Bush Admin. Rejects GOA's Ruling on 'Covert Propaganda'

[reprehensor]

Administration Rejects Ruling On PR Videos

GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propaganda

The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them.

That message, in memos sent Friday to federal agency heads and general counsels, contradicts a Feb. 17 memo from Comptroller General David M. Walker. Walker wrote that such stories -- designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing -- violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda.

But Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Steven G. Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said in memos last week that the administration disagrees with the GAO's ruling. And, in any case, they wrote, the department's Office of Legal Counsel, not the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, provides binding legal interpretations for federal agencies to follow.

The legal counsel's office "does not agree with GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency's role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or 'covert,' regardless of whether the content of the message is 'propaganda,' " Bradbury wrote. "Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency."

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[liberal N proud]

1. That is just how bold November made this fascist pigs

They think that now they can and will do anything they desire.
They own the media, they own the agencies and they will soon own the courts.
We are so fucked in this country.

[phantom power]

2. "It's like a new watergate every day with these people"

I forget who said that, but it's so true.

[Goathead]

3. The government doing prepackaged news stories is a wonderful idea

The Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda told me so:evilfrown:

[atreides1]

4. That Would Be "Justice Department" of....

....the Inquisitor General?

[reprehensor]

5. They always release, uh, UN-positive memos and info on Friday--

afternoons.

Freaky Fridays with the Bush administration

[atommom]

6. "The prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy

of a particular viewpoint"??? How can they claim that their faux news meets that criteria, when it's all slanted to bring the American people to their way of thinking?

[bloom]

9. clip about that from the NYTimes story:

"Few stations acknowledge the military's role in the segments. ''Just tune in and you'll see a minute-and-a-half news piece and it looks just like they went out and did the story,'' Mr. Gilliam said. The unit, though, makes no attempt to advance any particular political or policy agenda, he said.

''We don't editorialize at all,'' he said.

Yet sometimes the ''good news'' approach carries political meaning, intended or not. Such was the case after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal surfaced last spring. Although White House officials depicted the abuse of Iraqi detainees as the work of a few rogue soldiers, the case raised serious questions about the training of military police officers.

A short while later, Mr. Gilliam's unit distributed a news segment, sent to 34 stations, that examined the training of prison guards at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where some of the military police officers implicated at Abu Ghraib had been trained.

''One of the most important lessons they learn is to treat prisoners strictly but fairly,'' the reporter said in the segment, which depicted a regimen emphasizing respect for detainees. A trainer told the reporter that military police officers were taught to ''treat others as they would want to be treated.'' The account made no mention of Abu Ghraib or how the scandal had prompted changes in training at Fort Leonard Wood."

----

"Everything is wonderful in Iraq" seems to be message of these things.

War is Peace

etc.

[tom_paine]

7. Dear God in heaven. Imperial Amerika is now indistunguishable

from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, in this matter.

Government Propaganda is OK, even if it is covert and pretending to be...say...SOVIET PRAVDA? NAZI DER STURMER?

It is with the greatest sadness that I say that I am not surprised in the least.

No, check that. This actually did surprise me just a little bit because of the openness of the Soviet attitudes.

Yes, these Totalitarian Monsters feel empowered and the people of Imperial Amerika are to them as toilet paper is to my rectum.

Sad. Disgusted. Words simply cannot do justice to the level of disgrace Imperial Amerika has heaped on itself and it's Imperial Subjects.

And the disgust at which we all take it with a smile is...well...let us just say that Amerikans have NOTHING in common with Americans.

Not a damned thing.

[indepat]

8. It's time we the people came to grips with the fact that GWB can do what--

ever he likes or wants whenever he wants or likes. Haven't the Congress and Supreme Court really become just so much window dressing?