G.Greenwald: Time magazine invents facts to claim that Americans support *'s domestic spying abuses

Glenn Greenwald
Monday March 17, 2008 08:27 EDT
Time magazine invents facts to claim that Americans support Bush's domestic spying abuses

(updated below)


No matter how corrupt and sloppy the establishment press becomes, they always find a way to go lower. Time Magazine has just published what it purports to be a news article by Massimo Calabresi claiming that "nobody cares" about the countless abuses of spying powers by the Bush administration; that "Americans are ready to trade diminished privacy, and protection from search and seizure, in exchange for the promise of increased protection of their physical security"; and that the case against unchecked government surveillance powers "hasn't convinced the people." Not a single fact -- not one -- is cited to support these sweeping, false opinions.

Worse still -- way worse -- this "news article" decrees the Bush administration to be completely innocent, even well-motivated, even in those instances where technical, irrelevant lawbreaking has been found, as it proclaims:

In all the examples of diminished civil liberties, there are few, if any, where the motivating factor was something other than law and order or national security.

Does Calabresi or his Time editors have the slightest idea how secret, illegal spying powers have been used, towards what ends they've been employed and with what motives? No, they have absolutely no idea. Not even members of Congressional Intelligence Committees know because the Bush administration has kept all of that concealed. So Time just makes up facts to defend the Bush administration with wholly baseless statements that one would expect to come pouring out of the mouths only of Dana Perino and Bill Kristol -- the "motivating factor" for secret, illegal spying was nothing "other than law and order or national security."

This article literally has more factual errors -- pure, retraction-level falsehoods -- than it has paragraphs. It makes Joe Klein look like a knowledgable and conscientious surveillance expert. It's one of the most falsehood-plagued articles I've seen in quite some time. Let's just count the ways this article includes demonstrably false assertions, purely based on facts:

(1) Time claims that "nobody cares" about the Government's increased spying powers and that "polling consistently supports that conclusion." They don't cite a single poll because that assertion is blatantly false.

more...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/17/time/

this is consistent with their leave no fascist behind mentality.

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.

Is complete BULLSHIT. Ok, I live in Kansas.. There is no way that some radical in Saudia Arabia knows much about Kansas, let alone wants to bomb it or destroy it. It just ain't gonna happen. To think otherwise is just ridiculous. I have a better chance at being struck by lightning or being bitten by a shark then I do dying at the hands of a terrorist. Does that mean we need to prevent people from swimming in the ocean or from going outside if there are clouds? Give me a break. The events of 9/11 were truly tragic, but they weren't the tip of some iceberg. It was random luck, and stupidity on our Government's part, that this happened. The far right has always needed to have an enemy to hate, to spread fear, because that is their only avenue of success. I can only pray that America is finally waking up after our 8-year stand with this fuckhead of a president. Sorry for the cussing, but george does not deserve my respect.

he failed at every other business so his family threw him this bone.


bottom line it's the richest family in New York running Time and nothing new.. protecting their own media mogul empires.

the telcos are in bed with the media and vice versa.. it's like the loyalty cops have for each other only more sinister...

Joe Klein couldn't write a good article if his life depended on it.

I will bring this up next time I chat with ben.. that his magazine is losing so much credibility when the tide shifts he better distance from Klein or see advertisers flee like rats from a ship.

Time magazine has always more or less followed the pro-business philosophy of founder Henry Luce, but Time-Warner also benefited from the destruction of the World Trade Center by building a couple of twin towers of its own a few blocks uptown:



Time Warner Center (2003) - New York, NY; David Childs, FAIA, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

http://blog.aia.org/favorites/2007/02/