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Idaho Statesman parent company tanking?

McClatchy Newspapers Bonds Rated as Junk

By Jill Kuraitis, 4-30-07

If you sometimes search to find something compelling to read in the Idaho Statesman, you won’t be surprised by the news that its parent The McClatchy Co. is in trouble. Its first-quarter profits were down by a whopping 67 percent, and last Thursday, April 26, Standard & Poor’s slashed McClatchy bonds down to a BB-plus rating, which is considered to be junk.

By last Friday morning shares of McClatchy were traded at prices between $28.80 and $29.63, closing at $29.29 after a day of heavy trading. $28.80 is the lowest price for McClatchy since Feb. 1999.

A Standard & Poor’s analyst told Thomson’s Financial in London, “The lower ratings follow our review of operating conditions in the newspaper sector, and consider McClatchy’s ability to improve credit measures over the next few years through management’s focus on debt reduction. It is unlikely that credit measures will return to levels consistent with an investment-grade rating over the intermediate term.” Ouch.

McClatchy owns and publishes 30 daily and weekly newspapers, including state capital papers the Sacramento Bee and the Idaho Statesman. The Statesman was acquired in 2006 when McClatchy bought Knight Ridder.

Are McClatchy bonds tanking because of poor products? The newspaper industry is struggling nationwide, and it’s not that simple. But it’s a basic of running a business to produce something people want to buy. Considering the population growth in Ada County, the Statesman’s circulation should have increased proportionally. The Audit Bureau of Circulations reports 85,000 subscribers currently, which is down from 86,500 in 2001.

The Statesman’s bland stories from wire services and out-of-state copy mills sometimes miss a glaring mark. For example, a recent story about Spanish-language and bilingual preschools was written by an out of state service, and used examples of schools in other states. There are two new schools of this type in Boise to which no connection was made.

Anyone who wants a serious Sunday read – on paper – long enough to last through a bagel and coffee has to scramble around town for a rare New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, both of which are expensive.

That the Statesman can be a difficult place to work is an open secret among journalists and public relations professionals in Idaho. The frequent changes in ownership have bred an underlying tension about job security and a high stress level. The salaries for junior staff are lower than what I made as a secretary more than 30 years ago! - in some cases below the poverty line. Complaints about inept and sexist middle managers are common, but never on the record, of course. But chief among complaints was summed up by a Statesman reporter who asked, “Why can’t someone just take the place in hand and make a NEWSPAPER out of it?”

That’s a sad thing for a reporter to say. Reporters tend to care very much about their communities and their newspaper, and they are naturally competitive. They compete with other news outlets to get a story first and to write it best. They compete within the newsroom for plum assignments and more ink. They compete with each other for awards and citations, and they compete with themselves to write better, tighter, and more clearly than their last draft. They are poised and ready to produce the best possible edition, day after day – if management gives them the tools, column inches and inspired leadership that might get them there.

Heck, Statesman reporters don’t even have laptops, and many of their in-house computers are turn-of-the-century.

The Statesman does a good job covering the state legislature with some excellent and experienced writers like Greg Hahn, Kevin Richert and Shawna Gamache. Longtime political columnist Dan Popkey’s institutional memory and big-picture understanding of Idaho’s character add another layer of worthwhile content. Community and civic news is very well done - well enough to make the paper hard to do without.

But the paper’s regional coverage is poor. There is an occasional article about eastern and northern Idaho; sometimes a blurb about something in eastern Oregon – but rarely an original, analytical story about issues common to western states. (Popkey often provides that missing link, but his column hasn’t appeared in ages, the rumor being that he’s working on something big.) The Statesman often projects a sense of isolation and little material to connect Idahoans to a larger world. That sounds a lot like the Idaho legislature, and lack of those connections are an alarming problem there, too. The ancient attitude of cowboy invincibility and the antiquated idea that our state doesn’t need connections – we’re doing just fine on our own, thank you and by the way do NOT dictate to us – does not deserve support from its de facto state newspaper. The Idaho Statesman is really the Boise Statesman. But it could, and I believe should, assume more responsibility for a broader mission. Each time it changes ownership there is hope it will happen, but it’s always disappointing.

Media types have been asking the question of whether internet news and the blogosphere are becoming the mainstream, and print newspapers the marginalized “papersphere” - for several years now.

Has it already happened?

Read more New West Boise articles.

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By Jill Kuraitis, 4-30-07 | comments (11)

Save Net Radio

The SaveNetRadio Coalition

The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC has more than tripled the royalty rates for webcasters and left unchanged they will kill Internet radio. These exorbitant rates go into effect on May 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). Without Congressional action the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date. We need your help. Please take a moment to send a letter to your member of Congress to keep Net radio from being silenced.

--MORE--

Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Survey Reports

What Americans Know: 1989-2007

Released: April 15, 2007

Summary of Findings

What's Your News IQ?
Take the Quiz

Since the late 1980s, the emergence of 24-hour cable news as a dominant news source and the explosive growth of the internet have led to major changes in the American public's news habits. But a new nationwide survey finds that the coaxial and digital revolutions and attendant changes in news audience behaviors have had little impact on how much Americans know about national and international affairs.

On average, today's citizens are about as able to name their leaders, and are about as aware of major news events, as was the public nearly 20 years ago. The new survey includes nine questions that are either identical or roughly comparable to questions asked in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2007, somewhat fewer were able to name their governor, the vice president, and the president of Russia, but more respondents than in the earlier era gave correct answers to questions pertaining to national politics.

In 1989, for example, 74% could come up with Dan Quayle's name when asked who the vice president is. Today, somewhat fewer (69%) are able to recall Dick Cheney. However, more Americans now know that the chief justice of the Supreme Court is generally considered a conservative and that Democrats control Congress than knew these things in 1989. Some of the largest knowledge differences between the two time periods may reflect differences in the amount of press coverage of a particular issue or public figure at the time the surveys were taken. But taken as a whole the findings suggest little change in overall levels of public knowledge.

The survey provides further evidence that changing news formats are not having a great deal of impact on how much the public knows about national and international affairs. The polling does find the expected correlation between how much citizens know and how avidly they watch, read, or listen to news reports. The most knowledgeable third of the public is four times more likely than the least knowledgeable third to say they enjoy keeping up with the news "a lot."

There are substantial differences in the knowledge levels of the audiences for different news outlets. However, there is no clear connection between news formats and what audiences know. Well-informed audiences come from cable (Daily Show/Colbert Report, O'Reilly Factor), the internet (especially major newspaper websites), broadcast TV (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) and radio (NPR, Rush Limbaugh's program). The less informed audiences also frequent a mix of formats: broadcast television (network morning news shows, local news), cable (Fox News Channel), and the internet (online blogs where people discuss news events).

Aside from news media use, demographic characteristics, especially education, continue to be strongly associated with how much Americans know about the larger world. However, despite the fact that education levels have risen dramatically over the past 20 years, public knowledge has not increased accordingly.

These are the principal findings of an in-depth Pew Research Center survey that interviewed a representative national sample of 1,502 adults between Feb.1-13, 2007. Respondents were asked to identify public figures who had recently been in the news. They also were asked questions that measured how much they knew about important and widely covered news events. Awareness of public figures varied widely.

More than nine-in-ten Americans (93%) could identify Arnold Schwarzenegger as the California governor or a former action-movie star - both responses were counted as correct in the scoring. An equally large proportion of the public identified Hillary Clinton as a U.S. senator, a former first lady, a Democratic leader, or a candidate for president. Clear majorities can also correctly identify Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (65%) and Sen. Barack Obama (61%). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is recognized by about half of the public (49%).

