NEW YORK--The American Civil Liberties Union said today that it was troubled by a White House request that broadcast news media outlets edit or decline to show any future videotaped statements from Osama bin Laden or his followers.
"The ACLU is troubled by the Bush Administration's request and the agreement by the networks to withhold information from the American public that is freely available to the rest of the world," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero.
The request is not unconstitutional, Romero said, since it was apparently not couched as a demand. But he added that the government should not be encouraging censorship as we engage in a battle to preserve our freedoms.
According to news reports, the five major news organizations, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News (along with its subsidiary, MSNBC), the Cable News Network and the Fox News Channel all agreed to the White House request.
Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said at a news briefing yesterday that government officials were primarily concerned that terrorists could be using the broadcasts to send coded messages to other terrorists. But according to published reporters, the Administration presented no evidence of such coding, and in any case, the ACLU said, the tapes have been broadcast worldwide and are available online.
"This is not a question of the release of classified information," Romero said. "The way to protect the American people is not to keep them in ignorance of threats we may be facing or information we may need. This is a time when the need to be fully informed is more important than ever."
"We must not allow the First Amendment -- the underpinning of our democracy -- to become a casualty during times of national crisis."
Copyright 2001, American Civil Liberties Union
Reprinted with permission of the American Civil Liberties Union
http://www.aclu.org
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October 12, 2001
On October 10, television network executives from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN held a conference call with national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, and apparently acceded to her "suggestion" that any future taped statements from Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group be "abridged," and any potentially "inflammatory" language removed before broadcast.
The question of how to present the words of bin Laden or representatives of Al Qaeda is certainly a valid one for journalists to consider. The statements require context and explanation of the kind journalists should use to bracket the remarks of any party in a major news story. But it is inappropriate for the government to dictate to journalists how to report the news. In the context of recent heavy-handedness on the part of the administration (including White House spokesman Ari Fleischer's ominous remark that Americans "need to watch what they say"), Rice's request suggests that the White House is actually asking for something other than simple journalistic judgement.
Originally the administration expressed concern about the possibility of Al Qaeda members sending "coded messages" to their followers in the segments. But Rice's main argument to the networks seems to have been that bin Laden's statements must be restricted because of their content. NBC News chief Neal Shapiro told the New York Times that Rice's main point "was that here was a charismatic speaker who could arouse anti-American sentiment getting 20 minutes of air time to spew hatred and urge his followers to kill Americans."
Although presented as only a call for caution, there's a danger that the White House conference call may make broadcasters think twice about airing any footage of bin Laden at all.
The following day, Fleischer took the administration's campaign further and contacted major newspapers to request that they consider not printing full transcripts of bin Laden's messages. "The request is to report the news to the American people," said Fleischer. "But if you report it in its entirety, that could raise concerns that he's getting his prepackaged, pretaped message out" (New York Times, 10/12/01).
To its credit, the Times has apparently resisted such requests, but some media executives seem to actually appreciate the White House pressure. "We'll do whatever is our patriotic duty," said News Corp executive Rupert Murdoch (Reuters, 10/11/01). In an official statement, CNN declared: "In deciding what to air, CNN will consider guidance from appropriate authorities" (Associated Press, 10/10/01). CNN chief Walter Isaacson added, "After hearing Dr. Rice, we're not going to step on the land mines she was talking about" (New York Times, 10/11/01).
The point is not that bin Laden or Al Qaeda deserve "equal time" on U.S. news broadcasts, but that it is troubling for government to shape or influence news content. Withholding information from the public is hardly patriotic. When the White House insists that it's dangerous to report a news event "in its entirety," alarm bells should go off for journalists and the American public alike.
Return to chronology 10 Oct 2001
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November 30, 2001
If there's a propaganda hall of fame, Newsweek has surely earned a place in it with its interview with George W. and Laura Bush (12/3/01).
