As expected, CPB lost digital funding, recession aid to stations and radio interconnection money in the budget agreement for the remainder of the fiscal year, finally hammered out last week on Capitol Hill. The bill, H.R. 1473, zeros out $25 million in station "fiscal stabilization" grants and $25 million for replacement and upgrade of the radio infrastructure, and reduces digital spending from $36 million to $6 million. There's also a small — .2 percent — across-the-board trim for all non-defense discretionary spending. Main appropriation for FY11, $445 million. One reported sticking point in the contentious negotiations was a provision to prohibit federal funding for NPR; the Democrats managed to kill that.Aaaaaaargh...
For that reason, as The Guardian reports this morning, a letter signed by "more than 250 of America's most eminent legal scholars" that "includes leading figures from all the top US law schools, as well as prominent names from other academic fields" -- featuring "Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America's foremost liberal authority on constitutional law"; who "taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign"; and "joined the Obama administration last year as a legal adviser in the justice department, a post he held until three months ago" -- not only denounces Manning's detention but also the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner's personal responsibility for it:Text of the letter, as published in the New York Review of Books, below:
[Tribe] told the Guardian he signed the letter because Manning appeared to have been treated in a way that "is not only shameful but unconstitutional" as he awaits court martial in Quantico marine base in Virginia. . . . Tribe said the treatment was objectionable "in the way it violates his person and his liberty without due process of law and in the way it administers cruel and unusual punishment of a sort that cannot be constitutionally inflicted even upon someone convicted of terrible offences, not to mention someone merely accused of such offences".
The harsh restrictions have been denounced by a raft of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and are being investigated by the United Nations' rapporteur on torture. . . .
The intervention of Tribe and hundreds of other legal scholars is a huge embarrassment to Obama, who was a professor of constitutional law in Chicago. Obama made respect for the rule of law a cornerstone of his administration, promising when he first entered the White House in 2009 to end the excesses of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. . . .
The protest letter, published in the New York Review of Books, was written by two distinguished law professors, Bruce Ackerman of Yale and Yochai Benkler of Harvard. They claim Manning's reported treatment is a violation of the US constitution, specifically the eighth amendment forbidding cruel and unusual punishment and the fifth amendment that prevents punishment without trial.
In a stinging rebuke to Obama, they say "he was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency."
Professor Benkler, echoing the point that I've repeatedly emphasized as I believe it to be the most important one, said "Manning's conditions were being used 'as a warning to future whistleblowers'." Indeed, Manning's treatment lacks even a pretense of justification; it -- just like the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistle-blowers -- is clearly meant to threaten and intimidate future individuals of conscience who, like Manning, might consider exposing government deceit, corruption and illegality: one of the few remaining avenues for learning what the Government does.
Aside from what conduct like this reveals about Obama, it also severely undermines the ability of the U.S. to exercise any shred of moral leadership in the world.
Private Manning’s HumiliationUPDATE: While Human Rights Watch has condemned other countries and leaders for similar types of torture and confinement, it has not to date condemned the Obama administration for Manning's treatment; instead, HRW has merely and meekly issued this press release asking for an explanation:
APRIL 28, 2011
Bruce Ackerman and Yochai Benkler
Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking US government documents to Wikileaks. He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.
For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for twenty-three hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question “Are you OK?” verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again “Are you OK?” every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a “smock” under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.
The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, “the administration or application…of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”
Private Manning has been designated as an appropriate subject for both Maximum Security and Prevention of Injury (POI) detention. But he asserts that his administrative reports consistently describe him as a well-behaved prisoner who does not fit the requirements for Maximum Security detention. The brig psychiatrist began recommending his removal from Prevention of Injury months ago. These claims have not been publicly contested. In an Orwellian twist, the spokesman for the brig commander refused to explain the forced nudity “because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning’s privacy.”
The administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates. Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.
If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted, and punished according to law. But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pretrial punishment. As the State Department’s P.J. Crowley put it recently, they are “counterproductive and stupid.” And yet Crowley has now been forced to resign for speaking the plain truth.
The Wikileaks disclosures have touched every corner of the world. Now the whole world watches America and observes what it does, not what it says.
President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions—and immediately end those that cannot withstand the light of day.
Bruce Ackerman
Yale Law School
New Haven, Connecticut
Yochai Benkler
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Additional Signers: Jack Balkin, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Alexander M. Capron, Norman Dorsen, Michael W. Doyle, Randall Kennedy, Mitchell Lasser, Sanford Levinson, David Luban, Frank I. Michelman, Robert B. Reich, Kermit Roosevelt, Kim Scheppele, Alec Stone Sweet, Laurence H. Tribe, and more than 250 others. A complete list of signers has been posted on the blog balkinization.
The US government should publicly explain the precise reasons behind extremely restrictive and possibly punitive and degrading treatment that Army Private First Class Bradley Manning alleges he has received while detained at the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, said Human Rights Watch.Better call it "Human Rights Don't Watch."
Mobil bought Upstairs, Downstairs after chairman Rawleigh Warner--to whom the series was reportedly personally recommended by the Duchess of Bedford at a dinner party in London--suggested to [Mobil vp] Herb Schmertz that he consider the series for Masterpiece Theatre. Schmertz looked at it, liked it, and wanted to put it on the air. Frank Marshall, in his role as television consultant, also screened the series. He recalls recommended the series as "brilliant." Yet, Marshall says that getting the program broadcast on PBS was "a lot of work" because public television executives "had no confidence in the program." Richard Price--the salesman who represented London Weekend Television--said he had trouble because "CPB and PBS were extremely worried about the situation that commercial television programing was going to go into Masterpiece Theatre." [Producer] Christopher Sarson of WGBH was one of the doubters. When WGBH balked, Mobil dealt directly with Price and London Weekend Television to get around opposition within the Boston Station.
Herb Schmertz remembers WGBH refused "on principle"--because it would drive up the cost of other imports--to pay LWT [London Weekend Television] salesman Richard Price's asking price of $25,000 an episode. "I took care of Richard," he says. "GBH didn't know that. I took care of Richard because I thought he was getting screwed. That's true, I was willing to pay 25 [thousand], and GBH balked and said, "We can't. That'll screw up a lot of things." For them. Not me. So I said, "OK." But then I took care of Richard. I made a side deal with him."