Other prominent national figures and world leaders are not as well known. When asked to name the president of Russia, just 36% recalled Vladimir Putin. Only about three-in-ten (29%) could correctly identify former White House aide Scooter Libby; the survey was conducted during Libby's trial - but before his conviction - on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Public knowledge of news events also varies widely. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) knew that as part of his revised Iraq strategy, President Bush planned to increase U.S. military forces in the country. But only one-in-four Americans (24%) are aware that both houses of Congress passed legislation to increase the minimum wage and 34% knew that Congress voted to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

Distinct patterns emerge when these results are analyzed by key demographic groups. Education proves to be the single best predictor of knowledge. Holding all other factors equal, levels of knowledge rise with each additional year of formal schooling. At the extremes, these educational differences are dramatic: People with postgraduate degrees answer, on average, about 17 of the 23 questions correctly, while those who did not finish high school average only about eight correct answers.

Other demographic differences are also striking. Men, on average, knew more than women, all other factors being equal. Older Americans - particularly those 50 years old or older - did better than younger people. Whites scored better than blacks, while more affluent Americans knew more than those with lower household incomes.

As part of the Pew Knowledge Project, people are invited to test their own news IQ by taking an interactive knowledge quiz now available on the Pew Research Center website. The short quiz includes versions of the some of the same questions that were included in the national poll. Participants will instantly learn how they did on the quiz in comparison with the general public as well as with people like them. Take the quiz.

Grading the Public

To measure overall knowledge levels, a core group of 23 of the 26 questions was used to form a knowledge index. Each correct answer counted as one point, producing a scale that ranges from zero - no correct answers - to 23, a perfect score. Each respondent received a score based on the number of questions he or she answered correctly.¹

Eight people out of the 1,502 respondents answered all 23 questions correctly. At the other end of the spectrum, five people failed to answer a single question correctly. The average respondent got about 12 of the 23 questions right, or slightly more than half. 10 percent answered 20 or more questions accurately - and 5% got more than 20 questions wrong or said they did not know the answer.

Using a common school grading scale in which 90% correct is the minimum necessary to receive an A, 80% for a B, 70% for a C, 60% for a D and less than 60% is a failing grade, Americans did not fare too well. Fully half would have failed, while only about one-in-six would have earned an A or B. While such a scale is useful in the classroom, it may be a poor way to judge whether people are sufficiently informed. Opinions vary about what people "should" know about news events, and a different mix of questions could easily have produced very different results.

In fact, an experiment conducted in conjunction with this survey suggests that when people are given a "multiple-choice" version of key questions, the proportion who selected the correct response increased, sometimes dramatically.

For example, only 36% were able to volunteer Putin's name when asked in the February poll, "Who is the president of Russia?" But 60% correctly selected Putin when the question was asked this way in the test survey: "Can you tell me who is the president of Russia? Is it Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, or is it someone else?" Similarly, only 21% correctly answered that Robert Gates is the secretary of defense in the February survey, compared with 37% who did so when asked to choose whether Gates was the defense secretary, a senator from Michigan, the chairman of General Motors or held another job.

On other questions, the differences attributable to alternative formats were less dramatic. About three-in-four (76%) were able to volunteer unaided that the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. When on the test respondents were asked which political party controlled the House, followed by the prompt: "Is it the Democratic Party or the Republican Party," 82% answered correctly, a six-percentage point increase.

The results do not suggest possible explanations for the differences. Some of the gap may be explained by lucky guessing on the part of people who heard the correct choice along with some incorrect alternatives. Or perhaps asking people to volunteer an answer causes some to grow anxious and momentarily forget the right answer, or simply to say they do not know in order to hurry the interview along.

Demographic Differences in What Americans Know

To compare knowledge levels between demographic groups, the sample was divided into roughly equal thirds on the basis of how many of the 23 questions they answered correctly. About 35% of the sample answered 15 or more correct out of 23 core questions. For purposes of this analysis, they were classified as the "High" knowledge group. About 31% answered 10 to 14 questions correctly, and they were classified as having "Medium" levels of knowledge. Those who got nine or fewer questions right were assigned to the "Low" knowledge group.

Using this yardstick, differences in knowledge levels among core demographic groups stand out in sharp relief. More than six-in-ten college graduates (63%) fall into the high knowledge group, compared with 20% of those with a high school education or less - among the largest disparities observed in the survey. At the other end of the scale, half of those who had no more than a high school diploma (49%) are in the low knowledge group while only about one-in-ten college graduates (11%) fare as poorly.

Traditionally, men are more likely than women to say they closely follow politics and international affairs, and the results of the knowledge survey appear to reflect this divide. Nearly half of all men (45%) score in the top third, compared with 25% of women. Among those at the bottom third of the scale, women (42%) outnumber men (26%). Whites are more likely to be represented in the top group, while a larger proportion of blacks than whites (44% vs. 31%) fall into the low-knowledge group.

Dramatic differences emerge when the results are broken down by age. Young people know the least: Only 15% percent of 18-29 year-olds are among the most informed third of the public, compared with 43% of those ages 65 and older. But it is not these oldest respondents who know the most. Instead, it is people in the age group younger than them - those ages 50-64 - who are slightly more likely to finish among the third of the sample who know the most (47% vs. 43%) and less likely to be represented among those who know the least (22% vs. 28%). This difference likely is caused by the very different life circumstances of the two oldest age groups. Many of those 65 and older are retired from work, and health problems as well as lifestyle changes can disproportionately work to diminish the interest or ability of some in this generation to keep up with the news.

More affluent Americans also are disproportionately represented in the high-knowledge group, a difference that held even after level of schooling, age, gender and race were taken into consideration in the analysis. A clear majority (55%) of those with household incomes of $100,000 or more are among the third of the sample that knew the most, compared with just 14% of those with household incomes of $20,000 or less.

Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to be represented in the high-knowledge group. But significantly fewer Republicans (26%) than Democrats (31%) fall into the third of the public that knows the least.

The survey also suggests that people who know more about politics and world events also tend to correctly identify popular celebrities. For example, nearly eight-in-ten respondents (78%) in the high-knowledge group could identify football star Peyton Manning, compared with 45% of those in the low-knowledge group. Similarly, those conversant with politics and world affairs also are more likely to correctly describe singer and actress Beyonce Knowles. While based on only two questions, these finding do suggest that more informed people may know a bit about a wide variety of subjects, including pop culture.

Knowledge Domains

Knowledgeable people tend to know things about both politics and foreign affairs while less informed Americans tended to know little about either subject, the survey found. For example, nine-in-ten of those who could name Vladimir Putin as the president of Russia also could identify Barack Obama. Similarly, nine-in-10 of those who didn't know the Illinois senator also couldn't correctly name the Russian leader.

Some demographic groups also did comparatively better on questions that broadly resonated with group members. For example, the survey found that blacks generally lagged behind whites in terms of their overall political knowledge. But African Americans had no trouble recognizing either Rice or Obama: 70% of all blacks and 66% of whites could identify Rice, and both races did about equally well identifying the Illinois senator. Other results suggest that women were somewhat more likely to know more about domestic politics than they did about international affairs, while men were more likely to know about as much on both subjects.

But overall, there was a close correlation between what people knew about domestic politics and foreign affairs. Only a handful of Americans - less than 3% of the total sample - were "knowledge specialists" who knew a lot about one subject but comparatively little about the other.

