disassociated thoughts

From techdirt:

NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping.

This will be an important case to watch. An unclassified law with a classified interpretation appears to be a pretty egregious misuse of the classification system for the mere purpose of witholding information from the public.

For a president who promised a new era of transparency, Obama has a pretty shitty track record even though his administration continues to be lauded for their work on this subject. Someone needs to open their eyes and see the damage they are causing the nation - damage rivaling GWB at this point.

A glimpse of North Korea from Boston.com.

All of the imagery is absolutely stunning.

"But it’s not just a phenomenon of the right. It’s a phenomenon of everybody, including those who get their news from the mainstream media. It’s what happens when reporters insist that every story about climate change has to include a quote from at least one or two skeptics to “balance out” the other scientists. Is it any wonder that the public is so wildly misinformed?"

Views Differ on Shape of Earth, Climate Edition.

Is it any wonder why people from other countries laugh at Americans like we are misinformed idiots?

"Unfortunately, cable news in this country is just as lazy. Because if any institution needs to get back to basics and refocus on what it takes to survive a disaster - or report on it with integrity - it’s the cable news business. The triple threat in Japan - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear reactors in peril - is clearly demonstrating how reporters and anchors are bungling the basics and how the producers and executives in charge of them have fallen woefully short of leadership. How is it possible that on Monday evening (Tuesday in Japan), with the earthquake, tsunami and worries about radiation poisoning engulfing Japan, a CNN reporter can ask this question: “How scary has this been for you?"

Japan disaster shows U.S. journalists unprepared. Is anyone really all that surprised?

"So according to The New York Times, it’s journalistically improper to call waterboarding “torture” — when done by the United States, but when Nazi Germany (or China) does exactly the same thing, then it may be called “torture” repeatedly and without qualification. An organization which behaves this way may be called many things; “journalist” isn’t one of them."

NYT and “torture”: Searching for a justification. Un-fucking-believable.

(Source: daringfireball.net)

"Note the implicit assumption: that being scanned or groped somehow makes the planes safer. The problem here is that no one has presented any evidence to back this up. Instead, TSA head John Pistole says “trust us.” Yet, when people ask for evidence, they’re told it’s a state secret. This country (last we checked) has a 4th Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, which tends to have a high bar on what is a reasonable search. “Trust us” without any proof doesn’t cut it. No one is arguing that we should make planes less secure, as these editorials suggest. We’re arguing that security theater without evidence that it does anything valuable does not help anyone."

Newspapers Say: Shut Up And Get Scanned And Groped. The state of journalism in America today is just as alive as the state of airport security - on life support.