Written by Newsweek senior editor Howard Fineman and White House correspondent Martha Brant, the profile of the Bushes focuses relentlessly positive attention on the "First Couple's" emotional responses to the September 11 attacks. New details about atrocities by U.S.-backed forces in Afghanistan are emerging daily, but the central question in the Newsweek exclusive was: "From where does George W. Bush-- or Laura, for that matter-- draw the strength for this grand mission, the ambitious aim of which is nothing less than to 'rid the world of evildoers'?"
Faith, prayer, and love of family are the article's main themes, with almost no space devoted to political questions. "The First Team has been exemplary in the eyes of the American people," declared Newsweek. Bush "has been a model of unblinking, eyes-on-the-prize decisiveness. His basic military strategy... has proved astute. He has been eloquent in public, commanding in private. He had survived the first blows, made the right calls and exceeded expectations-- again."
Bush isn't just a man of the mind, though. "Another source of strength," noted the magazine, "is physical conditioning." According to Newsweek, Bush "is in the best shape of his life, a fighting machine who has dropped 15 pounds and cut his time in the mile to seven minutes.... He feels destined to win-- and to serve."
The magazine was also thorough in addressing-- and dismissing-- facts about Bush that might be perceived as flaws. The president doesn't read many books, Newsweek explained, because "he's busy making history, but doesn't look back at his own, or the world's.... Bush would rather look forward than backward. It's the way he's built."
The toughest questions were philosophical. "Do you think that Saddam Hussein is evil and that we should expand this to Iraq?," asked Newsweek. Noting that Bush answered without using the word evil, the magazine followed up with, "Why wouldn't you say he's evil then?", to which Bush replied simply: "He ain't good." Showing a diligence unmatched elsewhere in the interview, the reporters asked once again why he stopped short of using the word. A beleaguered Bush gave in, saying, "maybe because you're trying to force me to say it, and I'm stubborn.... He is evil. Saddam's evil."
Newsweek says that the White House spin machine had nothing to do with their portrayal of Bush. In this interview, wrote Newsweek, "there were few mangled sentences. The handlers at the table were listening, not handling." Maybe that's because Newsweek was doing their job for them.
In times of war and crisis, it is doubly important that media aggressively seek truth and report it to the public. For a major newsweekly to turn an exclusive interview with the president into a puff piece would be disappointing under any circumstances, but it is particularly so at a time when the U.S. government is taking extreme measures to cloak controversial military and law enforcement actions in secrecy, both at home and abroad.
ACTION: Please ask Newsweek to provide critical and independent coverage of the Bush administration.
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As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
Return to chronology 30 Nov 2001
ACTION ALERT: HOW MANY DEAD?
Major networks aren't counting
December 12, 2001
How many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of U.S.-led bombing on October 7? Journalists and aid workers have limited access to the area, so it's an admittedly difficult question to answer. But many U.S. media outlets don't seem to be trying very hard.
None of the three major networks' nightly newscasts are offering even rough tallies of the mounting civilian casualties in Afghanistan. ABC World News Tonight, however, has followed the story somewhat more seriously than either the CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News, which both regularly frame discussion of civilian deaths in terms of their value in the "propaganda war." Questions about the legality of those U.S. targeting decisions that led to strikes on civilians were rarely raised on any network.
It may be some time before a full accounting is possible, but relief agencies and a few noteworthy news stories do provide information about the scale of the devastation. As a "conservative" estimate, Doctors Without Borders has stated that civilian casualties are already in the hundreds and rising (NPR, 12/6/01). On the high end, a compilation of international press reports by a University of New Hampshire professor suggests there may be over 3,500 civilian deaths
( Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have voiced strong concern about the loss of civilian life, and have both independently called for a moratorium on the use of cluster bombs. Though it was not widely reported in the U.S. press-- and not at all on ABC, CBS or NBC-- Amnesty has also demanded "an immediate and full investigation into what may have been violations of international and humanitarian law such as direct attacks on civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks" by the U.S.
military (press release, 10/26/01).
Some in the U.S. media, however, have suggested that Afghans don't mind being killed by U.S. bombs. "It turns out many of those Afghan 'civilians' were praying for another dose of B- 52's to liberate them from the Taliban, casualties or not" wrote foreign affairs commentator Thomas Friedman (New York Times, 11/23/01).
