by Mickey Huff
Alfalfa is a perennial plant that grows for more than two years and may not need to be replanted each year like annuals. As a perennial, it is exceptionally vulnerable to contamination. This genetically modified alfalfa could quickly spread to crops across the US, threatening the integrity of organic products—including organic meat and dairy products, if those animals are fed alfalfa believed to be GMO-free, but are in fact carrying Monsanto’s patented genetically modified trait.
In 2010, the USDA released a Final Environmental Impact Statement that acknowledged awareness of the GMO alfalfa spreading its traits to non-GMO alfalfa as far back as 2003. Not only was the USDA aware of the scandal, but the agency also deregulated genetically modified alfalfa with full awareness of the environmental dangers and contamination concerns.
For sources and further analysis, see page 128 and the “Health and the Environment” News Cluster.
25. Israel Gave Birth Control to Ethiopian Immigrants Without Their Consent
In January 2013, Israel acknowledged that medical authorities have been giving Ethiopian immigrants long-term birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent. The Israeli government had previously denied the charges, which were first brought to light by investigative reporter Gal Gabbay in a December 8, 2012, broadcast of Israeli Educational Television’s news program, Vacuum. In January, the Israeli Health Ministry’s director-general, Ron Gamzu, ordered all gynecologists to stop administering the drugs.
Gabbay interviewed over thirty women from Ethiopia in an attempt to discover why birth rates in the immigrant community were so low. Israeli medical authorities had been injecting women of Ethiopian origin with a drug alleged to be Depo-Provera, a highly effective and long-lasting form of contraception. In some cases, the drugs were reportedly administered to women waiting in transit camps for permission to immigrate to Israel. Writing for the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah makes the case that, “if the allegations are proven, this practice may fit the legal definition of genocide.”
Nearly 100,000 Ethiopian Jews have moved to Israel under the Law of Return since the 1980s, but some rabbis have questioned their Jewishness. In May 2012, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignited controversy when he warned that illegal immigrants from Africa “threaten our existence as a Jewish and democratic state.”
For sources and further analysis, see page 102 the “Human Rights and Civil Liberties” News Cluster.
CENSORED NEWS CLUSTER
Whistleblowers and Gag Laws
Brian Covert
Censored #1
Bradley Manning and the Failure of Corporate Media
Kevin Gosztola, “The US Press Failed Bradley Manning,” FireDogLake, February 28, 2013, http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/02/28/the-us-press-failed-bradley-manning/.
Glenn Greenwald, “Bradley Manning: The Face of Heroism,” Guardian, February 28, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/28/bradley-manning-heroism-pleads-guilty . Janet Reitman, “Did the Mainstream Media Fail Bradley Manning?,” Rolling Stone, March 1,
2013, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/did-the-mainstream-media-fail-bradley-manning-20130301.
“The Case of the US vs. Bradley Manning,” Al Jazeera English, March 9, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2013/03/201339107329512.html.
Student Researcher: Amanda Renteria (San Francisco State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)
Censored #4
Obama’s War on Whistleblowers
Dana Liebelson, “Why Is Obama Bashing a Whistleblower Law He Already Signed?,” Mother Jones, January 10, 2013, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/obama-whistleblower-protections-signing-statement.
Glenn Greenwald, “Kiriakou and Stuxnet: The Danger of the Still-Escalating Obama Whistleblower War,” Guardian, January 27, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/27/obama-war-on-whistleblowers-purpose?INTCMP=SRCH.
Paul Harris, “Barack Obama’s ‘Extreme’ Anti-Terror Tactics Face Liberal Backlash,” Guardian, February 9, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-peek-into-a-justice-department-leak-probe/2013/05/19/0bc473de-be5e-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html.
Ed Pilkington, “Bradley Manning Prosecution to Call Full Witness List Despite Guilty Plea,” Guardian, March 1, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/bradley-manning-prosecution-guilty-plea.
Student Researchers: Shannon Polvino, William Scannapieco, Kathyrn La Juett, and Justin Lewis (State University of New York-Buffalo)
Faculty Evaluator: Michael I. Niman (State University of New York-Buffalo)
Censored #16
Journalism Under Attack Around the Globe
Roy Greenslade, “Journalism Under Attack Across the Globe Imperils Press Freedom,” Guardian, February L4, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/14/press-freedom-censorship.
“Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the Frontlines in 2012,” Committee to Project Journalists, http://cpj.org/2013/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2012.php.
Dave Lindorff, “Incidents Raise Suspicions on Motive: Killing of Journalists by US Forces a Growing Problem,” ThisCantBeHappening!, November 22, 2012, http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1.438.
