Wow, the Times Must be Livid...

[Overpaid Slacker]

The Times must be pi$$ed that USA Today beat them to the "deliberately, radically mischaracterizing something to hurt Bush" punch on this one:

USA Today publishes an explosive story today alleging that the Bush administration wants to roll back the Freedom of Information Act. The new program will grant $1 million to the St. Mary's University law school to analyze various state laws on information access:

The federal government will pay a Texas law school $1 million to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of sensitive data available to the press and public through freedom-of-information requests.

Beginning this month, St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio will analyze recent state laws that place previously available information, such as site plans of power plants, beyond the reach of public inquiries.

Jeffrey Addicott, a professor at the law school, said he will use that research to produce a national "model statute" that state legislatures and Congress could adopt to ensure that potentially dangerous information "stays out of the hands of the bad guys."

"There's the public's right to know, but how much?" said Addicott, a former legal adviser in the Army's Special Forces.

Sounds ominous, right? Civil libertarians will soon sound off about the coming of Big Brother and the oppression of the federal government. However, as Daniel Freedman notes at It Shines For All, the USA Today fundamentally misrepresents the reason for the federal grant. Daniel goes to USA Today's source to expose the twist the newspaper put on the program:

So the administration is trying to roll back civil liberties? That would be a good story, except when I met the head of the center, Jeff Addicott, recently in New York I remembered that he told me that the aim of the project is the opposite. And he confirmed this in a recent phone conversation following the publication of the USA Today story.

Addicott told me that the project is "looking at what has already been done and seeing whether it breaches civil liberties." In other words, the "intent is the exact opposite of what the report claims."

In other words, the program allows St. Mary's to review state FOIA laws to ensure that they respect civil liberties fairly and consistently, while also providing a consistent level of protection for information that should not get released at all. USA Today takes that effort and blows it up into an attack on civil liberties.

Typical. [Captain Ed]

Hmmm... maybe the Times isn't pi$$ed. Maybe Bill Keller, ultimate arbiter of the "public interest" and what constitutes "classified information", "knew" about this Bush program to squash the FOIA and decided this wasn't in the public interest. 'Cause, it's he that has the singular wisdom to make such decisions. Just ask him. He'll tell you.

On the bright side, our MSM continues to enjoy freedom of disinformation, without consequence or accountability.

We now return you to your blind faith in the MSM, already in progress...

JP

[gaijindabe]

Originally posted by john_cramer


Have you ever read The New York Sun? I might try it for size.

Every morning! Fits me nice.

[nostatic]

I'd be more interested in seeing the RFP and knowing what agency funded the work. I didn't know that St. Marys was a player in this type of stuff...according to lawschool100 they are a second teir school.

[dd74]

Charlie Rose interviewed Bill Keller, and correctly so; all editorial decisions go through him. He stated as much, though a bit evasive and hesitantly, IMO.

The thing about the NYT is if they had so many scandals of late with purely doctored news stories, I'd be inclined to fully back their effort behind the "classified" story from last week. But whether liberal or conservative, I don't trust the media blindly in its intentions. It wouldn't surprise me the NYT published that story not just hastily, but to save some face in lieu of their internal strife.

As for an attack on the FOIA, I call it tit for tat - Bush vs. NYT. Though that's some pretty big tit for a whole lot of tat.

[Hugh R]

I voted for Bush (Twice) and frankly I'm not happy at all with where he's letting his people take this country. Sure I'm for good, effective national defense and security. I mean were it not for the military, fire and police in this country, we'd degrade pretty quickly to something not far from Mexico or Somalia. But quite frankly, Bush has done for this country what panty hose did for finger ********!!!

[Wrecked944]

Originally posted by Hugh R
But quite frankly, Bush has done for this country what panty hose did for finger ********!!!

Wow...just wow. No political content intended. Just wow.

[dd74]

Originally posted by Hugh R
But quite frankly, Bush has done for this country what panty hose did for finger ********!!!

Or what beating has done for eggs...

[Overpaid Slacker]

The New York Sun is edited by the guy who used to do the Smartertimes.com website; which was great. Every single day this guy would catch the NYT in some similar (but ususally less sensational) lie/obfuscation/convenient omission of a material fact in order to promote their opinion.

The Sun is definitely worthwhile, but I miss the daily dose of smartertimes.com.

JP