Right to a fair trail...DENIED!

How far will a country go to fight terrorism? Will it start terrorizing its own citizens? Well, history has shown that, yes, a country is willing to do that, and more. In one of the top 25 censored stories identified by Project Censored for 2006-07, one story was about a bill passed by Congress, signed by Bush, that puts the most basic rule of a democratic society at severe risk - habeas corpus.

Habeas what? It's one of those Latin terms still floating around since 1215. That's right, for almost 900 years, this revolutionary idea helped shape democracies across the world. The Magna Carta, a set of laws created by King John of England under threat of civil war, took much power away from dictator governments by stating “no free man shall be…imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed]…except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

In other words, you have the right to a fair trial. You have the right to not be swept up by a government net and thrown in prison for no reason. You have the right to defend yourself in court. Innocent until proven guilty. That is habeas corpus. That is what is threatened now for every American by the passing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Mainstream media, like the New York Times, did report on the act, but they only reported on one part of the bill. That part deals mainly with non-U.S. citizens labeled "enemy combatants" by the Bush Administration. These are the people being swept up in the "War on Terror," and thrown into secret prisons around the world, including Guantanamo Bay. There, these people, who aren't being charged with any crimes, are being held without access to lawyers or trial. Now with this law, they have no rights in U.S. courts to a fair trial, or a trial for that matter. The Times wrote in their editorial:

"The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening."

What mainstream media didn't report on was a part of the bill that does affect U.S. citizens. When defining what crimes can be tried by a military tribunal, it states "any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this [bill], or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission." Any person. Unless the word "any" has changed in meaning to mean something else, it sounds like the bill is talking about any, and all, people including U.S. citizens.

Some of the crimes triable by the military include murder, hijacking, rape, spying and terrorism. One of the crimes, wrongfully aiding the enemy, clearly implies that it is for no less than U.S. citizens. That crime states that "Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States...shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

As pointed out by Robert Parry's article, who else other than a U.S. citizen would be in breach of violating their allegiance to the U.S. Unless Al'Qaeda now has some deep seeded allegiance to the country.

These vague, broad words and statements in the bill are cause for alarm for U.S. citizens. The government has shown itself in the past, especially with the Patriot Act, to misuse broadly stated parts of a bill to target U.S. citizens. Most frightening about this bill is the possibilities that come with it. Any chipping of habeas corpus, even if minor, should trigger some sort of alarm for any U.S. citizen that loves to have a lawyer present if the law comes down on them.

If that's not enough for you to be worried, listen to the statement made by Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez on Jan. 18, 2007 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where he public says that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away." What!!1! Even the senators did a double take with that one. And just in case the senators didn't understand what he said, he added:

"I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn’t say, 'Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.' It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended."

Wow! These are the people running our country! With such blatant disregard for the Constitution, one has to wonder what they're doing behind closed doors. The debate, as if there should be one, over habeas corpus and how the Military Commissions Act could be used caused one of the only outspoken senators about the constant assault on our civil liberties, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, to fight back with the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007. The bill passed the Judiciary Committee on June 8, 2007, but awaits its performance before the Senate floor.


Photo of detainee at Guantanamo Bay prison being taken in shortly after it opened on Jan. 2002. Photo from the www.latimes.com/media/photo/2007-12/23854197.jpg

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006-07

If the mainstream media isn't doing its job, at least somebody is.

Picked up this book called Censored 2008: Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006-07. It's put together by a group out of Sonoma State University in California called Project Censored, an "investigative sociology and media analysis project dedicated to journalistic integrity and the freedom of information throughout the United States," according to the book. For the past 31 years, Project Censored released this list of censored stories. The top 25 stories are chosen from a list of 300 by a panel of national judges and researchers.

Project Censored holds the mainstream media in a low regard, blaming a network of powerful economic and political interests for not reporting to the public stories of major importance to their way of life. This excerpt from the book is quoted at length because it sets the tone of the book, and of the dilemma Americans face today:

Censorship in the U.S is seldom direct or overt. Instead, it results from the corporate media's inability to address a range of truly serious events and issues about which every American should be aware...Without news coverage that extends beyond the narrow range of people, power structures, and politics addressed by the corporate media, we remain blind to the machinations of the powerful and we become further marginalized from the basic democratic tasks of political, economic, and social decision-making.