Knowledge and Political Engagement

More informed Americans enjoy keeping up with the news, believe they have a personal stake in what goes on in Washington, and are significantly more likely to be registered to vote than people who know less, the survey found.

Among those in the third of the sample who know the most, the overwhelming majority (90%) are registered to vote compared with about half (53%) of the least knowledgeable Americans. The knowledgeable public also is more likely to see issues debated in Washington as having a direct impact on their lives (73% vs. 59%).

Rather than being a burden, the survey suggests these informed Americans like keeping up with what's going on in the news. About seven-in-ten (69%) in the high-knowledge group say they enjoy keeping up with the news "a lot," compared with only 16% of the least informed.

Political Knowledge Over Time

The public's ability to recall the names of leading political figures has not changed substantially since 1989. In the current survey, 69% correctly named Dick Cheney as the vice president. In May 1989, slightly more (74%) were able to name Dan Quayle as vice president. Somewhat fewer people could name their state's governor now than did so in 1989, but again the differences are not dramatic (66% now, 74% then).

In terms of knowledge of politics and current events, significantly fewer people now know that the U.S. buys more goods from abroad than it sells than did so in 1989 (68% now vs. 81% then). But the political climate for this issue also has changed considerably. During the late 1980s, the U.S. trade deficit - especially trade tensions with Japan - drew much greater attention from the press and politicians than they do today.

On the other hand, there are subjects about which the public is better informed now than it was in 1989. Roughly three-quarters of Americans (76%) know that the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives, compared with 68% in 1989. The extensive press coverage of both the Democrats' victory last fall and the new Congress may be factors in the relatively high level of public awareness of this fact. In June 1995, a few months after Republicans won control of Congress, 73% knew that the GOP had a majority in the House - the second-highest percentage correctly answering this question since 1989.

In addition, 37% know that Chief Justice John Roberts is generally considered a conservative, rather than a moderate or liberal. Somewhat fewer were aware of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist's ideological background in 1989; 30% knew he was a conservative. In both cases, however, substantial numbers were unable to offer a response about the chief justice's ideology - 50% in 1989, 48% currently.

Differences in news environment also are apparent in other comparisons. In early February, 29% of the public could correctly identify Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was then facing trial for lying to federal investigators probing the unauthorized release of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the news media. In April, 1990, 60% of the public could identify former White House aide John Poindexter, who was then on trial for his involvement in the Iran-contra scandal, a much higher-profile, longer running and widely covered investigation than the Plame leak probe.

But a deeper analysis of the five identical questions asked in both 1989 and 2007 reveals a surprising pattern: Americans didn't do as well in 2007 compared with how similarly-educated Americans performed in 1989. Across the board, scores declined significantly among college graduates, those with some college as well as for those with a high school education or less.

For example, 74% of those with college degrees answered at least four questions correctly this year, compared with 80% in 1989. A similar pattern emerged among those who had attended college for at least a year but did not graduate: 51% in 2007 but 59% in 1989 got at least four questions right. Among those with no more than a high school diploma, the proportion getting four or five answers right declined 11 percentage points to 30%.

What keeps the overall knowledge scores from declining is that college grads still know more than less well-educated Americans - even if they know less in absolute terms than college grads in the past - and there are proportionally more of them now than there were 18 years ago. Currently about 27% of the public are college graduates, compared with 17% in 1989. At the same time, there are fewer people who have only a high school education (50% now compared with 60% in 1989). Education still leads to increased knowledge about prominent people and events in the news - but it does not confer as much of an advantage now as it did in 1989.

News and Knowledge

People inevitably must learn most of what they know about current events and political figures from the news media, since few have any direct way to obtain this information. Not surprisingly, people who say they regularly watch, read, or listen to the news know more than those who don't. And people who use more news sources know more than those who use fewer sources. The differences are dramatic. Nearly three quarters (73%) of those who say they don't get news regularly from any news source fell into the low knowledge group - correctly answering an average of only six out of the 23 questions in the quiz. By contrast, about half of those who regularly use at least seven sources score in the high knowledge group - getting an average of 18 questions correct.

The poll's respondents were asked if they regularly watched, read, or listened to each of 16 different sources.² Nearly everyone (94%) said they regularly get news from at least one of the news sources listed, and the average number of sources regularly used was between four and five (4.6). The audience size ranged widely. Local media garnered the largest regular audiences, with majorities reporting that they regularly watched local television news (71%) and read a daily newspaper (54%). Other television sources were also popular, with somewhat fewer than half watching network evening news (46%), the Fox News Channel (43%), and CNN (39%). About one third of respondents (34%) said they regularly watched the major network morning news shows.

Three more specialized television sources attracted smaller audiences. Fewer than one-in-five said they regularly watch "The O'Reilly Factor" with Bill O'Reilly (17%), comedy news shows like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report (16%), or the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (14%).

Nearly four-in-ten people (37%) regularly use at least one type of internet news source, either the news pages of major search engines such as Google or Yahoo (25%), the websites of the television news organizations (22%), or the websites of major national newspapers such as the New York Times or USA Today (12%). Additionally, about one-in-ten (11%) read online blogs where people discuss events in the news.

Two radio sources were included in the list: 28% said they regularly listen to news from National Public Radio, and 8% are regular listeners to Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

Profile of Audiences

But not all news sources are created equal. The audiences for different sources vary greatly in how much they know about what's going on, a consequence both of the kinds of people who rely on each type of medium and how much they may learn from specific sources.

Internet news sources, National Public Radio, news magazines, and Rush Limbaugh's radio show have the best educated audiences, with each of these having at least 36% of their regular readers and listeners having graduated from college. The internet sources along with the comedy news shows attract younger-than-average audiences, though many older Americans regularly get news from these sources as well. The audience for the morning network news shows is disproportionately female (61%), while Limbaugh's audience is heavily male (65%). A greater than average number of men are found in the audiences for the major newspaper websites (59%), for comedy news, The O'Reilly Factor, news magazines (54% each), and the TV news websites (53% male).

Conservatives and Republicans are especially attracted to Limbaugh, while more Democrats are found among the audiences for the NewsHour, the comedy news shows, news magazines, and the websites of major newspapers.

Which Audiences Know the Most?

Attention to the news is strongly associated with knowledge levels, but some news audiences know considerably more than others. Overall, 35% of the public was classified as having a high level of knowledge - on average, 18 correct answers out of the 23 total questions. Half or more of the audiences for six media sources scored this high: the comedy news shows and major newspaper websites (54% in the high knowledge group), the NewsHour (53%), National Public Radio (51%) and Rush Limbaugh's radio show (50%). Regular readers of news magazines were not far behind (48%).

By contrast, the regular audiences for many other sources scored no higher than the sample average. The audiences for morning news (34% high knowledge), local TV news (35%), Fox News Channel (35%), blogs (37%), and the network evening news (38%) were not significantly different from the norm for the whole sample (35%). The audiences for CNN, internet news sites such as Google and Yahoo, local newspapers, and TV news organization websites scored slightly higher (41%-44% high knowledge).

This pattern is evident on many of the individual questions in the survey. For example, 32% of the public overall could name the Sunni branch of Islam, but 52% of readers of major newspaper websites could do so, as could 50% of the regular audience for the comedy news shows and 49% of NPR's regular audience. Similarly, 29% of the general public could identify Lewis "Scooter" Libby, but 45% of the NewsHour audience and 41%-44% of the regular audiences of Bill O'Reilly, comedy news shows, NPR, Rush Limbaugh, the national newspaper websites, and news magazines could do so. On both of these questions, the audiences for morning news, local TV news, Fox News Channel, blogs, and the network evening news either matched or did only slightly better in answering correctly than did the average American.

