I e-mailed MoveOn and asked them to remove the Richard Clarke ad.

[Ladyhawk]

As a disabled person living on a fixed income below living wage, I haven't donated any money to the progressive cause until recently. I thought the information exposed by Richard Clarke was newsworthy enough that I donated $10 to MoveOn.Org. I was so disappointed to learn that they hadn't asked his permission to use the quotes, I asked them to pull the ad. Even if his testimony was part of the public domain, it seems somehow...unprofessional of them to use his words with out his approval.

[Maat]

1. I hear you. But please forgive.

They have been worthy of my donations thus far. Perhaps they just got a little overanxious to get the message out. And maybe Clarke doesn't want them to use the ad....maybe he does, but can't say so.

[Eric J in MN]

2. I disagree. Clarke may want to be perceived as non-partisan, but

I disagree. Clarke may want to be perceived as non-partisan, but with Bush trying to exploit 9/11, whether Bush did enough to prevent it is a valid issue.

If you criticize a Presidential candidate on national television during an election year, your words may be used in an ad. No request for permission is needed or recommended.

[Sulldogg]

3. Fine but it doesa disservice

to him,a patriot and to our cause.

If every interview with him from now on is ended or partly devoted to him denouncing the ad, then I think it hurts its effectiveness, and make MO look like bastards.

[Eric J in MN]

4. Richard Clarke is a public figure all over the media.

Richard Clarke is a public figure all over the media.

I don't feel sorry for him because his permission wasn't asked before he was quoted in a tv ad, and I hope most people don't.

[mdmc]

5. Its a negative attack ad

but I think that the content is very effective. This election is being defined by the GOP; move on is our only voice.

[LunaC]

18. I don't agree that the Truth can ever be construed as negative

If MoveOn had disingenuously edited Clarke's word to convey something out of context with his original message then I'd be the first to cry "Foul!" From my perspective, he spoke up and wrote his book for a reason and MoveOn is simply taking it to the next level of distribution by condensing it into a soundbite that everyone can easily understand.

[mdmc]

19. i mean negative against *. It's not positive for Kerry.

[patricia92243]

17. Everytime the ad is "denounced" is going to make people look at it to....

see what all the fuss is about.

When they do look, the TRUTH and CONTENT of the ad is going to outweigh any "denouncement".

[Liberal Christian]

6. I gave money for that ad, too ... but ...

The part that bothers me is that the quote is from copyrighted CBS programming. It was not something he said in a public statement that was carried in the same way by everyone or in a public forum. He said it on a proprietary news program. I don't know if that puts MoveOn in a copyright violation situation or not.

[Syrinx]

7. I think it's valid

Now if Nike, for example, had used something he said in a shoe commercial, that would be out of line. But when a former advisor criticizes his boss in a devastating way, and that criticism is used in a political ad, that's fair game.

In my opinion.

[Eric J in MN]

8. Fair use. Using snippets is protected free speech.

Fair use. Using snippets is protected free speech.

You can write a negative book review, and quote the copyrighted book, and if the author doesn't like it, tough luck for the author.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. Clarke is a public figure, and as such, he's going to have to get...

...used to being quoted, particularly if the quotes were part of the public domain.

[Sulldogg]

10. Fine,

but as an ally of ours in this debate, if he is denouncing the ad, doesn't that make it less effective?

[dmr]

11. I don't see the problem

What's the difference in quoting him or anyone else from a "60 Minutes" segment as opposed to quoting him or anyone else from a newspaper article? As long as they attribute the source, what's so unprofessional?

[Lugnut]

12. I agree

I honestly think Richard Clarke is trying to stay above the political fray. I watched him on Hardball last night talking about this ad and he was visibly distressed that his voice was used without his permission. The media and Bush apologists are trying desperately to politically define him in spite of his refusal to be defined. It may not be illegal to use his words in these ads but it hurts Clarke's apolitical position. I for one don't want to see his testimony tarnished. JMHO

[scottxyz]

13. You can't replay statements of public officials in paid ads?

Am I missing something here? We can quote Clarke on DU. MoveOn pays for ads, but they're a non-profit organization paying to place ads in places where they'll be heard - in order to get OUR political message across.

My favorite audio clip all day has been AirAmerica playing George Bush's sick joke about WMDs over and over. Public speech - fair game for political commentary. Better when the audio is played rather than just quoting on the web - you get the tone of voice and all.

= = =

Check out the new book by Lawrence Lessig about Permission Culture versus Free Culture. It's a really subtle point that he's just discovered about how dialog is getting more and more regulated these days.

Take a step back for a moment. The right wing has tried to make this about Clarke "making money off a book" - you're concerned about having to spend scarce funds - and these are both valid issues in the ECONOMIC world - but in the CULTURE (or POLITICAL) world all that matters is who said what - not who went to expended the effort or resources to get it aired.

The main issues here are the issues being dicsussed, not so much the forums or funding or protocol that broadcast them. What Clarke said is the scuttlebutt, the lifeblood of our national discourse right now, it's on everybody's lips, whether they're getting paid to air it or not.

A political figure's words can be used without permission in a discussion about politics. In a healty culture and body politic, there should be no difference between quoting Clarke to your friends or co-workers versus quote Clarke in an ad - it's about trying to get a point across, not about who owns the ideas.

Seriously, look up Lessig's book if you have time. I believe he's uncovered a major Trojan horse the right-wing and corporate world is using to try to stifle individual speech in our public discourse. It's a subtle trick but it's very real and I'm not blaming you for falling for it. We really need to innoculate ourselves against this though. Political speech, more than any speech, ought to be the freest - meaning public officials are freely quotable. (Just like we do all day here on this wild wild web without getting permission.)

= = =

Here's the quote from Lessig I'm talking about. It really blew my mind when I read it - one of the few things I had to go back and read a few times before I got what he's saying:

As I explain in the pages that follow, we come from a tradition of "free culture"--not "free" as in "free beer" (to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free- software movement2), but "free" as in "free speech," "free markets," "free trade," "free enterprise," "free will," and "free elections." A free culture supports and protects creators and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain as free as possible from the control of the past. A free culture is not a culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which everything is free. The opposite of a free culture is a "permission culture"--a culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past.

If we understood this change, I believe we would resist it. Not "we" on the Left or "you" on the Right, but we who have no stake in the particular industries of culture that defined the twentieth century. Whether you are on the Left or the Right, if you are in this sense disinterested, then the story I tell here will trouble you. For the changes I describe affect values that both sides of our political culture deem fundamental.

http://blogspace.com/freeculture/Preface

[Karenina]

14. Thanks, Scotty!

:toast:

[bearfartinthewoods]

16. i actually voted for the 87b before i voted against it

if they can use that, we can use whatever the hell we can lay our hands on.

ever think that clark's protests are drawing people to moveon?

maybe he is a sly fox.

[Snellius]

15. I think Clarke was actually glad they used his quote. It's a game.

And Clarke is an extremely shrewd player. He knows that the best way to undermine the administration is to maintain the authority and credibility of his nonpartisan reputation. What else could he say? Just because he said he wished they hadn't used his statement, doesn't mean he wished they hadn't used it.

[bleedingheart]

20. When will the republicans stop airing statements out of context?

I like to think if the Humphrey quote..


"When you stop telling lies about us, we will stop telling the truth about you"