Kevin Gosztola's Open Salon Blog

Report: AZ Police Often Use Tasers Preemptively on Subjects

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:06:18 -0400

ACLU of Arizona Report Finds Arizona Law Enforcement Lacks Guidelines for Taser Use on Children & Pregnant Women

Law enforcement and correctional agencies in Arizona, the state where TASER International has its corporate headquarters, often use Tasers “preemptively” against citizens, according to a recent ACLU of Arizona report. Even if citizens do not present an imminent safety threat to officers, officers will use the Taser. They’ll also use it “offensively as a pain compliance tool,” a use TASER International anticipates in its training material and agency policies.

The report, which the ACLU of Arizona claims is the “most comprehensive survey of Taser use by law enforcement agencies in Arizona to date,” illuminates the following key findings: Tasers are widespread among law enforcement, providing officers with Tasers does not guarantee lower levels of use of lethal force, officers often receive inconsistent guidance on when it’s appropriate to use a Taser, agencies lack clear guidance on Taser safety including the use of Tasers against vulnerable populations, law enforcement is too reliant on TASER International for training and agencies lack data collection and other mechanisms for monitoring Taser use.

The ACLU of Arizona recommends the implementation of a “strong accountability mechanism” for Taser use that would include data collection. It suggests law enforcement re-assess where the use of a Taser should be on the “use-of-force continuum.” Furthermore, it calls for more regular training on Taser use and the establishment of a statewide body to review Taser use and develop policies and training resources for law enforcement.

The finding that Taser proponents are completely off when they argue in favor of Tasers because deployment of lethal force will decline is perhaps the most significant finding of the report. The report calls attentions to the fact that “TASER’s marketing campaign has always been that Tasers are a safe alternative to the use of lethal force. Indeed, the company’s slogan, ‘Saving Lives Every Day,’ is emblazoned on its corporate headquarters in Scottsdale.”

Taser shocks have most often been used in the place of “less-lethal uses of force, such as baton strikes, chemical sprays, and the like” and situations when “situations where lethal force would not be justified (i.e., in the absence of an immediate threat to officer or public safety).”

After completing an analysis of Phoenix Police Department use-of-force reports, The Arizona Republic found 377 incidents involving the use of a Taser. In nearly nine out of ten of the incidents, the subjects had posed no imminent threat to officers with any weapons. For example: “A shoplifter who stole four cans of soup from a Food City, and fled on a bike who was shocked as officers dragged him to the ground; a 15-year-old boy at Alhambra High School who was shocked in the back as officers attempted to arrest him on a marijuana charge; and an intoxicated man who ignored commands to leave a bar and was shocked in the back as he walked away.”

ACLU of Arizona notes TASER International has insisted its weapons are “non-lethal.” A file released by LulzSecurity, a computer hacker group that recently released data from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, shows since the release of an October 12 training bulletin from TASER International, law enforcement has been aware they should not be aiming Tasers at any person’s chest.

In the bulletin, TASER International suggests the 50,000-volt weapon could possibly lead to someone going into cardiac arrest. Officers in Phoenix adopted the new guidelines immediately, although Mark Spencer of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association did not initially instruct line officers on the development. Instead, Spencer only had praise for Tasers as he said, “It really minimizes harm, not only to officers but to suspects.”

TASER International, after issuing the bulletin, worked to spin the findings saying, “We have not stated that the Taser causes (cardiac) events in this bulletin, only that the refined target zones avoid any potential controversy on this topic.”

To the question of whether law enforcement could still deploy a TASER into a subject’s chest, TASER’s position was that officers should not “intentionally” target “when possible.” The recommendation, according to TASER, would go a long way toward “reducing risk management issues and avoiding litigation.” (What, in emails released by LulzSec, could be characterized as a policy of CYA.)

The TASER weapon’s propellant was changed from gunpowder to nitrogen in 1994, according to the ACLU report. This allowed TASER International to escape regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and made it possible to “aggressively market the weapon as an alternative to lethal force” and escape testing of the product by the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

Vulnerable people, such as children, elderly, pregnant women and those with heart problems, are widely understood to be at risk of death or injury if they are subjected to the voltage of a Taser. The ACLU report shows the alarming reality that much of Arizona law enforcement lacks guidelines on what to do if faced with a “vulnerable” person.

Ten agencies were found to be silent whether to Tase pregnant women. Only four agencies explicitly ban tasing pregnant women. Twelve agencies were found to be silent on the tasing of children or the elderly. Only one agency explicitly prohibited tasing young or elderly people. And, eleven out of ten agencies had no policy on using a Taser on a subject multiple times, an action that has been seen as a key factor behind ECW-induced deaths.

