Hi everyone,

Here is something to consider: Would the news media report on terrorists being tortured or any other "classified actions" taken by DOD or DOS without a greenlight for the stories from these organizations?

I worry that the answer is no. I suspect that all news media organization with access to personnel from these departments, or connections with media organizations that do, have succumbed to political pressure, failed as journalists, and decided to refuse to run some very important stories for US citizens to know about based on DOD/DOS story approval decisions.

I would argue from a legal standpoint that journalists could argue that they aren't mishandling classified information if they just run a story since they're just journalists, and if an important scandal is not being evaluated properly by internal government "watchdog" organizations, like FBI, OPR, GAO, CRD, etc., then journalists could say, even if there's some law blocking publication of certain designated-to-be-secret information, in wartime or not, that they are under duress--ethical and legal standards are being violated by government organizations that claim that the information about their crimes is "their special secret," damaging to "national security" if published, and therefore illegal to publish. Journalists should be able to say, "My perfectly legitimate interest in an ethical and law-abiding government, and my interest in informing US citizens about violations of that vision, are being illegally threatened by bad government behavior, and thus I'm under duress and must publish the stories to resolve the duress."

In particular, I don't think publishing the fact that one or more mentally ill US citizens are being illegally tortured, detained, trafficked, isolated, and abused, is something that would "damage national security" in any way if the existence of this government project were published. In particular, the only real risk is that this corrupt program would be ended by the government if it were exposed, and some Congressional leaders who are highly fond of themselves for whatever reason would be humiliated by their crimes.

In short, there is no legitimate reason at all, legal, ethical, strategic, or otherwise, for journalists not to run stories about this. Their continued failure is both fraudulent a disgrace to journalism and American patriotism.

-Philip White (philipjwhite@yahoo.com)