BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Friday, April 16, 2004
SNOOP DOGGED. The problem
with Alexander Cockburn's CounterPunch
is that you have to wade through dreck like this: "In Nazi Germany
and the old Soviet Union, both run by a better class of people than
we now have in public service in the U.S. of A. today ..."
Still, the essay
from which that bit of hate speech is taken, by a lawyer named J.
Michael Springmann, is worth reading. Springmann was subjected to
e-mail surveillance under the Patriot Act because he represented a
woman who was a suspected Al Qaeda agent. Springmann
writes:
Beyond the violation of
attorney-client privilege and the invasion of my privacy and that
of my correspondents, I no longer have access to my E-mail
addresses, since AOL kept them on its computer. And so I cannot
inform my contacts that I have a new E-mail provider. I have no
idea whether the Justice Department is still reading the E-mail
messages sent and received by my correspondents, whose addressees
turned up in the seizure of my accounts. Indeed, I continue to
have problems sending and receiving messages to my friends and
clients around the world with my new provider (which causes me to
wonder if the process is not still continuing). And I must explain
to clients and potential clients rightly concerned about
confidentiality that the U.S. government has read and may still
read E-mails to and from them.
In John Ashcroft's America,
Springmann's tale is shocking, but not surprising. (Thanks to
civil-liberties lawyer and Phoenix contributor Harvey
Silverglate for passing that along.)
THE SOUND OF MONEY. It seems
that the San Francisco Chronicle just can't stay out of
conflict-of-interest controversies. The latest: David Ewing Duncan, a
freelance columnist who covers the biotech industry, and who also
runs a company involved in biotech.
As Stanford University's Grade the
News reports,
the Chronicle okayed the arrangement, requiring only that
Duncan disclose his conflict. Yet, last year, the Chronicle
fired columnist Henry Norr for participating in an anti-war protest.
Norr covered technology; his extracurricular activities may have been
inappropriate for a journalist, but they hardly represented a
conflict.
More recently, the Chronicle
reassigned reporter Rachel Gordon and photographer Liz Mangelsdorf,
who had been covering the gay-marriage story, after they themselves
got married at City Hall. As I wrote
at the time, I think the Chronicle made the right call, since
they didn't just get married, but were actually taking part in the
very civil disobedience that they were covering.
But the Chronicle, having
set a very high standard with Norr, Gordon, and Mangelsdorf, should
do no less when it comes to financial conflicts. I guess money talks.
(Thanks to BK for this.)
THE CONFUSION IS ALL MITT'S.
Try keeping a straight face while reading about Governor Mitt
Romney's latest tactic to delay gay marriage. (Globe coverage
here;
Herald coverage here.)
The quote of the day is from
Attorney General Tom Reilly, commenting on the confusion and panic on
the part of city and town clerks that Romney claims will break out if
the May 17 marriage deadline isn't put off. Said Reilly: "This isn't
all that hard. A half-day's training would do it."
posted at 12:09 PM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