Of particular interest to those who have followed the story of the SB1070 law and the issue of immigration in Arizona is the fact that Maricopa County, where the anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in charge, has developed no policies or guidelines on when and when not to deploy a Taser in high-risk situations. Maricopa County is the only police department with over 500 sworn officers that did not offer its own training in addition to TASER International’s training. This is especially troubling given the fact that an Amnesty International 127-page report found Maricopa County had the highest number of reported deaths from Taser use in the United States.

Taser use has been posing increased liability for law enforcement. As of September 2010, five deaths from Taser use were occurring on average each month.

Courts have found Tasers constitute the use of “excessive force” and thus violate the Fourth Amendment, provided the Taser was used in an instance when its deployment was unjustified. Victims of Taser use can seek compensation but only if an agency’s use guidelines are deficient and if training is so poor that it could be considered “deliberately indifferent. Memphis, Tennessee, San Francisco, California and Las Vegas, Nevada, have all opted to ban the use of Tasers.

To date, ACLU's work on Taser use has been mostly on a state-by-state basis without a federal campaign. The report clearly demonstrates the risks posed by Tasers. More importantly, it shows the growing private influence of TASER International and how law enforcement has become dependent on using Tasers to make police work much easier, even if that means putting a person at risk of death or injury and violating the rights of an individual.

[A side note: A Los Angeles City Council voted in May 2010 to bar official travel to Arizona and consider the termination of contracts with businesses as part of a boycott in response to the SB1070 law. The Council made one exception: it would not cut off business with TASER International because, according to a councilman, “various local public safety agencies need its stun guns and no other company can provide the service satisfactorily.]

US to Bring 'Rule of Law' to Internet with New Strategy

Tue, 17 May 2011 15:05:40 -0400

The United States officially launched its international cyber security strategy in a White House event on Monday, May 16. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined by the following administration officials: John Brennan, the president's counterterrorism and homeland security adviser; Howard Schmidt, White House cybersecurity coordinator; Attorney General Eric Holder; Secretaries Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security and Gary Locke of Commerce; and Defense Deputy Secretary William Lynn.

The presentation of the cyber security presented several principles, outlined the approach the US intends to take in the further development of cyber security protections, and indicated how the US might use the Internet to preserve its status as a superpower in the world.

Featured during the presentation were seven principles, which appear in the framework: economic engagement, protecting networks, law enforcement, military cooperation, multi-stakeholder Internet governance, international development and Internet freedom. Within the presentation, Clinton sought to explain that cyber crime, Internet freedom and network security could no longer be “disparate stovepipe discussions.”

At no time during the launch of the strategy was WikiLeaks mentioned. Not even Clinton bothered to mention it, despite the fact that she heads a State Department that had their department’s classified information leaked and published by media organizations and continue to have new information published each day.

Yochai Benkler, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has detailed the following:

Four years after its first document release, in 2010, Wikileaks became the center of an international storm surrounding the role of the individual in the networked public sphere. It forces us to ask us how comfortable we are with the actual shape of democratization created by the Internet. The freedom that the Internet provides to networked individuals and cooperative associations to speak their minds and organize around their causes has been deployed over the past decade to develop new networked models of the fourth estate. These models circumvent the social and organizational frameworks of traditional media, which played a large role in framing the balance between freedom and responsibility of the press. At the same time, the Wikileaks episode forces us to confront the fact that the members of the networked fourth estate turn out to be both more susceptible to new forms of attack than those of the old, and to possess different sources of resilience in the face of these attacks. In particular, commercial owners of the critical infrastructures of the networked environment can deny service to controversial speakers, and some appear to be willing to do so at a mere whiff of public controversy. The United States government, in turn, can use this vulnerability to bring to bear new kinds of pressure on undesired disclosures in extralegal partnership with these private infrastructure providers.

This development in the world of the Internet was apparently something US officials, who developed the strategy, felt they did not need to explicitly address. (And that might have something to do with the answer to the question, "Who benefits from this strategy?")

A document outlining the strategy can be read in its entirety.

The strategy makes it clear: the US wishes for the world to know it intends to work in cooperation with other countries all over the world so that nations can realize their “potential for greater prosperity and security.” It frames cyber security as an “obligation” that government and societies “must take on willingly, to ensure that innovation continues to flourish, drive markets and improve lives.” And, the strategy pledges to confront issues of cyber security in ways “consistent with the principles” the US holds dear: “free speech and association, privacy and the free flow of information.”

