secrecy
GRITtv: Carne Ross: WikiLeaks Disclosures and Dangers
"We need to break down the assumption that foreign policy is something that should be left to these elites," says former British diplomat Carne Ross, who resigned over the Iraq war. The WikiLeaks cable releases, as he puts it, "reveal the extraordinary gap between private action and public rhetoric" on the part of governments--and that's what's been the most damaging. Ross is a cautious supporter of WikiLeaks, and he joins us to discuss the contents of the diplomatic cables released by that organization--to break down diplomatic language, point out some surprising revelations, and talk about his reservations about a culture of leaks as the best way to combat government lies.
Email this pageGRITtv: The Most Dangerous Man in America
Continuing with our Oscar theme, we bring you the second part of our conversation with whistleblower, anti-war activist, and documentary film subject Daniel Ellsberg. Since the 1960s, Ellsberg has been fighting to stop war and bring government secrets into the open, and he knows firsthand how much power citizens can wield against the government. Ellsberg is headed to the Oscars himself with the crew of the film, and he sat down with Laura to talk about his experience releasing the Pentagon Papers to the press, what's changed from the 60s and Vietnam -- and what hasn't.
GRITtv: The F Word: Today's Secrets Are In Plain Sight
Daniel Ellsberg was on the show last week and he left me thinking about secrecy. Ellsberg, of course, was the man who released the top secret Pentagon Papers on secret decision-making during the wars in Cambodia and Vietnam. He got me wondering: What are the Pentagon Papers of today? We've got the torture memos, the Abu Ghraib photos...some of them. What about the scandals hiding in plain sight? Like the numbers we discuss on the show: 6 million Americans have no income aside from food stamps and growing numbers of them sell their food stamps at a loss to get cash to pay the rent and heat. Or the 16.4 million adults and 7 million children who suffer from asthma-a rising trend over the past two decades. According to Science Daily, "Those most at risk--low income, medically underserved, and African-American and Hispanic children--have the least access to preventive care and the most visits to the ER." What about the number of workplace injuries that are on the rise despite the loss of factory jobs? They're habitually underreported, according to the New York Times (who would know...). What do all these things have in common? They're not secrets to a large portion of the U.S. population. They define our reality, explain a lot of what's going on, yet they're rarely discussed. Today's biggest "secrets" don't require a top-secret hiding or marking "confidential." They just require politicians, a press corps, and a public paying no attention at all.
The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.
GRITtv: Off the Map and Outside the Law
In Trevor Paglen's new book, Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World, he investigates the "off the map" locations of covert government activity, including the "salt pit" in Kabul where Khaled El-Masri was held.
Ben Wizner, from the ACLU's National Security Project, is El-Masri's lawyer and he joins Paglen in studio with Laura to talk about black sites, government secrecy, and why anything goes when prisoners are taken off the map.
GRITtv: Taking Back Power with Daniel Ellsberg
The Bush administration thrived on secrecy; Obama promised more transparency, but has yet to really deliver. What's more, when information does come out, it seems that accountability is nearly impossible to get: the torture memos were released, but there will be no trials. We ask Daniel Ellsberg, one of the world's most famous whistleblowers, if there's anything the people can do to take the power back.