The fact that a particular news source's audience is very knowledgeable does not mean that people learned all that they know from that source. As noted earlier, some news sources draw especially well-educated audiences who are keenly interested in politics. Because of their education and life experiences, these individuals have more background information and may be better able to retain what they see in the news, regardless of where they see it.

Similarly, the news-hungry public tends to visit many outlets. The audiences for sources such as major TV news websites, the comedy shows, or the O'Reilly Factor tend to be fairly omnivorous in their media consumption - an average of more than seven separate sources for the regular audiences of each of these, compared with the overall average of 4.6 sources. Well-informed people do gravitate to particular places, but they also make use of a much wider range of news sources than do the less informed.

Still, differences in background characteristics and overall news habits do not explain all of the differences in knowledge across news audiences. Even after taking into account their overall news gathering habits and their political and demographic characteristics, the audiences for the comedy shows, The O'Reilly Factor, the web sites of national newspapers, and NPR all have significantly higher knowledge scores than the average.

Notes

¹Three questions were excluded from the scoring because they did not measure knowledge of political or world affairs. These questions included one that asked respondents to identify singer and actress Beyonce Knowles and a similar question about professional football star Peyton Manning. Responses to a third question about the roots of the conflict in Iraq did not correlate with knowledge about politics, current events or international affairs, and as a result this question was dropped from the scale.

²This question ("regularly or not") produces somewhat higher audience estimates than are found in Pew's biennial media consumption survey, which offers respondents the choice of "regularly, sometimes, hardly ever, or never." For example, last year's survey found 22% saying they were regular viewers of CNN; in the current survey, 39% did so. Similar differences are found for most of the sources tested.

FULL REPORT - PDF

Death threat's close news website

From Al-Jazeerah.info Editor to Readers

Dear Readers,

Al-Jazeerah.info has been a US independent forum promoting peace between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds and between Israelis and Palestinians, for the last five years.

Some people apparently neither like peace nor tolerate the First Amendment to the US Constitution. They have not stopped attacks on Al-Jazeerah, its editor, its contributors, and authors.

What's new this time is that those who oppose Al-Jazeerah.info have been orchestrating a campaign* against its Editor, personally.

A letter-writing campaign has been going on since March 22, 2007 targeting officials of the institution he works with, in addition to a continuous smearing internet and media campaign against him, personally.

I have concluded that it's not safe for me any more to continue editing Al-Jazeerah.info in this atmosphere of intimidation, which abridges freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I believed that, as an American citizen, I have these sacred rights as a given. I acknowledge now that I was wrong.

Until I'm assured of these Constitutional freedoms and rights, I'll stop editing news reports and opinion editorials about US wars and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, hoping that the campaign against my employer stops.

Readers and contributors, however, are welcome to continue submitting other topics. Let's be creative and try to find other subjects that promote peace in the world and serve humanity.

I promise to resume publication as soon as conditions change to a more peaceful and tolerant discourse.

I'm proud that Al-Jazeerah forum has enabled thousands of Americans to express themselves, warning against wars and promoting peace in their country and the world.

There's every reason for the US and Israel to adopt peaceful resolutions to international conflicts. Wars and excessive military spending have caused the US to sink into an unprecedented national debt of $9 trillion, which will eat up the economic achievements of the American people if it is not addressed as soon as possible.

The Israelis have been living in a continuous state of war for about 60 years, for denying Palestinians their human rights, including their right for self determination and having a state of their own. Military force does not solve problems. Occupation of Arab territories does not give security. Peace does. And this has been the message of Al-Jazeerah.info from Day One.

Peace!

Hassan El-Najjar

Al-Jazeerah Editor

April 7, 2007

Land of the free, home of the War on Terrorism

April 6, 2007

by William Blum

"They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to David Hicks, a 31-year-old Australian who in a plea bargain with a US military court will serve nine months in prison, largely in Australia. That's after five years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba without being charged with a crime, without a trial, without a conviction. Under the deal, Hicks agreed not to talk to reporters for one year (a slap in the face of free speech), to forever waive any profit from telling his story (a slap -- mon Dieu! -- in the face of free enterprise), to submit to US interrogation and testify at future US trials or international tribunals (an open invitation to the US government to hound the young man for the rest of his life), to renounce any claims of mistreatment or unlawful detention (a requirement which would be unconstitutional in a civilian US court).

"If the United States were not ashamed of its conduct, it wouldn't hide behind a gag order," said Wizner.)[1]

Like so many other "terrorists" held by the United States in recent years, Hicks had been "sold" to the American military for a bounty offered by the US, a phenomenon repeated frequently in Afghanistan and Pakistan. US officials had to know that once they offered payments to a very poor area to turn in bodies that almost anyone was fair game.

Other "terrorists" have been turned in as reprisals for all sorts of personal hatreds and feuds.

Many others -- abroad and in the United States -- have been incarcerated by the United States simply for working for, or merely contributing money to, charitable organizations with alleged or real ties to a "terrorist organization", as determined by a list kept by the State Department, a list conspicuously political.

It was recently disclosed that an Iraqi resident of Britain is being released from Guantánamo after four years. His crime? He refused to work as an informer for the CIA and MI5, the British security service. His business partner is still being held in Guantánamo, for the same crime.[2]

Finally, there are those many other poor souls who have been picked up simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Most of these guys weren't fighting. They were running," General Martin Lucenti, former deputy commander of Guantánamo, has pointed out.[3]

Thousands of people thrown into hell on earth for no earthly good reason. The world media has been overflowing with their individual tales of horror and sadness for five very long years. Said Guantánamo's former commander, General Jay Hood: "Sometimes we just didn't get the right folks."[4] Not that the torture they were put through would be justified if they were in fact "the right folks".

Hicks was taken into custody in Afghanistan in 2001. He was a convert to Islam and like many others from many countries had gone to Afghanistan for religious reasons, had wound up on the side of the Taliban in the civil war that had been going on since the early 1990s, and had received military training at a Taliban camp. The United States has insisted on calling such camps "terrorist training camps", or "anti-American terrorist training camps", or "al-Qaeda terrorist training camps". Almost every individual or group not in love with US foreign policy, which Washington wants to stigmatize, is charged with being associated with, or being a member of, al Qaeda, as if there's a precise and meaningful distinction between people retaliating against American imperialism while being a member of al Qaeda and retaliating against American imperialism while NOT being a member of al Qaeda; as if al Qaeda gives out membership cards to fit into your wallet, as if there are chapters of al Qaeda that put out a weekly newsletter and hold a potluck on the first Monday of each month.

It should be noted that for nearly half a century much of southern Florida has been one big training camp for anti-Castro terrorists. None of their groups -- which have carried out many hundreds of serious terrorist acts in the US as well as abroad, including bombing a passenger airplane in flight -- are on the State Department list. Nor were the Contras of Nicaragua in the 1980s, heavily supported by the United States, about whom former CIA Director Stansfield Turner testified: "I believe it is irrefutable that a number of the Contras' actions have to be characterized as terrorism, as State-supported terrorism."[5] The same applies to groups in Kosovo and Bosnia, with close ties to al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, in the recent past, but which have allied themselves with Washington's agenda in the former Yugoslavia since the 1990s. Now we learn of US support for a Pakistani group, called Jundullah and led by a Taliban, which has taken responsibility for the recent kidnapings and deaths and of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials in cross-border attacks.[6] Do not hold your breath waiting for the name Jundallah to appear on the State Department list of terrorist organizations; nor any of the several other ethnic militias being supported by the CIA to carry out terrorist bombing and assassination attacks in Iran.[7]

The same political selectivity applies to many of the groups which are on the list, particularly those opposed to American or Israeli policies.