The reality is that public disclosure serves the interests of incumbents running for re-election by discouraging support for challengers. Here's how it works.
A challenger seeks a contribution from a person known to support candidates of the challenger's party. The potential supporter responds: "I'm glad you're running. I agree with you on almost everything. But I can't support you because I cannot risk getting my business crosswise with the incumbent who is likely to be re-elected."
Sometimes he adds that he has matters pending before a federal agency. Or that she has been working with the incumbent on legislation that will benefit their company. Or that he has a government grant pending.
I heard these responses literally dozens of times in my campaign in Oregon. Sometimes I was told that someone on my opponent's staff had called with a reminder that supporting me was not a good idea. Once the call came while I was having lunch with the person from whom I was soliciting support.
A few people went on to say that they would find some way to get a check to my campaign, perhaps through an employee or a member of their board. I have no way to know if they did.
Disclosure makes threats possible, and fears of retribution plausible. Within weeks of a contribution of $200 or more, the contributor's name appears on the public record. Contributors know this, and they know that supporting the challenger can, should the challenger lose, have consequences in terms of future attention to their interests. Of course no incumbent will admit to issuing threats or seeking retribution, but the perception that both exist is widespread.
The reality of that perception alone should give us pause about disclosure requirements. And it would be naïve to believe that the perceptions have no basis in reality.
Twenty-five years ago in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court concluded that disclosure requirements are constitutional if they provide relevant information to voters, prevent corruption, and facilitate data collection to enforce election restrictions. None of these ends is served by existing disclosure requirements. With individual contributions capped at $2,400, it is hard to make the case that the names of individual contributors are helpful or relevant to voters. Given the fears of retribution, disclosure does more to facilitate corruption than to prevent it. And enforcement of election restrictions can be accomplished by the less burdensome means of mandating reporting without public disclosure.
The only clear case for requiring public disclosure of contributions in the small amounts permitted by federal law is that, like many other features of our election laws, it promotes the re-election of incumbents. Regrettably, that means it will be difficult, if not impossible, to change. But take it from one who knows: The disclosure requirement makes the mountain to be climbed by most challengers even steeper.
Let me be clear: I don’t question the sincerity of the humanitarian interventionists’ motives. I question their moral superiority, their priorities, and their carelessness about facts.
The humanitarian interventionists think their worries trump everyone else’s. They think their morality excuses their willful ignorance and carelessness—their unwillingness to address tough questions about what we know and don’t know in Libya. They say that if the U.S. doesn’t get rid of Col. Gaddafi, it would represent the death of America’s core values and beliefs. I think American values will survive. I think we are doing enough now in a supporting role. I believe we are facing but not addressing first-order problems in the Mideast and at home. To me, both Americans and Libyans will survive Col. Gaddafi, but Americans will not survive a failure of their leaders to devote top priority, attention, and resources to Mideastern turmoil and to America.
Küntzel also discloses the widely unknown fact that it was the Mufti who first made overtures to Nazi Germany, which at first was reluctant to accept them for fear of offending the British. The German Foreign Office only began to respond after the Peel Commission's plan made a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine seem possible, something it sought to prevent at all costs. Subsequently, the Mufti prevailed, first by fomenting terror in Palestine, then by broadcasting propaganda to the Arabs from Berlin, setting up a Muslim SS division, and opposing leniency toward the Jews by countries that belonged to the Axis but were not under direct Nazi rule such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy. When he could, he also sabotaged all attempts at rescue, including children.
Also not widely known are the lasting effects of the Nazi ideology in the Middle East. Nasser had strong sympathies for Nazi Germany, as did many of his compatriots in the Egyptian military. After World War II, as mentioned, Egypt welcomed Nazis who continued their war against the Jews. They helped distribute anti-Semitic writings and broadcasts to foster hatred not only of Israel, but all Jews, using and supplementing the language and thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood. One such achievement was the translation of Mein Kampf into Arabic.
Depicting the manifold relationships between leading members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and political as well as terrorist leaders of the Middle East, Küntzel demonstrates that the ideological origins of present-day terrorism were in Egypt - not in Saudi Arabia, as many now believe. It was in Egypt that the Brotherhood laid the groundwork for today's Islamist movement. Despite changes in strategy - from fighting mainly the "infidel" Arab establishment since the mid-1950s to switching priority to the "Zionist entity" and the United States since the 1990s - one aim always prevailed: extermination of the Jews. This was not linked to Israeli policies but to the very existence of the Jewish state in what Islamists believe is an integral part of the House of Islam.
Küntzel also points to the ties between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and major political and military figures of the Palestinian movement, and notes that today's Palestinian leaders' genocidal attitudes are identical to those of Arab leaders in the past. Thus, both for Yasser Arafat and Sheikh Yassin, Oslo was only an interim stage toward Israel's destruction. Palestinian maps, including in textbooks, do not show Israel at all; Palestinian sources omit the Mufti's role in Nazism and deny the Holocaust, while viewing jihad as the only means to defeat Israel. A mostly overlooked point is the Palestinian Authority's explicitly authorizing the dissemination of the 1999 edition of Mein Kampf, whose preface by the translator declares that Hitler was one of the few great men in history and that National Socialism did not die with its founder.
German Misperceptions
Although relating to the subject throughout the book, Küntzel devotes the last chapter to German perceptions about the Middle East. In Germany, the Left as well as the extreme-Right and neo-Nazi camps support terror against Israel and the United States as a struggle for freedom. The Left - and increasingly, mainstream groups - mistakenly view Islamist terror as expressing the frustration and desperation of a progressive anticapitalist movement. They do not seem to grasp that an anticapitalist mass movement could be of a fascist character, instead ignoring or denying the blatantly fascist aspects. In reality, common fascistic and anti-Jewish themes led neo-Nazi groups to embrace Islamists as brothers-in-arms against the "Jewish world conspiracy." Küntzel shows how both Left and Right embrace anti-Semitism by supporting Islamism without understanding its aspirations to world dominance.
Although Küntzel's study is well documented, he demonstrates what is not esoteric, but denied: that the Islamist mass movement must be understood in a societal context, not in terms of political and economic postulates. Küntzel's special contribution is to provide this context that is missing from the perceptions both of Germany's ideological fringes and its mainstream.
