By
Ellen Shearer
The former Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee now has a more streamlined title — the Constitution Committee. The former chairman of the subcommittee, Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, isn’t pleased.
“Once again, the new Republican majority has shown that it isn’t quite as committed to the Constitution as its recent lofty rhetoric would indicate,” Nadler said in a statement. “Today (Jan. 7, 2011) it has yet again shown its contempt for key portions of the document – the areas of civil rights and civil liberties — by banishing those words for the title of the Constitution Subcommittee. Continue reading →
By
Ellen Shearer
The Obama administration is once again cracking down on government employees who leak to journalists, this time with an indictment of a former CIA officer accused of giving restricted information to an unnamed journalist who sounds a lot like James Risen of The New York Times.
In a story in the Times Thursday, reporter Charlie Savage says Jeffrey Sterling was accused of providing information about “a clandestine program intended to impede the progress of unnamed countries’ weapons capabilities.” The story continued: Continue reading →
By
Ellen Shearer
In response to inquiries from a number of media organizations, including the Military Reporters and Editors association, the Army Judge Advocate General’s office says the “pretrial investigation of the charges” will be open to the public.
MRE had requested that all proceedings against Maj. Nidal Hasan be open to the
public. Hasan is accused in the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting at the post in which 13 service men and women were killed.
The MRE letter had asked the there be “public access to the Convening Authority’s docket and all pleadings and motions filed in this matter, as well as the ability to attend all proceedings.” Continue reading →
By
Ellen Shearer
The Military Reporters and Editors association has sent an official letter of criticism to the Defense Department for violating its own rules on embedding reporters – to allow unbiased coverage in the war zone. Continue reading →
By
Ellen Shearer
Freelance reporter Michael Hastings, whose Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended the former top Afghanistan commander’s military career, has been denied an embed slot to join a military unit in Afghanistan, according to news reports. In a Twitter … Continue reading →
By
Ellen Shearer
There’s been lots written about how to protect the country against the next terrorist attack. I just learned that one of my Northwestern University colleagues, J. Peter Rosenfeld, has completed research that offers a possible way to use technology to … Continue reading →
By
Tara McKelvey
The Pentagon’s “Media Policy and Ground Rules” pamphlet for reporting on Guantanamo starts off badly and quickly veers into silly. The bad start: Reporters may only fly to Guantanamo to cover the military commissions by using military aircraft, although they … Continue reading →