Even some of the more extensive U.S. reporting on civilian casualties-- which came last week, after U.S. bombing near Tora Bora destroyed two villages and killed over 100 civilians-- seemed surprised at Afghans' negative response. CBS's Randall Pinkston reported that "at least 100 people" had been killed, but claimed that until recently, "many Afghans" were "raising few objections to civilians accidentally killed in U.S. bombing attacks." He noted that the killings had provoked criticism of
American policy, and called this "a troubling new reaction" (CBS Evening News, 12/1/01).
One forthright story on the killings near Tora Bora, by NBC correspondent Mike Taibbi (12/3/01), stood in marked contrast not only to the general trend in reporting on other networks, but to NBC's previous coverage of civilian casualties as well. Taibbi investigated the destroyed villages in person, juxtaposing his findings-- which included a fragment of a U.S. missile, serial number intact-- with the Pentagon's claim that it was unlikely the incident had occurred.
Unfortunately, this kind of independent approach was the exception rather than the rule on the nightly news shows. Claims that Afghan civilians had been killed were often reported as unsubstantial, utterly unverifiable salvos in the so-called "propaganda war." One report by CBS's David Martin (10/23/01) claimed that the Taliban's "chief weapon seems to be pictures they say are innocent civilians killed or injured by the bombing." Martin went on to say that the Pentagon admits to "a few
instances of bombs hitting civilians," but made no mention of any estimates, from the Pentagon or elsewhere, of the actual number of people killed.
This pattern was repeated several times on the CBS Evening News. A November 6 CBS report stated that George Bush had "opened a new public relations front in the war on terrorism" because "claims of heavy civilian casualties have provoked howls of protest" in Muslim countries. No mention was made of whether such claims were factual, or, as the belittling "howl" might suggest, merely a PR ploy. The next day, CBS again returned to the Taliban "propaganda machine," with David Martin reporting
that "usually it airs claims of civilian casualties by American bombing." Again, no mention was made of whether, where or how many civilians had actually been killed.
A few weeks earlier (10/18/01), Martin filed a report showing images of dead civilians, but included no information about the people-- except that they were complicating the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "says the determination to avoid scenes like these of civilians apparently killed by American bombs makes the terrorist hunt more difficult," reported Martin.
NBC Nightly News also tended to present reports of the U.S. military killing civilians as primarily a propaganda issue. In a report (11/4/01) about America's battle "to protect its image as a compassionate nation," NBC correspondent Dan Lothian gave a thumbnail sketch of "the war on terrorism as reported in the Arab world." With no apparent sense of irony, Lothian catalogued the Arab media's propaganda: "Daily doses of news concerning civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Graphic pictures below
front page headlines. Compelling stories on cable TV, as well." Daily news, graphic pictures and compelling stories-- a threatening arsenal indeed.
"The first casualties of this war were thousands of American civilians," said Lothian in his wrap-up. "Now, as the Taliban is targeted for protecting the terrorists of Al-Qaeda, the U.S. is also fighting a public relations war." It's a difficult passage to parse, but the meaning seems to be that first, American civilians were attacked by terrorists, and now, the United States' image is being attacked with equal mercilessness.
NBC's most persistent advocate of the propaganda perspective, however, was Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, who several times portrayed reports of Afghan civilian casualties as an assault on the U.S. Despite the U.S. military's "overwhelming firepower," reported Miklaszewski (10/15/01), "the Pentagon is on the defensive today." Why? Because "the Taliban took foreign journalists on a guided tour of the village of Karam, where they claim US bombs killed 200 civilians." Later, the
Pentagon was still "fighting the propaganda war" by "denying Taliban claims that American bombs have killed more than 1,000 innocent civilians" (10/24/01). The report did not investigate what a more accurate figure might be, or whether any civilians had been killed at all.
A few days later (10/29/01), Miklaszewski again had the Pentagon "on the defensive" against "charges that American bombs are killing hundreds of civilians," noting that "Rumsfeld says the ultimate blame lies with those who started the war." Despite Rumsfeld's implicit acknowledgement that some civilians-- perhaps hundreds-- had been killed, NBC again failed to ask how many, where or why.
