The following article from civil liberties advocate and reporter Glenn Greenwald can be read in full on his blog, but I have posted certain excerpts that I found most relevant to the larger conversation of subservient journalism by the MSM.

Glenn’s commentary is in response to the way in which intrepid investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill’s most recent article on CIA black sites used for interrogation in Somalia has been both distorted, as well as largely ignored by the MSM. Glenn has a long track-record of calling out “journalists” who are really just PR mouthpieces for the establishment.

And just a quick note on Jeremy Scahill. Anyone not familiar with Mr. Scahill’s work needs to start by reading his pioneering book on the new private military establishment (Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army). I read this book when it first came out in 2007, and it completely changed my understanding of the military industrial complex and the new mercenary contract force. It took a lot of guts for Jeremy to write this book. It is a must-read, and I do not say this about many books.

Now for Glenn’s article:

While the establishment media has been largely ignoring Scahill’s revelations, a few particularly government-pleasing journalists have been dutifully following the CIA’s script in order to undermine the credibility of Scahill’s story.  CNN’s long-time Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr — one of the most reliable DoD stenographers in the nation (she actually announced that the real Abu Ghraib scandal was the unauthorized release of the photographs, not the abuse they depicted) – has been predictably tapped by the CIA to take the lead in this effort.  Earlier this week, Starr filed a truly incredibly report – based exclusively on a “U.S. official” to whom she naturally granted anonymity — that had no purpose other than to refute Scahill’s report even though Starr never once mentioned that report:

…

Starr pretended that this was a headline-making scoop for CNN — that a CIA official had bravely revealed some sort of unauthorized secret to her: that the CIA ”helps” interrogate a “very small” number of Terrorism suspects in Somalia in a “support” role — when it was plainly nothing more than an effort to undermine Scahill’s report by claiming that the CIA’s role was extremely limited (nothing more than a little help given to the Somalis) and that it was Somalia that controlled, ran and maintained responsibility for the prison.  Not only did Starr never mention the key facts — that this prison is kept secret from the ICRC and imprisons detainees without due process who are rendered from other nations at the behest of the U.S. and that the CIA pays the agents there — but she also helpfully wrote down that “the CIA gets assurances from the [Somali government] that detainees will not be mistreated” and that the real significance of the story is that it “underscores the growing U.S. concern about the rise of terrorist networks in the region.”

In sum, Starr was handed a CIA press release that falsely denied the key elements of Scahill’s story, which she then disguised as an anonymous unauthorized leak that she uncovered.  She slothfully and obediently disseminated CIA claims designed to minimize its role in this prison without lifting a finger to resolve the differences between those denials and the numerous facts Scahill uncovered which proved how extensive the CIA’s control of the prison (and the rendition program that fills it) actually is.

It’s not just lazy but deceitful: uncritically printing anonymous government denials while dressing it up as her own discovery (once Nation representatives complained to CNN, she tacked on this sentence at the end: “Parts of the story initially appeared in the magazine The Nation on Tuesday”).  Whether it was Starr who contacted the CIA to obtain this “story” (unlikely) or the CIA which tapped Starr on the head and directed her to print this and she then dutifully complied (far more likely), this was a joint effort by the U.S. Government and its CNN servant to undermine Scahill and his story while appearing not to do so.

Serving the same purpose was this ABC News report by Luis Martinez, which at least has the virtue of being more honest than Starr’s report:  ABC doesn’t pretend to do anything other than serve as obedient stenographer to the CIA by uncritically writing down and passing on the statements of an anonymous CIA official in denying Scahill’s report.  Leaving aside the slovenly practice of granting anonymity to government officials to do nothing other than issue official government claims — so common a tactic of journalistic malpractice as to not merit comment at this point — the article does nothing other than print the same CIA claims without expending a molecule of energy to determine if the claims are true.

Worse, ABC allows the CIA to depict Scahill’s report as false by uncritically printing the blatant strawmen against which the CIA rails (“CIA Doesn’t Run Secret Prison in Somalia” . . . CIA ”refutes a report that the agency runs a secret prison in that unstable country” . . . “A story published in The Nation said that the CIA was running a secret prison to house and interrogate terror suspects”).  The whole point of Scahill’s article is that while the Somalis exercise nominal control over the prison, that’s merely a “plausible deniability” ruse to allow the U.S. to use it at will, as evidenced by the fact that the CIA pays those agents and is continuously present.  The “denials” uncritically printed by ABC confirm and bolster Scahill’s story, not “refute” it.

Worse still, the ABC report justifies the CIA program by quoting the anonymous CIA official as describing the program as “the logical and prudent thing to do.”  ABC then helpfully adds that “senior U.S. officials have expressed concern that al Shabab may be trying to expand its terror operations beyond Somalia” and that ” U.S. government officials worry that those lawless regions might become a safe haven for al Shabab and other terror groups.”  There is no discussion — zero — of the illegal aspects of maintaining a secret prison, the dangers of allowing unchecked renditions of prisoners to Somalia hidden from international human rights monitoring, or the likely violations of Obama’s own Executive Orders.  Like Starr’s CNN report, this article is nothing more than a CIA Press Release masquerading as an ABC News “news article,” the by-product of a joint effort by the CIA and another establishment news outlet to make Scahill’s report look erroneous, sloppy and irrelevant.