Amid growing pressure from their home countries and international human rights advocates, scores of Guantánamo detainees have been quietly repatriated in the past three years. Now, a new analysis by lawyers who have represented detainees at this 21st century Devil's Island says this policy undermines Washington's own claims about the threat posed by many of the prison camp's residents. The report, based on US government case files for Saudi detainees sent home over the past three years, shows inmates being systematically freed from custody within weeks of their return. In half the cases studied, the detainees had been turned over to US forces by Pakistani police or troops in return for financial rewards. Many others were accused of terrorism connections in part because their Arab nicknames matched those found in a computer database of al-Qaeda members, documents show. In December, a survey by the Associated Press found that 84 percent of released detainees -- 205 out of 245 individuals whose cases could be tracked -- were set free after being released to the custody of their native countries.

"There are certainly bad people in Guantánamo Bay, but there are also other cases where it's hard to understand why the people are still there," said Anant Raut, co-author of the report, who has visited the detention camp three times. "We were struggling to find some rationality, something to comfort us that it wasn't just random. But we didn't find it."

The report states that many of the US attempts to link the detainees to terrorism groups were based on evidence the authors describe as circumstantial and "highly questionable", such as the travel routes the detainees had followed in flying commercially from one Middle East country to another. American officials have associated certain travel routes with al Qaeda, when in fact, says the report, the routes "involve ordinary connecting flights in major international airports." With regard to accusations based on similar names, the report states: "This accusation appears to be based upon little more than similarities in the transliterations of a detainee's name and a name found on one of the hard drives."

Raut said he was most struck by the high percentage of Saudi detainees who had been captured and turned over by Pakistani forces. In effect, he said, for at least half of the group in the study, the United States "had no first-hand knowledge of their activities" in Afghanistan before their capture and imprisonment.[8]

When Michael Scheuer, former CIA officer who headed the Agency's Osama bin Laden unit, was told that the largest group in Guantánamo came from custody in Pakistan, he said: "We absolutely got the wrong people."[9]

Never mind. They were all treated equally. All thrown into solitary confinement. Shackled, blindfolded, excruciating physical contortions for long periods, denied medicine. Sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation. And two dozen other methods of torture which American officials do not call torture. (If you torture these officials, they might admit that it "torture lite".)

"The idea is to build an antiterrorist global environment," a senior American defense official said in 2003, "so that in 20 to 30 years, terrorism will be like slave-trading, completely discredited."[10]

When will the dropping of bombs on innocent civilians by the United States, and invading and occupying their country, without their country attacking or threatening the US, become completely discredited? When will the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs and CIA torture renditions become things that even men like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld will be too embarrassed to defend?

Australian/British journalist John Pilger has noted that in George Orwell's 1984 "three slogans dominate society: war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. Today's slogan, war on terrorism, also reverses meaning. The war is terrorism."


Throwing the earth on the mercy of the market

Al Gore appeared before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on global warming on March 21. The star of "An Inconvenient Truth" was told by Cong. Joe Barton of Texas: "You're not just off a little -- you're totally wrong." In the afternoon Gore testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, during which the former vice president was told by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma: "You've been so extreme in some of your expressions that you're losing some of your own people."[11]

These members of Congress know the facts of economic life in the United States. Fighting global warming is a threat to the principal human generator of it -- corporations -- who avail themselves of the best congress members money can buy to keep government regulations as weak as can be.

Does Al Gore know the same facts of American economic life? Of course, but you would have a hard time discerning that from his film. It's as cowardly in dealing with the corporations as Gore was in fighting the theft of the 2000 election. In the film's hour and a half, the words "corporations" or "profit" are not heard. The closest he comes to ascribing a link between the rape of the environment and the incessant corporate drive to optimize profits is a single passing mention of American automakers' reluctance to increase car gas mileage. He discusses the link between tobacco and lung cancer, as an example of how we have to "connect the dots" on environmental issues, with no mention of the tobacco corporations or their gross and deliberate deception of the American people. He states at another point that we must choose the environment over the economy, without any elucidation at all. Otherwise, the film's message is that it's up to the individual to change his habits, to campaign for renewable energy, and to write his congress member about this or that. In summary, the basic problem, he tells us, is that we're lacking "political will".

It would be most interesting if Al Gore were the president to see how tough he'd get with the corporations, which every day, around the clock, are faced with choices: one method of operation available being the least harmful to the environment, another method being the least harmful to the bottom line. Of course, Gore was vice-president for eight years and was in a fantastic and enviable position to pressure the corporations to mend their ways and Congress to enact tougher regulations; as well as to educate the public on more than their own bad habits. But what exactly did he do? Can any readers enlighten me as to what extent the man used his position and his power then in a manner consistent with the image and the word of his new film?

But could Gore be elected without corporate money? And how much of that money would reach his pocket if he advocated (choke, gasp!) free government-paid public transportation -- rail, bus, ferry, etc.? That would give birth to a breathtaking -- or rather, breath enhancing -- reduction in automobile pollution; easily paid for by ceasing America's imperialist wars.


Microsoft and the National Security Agency

I have long felt that the American media's gravest shortcoming is its errors of omission, rather than its errors of commission. It's what they leave out that distorts the news more than any factual errors or out-and-out lies. In January the Washington Post reported that Microsoft had announced that its new operating system, Vista, was being brought to us with the assistance of the National Security Agency. The NSA said it helped to protect the operating system from worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers. "Our intention is to help everyone with security," said the NSA's chief of vulnerability analysis and operations group. The spy agency, which provided its service free, said it was Microsoft's idea to acknowledge NSA's role, although the software giant declined to be specific about NSA's contributions to Vista.[12]

What the Post -- and most likely the entirety of mainstream American media -- do not remind us of is what came out in 1999 and 2000, although it's all over the Internet.

In September 1999, leading European investigative reporter Duncan Campbell revealed that NSA had arranged with Microsoft to insert special "keys" into Windows operating systems, beginning with Windows 95. An American computer scientist, Andrew Fernandez of Cryptonym in North Carolina, had disassembled parts of the Windows instruction code and found the smoking gun -- Microsoft's developers had failed to remove the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for two keys. One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY". Fernandez presented his finding at a conference at which some Windows developers were also in attendance. The developers did not deny that the NSA key was built into their software, but they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been put there without users' knowledge. Fernandez says that NSA's "back door" in the world's most commonly used operating system makes it "orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your computer."[13]

In February 2000, it was disclosed that the Strategic Affairs Delegation (DAS), the intelligence arm of the French Defense Ministry, had prepared a report in 1999 which also asserted that NSA had helped to install secret programs in Microsoft software. According to the DAS report, "it would seem that the creation of Microsoft was largely supported, not least financially, by the NSA, and that IBM was made to accept the [Microsoft] MS-DOS operating system by the same administration." The report stated that there had been a "strong suspicion of a lack of security fed by insistent rumours about the existence of spy programmes on Microsoft, and by the presence of NSA personnel in Bill Gates' development teams." Microsoft categorically denied all the charges and the French Defense Ministry said that it did not necessarily stand by the report, which was written by "outside experts".[14]

In case the above disturbs your image of Bill Gates and his buddies as a bunch of long-haired, liberal, peacenik computer geeks, and the company as one of the non-military-oriented halfway decent corporations, the DAS report states that the Pentagon at the time was Microsoft's biggest client in the world. The Israeli military has also been an important client. In 2002, the company erected enormous billboards in Israel which bore the Microsoft logo under the text "From the depth of our heart -- thanks to The Israeli Defense Forces", with the Israeli national flag in the background.[15]


The Myth of the Good War
Readers of this report will be aware that one of the points I try very hard to convey is that the reason so many Americans support US atrocities abroad is that they're convinced that no matter how bad things may look, the government means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are honorable. Of that most Americans are certain. And one of the foundation stones for this edifice of patriotic faith is the Second World War, an historical saga that all Americans are taught about from childhood on. We all know what its real name is: "The Good War".

