We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Secret U.S. Trawl of AP Calls Decried by Press Groups

Click here to access article by Jim Snyder from Bloomberg News.  

Even this prime Wall Street media source is concerned about this late-breaking revelation of US government surveillance of the personal communications of AP journalists. It appears that the full-spectrum surveillance structures that have been set up in recent years is now being applied on journalists. The end effect, of course, will be to intimidate journalists, especially independent journalists, their sources, and whistle-blowers. Welcome to the Orwellian world of "thought police".
Media groups and government watchdogs said the U.S. Justice Department interfered with press freedom when it secretly collected telephone records from Associated Press reporters and editors over a two-month period last year.
Eric Draitser provides us with the more chilling implications of this incident in the last part of this 3:32m video from RT.


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