In comparison to CBS and NBC's poor performances, ABC World News Tonight did somewhat better at reporting specific numbers and locations of instances when U.S. bombs hit civilians. Reporter David Wright devoted attention to civilian casualties as an issue in their own right, noting, for example, that "even when the target's the front line, the trouble is, people live here" (10/28/01). ABC has not, however, focused on the important questions raised by groups like Amnesty International about
the legality of U.S. strikes.
When media portray reports of civilian casualties as an attack on America, it's hardly surprising that serious reporting on the issue is scarce. It is crucial that news outlets independently investigate civilian casualties in Afghanistan-- not only how many there have been, but how and why they happened.
ACTION: Please ask the three major networks' nightly news shows to investigate how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan as a result of U.S. military action, and to examine the legality of those attacks.
CONTACT: ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings CBS Evening News with Dan Rather NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
Return to chronology 12 Dec 2001
ACTION ALERT: NYT Buries Story of Airstrikes on Afghan Civilians
January 9, 2002
On December 30, U.S. airstrikes hit the village of Niazi Kala (also called Qalaye Niaze) in eastern Afghanistan, killing dozens of civilians. The attack was major news in several U.K. newspapers, with the Guardian and the Independent running front-page stories. The headlines were straightforward: "U.S. Accused of Killing Over 100 Villagers in Airstrike" (Guardian, 1/1/02); "U.S. Accused of Killing 100 Civilians in Afghan Bombing Raid" (Independent, 1/1/02); "'100 Villagers Killed' in U.S.
Airstrike" (London Times, 1/1/02).
In contrast, the New York Times first reported the civilian deaths at Niazi Kala under the headline "Afghan Leader Warily Backs U.S. Bombing" (1/2/02).
The U.N. estimated that 52 civilians were killed by the U.S. attack, including 25 children, and disputed Pentagon claims that those killed were linked to Al Qaeda. According to the U.N., "unarmed women and children" were "chased and killed by American helicopters," some "as they fled to shelter" and others "as they tried to rescue survivors" (London Times, 1/4/02). Noting that "innumeracy, rapid burial, damage to bodies, propaganda" and "remoteness" make it difficult to reach a precise count
of any of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the Guardian reported that surviving villagers estimated anywhere between 32 and 107 dead, with the higher number coming from staff at the local hospital (1/7/02).
The Pentagon contends that the village was a legitimate military target because it sheltered Taliban leaders, Al Qaeda fighters and an ammunition dump, and reporters who toured the destruction saw evidence of a substantial weapons cache. But local residents denied links to the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and said that in fact many of those killed were guests in town for a wedding. As the Los Angeles Times has pointed out (1/8/02), the attack "raises difficult questions about the accuracy of the
local information the United States is getting about the whereabouts of remaining Al Qaeda fighters."
Descriptions of the destruction in Niazi Kala from reporters on the scene have been shocking. Guardian correspondent Rory Carroll (1/7/02) reported seeing "bloodied children's shoes and skirts, bloodied school books, the scalp of a woman with braided grey hair, butter toffees in red wrappers, wedding decorations." Similarly, the Los Angeles Times' Alissa J. Rubin reported "fragments of skull with black braided hair decorated with silver thread-- an accessory common among women in this
region," a child's "severed shoe" and other evidence that "makes clear that women and children were killed by the U.S. bombing" (1/8/02).
The New York Times, however, has shied away from such graphic accounts. In its January 2 article, the Times treated reports that "up to 100 villagers in Paktia Province had been killed" not so much as a story in its own right, but as background to the issue of whether Hamid Karzai, head of the interim Afghan government, was holding firm in "his support for the war against terrorism." Further details on the killings at Niazi Kala were scarce, but Times readers did learn that "part way through
the interview, an aide entered carrying two scones" sent by Karzai's sister-in-law in Baltimore. The Times apparently included this information to support Karzai's contention that "things now seemed quite organized and civilized" in Afghanistan.