Through this strategy, the US intends to work toward the achievement of the following goal:

The United States will work internationally to promote an open, interoperable, secure and reliable information and communications infrastructure in which norms of responsible behavior guide states’ actions, sustain partnerships, and support the rule of law in cyberspace.

What might this international cooperation on cyber security and the Internet look like? Released US State Embassy cables likely provide a preview.

The US developed a concern over Internet piracy in Spain in 2008. 08MADRID843 reveals the US identified seven sites by downloads and complained that Spain needed to stop waiting for other countries. The US applied pressure to Spain on behalf of American commerce that wanted the country to strengthen their defense of intellectual property. This led Spain to announce an Inter-Ministerial Commission that would lay the groundwork for legislation against illegal Internet downloads, the Law of Sustainable Economy.

Cables from the US embassy in Wellington, New Zealand, revealed the US also pressured New Zealand to pass an Internet file sharing law, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill. One cable indicates the US bankrolled local lobbying efforts led by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) and the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS). At least $533,000 was paid for “enforcement operations and seizures, with percentages or numerical targets reset annually” and for reports submitted by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) detailing “contributions to IP protection and enforcement methodology.”

Secret government cables from Sweden show how negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an agreement that aimed “to set a ‘gold standard’ for intellectual property rights enforcement among a small number of like-minded countries,” was thought to be negotiated with too much secrecy. The cables feature “a top intellectual property official in Italy” explaining to the US “"the level of confidentiality in these ACTA negotiations has been set at a higher level than is customary for non-security agreements” and adding that it was "impossible for member states to conduct necessary consultations with IPR stakeholders and legislatures under this level of confidentiality."

In the cables from Sweden is the assertion from a European Union top negotiator on ACTA, who tells the US embassy, “The secrecy issue has been very damaging to the negotiating climate in Sweden… The secrecy around the negotiations has led to the legitimacy of the whole process being questioned." Critics wanted the process of developing the agreement to happen before a place for transparency like the WIPO, which could involve public interest groups. Cables from Japan show the US pushed back against the approach because of the fear that other nations wouldn’t support the restrictions it wanted included in the agreement.

Furthermore, US Trade Representative official wanted this to be a “a freestanding agreement, not related to any international grouping such as the G8 or OECD, which might make it more difficult to construct a high-standards agreement.” As described at Ars Technica, they wanted a “‘coalition of the willing’ bent on creating tough new enforcement rules that they would slowly seek to impose on other countries.”

“We should move as fast as possible and keep in mind that the intent of the agreement is to address the intellectual property rights problems of third-nations such as China, Russia and Brazil, not to negotiate the different interests of like-minded countries,” one Japanese Trade official notes.

Sweden is expected to play a central role in cyber warfare. The US has used Sweden, along with other countries, to map out the world’s digital infrastructure. Details on this mapping in the cables demonstrates what the US believes to be its “security zone” is the entire world.

Upon considering revelations in the cables, it is likely the implementation of any international cybersecurity strategy will not be open, fair or transparent. It will be cutthroat and conducted on behalf of US industry. And, diplomats will engage in squalid conduct and negotiations in order to make certain a specific agenda is implemented.

Sprinkled throughout the strategy are references to arenas in which the US might work to develop cyber security policy. Mentioned are the Organization of American States (OAS), Asian-Pacfic Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeastern Asian Nations (ASEAN), the G8 and the United Nations. The Tunis Commitment of the World Summit on the Information Society and the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime both are mentioned as initiatives that might help inform how the US secures cyberspace in cooperation with other countries.

The Convention on Cybercrime is a treaty that was ratified in 2006 and is considered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to be one of the “worst Internet laws.” EFF wrote then the treaty would not just put “one bad Internet law into America’s lawbooks, but invite the enforcement of all the world’s worst Internet laws.”

The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' "cybercrime" laws - even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdiction's requests to log their users' behavior without due process, or compensation.

In conclusion, the strategy portends a future where the language of open Internet advocates and freedom of speech activists is used and re-branded as an ideological weapon to advance purposes that have little to do with preserving the Internet and more to do with expanding America as a world power. If you read James Peck’s Ideal Illusions, this is what happened to the language of human rights.

The strategy will build America’s “soft power” in the world. It will seek to achieve desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion in the same way Obama’s speech to the Muslim world aimed to repair the damage done between the US and Muslims during the Bush Administration era.