Let me give you an example. This year a friend of mine from the CIA, named Bob Baer wrote a very good book about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, it's called Sleeping with the Devil. I read the book and I got about a third of the way through and I stopped. Bob was writing how when he worked for the CIA how bad the files were.Here's a video of John Loftus, from The Military Channel website:
He said, for example, the files for the Muslim Brotherhood were almost nothing. There were just a few newspaper clippings. I called Bob up and said, "Bob, that's wrong. The CIA has enormous files on the Muslim Brotherhood, volumes of them. I know because I read them a quarter of a century ago." He said, "What do you mean?"
Here's how you can find all of the missing secrets about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and you can do this, too. I said, "Bob, go to your computer and type in two words into the search part. Type the word "Banna," B-a-n-n-a. He said, "Yeah." Type in "Nazi." Bob typed the two words in, and out came 30 to 40 articles from around the world. He read them and called me back and said, "Oh my gosh, what have we done?"
What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al-Qaeda.
Here's how the story began. In the 1920s there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930s, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence.
The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt.
When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria.
The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man -- The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the "Handjar" Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa -- grand dreams.
At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service. Then a horrible thing happened.
Instead of prosecuting the Nazis -- the Muslim Brotherhood -- the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Britain was not alone. The French intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel.
What the British did then, they sold the Arab Nazis to the predecessor of what became the CIA. It may sound stupid; it may sound evil, but it did happen. The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim Brotherhood on our payroll.
Obama found the burning of the Koran, and the burning of any book, distasteful, as do I. But that was why he should have stood up for Terry Jones. Speech that is inoffensive needs no protection, and those in power can all too easily use “hate speech” codes to restrict speech they find politically inconvenient or challenging. Obama could have said: "While I disapprove of this Koran-burning, in America we believe that freedom of expression is a fundamental bulwark against tyranny and the hallmark of a truly free society, and it requires us to put up with things we don't like without responding with violence."
He could, in short, have used Jones’ barbecued Koran as a teaching tool to demonstrate why free societies are preferable to sharia states. But instead, Obama and the media are effectively reinforcing the principle that violent intimidation works: They knew that somewhere in the world Muslims were going to behave like rabid dogs because of the burned Koran, and instead of telling them to grow up and act like civilized people, they are demanding that free people change the way they behave to adjust to this case of rabies.
Obama could and should be telling these rioting Afghans and Pakistanis, and those who are defending them, to realize that if someone burns a Koran in Florida, it doesn't harm them, or the Koran, or Allah, or Muhammad. He could and should tell them that to respond with irrational violence against people who are not involved with the burning (or even against the people who are involved with it) is just savagery.
People like Obama and Seaton have forgotten, if they ever knew, that one's response to someone else's provocative action is entirely one's own responsibility. If you do something that offends me, I am under no obligation to kill you, or to run to the United Nations to try to get laws passed that will silence you. I am free to ignore you, or laugh at you, or to respond with charity, or any number of reactions.
Everyone in the world is so busy condemning Terry Jones that they have forgotten about freedom of expression, and why it is so important to reinforce even when we find the expression detestable—indeed, especially in such cases. And so, if we continue down this path, one thing is certain: That which is not understood or valued will not be protected, and so it will be lost.
Andrew, ever since I ran into a spot of bother in Canada, I’ve found myself giving speeches in defense of freedom of expression in Toronto, London, Copenhagen, etc. I did not think it would be necessary quite so soon to take the same stand in the land of the First Amendment against craven squishes of the political class willing to trade core liberties for a quiet life. I have no expectations of Harry Reid or the New York Times, but I have nothing but total contempt for the wretched buffoon Graham.
A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter Norwegian female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones with the problem?
I agree with the Instaprof: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office. The good news is there’s no need for the excitable lads of Mazar e-Sharif to chop his head off because he’s already walking around with nothing up there. And, as for his halfwitted analogy with World War II, he’s too ignorant to realize it but he’s singing the dhimmi remake of an ancient Noel Coward satire.
The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.
In the absence of cultural confidence overseas, we are expending blood and treasure building an Afghanistan fit only for pederasts, tribal heroin cartels, and the blood-soaked savages of Mazar e-Sharif. In the absence of cultural confidence at home, we are sending the message that the bedrock principles of free, pluralist societies will bend and crumble in a vain race to keep up with the ever touchier sensitivities of the perpetually aggrieved. Claire Berlinski has it right: The real “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his minimal flock but Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but animals no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the First Amendment is not one of them.
In Trafalgar Square, there is a statue of General Napier. I would urge any visitors to London to see it before it’s taken down, as it surely will be one day soon. Imagine what our world would look like if it were Lindsey Graham up on that plinth. A society led by such “men” cannot survive, and does not deserve to.
Charity workers who reached Duekoue said it appeared the killings had taken place in a single day, shortly after the town fell to troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the man internationally-recognised as having won last year’s presidential election.
The apparent massacre came despite the presence of United Nations troops and - if confirmed - will cast a shadow over Mr Outtara’s assumption of the Ivory Coast’s presidency after a four-month battle to oust Lawrence Gbagbo, the former president who lost the November election but refused to step down.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he was “gravely concerned” by the violence and loss of life in Ivory Coast and added: “I am determined that all alleged human rights abuses... must be investigated and those responsible held to account.
The International Committee for the Red Cross said its staff discovered more than 800 bodies of people who were clearly local civilians. They were mainly men who had been shot and left where they fell, the organisation said, either alone or in small groups dotted around the town, which lies at the heart of Ivory Coast’s economically crucial cocoa producing region.
Patrick Nicholson, a spokesman for the Catholic charity Caritas, said his team had counted 1,000 bodies, adding that some had been hacked with machetes. The UN said that it already logged 430 killed in Duekoue and was still investigating reports of more dead in the town.
Telling his story, Matz pauses for the occasional customer. A woman, thwarted in her request for use of the shop’s broken copying machine, is consoled by the gift of three manila envelopes. “Don’t tell anybody I did this,” says Matz. It’s a pet line.
At some point in the conversation Matz produces a small, self-published book with a cover portrait sketch of Peter Bergson against a white background. “Who Is An Israeli?” which features interviews and articles by Bergson, along with an account of Matz’s own brief career in the Israeli army. There are musings on the obsolescence of the Law of Return, the purported role of the legendary Khazars in the making of the Passover Haggadah and the real secret — Bergson’s promotion of an American-style constitutionalism — behind President Harry Truman’s support to the nascent State of Israel.
