Communication in the Bush age: Mum's the word

[cal04]

(snip)
On Monday, the Washington Post ran a fascinating story based on a report from the National Security Archive, a research library at George Washington University. According to the report, the Bush administration has been blacking out of previously public documents information on the nation's strategic military capabilities. It is doing this, it says, in the name of national security. Got a question on the Minuteman missile? Tough. Curious about the Titan II? Too bad.

(snip)
This is a classic case of locking the barn after the horse has escaped -- and died of old age. More to the point, it is a classic and absurd example of the present regime's mania for secrecy, its obsessive need to control what, when, how and why you and I learn about its activities.

(snip)
MANIPULATING MEDIA

Anyone who doesn't see a pattern here has not been paying attention. From its 18-hour blackout of news that the vice president had shot a man, to its paying a newspaper columnist to write favorable pieces, to its habit of putting out video press releases disguised as TV news, to its penchant for stamping Top Secret on anything that doesn't move fast enough, this administration has repeatedly shown contempt for the right of the people to know what's going on. At a time when information is more readily available than ever, this government is working like 1952 to enforce ignorance.

And the people, too many of them, shrug and say okey-doke. As if we learned nothing from Abscam, Iran Contra, Vietnam, Watergate. As if it's OK for an arrogant and paternalistic government to decide for us what we get to know.



LEONARD PITTS JR.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/15355791.htm