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Monday, September 20, 2004 |
Please join Rhino in supporting America Coming Together (ACT). With 77 offices and over 1800 paid canvassers knocking on doors in battleground states since February, ACT has built the largest voter mobilization effort in history. With the election just 43 days away, your support is needed now more than ever. Sign up to become a volunteer canvasser in a swing state, or make what financial contribution you can to the effort at: Rhino's ACT Contribution Website
AT: http://tinyurl.com/53gws
FEATURED ARTICLES
- Secrecy in the Bush Administration, Committee on Government Reform, U.S. Congress
- Journalism Under Fire; Address to the Society of Professional Journalists, by Bill Moyers
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Never has there been an administration like the one in power today - so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and, in defiance of the Constitution, from their representatives in Congress."
- - Bill Moyers (from today's BOTTOM LINE)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - September 20th
1878 -- Birth of Upton Sinclair, Baltimore, Maryland. Novelist, muckraker & socialist. Winner of the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for the novel Dragon's Teeth. His best-known novel was The Jungle.
1906 -- Upton Sinclair's The Jungle published; an expose of the appalling & unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry and a call for reform. For updated info, read "Fast Food Nation."
2000 -- Robert Ray, the independent counsel who succeeded Kenneth Starr, ended the $52 million Whitewater probe without charges against the Clintons.
RHINO HERE:
U.S. Congressman Henry A. Waxman, the Rhino's Representative, has released a comprehensive examination of secrecy in the Bush Administration. The report analyzes how the Administration has implemented each of our nation's major open government laws. It finds that there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration's actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government. Below are a few key paragraphs but Rhino urges you to check out the recent the press release, the summary of the report or even the full text of the report all available at:
http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/secrecy_report/index_exec.asp
Secrecy in the Bush Administration
Committee on Government Reform Minority Office U.S. House of Representatives
September 14, 2004
Rep. Henry A. Waxman
Laws That Provide Public Access to Federal Records
Beginning in the 1960s, Congress enacted a series of landmark laws that promote "government in the sunshine." These include the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Each of these laws enables the public to view the internal workings of the executive branch. And each has been narrowed in scope and application under the Bush Administration.
Laws that Restrict Public Access to Federal Records
In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration increased public access to government information by restricting the ability of officials to classify information and establishing an improved system for the declassification of information. These steps have been reversed under the Bush Administration, which has expanded the capacity of the government to classify documents and to operate in secret.
The Collective Impact
Taken together, the actions of the Bush Administration have resulted in an extraordinary expansion of government secrecy. External watchdogs, including Congress, the media, and nongovernmental organizations, have consistently been hindered in their ability to monitor government activities. These actions have serious implications for the nature of our government. When government operates in secret, the ability of the public to hold the government accountable is imperiled.
MORE: http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/secrecy_report/index_exec.asp
Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is an excerpt from & link to a lengthy speech given by one of Rhino's heroes, Bill Moyers (I always thought he should run for President with Gary Trudeau as VP running mate) at the recent Society of Professional Journalists convention. His address covers a whole lot of ground but I've excerpted a segment in which he focus on government secrecy.
For those who may not know his bio, Bill Moyers was born 6/5/34 in Hugo, Oklahoma. He has had a long and varied career that includes a stint as deputy director of the Peace Corps (1961-63). A special advisor to President Lyndon Johnson, Moyers also served as Johnson's press secretary from 1965 to 1967. But Moyers is best known for his journalism, first in print at the Long Island, New York daily Newsday, where he served as publisher from 1967-70, and later in television. Moyers has received more than 30 Emmy Awards in recognition of his contributions in various roles. He and his wife Judith Davidson formed Public Affairs Television in 1986, through which they have produced more than 200 hours of programming, including the popular PBS series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith, Healing and the Mind, and his most recent PBS investigative news series, NOW.
9:01:11 AM 
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Journalism Under Fire
Address to the Society of Professional Journalists
by Bill Moyers, Saturday, September 11, 2004, New York City
Published Friday, 9/17/04 by CommonDreams.org
(Excerpt)
...we are witnessing new barriers imposed to public access to information and a rapid mutation of America's political culture in favor of the secret rule of government. I urge you to read the special report (Keeping Secrets) published recently by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (for a copy send an e-mail to publications@knightfdn.org). You will find laid out there what the editors call a "zeal for secrecy" pulsating through government at every level, shutting off the flow of information from sources such as routine hospital reports to what one United States Senator calls the "single greatest rollback of the Freedom of Information Act in history."
In the interest of full disclosure I digress here to say that I was present when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act on July 4, 1966. In language that was almost lyrical he said he was signing it "with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people's right to know is cherished and guarded." But as his press secretary at the time, I knew something that few others did: LBJ had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing ceremony. He hated the very idea of FOIA, hated the thought of journalists rummaging in government closets, hated them challenging the official review of realty. He dug in his heels and even threatened to pock-veto the bill after it reached the White House. Only the tenacity of a congressman named John Moss got the bill passed at all, and that was after a twelve-year battle against his elders in Congress, who blinked every time the sun shined in the dark corridors of power. They managed to cripple the bill Moss had drafted, and even then, only some last-minute calls to LBJ from a handful of newspaper editors overcame the president's reluctance. He signed "the f------"thing," as he called it, and then set out to claim credit for it.
But never has there been an administration like the one in power today - so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and, in defiance of the Constitution, from their representatives in Congress. The litany is long: The President's chief of staff orders a review that leads to at least 6000 documents being pulled from government websites. The Defense Department bans photos of military caskets being returned to the U.S. To hide the influence of Kenneth Lay, Enron, and other energy moguls the Vice President stonewalls his energy task force records with the help of his duck-hunting pal on the Supreme Court. The CIA adds a new question to its standard employer polygraph exam asking, "Do you have friends in the media?" There have been more than 1200 presumably terrorist-related arrests and 750 people deported, and no one outside the government knows their names, or how many court docket entries have been erased or never entered. Secret federal court hearings have been held with no public record of when or where or who is being tried.
Secrecy is contagious. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that "certain security information included in the reactor oversight process" will no longer be publicly available, and no longer be updated on the agency's website. New controls are being imposed on space surveillance data once found on NASA's web site. The FCC has now restricted public access to reports of telecommunications disruption because the Department of Homeland Security says communications outages could provide "a roadmap for terrorists." One of the authors of the ASNE report, Pete Weitzel, former managing editor of The Miami (Fla.) Herald and now coordinator for the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, describes how Section 2l4 of the Homeland Security Act makes it possible for a company to tell Homeland Security about an eroding chemical tank on the bank of a river, but DHS could not disclose this information publicly or, for that matter, even report it to the Environmental Protection Agency. And if there were a spill and people were injured, the information given DHS could not be used in court! Secrecy is contagious - and scandalous...
READ IT ALL AT: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0917-02.htm
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8:12:20 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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