Though Bergson himself reportedly called his life’s work a failure, Matz grandly calls him “the most important Jew of the 20th century.” To spread the gospel, Matz couples his slim paperback, which he sells or gives away to All-Boro customers and new acquaintances, with a string of e-mail broadsides streamed to a select list of politicians, fellow historians and State Department officials.
In previous years Matz had landed articles in journals of influence like Midstream, placed letters to uncountable editors and contributed research to David S. Wyman’s iconoclastic study of the Holocaust, “The Abandonment of the Jews.”
Harsh backlash killed prospects for further publication, Matz contends, ultimately bringing him to his current role of hunkered-down polemicist and his wholesale-stationery day job (“I needed the money”).
Matz’s wife Barbara fills in as the shop’s bookkeeper. The couple has a son, David, a filmmaker. Another son, Michael, given “Bergson” as a middle name, died of cancer in 2008.
After a term in the Knesset in the 1950s, a frustrated Bergson left Israel for permanent settlement in New York, making a small fortune in the commodities market. Yet if anything, claims Matz, the recent turmoil sweeping the Arab world opens a tempting door to reconfigured relations between Israel and its neighbors, proving Bergson’s vision more vital now than even in his day.
“Ironically, both Egypt and Jordan have constitutions,” he says. Lacking a similar road map, he asserts, “Israel can’t figure out how to deal with the Palestinians and its own Arabs. How can it find a peaceful way to deal with the Egyptians and others?”
He stresses that other proposed constitutions have not, like Bergson’s version, carved out a secular foundation.
“What is Israel today?” scoffs Matz, who like Bergson calls himself a “pragmatic centrist.” “Kibbutzim, yeshivas and goats. They built themselves a ghetto bigger than anything in Europe,” says Matz, flouting the prevailing view of Israel as a vibrant if flawed society.
The university's response could set up a battle over what public records it must divulge.
The open-records request made by Mr. Thompson and a similar request directed at Michigan's three largest public universities by the free-market-oriented Mackinac Center for Public Policy are being denounced by the American Association of University Professors and others in academe as likely to chill academic freedom. But the phrase "academic freedom" appears nowhere in any state's list of allowable reasons for public colleges to turn down records requests, according to a database maintained by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Citing a need to protect "academic freedom" is, in itself, unlikely to help the universities avoid complying with requests for e-mails under state open-records laws, according to several national experts on academic freedom and records laws contacted this week by The Chronicle.
Although federal law prevents the disclosure of much information on individual students contained in such e-mails, and many states' records laws have exceptions for e-mails that are purely personal in nature or deal with unpublished research, closed meetings, or personnel decisions, there are no blanket exceptions intended to protect faculty members from efforts to obtain the sorts of e-mails covered under the Wisconsin and Michigan open-records requests.
I laughed reading this, because Krugman shows here a lack of perception that almost equals that shown in his views on the economy. Remarkably, like Cronon, I have been forced, by a public records request, to make available vast numbers of e-mails to a critic. A former student who became a minor Ohio political operative—and a Republican one at that—with whom I publicly disagreed once accused me of being “a slobbering, drunk old fool.” When a newspaper reporter asked me to comment, I replied, “I don’t slobber.” The critic got mad and tried to intimidate me by demanding my e-mail records.
I would agree with Krugman that this sort of tactic is an inappropriate way to deal with critics, and even is inconsistent with academic freedom broadly defined. I certainly agree that Cronon has a right to speak his mind. But Professor Cronon, like me, is subsidized in his speaking and writing by the public, including taxpayers, and they believe that they have a right to know what the people subsidized by them are doing. I don’t like it, Krugman doesn’t like it, and Cronon, no doubt, doesn’t like it, but that happens when public employees start speaking up on policy issues on what some taxpayers perceive to be their dime. The more higher education is dependent upon government support, the more the freedom of expression of those within the academy is likely to be subject to scrutiny.
I don’t know of any evidence that Professor Cronon did in fact violate any laws. It may be that the Wisconsin Republican Party is simply fishing. If so, its action is further unwelcome, not as a violation of academic freedom, but as a demonstration of small-mindedness. The better way for the Wisconsin Republican Party to answer a critic is by answering his arguments on their merits.
If Professor Cronon were in jeopardy of losing his job for what he wrote on his personal blog or published in the Times, I would agree with the AAUP and the AHA. Academic freedom in that case would be at risk. He faces no such risk. Separating the ostensible motive of the Wisconsin Republican Party (i.e. political reprisal for his public writings) from its chosen tactic (the Open Records Law request) may seem a fine distinction, but it is a necessary one. It’s necessary because the doctrine of academic freedom will lose legitimacy if it is allowed to become an excuse for breaking the law.
The Cronon affair has prompted widespread commentary, including articles by Paul Krugman, Jonathan Tobin, KC Johnson, and Mitchell Langbert, and an editorial in the Times. Some of this is hyperventilating. Krugman, for example, compares the e-mail request to “the ongoing smear campaign against climate science,” and asserts that there is a “clear chilling effect when scholars know that they may face witch hunts whenever they say things the G.O.P. doesn’t like.”
What’s needed is some level-headedness and clarity about what academic freedom can and cannot protect. Unfortunately higher education’s traditional watchdog for academic freedom, the AAUP, has recently mislaid its once sturdy understanding of this key concept. The AAUP’s recent pronouncements on academic freedom have served mainly as a rationale for further left-wing-inspired politicization of the university. As a result it is unable to offer trustworthy guidance in a case where a university has been served with a legitimate legal request.
Furthermore, the different peoples whose past lives we seek to understand held views of their lives that were often very different from each other—and from our own. Doing justice to those views means to some extent trying (never wholly successfully) to see their worlds through their eyes. This is especially true when people in the past disagreed or came into conflict with each other, since any adequate understanding of their world must somehow encompass their disagreements and competing points of view within a broader context. Multiple, conflicting perspectives are among the truths of history. No single objective or universal account could ever put an end to this endless creative dialogue within and between the past and the present.
