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Censorship The Media Government United States Politics

White House Forces Censorship of New York Times 356

VE3OGG writes "It would seem that scientists are not the only ones facing censorship from the White House. According to several news sources the New York Times originally had intended to run an article co-authored by a former employee of the National Security Council, critical of the current administration's policies toward Iran. The article had passed the CIA's publication review board, but was later redacted on orders from the White House. Article authors Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann were former advisers to the White House, and thus all of their publications are scrutinized by a board before they can be published. Of the numerous documents this pair has published since leaving their positions, they say this was the first that was actively censored.
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White House Forces Censorship of New York Times

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  • Darn it. (Score:3, Funny)

    by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Saturday December 23, 2006 @03:08PM (#17349026) Homepage
    They *really* redacted the comments. I was hoping to find the juicy tidbits after looking at the page source. But unfortunately I found:

              <"span style="color:black;background:black;">xxx xxx xx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx x</span"&>"

    On the other hand, looking at the source is always fun.

              <!--Kim was here:
              {} -->
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23, 2006 @03:26PM (#17349102)
    All hail the American Police State!!
  • by yoder ( 178161 ) * <steve.g.tripp@gmail.com> on Saturday December 23, 2006 @03:56PM (#17349320) Journal
    "You think Bush came along and blanked out a few lines just because the authors criticized him?"

    Um, let me think long and hard about this.......yes.
  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday December 23, 2006 @04:50PM (#17349572) Journal
    No, in a 3rd world society the article would have been published. But the author would be found shot dead in his car a few months later.

    In the US, your wife ends up on YouTube dancing naked and drunk with another man.
         
  • by scotch ( 102596 ) on Saturday December 23, 2006 @04:57PM (#17349598) Homepage
    link please
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23, 2006 @06:05PM (#17349944)
    "Mishandling of a case doth not beget governmental conspiracy murder."

    Really? You mean like when the government actively prevented any actual investigation of the 9/11 "incident?" And now we see that there were enough anomolies in that one, like pretty clear evidence that explosives were used (9/11 Mysteries http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-670819007 1483512003 [google.com]), coupled with the obvious "cui bono" pointing to George W. Bush to make "mishandling" look a lot like an old-fashioned "coverup?" Or were you referring to Paul Wellstone's rather strange demise and susequent non-investigation?

    Or maybe you meant the big one: Congress's steadfast refusal to look at impeachment or the possibility of war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and all the other rather obvious mass-murderers?

    It looks to me like government "mishandling" of something as serious as a murder is a pretty good pointer to the likely perpetrators.
  • First they came for the people who quote Niemoeller.
  • by nutshell42 ( 557890 ) on Saturday December 23, 2006 @07:33PM (#17350334) Journal
    ...noone's posted this already:

    I, for one, welcome our new xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 24, 2006 @12:09AM (#17351430)
    I wasn't aware that plausible deniability was an essential part of republican democracy.
  • by Hal_Porter ( 817932 ) on Sunday December 24, 2006 @12:49AM (#17351588)
    Simple, give me absolute power, and my army of mercenaries will kill anyone I consider to be unaccountable.
  • by LordVader717 ( 888547 ) on Sunday December 24, 2006 @06:38AM (#17352704)
    If you add up enough un-classified details, you can end up with a "big picture" that would be considered classified information.


    Are you implying that they should censor conclusions that people draw out of public information?
  • by cbacba ( 944071 ) on Tuesday December 26, 2006 @12:00AM (#17363246)
    does it matter? A double agent is going to be acting on behalf of their real alliegence rather than for the CIA. Statistically speaking, a domestic political party would almost certainly be the democrat one since it is the only substantial opposition party and since this is the only party which was in power prior to the bush administration. One simply has to look at the valarie plame/ joe wilson fiasco to see what damage an embedded political operative can do to sabotage real efforts at intellegence.

    As for the communists, back at the origins of the cia (OSS) they were accepted into the effort because many were familar with clandestine activities. Supposedly, most of them were dumped by the end of wwii. However, it is now evident that our intellegence service was more compromised over the last 30 years than the soviets ever were.

    During wwii, republicans supported the war effort and politics ended at the water's edge. Consequently, there was no reason for an enemy foreign power to become involved in our domestic politics. In recent times, this has not been the case. Democrats, or at least a significant number of them have been involved in sabotaging the US war efforts and as a consequence, making it worthwhile for foreign enemies to get involved in US domestic politics. It's not new with bush because the red chinese army was fully involved in covert funding of the clinton campaign. Remember charlie tree or those budhist nuns? It happened, it's not debatable. In fact, even back during the nixon era, liddy's breakin of the watergate was done using cubans because it was believed by liddy and others that the dems were receiving illegal contributions from the soviets via castro. While that may well have not been the case, (there is little to no evidence that ever came out either way), it was believable enough to liddy to go out and commit felonies and for others to join him in doing so.

    As for the CPUSA and its agents, they weren't a problem in wwii because joe stalin was made an ally and he needed the help of the US to keep from being done in by the germans. Had stalin remained an ally of hitler, I doubt that the US could have turned the tide in the war in europe. The publicity (or propaganda) war would have been lost, much like what happened with vietnam and much like what is going on at present. Then again, the soviets (or remnants of the soviets who seem to be regaining their power again at present) and the red chinese would like nothing better to see the US be taken down or otherwise be incapacitated so far as military actions are concerned while we severely weaken the radical islamic threat.

    As for whether or not the cia censor is acting under a personal agenda, I have no particular opinion but I've made the observation that some things are getting out which probably shouldn't. Considering that the cia and the state department seem to occaisionally act on their own agenda rather than that of the duly elected government, it's apparent that something isn't right down at foggy bottom.

           

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