If you’re interested in the still-unfolding Gitmo trials, the Washington Independent‘s Spencer Ackerman’s reporting has been solid (his blogging is also very good). Today, he reports that the Pentagon has banned four journalists who best understand the tribunal process:
While the judge in the case, Col. Patrick Parrish, issued an admonition yesterday for reporters to respect the anonymity of the classified witnesses, he did not rule that any reporter here had violated the protected order. The decision to block the four reporters from returning to Guantanamo Bay is a matter of policy from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. And those four are not the only ones within the press corps here to have reported Interrogator #1’s name.
Those four reporters comprise much of the institutional knowledge of Guantanamo Bay and the military commissions, as their colleagues widely acknowledge. Shephard has written the most comprehensive account to date of Omar Khadr’s life and experiences in detention at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, in both her Star reporting and her book Guantanamo’s Child. Rosenberg is the single most diligent, consistent and experienced Guantanamo Bay reporter in the world, having carved out the Guantanamo beat steadily almost since the detention facility here opened in 2002 and traveled here more frequently than any other journalist. (I personally heard complaints about her from public affairs officers here five years ago — and those complaints amounted to whining about how dogged an investigator she was.) Koring and Edwards have also been invaluable resources about Khadr and Guantanamo to their colleagues these past two weeks.
Whether or not this was just a pretext for dumping nosy reporters, this is the kind of little impropriety that undermines faith in the process.
Google has removed its filters on Google.cn, its China portal, due to “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China.” The upshot, of course, is this:
Google’s action and accompanying blog post strongly suggests that they believe the hack was directed by the Chinese government:
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.
You could argue that not having a presence in China, even a censored one, would ultimately contribute to the government’s stranglehold on the people, given that the Green Dam and Great Firewall (which, as far as I know, still doesn’t care for yours truly) are still standing tall, but I commend Google’s willingness to take a stand, especially considering the money they could have made in China.
Thanks to BB, Erin, and everyone else who highlighted the story.
I’m not sure I agree that Rev. Lowry’s benediction outshone Obama, but there were some pretty stunning moments. As I’ve said before, I’m a pretty staunch atheist, but damn, that prayer was everything I could’ve asked for. The opening and closing grafs are particularly good:
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand — true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.
[...]
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around — (laughter) — when yellow will be mellow — (laughter) — when the red man can get ahead, man — (laughter) — and when white will embrace what is right.Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: Say amen –
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: — and amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen!
The comments, predictably, are less enlightened.