Persons may not use University IT resources to sell or solicit sales for any goods, services or contributions unless such use conforms to UW-Madison rules and regulations governing the use of University resources. University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum. No one may use University IT resources to represent the interests of any non-University group or organization unless authorized by an appropriate University department.(Source:Nicole Stockdale, Dallas Morning News) From the same source, a useful link to Wisconsin's Open Records Law:http://nxt.legis.state.wi.us/nxt/gateway.dll/Statutes%20Related/Wisconsin%20Statutes/840/857?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$3.0$q=[field%20folio-destination-name%3A%2719.31%27]$uq=$x=Advanced$up=1#LPHit1.
As a reporter myself (in San Diego, California), I use this state's open records law all the timeto request emails . This article states: "After all, Cronon’s mails, like those of most professors, include materials meant to be confidential: messages to and about students or colleagues. The only reason to compromise the protection these materials enjoy would be evidence of wrongdoing on his part, and there is none." This is a silly point that mis-characterizes the process of responding to such open records requests. The university could very easily run a search for the queries submitted by the Republican Party "fishing expedition," then redact any such confidential or sensitive emails from the pile it gets back, as I'm sure is allowed under Wisnonsin's public records law. Besides, it's unlikely that any emails containing the terms being searched for would be sensitive anyway, since the professor's unlikely to mention, say, Rob Cowles, in an email counselling a student. On another note, the notion that "fishing expeditions" of this kind are in some way nefarious or underhand bothers me as a journalist anyway. If the professor has, indeed, been using his university email account, and his publicly-subsidized position at the university, to engage in political activities, then the public that's footing the bill for his salary has a right to know that. Indeed, that's exactly what public records laws are designed for, isn't it? The university should accurately and in a timely manner respond to the request, while redacting any sensitive or confidential emails to the extent legally allowed. Then the public can make its own mind up about whether this was, indeed, a misuse of the professor's time and resources.
POSTED 3/29/2011, 4:46:18PM BY WILLCARLESS
When should FOIA and Wisconsin’s Open Records Law apply to universities?But FOIA is not limited to cases of wrongdoing! If Prof. Cronon has done nothing wrong, why won't he share work emails from a work computer from a state university address with citizens who pay his salary?
Answer: When there is good reason to believe that wrongdoing has occurred. When formal academic governance proceedings are making important decisions that the public has a right to know about. When teachers engage in abusive relationships with their students. When the documents being requested have to do with official university business. And so on.
When should we be more cautious about applying such laws to universities?
Answer: When FOIA is used to harass individual faculty members for asking awkward questions, researching unpopular topics, making uncomfortable arguments, or pursuing lines of inquiry that powerful people would prefer to suppress. If that happens, FOIA and the Open Records Law can too easily become tools for silencing legitimate intellectual inquiries and voices of dissent—whether these emanate from the left or the right or (as in my case) the center. It is precisely this fear of intellectual inquiry being stifled by the abuse of state power that has long led scholars and scientists to cherish the phrase “academic freedom” as passionately as most Americans cherish such phrases as “free speech” and “the First Amendment.”
It is chilling indeed to think that the Republican Party of my state has asked to have access to the emails of a lone professor in the hope of finding messages they can use to attack and discredit that professor. It makes me wonder if they have given even the slightest thought to what would happen to the reputation of this state and of its universities if they were to succeed in such an effort.
It also makes me wonder how a party so passionate in its commitment to liberty and to protecting citizens from abuses of state power can justify resorting to this particular exercise of state power with the goal of trying to silence a critic of its own conduct.
This habitual negativity in judging Israel was on display recently as well in a Nov. 20 interview with Farah Pandith, a State Department official responsible for outreach to Muslims. Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep asks:
You don't get any questions, for example, hypothetically, why is the United States such a blind supporter of Israel?
There are many ways Inskeep could have framed the question. He could even have addressed a reality overwhelmingly ignored on NPR: "Do you find yourself having to address the scapegoating of Israel by various regimes seeking to deflect attention from their own conduct and domestic problems?"
"Israel Lobby" Authors Find Friendly NPR Forum
Leave it to National Public Radio to give a helping hand to professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of the notorious study, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Assailed by scholars, policy analysts, pundits and diplomats for their crude disregard of fact and scholarly standards, the two have generally ducked open debate with their critics. They opt for exchanges in print or safe broadcast venues – such as C-Span – where they allege that supporters of Israel systematically and traitorously undermine American interests in the service of the Jewish state.
Now NPR too has given the duo an unfettered opportunity to air their slanderous claims without a word of substantive challenge or interaction with knowledgeable critics. On July 6 anchorman Steve Inskeep pitched soft-ball questions at his guests, neglecting to mention even one of the errors, false and selective citations or glaring omissions cited by the many commentators faulting their paper. In prime listening time, Walt and Mearsheimer leveled one distorted charge after another.
They alleged that President Bush was “humiliated by the Israel lobby” at the behest of Ariel Sharon when he declined to comply with American pressure and pull the Israeli military out of West Bank towns. Inskeep did not ask his guests why they omitted mention that Israel was then under siege by Palestinian terrorists, with over 130 Israelis murdered in the preceding month and the military had reentered the towns to root out terrorist bases. He didn't ask whether Sharon, a legendary general, had a right and responsibility to judge how best to deploy his army at such a time. Nor did he note the possible sense of humiliation of a small nation being instructed by a super-power to forfeit its own decision-making about self-defense. Nor, of course, was there any suggestion that allies inevitably disagree at times about specific policies.
Walt and Mearsheimer alleged that “neo-conservatives” who are “closely identified with Israel and have been pushing American policy for a long time to support Israeli objectives” drove the U.S. against its own interests into war with Iraq. Inskeep didn’t bother to mention any of the many counter-arguments to this scapegoating of Jews for the Iraq war, including, for instance, stories in the New Yorker, the New York Times the Washington Post and the LA Times that record Israeli ambivalence and even dismay at Bush administration intentions to invade Iraq. Israeli security specialists were far more concerned about Iran and feared focus on Iraq would distract from what the saw as the central regional threat. So outspoken were some Israeli military officials on the subject that Sharon called on them to mute their misgivings over action in Iraq lest the U.S. administration take offense.
Walt and Mearsheimer deplored U.S. backing for Israel in light of its alleged “continued occupation and control over the Palestinians, and the refusal to negotiate a long-term peace settlement with the Palestinians.” They charged “Israelis have essentially been unwilling to give the Palestinians a viable state since 1967." Once more, the NPR interviewer was derelict, permitting these absurd assertions to stand with only the non-specific observation that "Israeli spokesmen would dispute" such accusations.
