to your big pledge? ‘Don't be evil’? Guess it was just words...” Lois W., Sun City, AZ

“Better check your definition of EVIL -- look it up on Google…” Armando A., Vista, CA

“Please don't fund tyranny. You were supposed to be one of the good guys.” Ernest W., Easthampton, MA

“Your credibility is fading associating with this kind of scum.” John B., Easton, CT

“You are subverting the wishes of your clients/users while undermining democracy.” Vincent G., Sioux Falls, SD

“Shame on you. Think about what the majority of your users want instead of the ‘rich’ guys.” Karen B., Westminster, CO

“If you continue to support ALEC, I will along with countless others, discontinue use of ALL your products and services!” Ronald P., Milford Center, OH

“Quit helping to Destroy our democracy.” Kevin B., Lynnwood, WA

“Corporate power is corrupting this nation's ability to have a decent governing system.” Jean and Jesper C., Louisville, KY

“What is wrong with Google acting like the one tenth of the 1%? Too much filthy lucre has covered their conscience.” Doug Y., Albany, CA

“Google! How could you do this? Don't you realize this organization stands for ALL the wrong things? I'm sure most of your employees would not want to belong to ALEC. Please reconsider for their sake and that of all of us.” Judith S., Carbondale, IL

“If you sleep with dogs, you get fleas.” Robert J., Fern Park, FL

“Shame! We thought you were supposed to be a tool for the people, not a tool for the corporations!” Sharon T., Irvine, CA

“Happy Sociopath Day to you people!” Gary S., Big Bear Lake, CA

Article image “Google has evolved to be one of the most unethical corporations in the world!” Eric K., Montclair, NJ

“This is so obviously evil, and it causes real suffering.” Terrell S., Seattle, WA

“Don't you corporate executives make enough money? How much can you spend? Don't you realize that people have to have money to buy your product? What the heck are you ‘dumb-asses’ thinking?” Lon K., Waterloo, IA

“Good companies are becoming evil in order to please ALEC and the upper 1%. I thought Google would never need to stoop to that. I'm sadder than sad.” Linda A., Medina, WA

“ALEC promotes corporate dominance over the democratic processes that our country was founded on. Shame on you!” Judy D., Port Townsend, WA

“Laws should be written by elected representatives with citizen input, NOT by cookie-cuttered legalese templates created by and for the corporate interests.” Liz A., Los Angeles, CA

“Noooooo Google! I love you but I will have to abandon you and many of your products should you do this. I really, really, really don’t want to do that! But will...” Rochelle W., Reading, PA

“ALEC organizes capital to crush people by gaining any all benefits for the wealthy. That has consequences for children, elderly, disabled, veterans, working people -- your customers. Please look beyond the near-term bottomline.” Benita C., Burgettstown, PA

“Greed may be the worst terror facing this country. Greed, of corporations and some individuals, seems bent on destroying our democracy. We have to fight back!” Anne G., Arlington, TX

“ALEC is evil. Those who fund ALEC are enabling evil. Enough said.” Monty N., Helena, MT

“Google: Better get your house in order and your priorities straight. Average Americans are in no mood for this crap.” Lawrence H., Fall Creek, WI

“For a company that loves to talk about the forward thinking way it treats employees, it surely seems acts just like every other ultra conservative corporate giant.” Andrew W., Pittsfield, MA

“Why such cowardice?” Mitchell S., Philadelphia, PA

“I knew the Don't Be Evil mantra would disappear once the big money started flowing in. They're no different than any other sleazy money-grubbing corporation in the cesspool of greed the USA has become.” Gill F., Olympia, WA

“Disgusting professional activity on the part of this huge corrupt business. Google is going to have to do a lot of work to earn back the respect of a huge segment of the public; this only one of many recent revelations about Google's despicable conduct as an entity.” Susan H., Lafayette, IN

“Big money, big business, big lies.” Stephen D., Grants Pass, OR

“Please stand for individual's freedom rather than corporate greed and stop supporting ALEC.” Carol B., San Rafael, CA

“Your company went from hip and caring to right of Attila the Hun and nasty in a few years...” Roger W., Montpelier, VT

“ALEC has been a disaster for the vast majority of citizens in Wisconsin and other states. It has become a leading supporter of fascist attacks on women's sacred reproductive rights.” Edith M., Milwaukee, WI

“ALEC has done tremendous harm to this country and its political system. Any support for the organization is support for tearing down constitutional government.” James F., Minneapolis, MN

“Just provide a service and take home your inflated paycheck. Stay out of the rest. And by the way, erase my browsing history, you nosey anti-American hacks.” Jeff Cole, Tucson, AZ

“If Google and Facebook have any integrity left, please prove it by not funding ALEC!” Douglas W., Chicago, IL

“ALEC is trying to dismantle our civil society. Do not be part of it.” Jean Beck, Lynnwood, WA

“Have a heart!!!!!!” Artalious S., McDonough GA

“ALEC is a big step backwards in human evolution, or a big step toward Big Brother.” Victoria G., Portland, OR

“Disgusting. More government for the highest bidders.” Michael P., Morton Grove, IL

“The worst thing about ALEC is its anti-democratic nature which buys votes to override the will of the people. As an information source this should violate your principles.” Lon H., Ferndale, MI

“When you are as giant as Google, you ALMOST have stomp on us little people. Please please please be with US…” Jon S., Lafayette, CO

“This is indicative of what happens when the founders of a company grow extremely wealthy. They align themselves more and more with the organizations that will further their agenda of market dominance and profit taking. The support of ALEC by the two founders of Google is particularly hypocritical because of their original pledge to not be evil. Shame on both of you.” Bruce B., Port Townsend, WA

Source:
http://www.nationofchange.org/google-doing-evil-alec-1381584886
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