Also, this strategy asserts that there will be “rule of law” in cyberspace. It calls for the “rule of law” to be put in place “to prevent the risks of logging on from outweighing the benefits.” This is defined in the strategy as, “civil order in which fidelity to laws safeguards people and interests; brings stability to global markets; and holds malevolent actors to account internationally—both supports our national security and advances our common values.”

The strategy affords countries (presumably ones that support the strategy) the "right to self-defense." This "right to self-defense" is the same right that nations like the US has exploited to justify wars like the pre-emptive war in Iraq. Will the world see this clause pushed into binding agreements and later used to justify cyber war on countries' communications infrastructure?

The world has seen America purport to advance the “rule of law” offline. They have seen the US in the past decade create a “new normal” where individuals are shielded from accountability for engaging in warrantless wiretapping, torture, or rendition; state secrets are invoked to prevent transparency; detainees are denied habeas corpus; prisons like Guantanamo and Bagram (along with black prison sites that likely still exist) continue to hold detainees perhaps indefinitely; the right to target and kill U.S. civilians and bypass due process is asserted; and military commissions or “kangaroo courts” force detainees into Kafkaesque proceedings that make it nearly impossible to not be found guilty.

If this is what the “rule of law” looks like offline, what will any “rule of law” the US works to promote look like online?

WikiLeaks Grand Jury Investigation: A New McCarthyism?

Wed, 11 May 2011 11:05:58 -0400

Latest Government 'Fishing Expedition' Part of Wider Crack Down on Whistleblowers

A federal grand jury is meeting at 11 am EST in Alexandria, Virginia. The grand jury is being employed to "build" a case against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who just won a gold medal for peace and justice from the Sydney Peace Foundation.

"The WikiLeaks case is part of a much broader campaign by the Obama administration to crack down on leakers," writes Carrie Johnson of NPR. Johnson is one of a few reporters in the US press who has published a report today on this stirring development in the United States. She finds "national security experts" cannot "remember a time when the Justice Department has pursued so many criminal cases based on leaks of government secrets."

The number of people subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury is unclear (and not in any of the few news articles published on the grand jury so far). What is known is that at least one individual from Cambridge was issued a subpoena seeking to compel him to testify before a Grand Jury. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com reported the individual served had a public link to the WikiLeaks case and it was "highly likely" the subpoena was connected to the WikiLeaks Grand Jury investigation.

There are two other federal Grand Juries that are ongoing in the country. In San Jose, California, a Grand Jury has been empanelled to investigate the "hacktivist" group, Anonymous. Another Grand Jury in Chicago has been empanelled to target antiwar, labor and international solidarity activists for their political action.

The last news reports on the Grand Jury investigating Anonymous came in the beginning of February. Then the Grand Jury began to review "evidence" in multistate raids that took place on January 27. The "evidence" includes "computers and mobile phones seized from suspected leaders" and was to be used to investigate the "denial-of-service attacks" the group launched in December against MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and the UK-based Moneybookers.com.

There are not many details known. What is evident is those who are serving on the Grand Jury are working to piece together all the information that they have on Anonymous so the government might have a case, which could then lead to indictments.

Much further along in the grand jury process is the Grand Jury in Chicago. In fact, just days ago one of the activists, Hatem Abudayyeh, had his and his wife's bank accounts frozen by the US Treasury Department. He and twenty-three activists from Chicago, Minneapolis and the greater Midwest have been subpoenaed to testify before a Grand Jury on suspicions of providing material support to foreign terrorist groups, Abudayyeh and thirteen other activists had their homes raided by the FBI back in September of last year. The activists were called to appear before a Grand Jury in October. More activists were raided and subpoenaed, bringing the total number of activists facing investigation to twenty-three by the end of the year. The activists were called to appear before the Grand Jury in Chicago on January 25 of this year. They all refused to testify.

The activists subpoenaed consider the Grand Jury investigation to be a "fishing expedition." That, in fact, may be how Julian Assange and staff members of Wikileaks view the WikiLeaks Grand Jury investigation.

A statement on "Grand Juries" posted on the Coalition to Stop FBI Repression website explains the nature and processes of a federal grand jury.

A grand jury is a panel of jurors who hear evidence from a prosecutor and decide whether or not to charge someone with a crime. The grand jury can subpoena pretty much anyone they want and ask about anything, and people can be jailed for contempt if they do not answer questions. The jurors are hand-picked by prosecutors with no screen for bias. All evidence is presented by a prosecutor in a cloak of secrecy. The prosecutor has no responsibility to present evidence that favors those being investigated. Grand jury witnesses have no right to have a lawyer in the room to object to how the prosecutor is conducting the proceedings.