Which leads me to recommend a book, "The Myth of the Good War", by Jacques Pauwels, published in 2002. It's very well done, well argued and documented, an easy read. I particularly like the sections dealing with the closing months of the European campaign, during which the United States and Great Britain contemplated stabbing their Soviet ally in the back with maneuvers like a separate peace with Germany, using German troops to fight the Russians, and sabotaging legal attempts by various Communist Parties and other elements of the European left to share in (highly earned) political power after the war. This last piece of sabotage was of course very effectively realized. Stalin learned enough about these schemes to at least partially explain his post-war suspicious manner toward his "allies". In the West we called it "paranoia".[16]


NOTES

[1] Seattle Times, March 31, 2007

[2] Washington Post, March 30, 2007, p.11

[3] Financial Times (London), Oct 4, 2004

[4] Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2005

[5] Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, April 16, 1985

[6] ABC News, April 3, 2007

[7] Sunday Telegraph (London), February 25, 2007

[8] Washington Post, March 18, 2007

[9] Richard Ackland, "Innocence ignored at Guantanamo", Sydney Morning Herald, February 24, 2006.

[10] New York Times, January 17, 2003, p.10

[11] Washington Post, March 22, 2007, p.2

[12] Washington Post, January 9, 2007. p.D1

[13] Duncan Campbell's article of September 3, 1999 can be found on the website of TechWeb: http://www.techweb.com/wire/29110640

[14] Agence France Presse, February 18 and 21, 2000

[15] To see one of the billboards: www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-news-0022.html

[16] http://www.alys.be/pauwels/2publi_the_myth.htm
Available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Dutch editions


William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

US Military Expands Capability to Attack Websites

Military beefs up Internet arsenal

By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is quietly expanding capabilities to attack terrorist computer networks, including websites that glorify insurgent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, military officials and experts say.

The move comes as al-Qaeda and other groups fighting in Iraq and elsewhere have expanded their activities on the Internet and increased the sophistication and volume of their videos and messages. Much of the material is designed to raise money and recruit fighters for Iraq.

"You should not let them operate uncontested" on the Internet and elsewhere in cyberspace, said Marine Brig. Gen. John Davis, who heads a military command located at the National Security Agency. The command was established to develop ways to attack computer networks.

Davis and other officials declined to say whether the military has actually attacked any networks, which would require presidential authorization. The techniques are highly classified.

Pentagon contract documents show the military asks companies to develop a "full spectrum … of computer network attack techniques." Run by the Air Force Research Laboratory, this program aims to spend $40 million over four years, documents show.

The growth in offensive capabilities signals a shift in military thinking from just monitoring terrorist websites for intelligence to attacking those sites.

"The offensive is increasingly on leaders' minds," said John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who also works for the Defense Department on cyberwar issues.

Some officials say cyberattacks can result in losing critical intelligence.

"You always have the built-in tension between the operator who wants to destroy the target and the intelligence officer who wants to use the target to gain more information," said Lani Kass, director of the Air Force's cyberspace task force.

"Our opponents do a heck of a lot more than just watch us in cyberspace," Davis said. "They are acting in cyberspace. We need to develop options so that we can … dominate cyberspace."

Cyberattacks can take different forms, including eliminating terrorist websites and creating doubts among insurgents about their networks' security, said Arquilla, who favors an offensive approach he calls a "virtual scorched-earth policy."

Armed groups in Iraq videotape nearly all of their attacks on U.S. forces to help magnify their impact.

"Everything they do in Iraq and Afghanistan is geared toward propaganda," said Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., who's on the House Armed Services Committee.

The videos and messages are "getting more and more professional," said Andretta Summerville of iDefense, a private contractor that monitors terrorist activity on the Internet.

Some sites find recruits and push "them toward a pipeline that ends in suicide attacks," said Lt. Col. Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for Central Command, which runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Attacking websites may have limited value, said Ben Venzke of IntelCenter, a contractor that monitors terrorist websites and Internet forums. "The problem is the nature of the Internet itself," he said. "It can always come back up in 10 seconds."

Internet Politics and the “MSM”

Posted: 3/26/07

Complaint about the mainstream media is a staple of the blogosphere and, in the world of campaign finance, the clash became more legal, less rhetorical, when editorial pages urged the FEC to be wary of according full, protected “press” status to blogs. Advocates for blogs wanted just this recognition, in part to make the point that their legal protections should not be less than that provided to the establishment press. Internet outlets were prepared to submit to regulation, to some extent, as long as they were treated just like the established, institutional media. In the end, the FEC granted this wish.

The MSM can’t overcome their reservations about this new world. In the last week, well respected commentators have jumped on the opportunity presented by the “l984” ad flap to warn of the rough times ahead for politics and for political campaigns in the age of the New Media.

For Howard Kurtz and Jose Antonio Vargas, the danger is “skullduggery.” Operatives or activists can disguise themselves as ordinary citizens and post material, for all the world to see or read, that is uncharitable to candidates. This is solid cause for worry, we are told; but we are assured also that the same technology that enables the skulduggery can also be used to expose it.

Howard Fineman notes that candidates cannot hope to control their campaigns as before, in part because any one person with a laptop, commitment and aptitude can shape the political dialogue of the moment. Hence, as his title indicates, campaigns are “out of control.” Fineman writes: “The candidates don’t really control [campaigning] anymore. It is not something they do; it is something that is done to them.”

Done “to” them? This is the suggestion of a pundit and reporter, made about the anxieties of a campaign deprived of “control”; and yet candidates for years have believed that control was imperiled more by the established press than by any other independent force “doing” something “to” them. Campaigns have devoted much effort and ingenuity to the task of preserving control from the daily efforts of reporters to wrest it from them. Not much sympathy came the candidates’ way: their attempts to control message or keep secrets were treated as maneuvers to deprive the public of what it was entitled to know.

Now the MSM is losing control—by no means entirely but to some significant degree—and a larger community of critics, prognosticators and pundits has sprung up to include virtually anyone with the wish to become a member. Now, and only now, has “control” become an issue for the MSM. Critique of Internet political speech breaks out roughly in the ways illustrated by the Kurtz-Vargas/Fineman pieces.

The case against “skullduggery”: it holds that cyberpolitics presents special dangers that candidates will escape responsibility for their behavior. In some way, actively or by the “wink or nod,” campaigns will have the benefit of negative, irresponsible speech without accountability for it. Another term for this is “dirty tricks,” which is the all-purpose category that includes any behavior by one candidate that another candidate, or critic, finds objectionable.

