Criminalising Journalism

RT News has been broadcasting in "Crosstalk," from Peter Lavelle, an extended bit on the criminalisation of journalism in the U.S.  This one calls for a bit of review of what is propaganda and what is not.  The discussion is emphatic that the U.S. now has laws to criminalise journalism but it doesn't list specifically what any of them are or if there is anything new.

There was a great deal of content in the feature as it's true that Obama has fronted more prosecutions of whistleblowers than any previous administration.  However, given the advent of WikiLeaks and the solo actions of Edward Snowden via Glenn Greenwald of "The Guardian," there were more obvious reasons to initiate prosecutions.  The government will naturally be defensive of its secrets.

Note that I'm not being defensive for Obama.  Whether any of the material should have been secret is a different matter.  The question is whether the government has changed in reaction to the latest waves of leaks and I'm not convinced that it has.

I've seen on American news media the examples of Keith Alexander, King of the NSA, and Jim Clapper, head of national security, telling deliberate lies to Congress.  The lies were large-scale covers of the activities in which American data gathering agencies were engaging.  Lying to Congress is prosecutable and nothing was done with either of these men.  This is a huge problem and it was on American media and subsequently others that it was reported.

Obama also lied about the data gathering but it wasn't in front of Congress.  This was in specific regarding the collection of metadata about phone calls when he said, oh no, we aren't collecting anything more than that.  While these lies are reprehensible, they are not impeachable and, again, these reports came on American media.  Note that Clinton's impeachment proceedings weren't because of what he did with his cigar but rather they were for lying to Congress about what he did with it.

I'm not defensive for Obama nor am I defensive of American media but any criticism of either must be accurate and valid or the report is still just a news cartoon as has become so prevalent these days.

One area in which I have a huge problem with any media is the lack of reporting on the disparity between prosecution of whistleblowers and of prosecution of bankers.  It was reported a great deal this weekend that the U.S. Department of Justice had levied an eighteen billion dollar fine against JP Morgan but there was no mention of any prosecution of the leaders of the bank.

The only significant prosecution of individual criminals in finance was Bernie Madoff with his Ponzi scheme but he was only a confidence huckster.  He stole billions from people but he had nothing to do with the much larger Ponzi scheme that was perpetrated by the international banks and which resulted in the 2008 collapse in mortgage management.

The government says the whistleblowers are a threat to national security and thus warrant prosecution.  If that's true then why has there been no significant prosecution of the individual bankers after they did more damage to the American financial hegemony than anything since the Great Depression.