The grand jury process "dates back to the Nixon administration's attack on the social movements of the 1970s." One can surmise from the statement that Anonymous, WikiLeaks and antiwar, labor and international solidarity activists have become ensnared in a grand jury process that is "neither fair nor even handed, no matter who is in charge."

A more detailed explanation of the grand jury process can be found in the archives of Firedoglake.com. User Masoninblue explains typically 17 to 23 citizens serve on the grand jury and meet once per week for about 18 months to hear witness testimony, review evidence and vote on the issuing of indictments. The Fifth Amendment requires all federal felony prosecutions to be by grand jury indictment "unless a defendant waives his right to be prosecuted by indictment and agrees to be prosecuted by information."

A grand jury's chief task is to vote on whether the government has "presented sufficient evidence to establish probable cause that the defendant(s) have committed crime(s) charged. Twelve members vote to approve the indictment. A "foreperson" of the grand jury hands down the indictment to a District Court Clerk's Office.

Grand juries do not typically decline to issue indictments. All twenty-three of the subpoenaed activists are currently bracing themselves for indictments and have launched a "Pledge of Resistance" campaign to organize support for when they are indicted.

It is likely those subpoenaed in investigations of WikiLeaks and Anonymous will in the end be indicted too.

In case the process does not yet sound unfair or unjust, like something that can be used as "a tool for political repression," consider the following:

Grand juries meet in secret and its members take an oath never to discuss what happens inside the grand jury room. The only other people present in the room when the grand jury is in session are a court reporter who transcribes the proceedings, a federal prosecutor who presents the government's case, the case agent who is the law enforcement officer in charge of the investigation, and the witness who is testifying. Witnesses may appear with counsel, but their attorney must wait outside the grand jury room while the witness is testifying. The witness must answer all questions truthfully under penalty of perjury. The witness can request a recess in response to a question in order to consult with counsel outside the grand jury room. The witness may refuse to answer any question on the ground that a truthful answer might tend to incriminate the witness, or lead to the discovery of evidence that might tend to incriminate the witness. Since the Fifth Amendment protects this privilege to refuse to answer, no witness can be punished for refusing to answer a question on the basis of asserting the Fifth Amendment. Properly subpoenaed witnesses who refuse to appear before the grand jury, or who appear but refuse to answer questions without asserting the Fifth Amendment, may be held in contempt of the grand jury and jailed until such time as they agree to answer the question, or the grand jury term expires, whichever happens first.

These details can all be confirmed by Tom Burke, one of the twenty-three activists subpoenaed to appear before the Grand Jury in Chicago:

As an activist or any citizen, you're called to face a grand jury where there's no judge in the proceedings. There's only the US prosecutor. It's like a preemptive trial. So the US prosecutor gets to pick the 23 jurors. There's no one from your side in the room. The US prosecutor guides the 23 through the process. They tend to want to help and identify with the prosecutor. They just hear one side of the story. When you enter the room, your lawyer is not allowed to be with you. You have to excuse yourself and go to the hallway to talk. Media is not allowed to watch it and you can't have your family or friends support you in the room either.

The shady nature of the grand jury process has led all twenty-three activists being investigated to refuse to testify. They stand in solidarity and may face jail time. They know there may be consequences for not providing testimony, but they are convinced the Grand Jury they are being called to appear before is part of a new McCarthyism in America.

This is a choice those subpoenaed to testify in Alexandria can make. Those asked to speak on WikiLeaks' operations can refuse to give testimony. If individuals subponeaed know the others who are being called before the grand jury, they can stand together united against a "fishing expedition" that seeks to conjure up a case.

It is not obvious or clear that any crime has been committed, but the government feels a burden, perhaps because of the political climate soured by Republican politicians, to prosecute and hold responsible at least someone they can claim was involved in recent WikiLeaks releases.

The government is likely to use information obtained through an order for Twitter user data from the accounts of three individuals linked to WikiLeaks: member of Icelandic Parliament, Birgitta Jonsdottir, Rop Gonggrijp, founder of Internet service provider XS4ALL, and Jacob Appelbaum, a computer programmer. Legal questions surrounding the obtaining of this data for investigating WikiLeaks may be all the more reason for those subpoenaed to testify to refuse to appear before the grand jury.

WikiLeaks has urged those seeking protection to contact the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Release the Dead Bin Laden Photos

Thu, 5 May 2011 15:05:22 -0400

Celebration Photos Just as Likely to Inflame ‘Terrorists’ as Bin Laden Death Photos

The decision to not release photos of a dead and fatally wounded Osama bin Laden rests on at tenuous set of reasons that rest purely on Beltway conventional wisdom.