Student Researcher: Qui Phan (College of Marin)
Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)
Censored #22
Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors to Protect Big Oil’s “Proprietary Secrets”
Kate Sheppard, “For Pennsylvania’s Doctors, a Gag Order on Fracking Chemicals,” Mother Jones, March 23, 2012, http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/03/fracking-doctors-gag-pennsylvania.
Christopher Banks, “Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors,” Liberation News, June 13, 2012, http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/pennsylvania-law-gags-doctors.html.
Student Researcher: Lyndsey Casey (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)
RELATED VALIDATED INDEPENDENT NEWS STORY
Prominent Establishment Journalists Turn
Whistleblowers Over News Censorship
Glenn Greenwald, “Why Didn’t CNN’s International Arm Air Its Own Documentary on Bahrain’s Arab Spring Repression?” Guardian, September 4, 2012, http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/04/cnn-international-documentary-bahrain-arab-spring-repres-sion?cat=world&type=article.
J. D. Heyes, “Bombshell: CNN Takes Money from Foreign Dictators to Run Flattering News Stories About Them,” Natural News, October 4, 2012, http://www.naturalnews.com/037423_CNN_payola_news_stories.html.
Michael Krieger, “Former Reporter Amber Lyon Exposes Massive Censorship at CNN,” Liberty Blitzkrieg, September 4, 2012, http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2012/09/04/meet-amber-lyonformer-reporter-exposes-massive-censorship-at-cnn/.
Abby Martin, “NY Times Peddles War Propaganda/Interview with Daniel Simpson,” Breaking the Set, Russia Today, September 18, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CuEqywXiVQ.
Student Researcher: Brittany Cocilova (Florida Atlantic University)
Faculty Advisor: James F. Tracy (Florida Atlantic University)
On May 3, 2013, journalists around the world commemorated the twentieth anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, a yearly international day of journalistic reflection and action that has its roots, like much else of human culture, in Africa.
It was in 1991 that dozens of journalists from all across the African continent gathered in the southern African nation of Namibia—then recently liberated from the occupation of the apartheid regime of South Africa—to find solutions to the crisis of news censorship, the jailing and killing of reporters, and the very real threats to the pursuit of truth and freedom of expression in their respective countries.
The result of the African journalists coming together was a bold, uncompromising statement, the Declaration of Windhoek on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press, that would speak
directly to the important work of journalists, press freedom advocates, and media activists around the world for many years to come.1 The spirit of that declaration evolved into World Press Freedom Day, as later adopted by the United Nations.
In the Central American nation of Costa Rica, site of the official UN-sponsored World Press Freedom Day events for 2013, journalists and others commemorated the day with especially timely discussions on the “safety of journalists, the issue of impunity, and online safety” of news media organizations.2
Who should be on an official state visit in San José, the Costa Rican capital, on the twentieth anniversary of World Press Freedom Day but Barack Obama, president of the United States?3
Every year since taking office in 2009, President Obama had issued official statements on the annual World Press Freedom Day, stressing the importance of an independent news media, unfettered by government interference, and honoring journalists worldwide who had been persecuted or killed in the line of work.4 Those honored by President Obama in the past have included slain reporters who covered “crime, corruption, and national security in their home countries . . . and hundreds more each year who face intimidation, censorship, and arbitrary arrest—guilty of nothing more than a passion for truth and a tenacious belief that a free society depends on an infformed citizenry.”5
No such statement of support for freedom of the press, however, was announced by the Obama White House in 2013.6
Instead, the extent of President Obama’s official concern for a free press this year consisted of two sentences spoken during a media briefing in San José, just across town from the concurrent UN-sponsored World Press Freedom Day conference. “I’m proud to be here as you host World Press Freedom Day,” President Obama stated, and then, pointing to members of the US media elites traveling with him: “So, everybody from the American press corps, you should thank the people of Costa Rica for celebrating free speech and an independent press as essential pillars of our democracy.”7
Just how “thankful” the American news media back home should be became clear exactly one week later on May 10: the US Department of Justice under President Obama notified the Associated Press news agency that day that it had been spying on the company in a national security investigation, secretly seizing the company’s phone records as well as the work and personal phone records of individual AP reporters. The AP called it a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into a company’s newsgathering operations, and a firestorm of protest ignited across the spectrum of mainstream and independent/ alternative news media in the US.8
The following group of stories on the issue of “censoring the news about censorship,” highlighted this year by Project Censored, could not come at a more critical time. We are seeing a war on truth on all fronts in the US—against journalists and media companies, against those who would blow the whistle on government and military corruption, and against truth-tellers in general—with the Obama administration’s heavy-handed actions against the Associated Press and others in the media being just a part of a much larger international trend.