Just consider what happened here.  Scahill uncovered this secret prison because he went to Mogadishu — dangerously unembedded, as very few journalists are willing to do — and spent 9 days there aggressively digging around.  By contrast, Starr published her report by being handed a CIA script which she blindly read from without any other work, and ABC‘s Martinez then did the same.  But it’s CNN and ABC that are considered — by themselves and establishment D.C. mavens — to be the Serious Journalists, while Scahill’s report is heard only on Democracy Now and Al Jazeera.  That’s because “Serious Journalism” in Washington means writing down what government officials tell you to say, and granting them anonymity to ensure they have no accountability.

Through this method, the U.S. Government need not directly attack real journalists.  They simply activate their journalistic servants to do it for them, and those servants then dutifully comply, this ensuring that they will be continue to be chosen as vessels for future official messages.

This is a recent article from NPR regarding continued efforts by the Pentagon and the national security state to militarize cyberspace, which has very dangerous implications for internet freedom.

For those who are not familiar with the ongoing efforts by the US government to curve internet freedom, please refer to the Cyber Security Act of 2009. This act was widely seen as unpopular by internet freedom groups, and was reintroduced as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010. I am not adequately familiar with the legislative process, and am not sure if this latest act (which carries the infamous “internet kill switch”) has been approved into law. I know that it has passed through various committees in the senate and house. If anyone knows what the status of the legislation is, please leave a comment on this post.

The NPR article also caries a short audio clip that is worth listening to. Below is the full text of the article.

The U.S. military can fight on land, in the air, at sea and in space. Now it has a strategy for operations in a new domain: cyberspace.

Under a new plan unveiled Thursday, the Defense Department said it is preparing to treat cyberspace “as an operational domain,” with forces specially organized, trained and equipped to deal with cyberthreats and opportunities.

The strategy presumes that “cyberattacks will be a significant component of any future conflict” and that the United States must be prepared to retaliate, possibly even with military force.

“The United States reserves the right, under the laws of armed conflict, to respond to serious cyberattacks with a proportional and justified military response at the time and place of its choosing,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said.

A cyberattack on the United States could prompt a military response under the Pentagon guidelines, however, only if it qualified as “an act of war,” with effects comparable to those brought about under a traditional “kinetic” or physical attack, and it would be up to the president to make that judgment.

“If there is massive damage, massive human losses [or] significant economic damage, it would be in those circumstances that I think the president would consider all the tools that he has — economic, diplomatic and, as a last resort, military,” Lynn said in remarks introducing the new cyberstrategy.

Theft Of 24,000 Files

The Pentagon plan highlighted efforts by foreign governments to penetrate Defense Department networks and steal sensitive data. In one example cited by Lynn, a foreign intelligence service apparently acquired 24,000 files from a Pentagon contractor in March. “A nation state was behind it,” Lynn said, though he would not identify the government.

Lynn said other cyberthefts resulted in the loss of sensitive data concerning “aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communications systems and network security protocols.” Normally, Pentagon officials are far less specific in describing their losses from cybertheft.

The Pentagon’s emphasis on cyberthreats and its warning that cyberattacks could prompt military retaliation has prompted some debate within the U.S. government, with some agencies concerned that a result could be a “militarization” of cyberspace. One of the more controversial aspects of the Pentagon strategy was its official designation of cyberspace as a potential war-fighting domain.

Too Much Focus On War?

The White House cybersecurity adviser, Howard Schmidt, is among those who have argued that too much attention on war scenarios diverts attention from more pressing cybersecurity challenges and mischaracterizes current cyber intrusions.

“My father was in a war. My son’s been in a war. I’ve been in a war. And this is not what we’re going through right now,” Schmidt said in a recent interview with NPR.

The Pentagon’s new strategy contrasts with cyber agendas pursued in other U.S. government agencies, where the focus is on such issues as Internet commerce and the exchange of information.

“We have to recognize that cyberspace is predominately a civilian space used predominately for civilian purposes,” said Christopher Painter, the new cyber policy coordinator at the State Department.

Painter, however, sat in the front row as Pentagon officials introduced their cyber strategy in a presentation at the National Defense University. In an interview, Painter said Internet and cybersecurity policies across the U.S. government need to be coordinated, but that communication across agencies is far better now than it was a few years ago.

Improving Coordination

“You had people who were looking at the economic aspects, you had people looking at the security aspects, [and] you had people looking at the Internet freedom aspects. Those communities seldom talked together,” Painter said. “Now that’s changing.”

The State Department and other U.S. agencies will soon introduce their own cyberpolicy plans. Defense officials insist they see no potential conflict with the Pentagon strategy.

“Far from ‘militarizing’ cyberspace, our strategy of securing networks to deny the benefit of an attack will help dissuade military actors from using cyberspace for hostile purposes,” Lynn said. He characterized the Pentagon approach as focused on the improvement of computer defenses, so that an adversary sees less benefit in carrying out an attack.

“If an attack will not have its intended effect, those who wish us harm will have less reason to target us,” Lynn said.