There was no hint of the Arab agenda enunciated in 1967 predicated on the infamous three "no's" — no recognition, no negotiation and no peace. There was not even an allusion to the many Arab calls for the destruction of Israel. There was not a mention of the unprecedented offer by Ehud Barak at Camp David/Taba just six years ago that would have given the Palestinians statehood.
The professors also lamented that Israel distorts American policy regarding various regional problems in the Middle East, saying “we would have been adopting a much more flexible policy” there, “most notably [toward] Iran.” By “flexible,” the two evidently mean U.S. policy would benefit by downplaying, if not disregarding, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls to destroy Israel.
Inskeep concluded saying “this debate continues tomorrow, when we’ll talk with one” of the writers' critics, former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross. But this was not a debate; it was a platform for bigotry, indulged and abetted by the interviewer. And the notion of balance is mocked in suggesting interviewing one speaker a day later is an appropriate or sufficient response to a litany of anti-Israel – and anti-Jewish – defamation.
Dennis Ross was subsequently on the air for less than five minutes and Inskeep was notably more pointed with him, asking for instance: “Whatever you think of U.S. support of Israel, is it not a liability that the United States has allowed itself to be so closely associated with Israel over time as a major supporter, a liability in the Arab world?”
Having served as a senior State Department envoy, Ross could provide first-hand testimony to the actual nature of policymaking by the American administration and did provide broad refutations of the professors. He said in his experience in two administrations "we never took a step because we felt the quote 'lobby' was insisting we do it." He also noted that, “If tomorrow Israel wasn’t there, would we still have a problem with al-Qaeda? With the Jihadists? You bet. They object to who we are.”
But Ross was placed on the defensive; no one took apart the calumnies against Israel and its supporters, Jew and Christian, perpetrated by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.
This was not NPR's first round of distortion on the issue. On April 21, the network reported on the controversy without hearing from the two professors who, according to the commentator, "say they will no longer comment publicly on their research and declined NPR's request for an interview."
In the lineup were three critics of the views expressed in "The Israel Lobby" and three who endorsed them. Professor Eliot Cohen of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University called the paper anti-Semitic, "an attack on the loyalty of American Jews." Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and Israel Ned Walker said the "history" presented was unrecognizable and Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose offered vague disapproval that the authors' case was too "strongly and over-broadly" framed.
On the other side, Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff under Colin Powell, and himself a believer in neo-conservative cabals, endorsed the paper as containing "blinding flashes of the obvious." Conspiracy theorist and former CIA member Michael Scheuer too lauded the "courage" of the professors whose dark views of Jewish manipulation are nearly identical to his own.
At a Council on Foreign Relations session in February 2006, Scheuer had explained how Israel allegedly controls U.S. policies. “Well, the clandestine aspect is that, clearly, the ability to influence the Congress – that’s a clandestine activity, a covert activity.” He also lamented the effect of the Holocaust Memorial Museum on Americans in arousing feelings of guilt. This is the same writer who has lauded Osama Bin Laden as “gentle, generous, talented and personally courageous.” A Wall Street Journal essay bluntly termed him a cross between “an overwrought Buchananite and a raving Chomskyite.”
NPR enlisted one other rabid Israel-hater, Paul Findley. Elated at the appearance of the Walt-Mearsheimer study, he enthused: "You can't imagine how pleased I was." Findley is founder and chairman of the radical anti-Israel group, the Council for the National Interest.
CNI has long cozied up to Islamist groups, including those on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. In early 2006, for example, CNI leaders met in Damascus with Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshal as well as with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. A CNI advertisement in the New York Times explained: "Many Americans do not understand that Hamas is a typical anti-colonial insurgency responding to an Israeli occupation and what amounts to government terror against Palestinian civilians."
Findley's bizarre claims also include his contention that Israel's Mossad was implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But NPR's Deborah Amos introduced this man as simply "a former Republican Congressman" with no hint of his wild theories and charges.
Findley's bizarre claims also include his contention that Israel's Mossad was implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But NPR's Deborah Amos introduced this man as simply "a former Republican Congressman" with no hint of his wild theories and charges.
NPR in its pandering to Walt and Mearsheimer did not interview another outspoken fan of theirs – former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke who warmly endorsed their study as "a great step forward." Had they enlisted the white supremacist, no doubt Steve Inskeep would have introduced him simply as a former Louisiana legislator.
None of this is surprising. The leaked State Department memos describe Eastern Libya (2008) as an area of fervent Islamic sentiment, where "a number of Libyans who had fought and in some cases undergone 'religious and ideological training' in Afghanistan, Lebanon and the West Bank in the late 1970's and early 1980's had returned [...] in the mid to late 1980's". There they engaged into "a deliberate, coordinated campaign to propagate more conservative iterations of Islam, in part to prepare the ground for the eventual overthrow by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) of Muammar Qadhafi's regime, which is 'hated' by conservative Islamists". While Qaddafi's position was perceived to be strong, the East Libyans sent jihadis to Iraq, where "fighting against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq represented a way for frustrated young radicals to strike a blow against both Qadhafi and against his perceived American backers".Caroline Glick in THE JERUSALEM POST (ht Martin Kramer)
It is these same religiously and ideologically trained East Libyans who are now armed and arrayed against Qaddafi. Qaddafi's claim that all his opponents are members of Al Qaeda is overblown, but also not very far off, in regards to their sympathies. Anyone claiming that the Eastern Libyans are standing for secular, liberal values needs to overcome a huge burden of proof. First, what is the social basis of such a movement, when neutral observers have been characterizing East Libya as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism? Second, if the revolt has started on religious grounds, when and how exactly has it radically changed its character?
Then there is Libya. One of the most astounding aspects of the US debate on Libya in recent weeks has been the scant attention paid to the nature of the rebels.
The rebels are reportedly represented by the so-called National Transitional Council led by several of Gaddafi's former ministers.
But while these men - who are themselves competing for the leadership mantle - are the face of the NTC, it is unclear who stands behind them. Only nine of the NTC's 31 members have been identified.