In sharp contrast with bluestockingbabe, who just had her post on the photos selected as an "Editor's Pick" here at Open Salon, I happen to think Americans should see the death photos.

The argument that the release of photos could inflame the Middle East has been made before (recall the Obama Administration blocked the release of “torture photos” in May 2009 that the ACLU was seeking to obtain through a Freedom of Information Act request). Greg Mitchell with The Nation reminds Americans of the debate that surrounded the decision to release photos of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after his death.

Jon Stewart made a good point last night on “The Daily Show":

We've been fighting this war for nearly ten years. Thousands of US deaths, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died and we’ve seen nearly zero photographic evidence of it. Member how long the media had to fight to show military coffins returning from overseas? Maybe not because you saw pictures of it the day they won the case and not since. Maybe we should always show pictures. Bin Laden, pictures of our wounded service people, pictures of maimed innocent civilians. We can only make decisions about war if we see what war actually is and not as a video game where bodies quickly disappear leaving behind a shiny gold coin.

Essentially, the key argument should not be that the photos should be released to debunk conspiracy theories (which the White House has helped fuel by not really getting all the details straight on the bin Laden killing). It shouldn’t be don’t release the photos because it will hand Republicans a victory and they won’t be satisfied and will just ask for more like Donald Trump wants to know more even though he got the president to release his long-form birth certificate.

The argument should be that Americans see the photo so they can see what they have been celebrating. They should see the image of brutality, which so many vehemently believe is justified.

What makes anyone think photos of celebration at Ground Zero or the White House on the day bin Laden was killed won’t inflame the Middle East or haven’t already provoked some cell of terrorists to plan a new scheme for attacking America?

This guy with “Rest In Hell Osama” scrawled on his body could be on a recruiting poster for al Qaeda (if they use recruiting posters).

This guy could be on a recruiting poster too. Not because he looks like he lusts for blood but because he looks like a dopey Westerner whose ideals those in al Qaeda likely despise vehemently.

Even this seemingly benign photo could inflame those who would support al Qaeda’s mission against the West. The flag-waving in celebration of the execution of a human being on their side is enough to move them to organize an attack.

The front pages of the editions of The Daily News and the New York Post that ran the day after bin Laden was killed are enough to inflame those sympathetic to al Qaeda’s cause too. The Daily News’ front page said, “Rot in Hell!” The Post’s front page cried, “Vengeance at last! US nails the bastard!” The first sentence in the Post read, “We finally got the miserable son of a bitch.”

This irresponsible tabloid journalism was being gobbled up by New Yorkers as a reasonable characterization of what went down. People hung the front pages up nearby Ground Zero and took photos of the front pages posted on a wall.

This photo of university students should have the US national security establishment frightened not because students shouldn’t be allowed to go to spontaneous and patriotic Spring Break-type events, where they act like they are at a pep rally for an upcoming football game. The photo should have those in government worried because that girl with the cigar in her mouth could easily remind the terrorists of this girl with the cigar(ette) in her mouth.

The point is not that people shouldn’t be able to go out and celebrate and mark the deaths of America’s with American flags and signs that express satisfaction. The point is, if the photos of a dead bin Laden could be a potential threat to America if released, what about the photos of people celebrating his death?

Jeremy Scahill of The Nation appeared on “The Tavis Smiley Show” to discuss how he really thinks the death of bin Laden is a “somber occasion.” He thinks Americans should reflect on the destruction that has taken place since 9/11 and those who have died in wars instead of simply treating the killing like a “sporting event.” And, he finds the celebrations give off an image of a “culture that celebrates execution.”

Additionally, Donna Marsh O’Connor, who lost her pregnant daughter on 9/11 writes:

As a family member of a young woman killed in the attacks, I want the response to the death of bin Laden to be one of somber reflection, one that marks how far we have come from the days of that attack and accounts for all we have lost—our civil rights, our trust in our government to act ethically. I want our civil liberties back, our reliance on the Constitution and the rule of law. I want, again, for my children to feel free.

Let’s take that energy and reclaim our land as the land of the free, the civilized and the just. There are dire costs to shirking this duty. We’ve just seen it in our streets.

O’Connor also states, “We should recognize the energy that came from the elimination of this criminal at the hands of the U.S. government and we should try to craft, instead, the end of the terror years.”

