How the media authorize the abuse of government power

[Guest guest]

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 01:05:36 -0500 (EST)

How the media " authorize " the abuse of government power

S

 

 

 

 

 

OpEdNews.com

 

Original Article at

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_si_051217_how_the_media__22autho.h\

tm

 

December 17, 2005

 

How the media " authorize " the abuse of government power

 

By David Sirota

 

The story of President Bush deliberately breaking the law to create a

domestic spy operation is a lot of different things: it is a tale of

power abuse, arrogance, and contempt for the law by an out-of-control

president. But it is also a story of how today's major media behave

with near total deference to power and its own profit motive. What we

are watching, even in the seemingly small details of the coverage, is

no less than the media's complicity in helping estsablish a

quasi-legal framework for what was a clearly illegal abuse of

government power. It is in the clearest sense the media being used as

tools of state power in overriding the very laws that are supposed to

confine state power.

 

You might be thinking, " How is that possible? Didn't the New York

Times print the story exposing the surveillance program, and doesn't

that show the media challenges power? "

 

Well, not really, when you consider that the Times actually held the

story for a year. As the Washington Post reports, the Times'

essentially held the story because of exactly what I said: deference

to power, and its own bottom line. First, deference: the Times editors

now tell us they held the story because the White House told them to.

Then, profit: we learn that what changed between now and a year ago

was that a Times reporter, James Risen, is about to publish a book

about the entire affair and thus publishing the story now will mean

maximum pre-sale buzz in January when the book is released - a key for

any big book sales.

 

But even more interesting than these big embarrassing clues about the

media's motives are the very small ones. Notice, for instance, that in

describing the President's clearly illegal behavior, the media are

parroting the White House's terminology - terminology specifically

crafted to make it sound as if Bush was operating on quasi-legal grounds.

 

So for instance, the Times tells us Bush " secretly authorized the

National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans. " The paper also

refers to " the powers granted the N.S.A. by President Bush. "

" Authorized " and " granted. " The word " authorize " is defined as " to

grant power or authority to, " and the word " grant " is the act of

giving something one has. The media's use of these terms, then, is the

media trying to make the public assume as fact that Bush actually had

the power or authority to grant in the first place.

 

In fact, only until the very end of the Times piece do we get a

glimpse that the White House actually knew it didn't have the power or

authority to grant, when the Times reports " President Bush did not ask

Congress to include provisions for the N.S.A. domestic surveillance

program as part of the Patriot Act and has not sought any other laws

to authorize the operation. " Why? Not because the White House thought

a domestic surveillance operation was legal. But because " the proposal

would be certain to face intense opposition on civil liberties

grounds. " They knew it wasn't legal, and they knew it wouldn't be made

legal by Congress, but they went ahead and did it anyway. And yet as

if playing a role in an Orwell novel, the media is still using terms

that imply the President had every legal right to do it in the first

place.

 

Sadly, other major media seem to be parroting this nonsense. The

Associated Press, for example, reports that " President Bush said

Saturday he has no intention of stopping his personal authorizations

of a post-Sept. 11 secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. " That's

right: " his personal authorizations, " as if he can just go around

" authorizing " whatever he wants without regard to the fact that such

powers are not his to authorize.

 

But then, we've seen this before. In a famous 1977 interview, Richard

Nixon said " When the president does it that means that it is not

illegal. " At that time, we were lucky Nixon was long out of office and

thus unable to turn that contempt for the law into presidential

directives. Today, it is different - we clearly have a president with

the same attitude, but a president who is still very much in a

position to forge that attitude into government policy. And most

disturbing of all, we have a media that, because of protive motives

and fear of power, are more than happy to help that president publicly

justify his disregard for the rule of law.