Unfortunately, available data suggest that the rebels championed as freedom fighters by the neoconservatives, the opportunists, the Europeans and the Western media alike are not exactly liberal democrats. Indeed, the data indicate that Gaddafi's opponents are more aligned with al-Qaida than with the US.
Under jihadist commander Abu Yahya Al- Libi, Libyan jihadists staged anti-regime uprisings in the mid-1990s. Like today, those uprisings' central hubs were Benghazi and Darnah.
In 2007 Al-Libi merged his forces into al- Qaida. On March 18, while denouncing the US, France and Britain, Al-Libi called on his forces to overthrow Gaddafi.
A 2007 US Military Academy study of information on al-Qaida forces in Iraq indicate that by far, Eastern Libya made the largest per capita contribution to al-Qaida forces in Iraq.
None of this proves that the US is now assisting an al-Qaida takeover of Libya. But it certainly indicates that the forces being assisted by the US in Libya are probably no more sympathetic to US interests than Gaddafi is. At a minimum, the data indicate the US has no compelling national interest in helping the rebels in overthrow Gaddafi.
The significance of the US's descent into strategic irrationality bodes ill not just for US allies, but for America itself. Until the US foreign policy community is again able to recognize and work to advance the US's core interests in the Middle East, America's policies will threaten both its allies and itself.
Liley’s revealing comment and Schiller’s arrogance are instructive because they provide a window in to the culture of elitism that has corroded NPR’s leadership. They're willing to do anything in service of any liberal with money. This includes firing me and skewing the editorial content of their programming. If anyone challenges them on this point, they will claim with self-righteous indignation to have cleaner hands than the rest of the news media who accepts advertising revenue or expresses a point of view.
I'm not just talking about conservatives but also the far left, the poor – anybody who didn't fit into leadership's marketing design of NPR as the elitist voice of comfortable, liberal-leaning, highly educated, upper-income America.
As Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, it was not until he saw the secretly recorded videotape of NPR executives that he understood the extent of political bias at NPR. “Of all the data that we’ve seen, we still had not absorbed the culture of NPR until we saw the video of that dinner.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor added: “Why should we allow taxpayer dollars to be used to advocate one ideology?”
That dinner tape and the Democrat’s fundraising letter set the table for a totally partisan vote with Republicans voting in opposition to public funding of NPR and Democrats voting for it. Last Thursday, 228 Republicans voted to defund NPR while seven Republicans joined with 185 Democrats to preserve it. The effort was largely symbolic as there is hardly any chance the Democrat-controlled Senate will go along with the House on this one. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is a huge NPR fan. When I was host of NPR’s afternoon talk show he once called me up to tell me how much he enjoyed an interview with soul singer Al Green. Sen. Reid is going to defend public radio.
The Democrat in the White House, President Obama, issued a statement of opposition to the House vote but stopped short of promising to veto any budget that eliminates NPR funding. And the White House did not make the case for why NPR deserves funding.
Before NPR’s top executive, Vivian Schiller, resigned her goal for NPR was to increase federal support to create an American version of the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]. The BBC, which also began as a radio news service, is funded by a mandatory licensing fee paid by all British subjects. It is essentially a tax set by Parliament every year to support a national news operation.
At the moment the government funding for NPR is only one of many sources of revenue and a very small one in the grand scheme. Arguably, the appropriators of federal dollars are more important to the local affiliates who depend on that money to buy public broadcasting programming. To my mind, this is the underlying problem that connects the hidden camera episode and the funding issue.
Journalists should not be doing news to please any donors – private citizens, political parties or government officials – out of fear of losing funding.
LIMITLESS...
...concerns a "blocked" writer, Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), who is unable to begin, let alone, complete his novel until he runs into his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), who offers a rescue in the form of a new experimental, pharmaceutical drug called NZT, which is likely a stand in for the well known prescription drug Adderall. Desperate, Eddie accepts the pill. Reluctantly - at first. The effects occur within thirty seconds after we actually follow the pill down the inside of Eddie's throat. Seemingly unbounded, focused energy allow him to sanitize himself and his ratty apartment situated in a not so pleasant location in Manhattan's Chinatown. The bigger bonus is that he's able to finish his long overdue novel and turn it in to his publisher, who has long ago lost faith in Eddie.
An old saying goes something like: "...Nothing on this earth or in life is free..." Well, in "Limitless", it applies to Eddie. Because along with his new found success (financial freedom; the return of Lindy (Abbie Cornish), the girlfriend who dumps him early in the movie; a shave, haircut, and a hip new wardrobe), comes more than a few nefarious characters and wicked incidents that may lead some to believe Eddie sold his soul to Satan rather than swallowed a pill that contains more than one dangerous and deadly side effect. Not only does Eddie come near to losing his new life, he also places Lindy in harm's way.
There are a few surprising, enlightening twists - Eddie is not the only one who climbs the ladder of success taking multiple giant steps at a time. If one stops to consider the satirical subtext of "Limitless", some may come away wondering about or questioning the rapid rise to the room at the top of business icons such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg; Google creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin; and the sustained success of Apple's Steven Jobs. But see it for just what it is. A visually inventive and entertaining movie that utilizes more than its share of smoke, mirrors, and red herrings. "Limitless" opened nationwide Friday, March 18th. Neil Burger is the director and it is written by Leslie Dixon, based on Alan Glynn's novel, "The Dark Fields".
Introducing FOIA.govNot to be outdone, the US Department of Defense claims to still be "processing" a FOIA request that I filed in 2006--and given the lack of success in the last FOIA dispute, I haven't had the desire to spend any more money on attorneys to fight the delay. IMHO, they could call it the "Expensive Restriction of Information Act." The US government releases only what it chooses to release, to whom it chooses, when it chooses. We had better public information about our government before FOIA created the illusion of openness--thanks to people like Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson....
Posted by Melanie Ann Pustay on March 14, 2011 at 07:33 PM EDT
Ed. Note: This post originally appeared on The Justice Blog.
FOIA.gov is a site dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act, a law at the very heart of open government. Congress passed the FOIA in 1966 and since then it has been known as the law that keeps citizens “in the know” about what their government is doing. Any citizen can make a FOIA request about any topic.
FOIA.gov makes it easier than ever to find information about the FOIA. With clear explanations and short videos, we’ve explored all the major aspects of the FOIA, including how you can make a request and what happens when you do.