But is this critical message about the war on truth in all its manifestations reaching the public? The censored stories presented here indicate that, by and large, the message is not making it past the self-censoring filters of the US corporate-dominated news media. This is alarming indeed for a nation professing to be the world’s most open, democratic society and home to the freest press on the planet.
Censored #1: Bradley Manning and the Failure of Corporate Media
Nowhere is the war on truth more clearly seen than in the case of Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst with the United States Army who is at the center of the largest leak of classified documents in US history. The Manning case shows in stark relief both the US government’s relentless pursuit of a legitimate whistleblower and the US corporate media’s relentless retreat from the story.
Private First Class Manning, at age twenty-two, was arrested in May 2010 at the US military base in Iraq where he was stationed, on suspicion of leaking of about 700,000 pages of confidential documents and video footage of US military helicopter attacks to the WikiLeaks whistleblower organization. The leaking had helped to shine a much-needed international spotlight on the US wars in Af-ghanistan and Iraq—especially on the killing of civilians by US sol-diers—and on how the US government conducts its foreign policy behind the scenes.
In February 2012, Manning was ordered to stand trial in a US military court on twenty-two charges of leaking confidential government documents; the most serious charge, “aiding the enemy,” carried a possible sentence of life in prison.9 The US Army had also charged Manning on multiple counts of violating the 1917 US Espionage Act, a World War I-era law that carries very stiff punishment—including a possible death penalty—for exposing “national defense” information.10
A sign of how the US corporate media would treat Manning’s court martial came some months later in November 2012, when Manning, then held prisoner for more than 900 days without trial, spoke publicly for the first time since his arrest.11
In a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, he detailed the physical and psychological trauma he had suffered due to inhumane treatment by the US military while in detention. But these newsworthy developments in Manning’s case were unreported for the most part by major US news companies, according to the New York-based media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). FAIR found that the New York Times published just a brief Associated Press wire story on Manning’s testimony, and that only one of the big three corporate television networks, CBS, reported the Manning trial at all. PBS mentioned it in passing.12 “[T]he minimal attention to Manning’s trial last week tells us how little corporate media care about the mistreatment of a government whistleblower,” concluded FAIR.13
In February 2013, Manning pled guilty to ten of the twenty-two charges he faced of releasing secret government documents to WikiLeaks, but not to the charge of aiding the enemy.
In his statement to the court, Manning said he was motivated by his conscience to blow the whistle: “I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information . . . this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “No one associated with [WikiLeaks] pressured me into giving any more information. . . . I take full responsibility for my actions.”14
Manning denied in his testimony that anything damaging to US government interests was released in the US State Department cables he leaked, though he conceded they “might be embarrassing.”15 But the bigger embarrassment may have been for the US corporate press.
Manning testified that before leaking documents to WikiLeaks, he had tried going through the proper news company channels:
I then decided to contact the largest and most popular newspaper, the New York Times. I called the public editor number on the New York Times website. The phone rang and was answered by a machine. I went through the menu to the section for news tips. I was routed to an answering machine. I left a message stating I had access to information about Iraq and Afghanistan that I believed was very important. However, despite leaving my Skype phone number and personal e-mail address, I never received a reply from the New York Times.
I attached a text file I drafted while preparing to provide the documents to the Washington Post. It provided rough guidelines saying “It’s already been sanitized of any source identifying information. You might need to sit on this information— perhaps 90 to 100 days to figure out how best to release such a large amount of data and to protect its source. This is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”16
Manning never heard back from them, later sent the information he had on to WikiLeaks, and the rest is history.
As the pretrial phase of Manning’s cour
t martial is headed toward the scheduled June 2013 start of the main trial proceedings (as we go to press on this book), the big question, especially for US independent journalists and reporters from other countries who covered the trial regularly, was: Where is the American press?17 The big media companies were noticeably absent from or negligent in covering what was surely one of the most important legal cases in United States history.
One of those companies, the New York Times—which had actually cooperated with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in 2010 by publishing thousands of documents originally leaked by Manning—now found no stomach to stand by Manning in court, or even to be bothered at one point with covering the whistleblower’s legal proceedings at all. The Times had to be shamed into covering the Manning trial more consistently by its own public editor, who wrote: “In failing to send its own reporter to cover the fascinating and important pretrial testimony of Bradley Manning, the New York Times missed the boat. . . . The Times should be there.”18
Other corporate news media did not fare much better. Kevin Gosztola, a Chicago-based writer for the progressive news website FireDogLake, was one of a handful of independent journalists and activists who turned up day after day at the Manning hearings to record every development of the trial. At the same time, Gosztola was also monitoring the US so-called mainstream print and broadcast media’s attendance at the trial, which he found to be nonexistent at worst and spotty at best.19