Of course, the MSM has been a standard avenue for “skullduggery” by candidates eager to maintain some cover for their claims and accusations. News media are the repository and outlets for information that candidates will not put out themselves but are happy to entrust to reporters for public dissemination. This route is in a class by itself: an attack becomes “news” or “news commentary”: the nasty stuff is made entirely respectable, the very sustenance of an informed public. At the extremes, if main section news treatment would go too far, there are more gossipy, “soft” parts where the blow can be landed.

The main difference between this “skullduggery” and another is that media organizations decide which to countenance. They want, in a word, “control,” and their justification is the exercise of editorial or news judgment in the public interest. Some, but not everyone, may be impressed that this makes all the difference in the world.

The case against loss of "control" puts less emphasis on wrongful or questionable behavior, and more on how campaigns can’t control their message—that orderly political competition will degenerate into chaos. Here again, candidates have long had this to fear from the MSM. Reporters and editorialists imagine, however, that this was in the right and natural order of things, because a vibrant and sometimes disruptive press helped to police the dialogue and forced campaigns to an honest accounting of their positions and problems.

In other words, just as the critics of skullduggery make an exception for the kind they turn into news coverage, so alarmists on the subject of “control” over campaigns are arguing, really, that it should be exercised only by the MSM.

These arguments about “control” can’t change much anymore. There was a time when they might have: when the FEC might have been persuaded, as it was not, that Internet political speech should be closely regulated. With the passing of that moment, MSM critics have only their criticism to offer and their warnings to issue but these should be evaluated like any other political speech—skeptically, with close attention to the unmistakable evidence of self-interest. And of self-regard.

Bob Bauer

Marching With a Mouse: THOMAS FRIEDMAN - A Message

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Marching With a Mouse

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: March 16, 2007

If you do your homework, have your facts right and the merits on your side, and then build a constituency for your ideals through the Internet, you, too, can be at the table of the biggest deal in history.

There aren’t a lot of environmental groups with their own investment bank consultants, so when you hear that Environmental Defense has just hired the boutique Wall Street firm Perella Weinberg Partners, you know that we’re in a new world. Every college activist should study this story, because it is the future. In the old days, when activists wanted something done, they held a sit-in or organized a protest march. Now they hire an investment bank.

O.K., maybe every activist group can’t afford Goldman Sachs, but such groups should nevertheless analyze how Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council used the Internet and the market to save the planet from tons of CO2. The story started last year when a giant Texas power company, TXU, announced plans to build 11 coal-fired, CO2-belching power plants, raising the ire of environmentalists worried about climate change. Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, which has an office in Texas, wrote to John Wilder, TXU’s chairman, and asked for a meeting, but was brushed off. TXU made it clear that it was on a fast track to build its plants and had the governor of Texas on its side.

Talk about not knowing what world you’re living in.

So Environmental Defense and its allies turned to the Web and created the Stoptxu.com Web site, which put out regular electronic newsletters on the TXU plans and built a national constituency opposed to the deal. They also took TXU to court.

--MORE--

The web works for the grassroots, but political power still lies with the few

Comment

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Thousands have been mobilised for the 2008 US elections. But, more than anything, the candidates want money

Gary Younge
Monday March 5, 2007
The Guardian

Whatever happened to Tom Vilsack? Vilsack appeared on the presidential scene without trace and faded with even less commotion. Since, according to a recent survey, Americans have been paying more attention to coverage of Anna Nicole Smith than the 2008 presidential campaign, few have missed him. But on February 23 he bowed out of the Democratic primaries almost a year before the first vote was to be cast.

"I have the boldest plan to get us out of Iraq and a long-term policy for energy security to keep us out of future oil wars," said Vilsack in his concession speech. This is not true. Vilsack was a fairly ordinary candidate with fairly ordinary policies. His plans were not bold. In a free and fair contest of content, charisma and character the voters would probably not go for him. The issue is that they will never get the chance. Before he could get his name on a ballot, money had the final say.

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"This process has become a great deal about money. A lot of money," he said. "So it is money, and only money, that is the reason why we are leaving today."

That is entirely true. The dominant role of money in US politics is widely acknowledged but all too rarely interrogated. The corruption scandals that made the news last year flouted the letter of the law but did not violate its spirit. Money buys access; access begets influence. It is as close to a textbook definition of corruption as you can get - but it's still legal. "We have created a culture in which there's no distinction between what is illegal and what is unethical," says the former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

The Bush administration did not invent this culture but it has exacerbated it. Registered lobbyists have doubled in George Bush's tenure and they now spend around $25m per politician each year to leverage their agendas. But even as money has cemented its place on the American political landscape, so the internet has enabled a countervailing tendency that could yet allow the green shoots of genuine democratic engagement to break through. The technology by itself does nothing. But when a message or candidate grabs the popular imagination it is the most effective way to fill the vacuum and challenge established hierarchies.

We have no idea yet what role the internet will play in next year's presidential election. First, it is too early in the process. Second, the pace at which the medium is developing means that the campaigning tool of choice probably has not been invented yet. Back in 2003 it took Howard Dean six months to compile an email list of 139,000. But that was before networking sites such as MySpace. In less than two months Barack Obama has gathered more than 310,000 supporters on Facebook.com.

What is certain is that the internet will play a vital, possibly decisive, role; and in all likelihood that role will come into conflict with the established kingmakers. Neither trend is new. But the power of money and the modem are both driven by different and, arguably, contradictory forces. At some stage something will have to give.

Almost two years before polling day we have already seen the pitfalls and the potential. John Edwards let two hired bloggers go after a coordinated Christian conservative attack against them. One had described President Bush's supporters as his "wingnut Christofascist base". Tame stuff, given the adversarial tone of the blogosphere; a disaster, given the all-American nature of an American presidential campaign.

A few weeks earlier Obama attended a 3,000-strong rally at George Mason University organised by Students for Barack Obama, a group set up by Meredith Segal on Facebook. It now has more than 62,000 members and chapters at more than 80 colleges, a field operations director, an internet director, a finance director and a blog team director. Segal met Obama for the first time at the rally.

While these tensions may play out as a battle between left and right, or doves and hawks, they will in essence represent a far more fundamental shift in the relationship of the professional political class with the politically engaged public - a struggle between the popular and the oligarchic, between the bespoke message of the paid consultant and the chaos of freewheeling public opinion. Sadly, it won't change the centrality of money in American politics - the internet is a crucial fundraising tool. But by enabling thousands of small donors to contribute, it has already proved its potential to provide an alternative funding base.

In the past, US political parties have done little more than raise money and get out the vote. They are not forums for debate and persuasion. Beyond polling day they have no organic relationship with the people who vote for them or the communities where their support is based (a trend fast installing itself in the UK). They call for your money and they call for your vote. You write a cheque and pull a lever. No wonder Anna Nicole Smith draws more interest.

The upcoming election is only the second time the web has had a chance to challenge this. Three years ago the internet was instrumental in the Democratic primaries. It explained Howard Dean's stunning ascent from obscurity to insurgency at a time when anti-war views were popular and marginalised. It also explains his equally stunning descent. The web helped make his campaign viable. But with insufficient organisation and an inadequate candidate, it could not make it winnable.

We should have no illusions about who has the upper hand in this battle between big money and burgeoning activism. At a meeting in New York to support Hillary Clinton last week, organised through Meetup.com, the host told us that since Hillary had the votes of New Yorkers sewn up, all she really needed the town for was money.

Over the next 45 minutes there was no political discussion - about Hillary's healthcare, the war or trade. Just how could the assembled pry money from the little people without giving them access to the candidate. Might they host a house party and charge friends $25 to watch Clinton do a webcast? Not an alternative source of funding but an additional one for the candidate who spent $27,000 on valet parking and $13,000 on flowers in November. "She does house parties in Park Avenue," said the host without a blush. "But she's not going to come to our house."