The following day, the New York Times provided more information about Niazi Kala, but once again nestled the story within an article on a related topic, this one about accusations that warlord Pacha Khan Zadran has provided false information to the U.S., leading to the airstrikes that last month struck a convoy of tribal leaders (1/3/02). The attack on Niazi Kala-- which some have suggested was also targeted on Zadran's recommendation (Independent, 1/4/02)-- came up when the Times reported
Zadran's "assessment" that the villagers had been linked to the Taliban and therefore legitimate targets. Commendably, the Times did contrast Zadran's version on the story with the U.N.'s "far more chilling account of the human cost of destroying the weapons stash," quoting the report at some length. Unfortunately, these important details were buried in the middle of the page A15 story, reflected neither in its headline nor its lead.
In response to international pressure, including a British Member of Parliament's formal demands for an inquiry, the Pentagon has agreed to investigate the attack on Niazi Kala (Guardian, 1/4/02, 1/7/02). So far, the New York Times has not reported this fact.
The Times' poor reporting of this story comes in the midst of a general failure of the mainstream U.S. press to seriously investigate the extent of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and the legality of the U.S. attacks.
ACTION: Please contact the New York Times and encourage it to cover civilian casualties caused by U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, like those at Niazi Kala, as an important story in their own right. You might also ask them to follow closely and critically the Pentagon's investigation into the attack on Niazi Kala.
CONTACT: As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
Return to chronology 09 Jan 2002
ACTION ALERT: ABC Omits U.S. From Human Rights Report
January 18, 2002
On its January 16 broadcast, ABC's World News Tonight aired this brief item about the annual report released that day by Human Rights Watch: "The international human rights group Human Rights Watch has released its annual report, and it says that several countries are using the U.S.-led war against terrorism as a justification to ignore human rights. Human Rights Watch says that Russia, Egypt, Israel, China, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and Uzbekistan have all cracked down on domestic opponents in the
name of terrorism."
That summary is close to what the group's press release stated (1/16/02): "The anti-terror campaign led by the United States is inspiring opportunistic attacks on civil liberties around the world, Human Rights Watch warned in its annual global survey released today."
But one country singled out for criticism by Human Rights Watch was conspicuously absent from ABC's report: the United States, whose anti-terrorism measures were described in the group's press release as "threatening long-held human rights principles."
Among Bush administration actions that were identified as demonstrating a "troubling disregard for well-established human rights safeguards" were "new laws permitting the indefinite detention of non-citizens, special military commissions to try suspected terrorists, the detention of over 1,000 people, and the abrogation of the confidentiality of attorney-client communications for certain detainees."
While ABC ignored this criticism of the U.S. in favor of pointing fingers at other countries, the rights report actually drew a connection between the erosion of human rights standards in the U.S. and overseas. As the London Guardian reported (1/17/02), "dictators 'need do nothing more than photocopy' measures introduced by the Bush administration, whose ability to criticise abuses in other countries was thus deeply compromised, said the New York-based Human Rights Watch in a devastating
660-page report."
ABC's exclusion of criticism of the U.S. did a disservice to its viewers. U.S. human rights problems are the ones that are most likely to affect them, and also those that they are most in a position to do something about.
ACTION: Please ask ABC to issue a correction to its original report about the Human Rights Watch Annual Report to reflect the group's criticisms of the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks of September 11.
CONTACT: ABC's World News Tonight As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
Return to chronology 16 Jan 2002
MEDIA ADVISORY: February 19, 2002
The New York Times reported today that the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence is "developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations" in an effort "to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries."
The OSI was created shortly after September 11 to publicize the U.S. government's perspective in Islamic countries and to generate support for the U.S.'s "war on terror." This latest announcement raises grave concerns that far from being an honest effort to explain U.S. policy, the OSI may be a profoundly undemocratic program devoted to spreading disinformation and misleading the public, both at home and abroad. At the same time, involving reporters in disinformation campaigns puts the lives
of working journalists at risk.
