Gawker says DRUDGE & BecKKK's "Blaze" are hyping surveillance of journalists by gov't

[UTUSN]

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http://gawker.com/5875529/if-you-dont-want-the-government-to-read-your-web-site-then-dont-publish-a-web-site
[font size=4]If You Don’t Want the Government to Read Your Web Site, then Don’t Publish a Web Site[/font]

By John COOK

.... The story is this: DHS maintains a list of web sites that it keeps tabs on for "situational awareness" purposes. Among them are Flickr, MySpace (ha!), Facebook, Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Drudge Report. The list is posted on DHS' web site for any and all curious conspiracy-mongers to peruse. And it is by no means a new story: A list of such "monitored" sites has been on the internet since at least June of 2010.

But an updated compendium of what amounts to DHS's RSS feed was released late last year, and Reuters' Mark Hosenball wrote an innocuous story yesterday pointing it out, because it's kind of interesting to know who the DHS is reading (not us, sadly). It was essentially an update of a story Hosenball had written two years ago. For some reason, Drudge and other right-wing paranoiacs took it as an opportunity to sow panic about "Big Sis" keeping tabs on reporters—by reading what they write, subscribing to their Twitter feeds, or following them on Facebook.

Which is tendentious and stupid. Human beings work for the federal government. Often, to do their jobs, they need to have access to information. Such information is often supplied by news outlets and social media sites, which make it available, sometimes at no charge and sometimes for a fee, to all manner of readers, including federal employees. So they read them. They also read newspapers, magazines, and newsletters, and watch television. Drudge has always known exactly how many fascists inside DHS have been spying on him—they show up in his visitor logs.

What do you think Drudge's headline would be if DHS employees were, per his wishes, barred from accessing his site?

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[southernyankeebelle]

1. I stopped reading drudge a long time ago. If you have nothing to hide what do you care.

[UTUSN]

2. They CRAVE attention. It's like O'LOOFAH every time he gets mentioned by big outlets

Like tonight he was on about ABC News citing him as an example of media yakkers trash talking the First Lady. He's got a special axe for all of his ex-employers (read, the networks), just loves it when he thinks he can gig them. I'd bet that if any of them made him an offer he'd ditch Faux in a whiplash minute, but then who but Faux would pay him what they do.

[southernyankeebelle]

3. You might have a point. The whole Fox News Network crave attention. Of course it is the wrong

attention.