It suits the mythology of meritocracy that remains so central to American identity to have young children walking around in T-shirts saying "Future president of America". But the truth is if your kid really does stand a chance at the top office, he'll already be wearing more expensive attire. America's class system is now more rigid than most in Europe, and that sclerosis is given full expression at the highest levels of politics. Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, Chicago mayor Richard Daley and Southern Christian Leadership Conference head Martin Luther King all carry the names and job titles of their fathers. Each year the richest quarter per cent make 80% of all political donations. The last time there was not a Clinton or a Bush on the presidential ticket was 1976. This is not democracy, it is dynasty.

g.younge@guardian.co.uk

AT&T, Verizon Intervene in Lawsuit Against FCC

Center's Suit To Get Broadband Data Draws Industry Interest, Comment

AT&T, Verizon Intervene in Center's Suit Against FCC

WASHINGTON, January 19, 2007 — The Center for Public Integrity is leading an effort to find out more about which companies are providing high-speed Internet access throughout the United States so that citizens have a better understanding of their service options.

A Center lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act is attracting industry-wide interest.

See Drew Clark's Telecom Watch Blog for News and Analysis on Telecom, Media and Technology Policy

The Center's "Well Connected" project originally filed suit in U.S. District Court on Sept. 25, 2006, seeking access to a Federal Communications Commission database listing companies that have deployed broadband services. The FCC has denied academics, journalists, companies and other parties access to the records.

Date Filed	Descriptive Title
8/24/2006	FOIA requested by CPI
9/25/2006	Complaint by CPI
9/25/2006	CPI Corporate Disclosure
9/26/2006	Decision By Wireless Competition Bureau
10/2/2006	Proof of Service by CPI
10/2/2006	Exhibit 1 - Declaration of Service on U.S. Attorney
10/2/2006	Exhibit 2 - Service by Mail on Defendant FCC
10/2/2006	Exhibit 3 - Service by Mail on Attorney General
10/5/2006	Notice of Appearance for FCC
10/19/2006	Administrative Appeal by CPI
10/24/2006	Unopposed Motion for Extension of Time to Respond by FCC
10/24/2006	Proposed Order
10/26/2006	Order by Judge Collyer
11/30/2006	Motion for Extension of Time to Respond by FCC
11/30/2006	Proposed Order
12/1/2006	Order by Judge Collyer
1/8/2007	Motion for Summary Judgment by FCC
1/8/2007	Statement of Material Facts
1/8/2007	Declaration by Alan I. Feldman [added by corrected filing 1/9]
1/8/2007	Exhibit - CPI's FOIA Request
1/8/2007	Exhibit Decision by FCC
1/8/2007	Exhibit - CPI's Administrative Appeal
1/8/2007	Public Notice
1/8/2007	Form 477 and Instructions
1/8/2007	Decision on FOIA Request by ERS Group
1/8/2007	Proposed Order
1/8/2007	Unopposed Motion for Leave to File a Brief Amicus Curiae by CTIA-The Wireless Association
1/8/2007	Memorandum Supporting Motion
1/8/2007	Exhibit - Amicus Brief
1/8/2007	477 and Instructions
1/8/2007	Exhibit 2 - CPI's FOIA Request
1/8/2007	Exhibit Public Notice
1/8/2007	Proposed Order
1/8/2007	Motion to Intervene
1/8/2007	Proposed Order [as corrected 1/12]
1/8/2007	Proposed Answer to the Complaint
1/8/2007	Proposed Motion for Summary Judgment
1/8/2007	Proposed Statement of Material Facts
1/8/2007	Declaration by ATT
1/8/2007	Declaration by Verizon
1/8/2007	Exhibit 3 - Declaration by Kevin J. Albaugh
1/8/2007	Exhibit 4 - Declaration by Colin S. Stretch
1/8/2007	Proposed Order (for Summary Judgment)
1/8/2007	ATT Corporate Disclosure
1/8/2007	USTA Corporate Disclosure
1/8/2007	VerizonDisclosure
1/8/2007	Notice Of Appearance for ATT Inc VerizonUS Telecom Association
1/17/2007	Court Order Reassigning Case

The Center wants to make data about these companies publicly available online through Well Connected's Media Tracker, a free, Internet-based database of the radio, television, newspaper and cable companies that is searchable by ZIP code. Media Tracker was first released in 2003, and updated and expanded in October and November 2006.

Publicly identifying the companies that provide broadband service would help give citizens a more complete understanding of who they could turn to for high-speed access — which is becoming increasingly important in economic development and the spread of information. The availability of competitive broadband service is an issue involved in a range of telecommunications policy debates, including Net neutrality, universal service and video competition.

Well Connected also tracks the political influence of the major players in the telecommunications, media and technology industries, supplying information on the companies culled from the Center's lobbying, campaign contribution and privately sponsored travel data.

AT&T, Verizon Communications and three leading telecommunications trade groups filed court papers seeking to intervene or comment on the Center's lawsuit last week. The top cable association is also seeking to weigh in. (Links to each of the documents in the official court docket are provided in the box to the right. It will be updated as further documents are filed.)

In court papers filed Jan. 8, AT&T and Verizon, together with the United States Telecom Association (to which both companies belong), objected to the release of the broadband data. Wireless Communications Association International, a trade group representing a range of wireless broadband service providers, said that it had also objected.

Separately, CTIA — the wireless association formerly known as the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association — supported the FCC in a "friend of the court" brief filed Jan. 8. A fourth association, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, seeks to file a similar brief.

The Department of Justice and the FCC filed their response to the Center's complaint on Jan. 8, the court-imposed deadline.

The Center's reply to the government and to the intervening companies is due on Feb.12.

The database in question is referred to as the "Form 477" database, nicknamed after the number of an FCC document. The agency has required communications companies to provide data about the areas they serve, as well as other information, twice annually since 2000.

Although the FCC does not make the database public, it does produce a semi-annual report about broadband availability and competition that is based on the data.

The Center believes that release of the base data is important because the information will aid in the general public's understanding of the importance of broadband.

Dating back to at least to April 2004, President George W. Bush declared that it was a national priority to spur the development of high-speed Internet service. "I'm talking about broadband technology to every corner of our country by the year 2007 with competition shortly thereafter," Bush said then in remarks at the American Association of Community Colleges Annual Convention.

Knowing the identities of the companies would also allow the public to better gauge the reliability of the FCC's own database. In a report released in May 2006, the Government Accountability Office discussed "information [received from the FCC] on the companies providing broadband service in ZIP codes throughout the United States." The GAO's analysis of Form 477 data allowed it to conclude that the median number of broadband providers within a ZIP code was two, rather than eight, as the FCC's analysis of the data found.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, agencies have 20 working days to respond to requests. The Center's FOIA request was hand-delivered to the agency on Aug. 24, 2006. When the agency failed to respond within the required period, the Center filed suit on Sept. 25.

The agency responded to the FOIA request in a letter faxed to the Center on Sept. 26, 2006. The Center filed an administrative appeal to the FCC's rejection letter on Oct. 19. The FCC has not replied to the administrative appeal.

The case, Center for Public Integrity v. Federal Communications Commission, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The case had been assigned to Judge Rosemary M. Collyer on Sept. 25, 2006. But on Jan. 17, 2007, the case was reassigned to Judge Ellen S. Huvelle.

By Drew Clark