Project Censored sums it up - the mainstream media is not doing its job and U.S. democracy is more threatened today than ever before as a result. This book, and the stories censored by the big media corporations inspired me to do a series of columns on each story and why it's important for the public to know about them. Just look for the tag line "censored" for anything I write on this site about these stories.

These are important stories to know, and for fellow journalists reading this blog, it is our duty to report the truth no matter what it takes. The stakes are high. Read these stories. Remember our duty to the public. And spread the word.

Geroge Orwell rolls in his grave...again

Come one, come all! Let the hording begin...now! Have you been a struggling newspaper salivating at the thought of owning your very own television or radio station? Well now you can. Thanks to the Federal Communication Commission ruling on Dec. 18, newspaper companies can tap into a 32-year-old banned market of broadcast stations, and vice-versa, and start gobbling those suckers up!

The FCC ruled 3-2, along party lines (Republicans voted yes), to remove the ban. It used to be that cross-ownership, as it's called, was a threat to allowing independent media voices time on the airwaves. Now, media companies in the top 20 media markets in the U.S. - big cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago - can buy one another up regardless if they're print or broadcast companies. There are a few exceptions that allow merging outside of the top 20 markets.

Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said the move was a "relatively minor loosing" of restrictions, while Democratic FCC Commissioner Micheal Copps said the decision was "one that would make George Orwell proud." Well, not really. Orwell feared information being in the hands of a few in his book, "1984," with such memorable catch phrases as "Big Brother is watching." This ruling paves the way for just that.

First, some context. The passing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed the FCC to start dropping the restrictions on broadcast stations to buy one another up. What resulted was a feeding frenzy, a gorge if you will. In 1995, there were 29 big media corporations, not including newspapers. In 2006, that number shrank to eight - News Corporation, Disney, TimeWarner, Viacom, NBC Universal (owned by General Electric), Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google. Now most of the media so regular in our lives, like MySpace.com, CNN, FOX, Time magazine and YouTube, are owned by one of these eight giants.

Together, these eight corporations had a market value of about 1.2 trillion in 2006. That's a hell of a lot of buying power! With money like that, those corporations can buy stations and newspapers like college students buy coffee.

The main argument for this media consolidation revolves around profit and efficiency. But there are plenty of reasons to be alarmed. For one, media turned into a business, focusing on profit rather than content. Also, corporations are not agents of a democratic society, they're businesses. Why would a business sell a product nobody likes, or rather, thinks is too out there for their tastes? Well they don't, cause a business can't make money that way.

In that vein, more is better. More choices for people wanting to watch television, listen to the radio, pick up newspaper. As the big eight continue to gobble up media, the message becomes less diverse and access becomes restricted to people with views that may hurt the business. And with newspapers and broadcast stations allowed to buy one another up, who knows what feeding frenzy may endure in the coming years.

The first of it came July 31, when News Corp bought one of the few national newspapers left, The Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion. Since it served a national market, it did not fall in the now-dismantled ban.

Back to the FCC. In 2003 it made the same ruling only it removed the ban for the top 170 media markets. Congress and the courts said hell no, and the ruling was, well, overruled. The courts did say that the ban itself wasn't necessary anymore, and that was a major reason Martin said he went ahead with removing the ban yet again.

All this in the name of local media. Martin thinks that removing the ban will benefit local news coverage. Yet, in a 2004 report by the FCC, which it destroyed, it turns out that locally owned media does a better job at local news coverage. Locally owned television stations provide more time for news than when its not locally owned. Interesting.

So what's the real motivation behind this ruling? One can speculate, but this move is not going to create more access to diverse ideas and information. It isn't going to be good for democracy either. The Senate and the courts could strike down this ruling like they did the 2003 one. Poor Orwell, dead for 27 years and he's still not getting the rest he deserves.

Photo: Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman. Taken from http://www.fcc.gov.