Back to the photos themselves, Michael Shaw at HuffingtonPost has this to say:

What the powers-that-be never get is that an erasure is not without it's own moral baggage and trace. Disappearing the photo, given the reality that an image represents (especially these days, when in Egypt, in Libya and in Syria, we see citizens dying by the day just for the cause of pushing pictures to twitpics), the willful act of suppressing the photo, in our every more visually-mediated and documented society, equates to the intention of keeping the killing in the dark. It's this signal, by way, this act of omission reinforced by the President's dismissive and defensive tone, that not just insults the intelligence of the American people but actually reinforces the suspicions of the Muslim street.

By not releasing the photos, we are letting the terrorists win—just as we have been letting them win since 9/11. We are adapting our behavior and applying more restraints to freedom and transparency. Doing this likely empowers terrorists.

Release the photos. They will do the US no harm. Now, continuing the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continuing to support dictatorial regimes in the Middle East will.

US Hosts World Press Freedom Day

Tue, 3 May 2011 12:05:07 -0400

Today, the United States hosts World Press Freedom Day. The day, which was proclaimed to be May 3 by the UN General Assembly in 1993, is supposed to be an occasion for informing citizens of violations of press freedom. The day is to serve as a reminder “in dozens of countries around the world, publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while journalists, editors and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained and even murdered.”

When it was announced in December 2010 the US would be hosting World Press Freedom Day, WikiLeaks had just partnered with a few media organizations to release the US State Embassy Cables. The release known as “Cablegate” led to calls from elected politicians to prosecute members of the WikiLeaks media organization. While no specific newspapers were condemned or targeted (only the New York Times was publishing cables), the calls for prosecution were in effect attacks on press freedom from those in power.

The prosecution of WikiLeaks escalated last week as federal prosecutors stepped up its investigation into WikiLeaks by delivering a letter and a subpoena to an individual in Boston, someone whom a Grand Jury in Alexandria, Virginia, would like to press for details on WikiLeaks. The letter makes it clear the Grand Jury is interested in prosecuting WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act and would like to find out if individuals working for or with WikiLeaks conspired with the leaker of the information to get information.

Without evidence of conspiracy, there can be no prosecution of WikiLeaks that would not effectively be an attack on the press freedom of well-established newspapers like the New York Times or any other news organization in the United States.

Additionally, there exists two other significant dangers to press freedom: (1) the intimidation of those individuals and organizations in the press who are not deferential to power and (2) the placement of restraints on arenas in the private and public sphere so that the reading of what used to be classified information in newspapers or on news websites is discouraged if not strictly prohibited under threat of penalty.

At a fundraiser in San Francisco for President Barack Obama, a group of supporters upset with Obama’s handling of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the individual alleged to have leaked classified information to WikiLeaks, interrupted the fundraiser and sang a song in support of Manning. Following the interruption, a few directly questioned President Obama on the arrest and detention of Manning. President Obama, allegedly not realizing a camera phone was recording, said the following:

I can’t conduct diplomacy on an open source. That’s not how…the world works. If you’re in the military, and — I have to abide by certain classified information. If I was to release stuff that I’m not authorized to release, I’m breaking the law…We’re a nation of laws. We don’t individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate… He broke the law.”

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci was there to cover the protest. She shot video of protesters interrupting the fundraiser with her own camera phone. There as a part of a “print pool,” Marinucci and the Chronicle were informed after she posted video online that she had been banished from covering presidential visits to the Bay Area because she used something more than a pen and a pad to cover the fundraiser.

A strong editorial by Editor at Large Phil Bronstein was published by the Chronicle condemning the White House’s censorship and attempt at banishment. Bronstein writes:

…more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla's spanking became public. Really? That's a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.

But bravery is a challenge, in particular for White House correspondents, most of whom are seasoned and capable journalists. They live a little bit in a gilded cage where they have access to the most powerful man in the world but must obey the rules whether they make sense or not.

Bronstein acknowledges the reality that “powerful people and institutions want to control their image and their message. That's part of their job, to create a mythology that allows them to continue being powerful.” But, he adds, “Part of the press' job is to do the opposite, to strip away the cloaks and veneers.” Banning Marinucci, he concludes, does not just put a reporter “in a cage” but into something “more like one of those stifling pens reserved for calves on their way to being veal.”

White House spokesperson Jay Carney denied after the Chronicle published the aforementioned editorial that Marinucci had been banned, which led Chronicle editor Ward Bushee to react: “Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.”

Juxtapose that with what happened last week just days after Manning was flown from Quantico Marine Brig to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. The Department of Defense unusually chose to give a group of approved reporters a tour of Leavenworth. Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, said of the tour, “We don't anticipate doing this again. It is highly unusual that we allow media into a correctional facility run by the Department of Defense…Then again, we think it's important that the public understand the conditions of confinement here.”