Despite the OSI's multi-million-dollar budget and its mandate to propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, "even many senior Pentagon officials and Congressional military aides say they know almost nothing about its purpose and plans," according to the Times. The Times reported that the OSI's latest announcement has generated opposition within the Pentagon among those who fear that it will undermine the Defense Department's credibility.
Tarnished credibility may be the least of the problems created by the OSI's new plan to manipulate media -- the plan may compromise the free flow of information that democracy relies on. The government is barred by law from propagandizing within the U.S., but the OSI's new plan will likely lead to disinformation planted in a foreign news report being picked up by U.S. news outlets. The war in Afghanistan has shown that the 24-hour news cycle, combined with cuts in the foreign news budgets
across the U.S., make overseas outlets like Al-Jazeera and Reuters key resources for U.S. reporters.
Any "accidental" propaganda fallout from the OSI's efforts is troubling enough, but given the U.S. government's track record on domestic propaganda, U.S. media should be pushing especially hard for more information about the operation's other, intentional policies.
According to the New York Times, "one of the military units assigned to carry out the policies of the Office of Strategic Influence" is the U.S. Army's Psychological Operations Command (PSYOPS). The Times doesn't mention, however, that PSYOPS has been accused of operating domestically as recently as the Kosovo war.
In February 2000, reports in Dutch and French newspapers revealed that several officers from the 4th PSYOPS Group had worked in the news division at CNN's Atlanta headquarters as part of an "internship" program starting in the final days of the Kosovo War. Coverage of this disturbing story was scarce (see http://www.fair.org/activism/cnn-psyops.html), but after FAIR issued an Action Alert on the story, CNN stated that
it had already terminated the program and acknowledged that it was "inappropriate."
Even if the PSYOPS officers working in the newsroom did not directly influence news reporting, the question remains of whether CNN may have allowed the military to conduct an intelligence-gathering mission against the network itself. The idea isn't far-fetched -- according to Intelligence Newsletter (2/17/00), a rear admiral from the Special Operations Command told a PSYOPS conference that the military needed to find ways to "gain control" over commercial news satellites to help bring down an
"informational cone of silence" over regions where special operations were taking place. One of CNN's PSYOPS "interns" worked in the network's satellite division. (During the Afghanistan war the Pentagon found a very direct way to "gain control"-it simply bought up all commercial satellite images of Afghanistan, in order to prevent media from accessing them.)
It's worth noting that the 4th PSYOPS group is the same group that staffed the National Security Council's now notorious Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), which planted stories in the U.S. media supporting the Reagan Administration's Central America policies during the 1980s. Described by a senior U.S. official as a "vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory" (Miami Herald, 7/19/87), the OPD was shut down after the
Iran-Contra investigations, but not before influencing coverage in major outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post (Extra!, 9-10/01).
The OPD may be gone, but the Bush administration's recent recess appointment of former OPD head Otto Reich as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs is not reassuring. It suggests, at best, a troubling indifference to Reich's role in orchestrating the OPD's deception of the American people.
Indeed, as the Federation of American Scientists points out, "the Bush Administration's insistent efforts to expand the scope of official secrecy have now been widely noted as a defining characteristic of the Bush presidency" (Secrecy News, 2/18/02). The administration's refusal to disclose Enron-related information to the General Accounting Office is perhaps the most publicized of these efforts; another is Attorney General John Ashcroft's October 12 memo urging federal agencies to resist
Freedom Of Information Act requests.
In addition, the Pentagon's restrictive press policies throughout the war in Afghanistan have been an ongoing problem. Most recently, Washington Post reporter Doug Struck claims that U.S. soldiers threatened to shoot him if he proceeded with an attempt to investigate a site where civilians had been killed; Struck has stated that for him, the central question raised by the incident is whether the Pentagon is trying to "cover up" its actions and why it won't "allow access by reporters to
determine what they're doing here in Afghanistan" (CBS, "The Early Show," 2/13/02).
Taken together, these incidents and policies should raise alarm bells for media throughout the country. Democracy doesn't work if the public does not have access to full and accurate information about its government.
Return to chronology 19 Feb 2002
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Pentagon Propaganda Plan Is Undemocratic, Possibly Illegal