We’ve also gathered information on where to send a FOIA request into one location. Just click on the name of a department and you’ll see where to send your request and the names of the officials responsible for making sure your request is completed.
If you want a quick glance at an agency’s data – we’ve got that too. Select any agency and you’ll see top-line data, like the number of requests for the most recent year and the number of total and partial grants made.
For more detailed information from an agency, you can generate your own report.
Each year, every federal agency is required to report to the Justice Department, which oversees FOIA compliance, basic information about how they complied with the law. This data is compiled into an annual report. This includes data like:
How many requests were received?
How many requests were processed?
How old is an agency’s oldest request?
How much did it cost to answer requests?
FOIA.gov takes that data and lets you search, sort and compare the information. You can compare one agency to another. You can even compare the data from within the offices of a single agency.
Every year, we’ll add the numbers to the database, allowing users to see trends over time. Using the “FOIA Spotlight” we will spotlight some of the most interesting documents to be released under the law. We’ve invited every agency to submit their suggestions for this section of the site.
The Freedom of Information Act is a key part of open government. FOIA.gov celebrates that, while providing a deeper look at how agencies are striving to improve their compliance with the law. We welcome your feedback on how we can improve the site in the future. If you have ideas, e-mail us at: feedback@foia.gov.
Melanie Ann Pustay is the Director of the Office of Information Policy (OIP) at the Department of Justice. OIP oversees agency compliance with FOIA directives and encourages all agencies to fully comply with both the letter and the spirit of the FOIA on behalf of the President and the Attorney General.
If just 2 percent of NPR’s money comes from the government, why not just tell Congress to take a flying frack at a rolling doughnut? Two percent, heck, you could make that up on doughnuts. Tens of millions of Americans have taken hits of more than 2 percent in this economy and lived to tell about it. And think of the inner tranquility that 2 percent nip and tuck would buy: Nobody from NPR would ever again have to listen to some braying reactionary complaining that NPR has more practicing witches on its staff than Republicans. (Even if it’s true: NPR reporter Margot Adler is a Wiccan high priestess, while any registered Republicans on the staff remain deeply closeted.)
The answer: NPR gets a lot more than 2 percent of its budget from taxpayers — perhaps 20 times that. It’s completely a creature of government subsidies and cannot possibly survive in anything like its current form if Congress plucks public broadcasting from the federal teat. NPR’s real costs are hidden in a system of back-and-forth payments quaintly known along the Bogota-Miami axis as “money-laundering.”
Here’s how it works: Congress gives money to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which cuts off a small slice — the hallowed 2 percent — and hands it directly to NPR. The rest of the money goes out to public radio stations themselves, who then pay it back to NPR as programming fees. Other taxpayer money — from the Energy Department, state and local governments and state universities — also gets mixed into the pot.
In the end, something close to 40 percent of NPR’s budget has been extracted from taxpayers. And that doesn’t even include tax money spent on the operations of the radio stations themselves, without which there would be no audience for NPR programming. If NPR bosses look slightly twitchy when they talk about how insignificant their subsidies are, it’s probably because they’re glancing around for signs that the roof is about to fall in on them.
I'm not being vindictive when I say that NPR leadership had become ingrown and arrogant to the point that they lost sight of journalism as the essential product of NPR. People like Schiller and Ellen Weiss, the head of news for NPR, who made it her life's work to fire me, came to think of themselves as smarter than anyone else. They felt no need to answer to any critic. No other point of view had any importance to them. They came to personify anti-intellectual resentment and arrogance in journalism. Any approach at variance with their own was considered traitorous and a basis for exiling them to the Gulag or in my case, firing me.
The recent videotape showing NPR chief fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation to Vivian Schiller) is just an open microphone on what I've been hearing from NPR top executives and editors for years. They are willing to do anything in service to any liberal with money and then they will turn around and in self-righteous indignation claim that they have cleaner hands than anybody in the news business who accepts advertising or expresses a point of view.
Ron Schiller's performance on videotape -- which included lecturing two young men pretending to be Muslims on how to select wine -- is a "South Park" worthy caricature of the American liberal as an effete, Volvo-driving, wine-sipping, NPR-listening dunderhead.
The work of NPR's many outstanding journalists is barely an afterthought to leadership with this mindset and obsessed with funding. NPR has many, very good journalists. But they are caught in a game where they are trying to please a leadership that doesn't want to hear stories that contradict the official point of view. I'm not just talking about conservatives but also the far-left, the poor, anybody who didn't fit into leadership's design of NPR as the official voice of comfortable, liberal-leaning upper-income America.
This just confirms my belief that it is time for our government to get out of the business of funding NPR. NPR's management had been wanting to not only maintain current funding but expand the network to create a much larger BCC-style institution in the United States. The idea to me of government-funded media doesn't fit the United States. No matter the good intentions about protecting journalists from the excesses of the marketplace such as sensationalism and the dominance of entertainment news, journalists should not be doing news to please any party or any elected official -- out of fear of losing funding. And the tremendous variety of sources for news -- in print, broadcast, on the radio and on the Internet, does not suggest that there's any reason for the U.S. government to make a priority of supporting NPR while cutting funding for school breakfast programs or college scholarships.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News may have budget struggles but they do fine journalism while accepting advertising. Over the last several years, NPR's leadership had become so obsessed with the money issue, as evidenced by Ron Schiller's behavior, that it had started to corrupt the news gathering process because non-profit fundraising has devolved into an underworld cesspool.
The result is that NPR's leadership under the likes of Weiss and the two Schillers has been diminishing their own brand. They created an anti-intellectual environment that took delight and pride in censoring journalists like me for honestly admitting that people dressed in Muslim garb make me nervous at airports. They had lost slight of promoting debates and providing information that is essential for people who want to be well-informed as citizens of a thriving democracy.
I am still insulted when I hear Ron Schiller, no doubt reflecting his boss Vivian Schiller, still making the case that my firing as a good thing, it was just handled badly. This was not a process problem. I said nothing, I violated no journalistic standard that should have resulted in me being fired. It's only in the very small world and small thinking of NPR's leadership that appearing on Fox News Channel and speaking about a feeling in the context of a larger debate somehow makes for a bad journalist who needs to be muzzled.
A man in Havana loses his parrot. He reports it to the Ministry of Lost Pets and tells them "if you find my parrot, please understand that I do not agree with any of his political opinions."