KCUR reported, “The Army wanted reporters to see the physical layout of the prison to which he was moved earlier this month from the U.S. Marine Corps Brig at Quantico, Virginia.” No cell phones or video was allowed (and nobody would violate that rule as they feared being singled out like Marinucci).

The government’s management and control of the press in the US was on display. The message was clear: If you want to cover Manning’s detention, the US government will effectively manage how you cover it. Like with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in 2008, if you wish to cover, you will embed with power. You won’t cover power but be given quotes that make it impossible for you to not cover for power.

Former and estranged WikiLeaks media partner New York Times has helped reinforce the US government’s desire to have a lapdog press by consulting with the Pentagon on its coverage of the Guantanamo Files and the State Department on its coverage of the US State Embassy Cables. It has further cemented the subservient relationship between press and government by choosing to regard WikiLeaks as a “source” and not a publishing media organization. In seeking to cast WikiLeaks as a “source” to possibly insulate itself from prosecution, the Times may not simply be protecting itself but also promoting a climate that threatens less established members of what Yochai Benkler calls “the networked fourth estate.” Denying membership to “the club” effectively puts other journalists at “greater risks than fringe journalists have been in the United States for almost a century.”

On the placement of prohibitions to access to the published material, the Justice Department informed Guantanamo defense lawyers last week that they would not be allowed to read the released files and use them in detainees’ cases. They are to treat the material as information that is still classified.

Scott Shane of the New York Times put this into context noting:

In December, Columbia University warned international relations students that commenting on the documents disclosed by WikiLeaks online or linking to them might endanger their chances of getting a government job. The same month, the United States Agency for International Development told workers that viewing the documents on an unclassified computer at work or home could violate security rules that govern their employment. In February, an Air Force unit cautioned that employees and even their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for looking at the WikiLeaks documents at home.

Some of those warnings were quickly modified or withdrawn after attracting public ridicule. But the general principle that the leaked files remain classified remains in effect, with varying consequences.

Some foreigners applying for asylum in the United States have attached diplomatic cables printed from the Internet that describe repression in their native countries — requiring the Department of Homeland Security to store their applications in special safes and to apply cumbersome security rules.

State Department employees have confided that they read leaked cables on newspaper Web sites at home rather than risk trouble by viewing them at work. A Times reporter who appeared with a State Department official on a recent panel was advised not to show leaked cables as slides — the official was prohibited from looking at them.

Seeking to prevent access to the material indirectly impacts press freedom. If organizations and agencies are not allowed to use the reports or news, those who can most benefit from the information will begin to not seek out such information. They will become conditioned to a press that does not provide material that can be useful to their jobs or careers. As more and more arenas are controlled, more and more in the citizenry will prefer to read less controversial stories just so their livelihood is not threatened. And, if people do not wish to consume journalism that checks power, what business sense does it make to publish investigative reporting? Why invest in watchdog journalism?

Trevor Timm, who operates the Twitter account @WLLegal, explains the prosecution and isolation of WikiLeaks does not mean “nobody is going to report on national security anymore or that nobody is going to leak.” It does mean the press “will increasingly give the government discretion to go after the papers that report critically on them and not go after the papers that report favorably to them.” Because, “if somebody leaked information that made [the government] look bad, [the government] could essentially go after a paper and essentially put it out of business.”

Given the collapse in journalism and the rise of “new media,” Timm further notes, “The government can bring charges and cause a news organization to spend millions and millions of dollars they don’t have on legal defenses.” He adds, “Back when Nixon Administration started subpoenaing reporters, they fought them tooth and nail,” but suggests that if the Obama Administration went after reporters today like Nixon did they would not be able to afford taking a stand for press freedom.

WikiLeaks is a publisher. It should be afforded the same protections and rights as any blogger, journalist or media professional. Yet, the US continues its prosecution of WikiLeaks. The State Department could at least pay lip service to arguments that the targeting of WikiLeaks and those associated is unwarranted. It could make an honest assessment of the way government has chilled whistleblowing through threats of prosecution to whistleblowers. It should go beyond discussing press freedom in the context of simply ensuring bloggers and journalists should be allowed to report on tyrannical regimes in the Middle East like Iran.

There exists an opportunity for the US to not make a mockery of press freedom. A wider conversation could be had. Unfortunately, there is little indication that anyone with the ability to influence power will be moved to address the hypocrisy of the US hosting a World Press Freedom Day when those running the US are largely incapable and unwilling of upholding the universal principle of freedom of the press.