DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Lanya on January 04, 2007, 11:17:09 PM
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Shocking Twist: Iraqi At Center of Dispute Over AP Source Does Exist -- And Faces Arrest for Talking to Media
By E&P Staff
Published: January 04, 2007 5:20 PM ET updated 8:00 PM ET
NEW YORK The Associated Press has just sent E&P the following dispatch from Baghdad, as it was about to be distributed on its wire. The existence of Jamil Hussein had been hotly disputed by conservative bloggers, some Iraqi officials and the U.S. military in recent weeks.
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BAGHDAD (AP) -- The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.
Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.
The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.
Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein's existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.
Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi, who retracted it after members of the Defense Ministry paid him a visit. Several neighborhood residents subsequently gave the AP independent accounts of the Shiite militia attack on a mosque in which six people were set on fire and killed.
Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry's regulations.
Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.
Hussein appears to have fallen afoul of a new Iraqi push, encouraged by some U.S. advisers, to more closely monitor the flow of information about the country's violence, and strictly enforce regulations that bar all but authorized spokesmen from talking to media.
During Saddam Hussein's rule, information in Iraq had been fiercely controlled by the Information Ministry, but after the arrival of U.S. troops in 2003 and during the transition to an elected government in 2004, many police such as Hussein felt freer to talk to journalists and give information as it occurred.
As a consequence, most news organizations working in Iraq have maintained Iraqi police contacts routinely in recent years. Some officers who speak with reporters withhold their names or attempt to disguise their names using different variants of one or two middle names or last names for reasons of security. Hussein, however, spoke for the record, using his authentic first and last name, on numerous occasions.
His first contacts with the AP were in 2004, when the current Interior Ministry and its press apparatus was still being formed out of the chaotic remains of the Saddam-era ministry.
The information he provided about various police incidents was never called into question until he became embroiled in the attempt to discredit the AP story about the Hurriyah mosque attack.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Thursday that the military had asked the Interior Ministry on Nov. 26 if it had a policeman by the name of Jamil Hussein. Two days later, U.S. Navy Lt. Michael B. Dean, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Navy Multi-National Corps-Iraq Joint Operations Center, sent an e-mail to AP in Baghdad saying that the military had checked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry and was told that no one by the name of Jamil Hussein worked for the ministry or was a Baghdad police officer.
Dean also demanded that the mosque attack story be retracted.
The text of the Dean letter appeared quickly on several Internet blogs, prompting heated debate about the story and criticism of the AP.
At the weekly Interior Ministry briefing on Nov. 30, Khalaf cited the AP story as an example of why the ministry had decided to form a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect.
At the time Khalaf said the ministry had no one on its staff by the name of Jamil Hussein.
"Maybe he wore an MOI (Ministry of Interior) uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money," Khalaf said then. The AP has not paid Jamil Hussein and does not pay any news sources for information for its stories.
On Thursday, Khalaf told AP that the ministry at first had searched its files for Jamil Hussein and found no one. He said a later search turned up Capt. Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, assigned to the Khadra police station.
But the AP had already identified the captain by all three names in a story on Nov. 28-- two days before the Interior Ministry publicly denied his existence on the police rolls.
Khalaf did not say whether the U.S. military had ever been told that Hussein in fact exists. Garver, the U.S. military spokesman, said Thursday that he was not aware that the military had ever been told.
Khalaf said Thursday that with the arrest of Hussein for breaking police regulations against talking to reporters, the AP would be called to identify him in a lineup as the source of its story.
Should the AP decline to assist in the identification, Khalaf said, the case against Hussein would be dropped. He also said there were no plans to pursue action against the AP should it decline.
He said police officers sign a pledge not to talk to reporters when they join the force. He did not explain why Jamil Hussein had become an issue now, given that he had been named by AP in dozens of news reports dating back to early 2006. Before that, he had been a reliable source of police information since 2004 but had not been quoted by name.
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E&P note: As recently as yesterday, Michelle Malkin, the best-known blog critic of Hussein's existence, stated flatly "the fact that there is no police captain named 'Jamil Hussein' working now or ever in either Yarmouk or al Khadra, according to on-the-ground sources in Baghdad. Late this afternoon, she posted part of the AP dispatch above with the comment, "Checking it out. Moving forward...."
She later sent a note to the blog of another Hussein doubter, Allahpundit, stating, "Just to clarify, I’m not apologizing for anything."
Dan at Flopping Aces, credited by Malkin with being first to break the story of the AP's source likely non-existence, asked, referring to Hussein: "His phone was turned off? Interesting.....why would his phone be turned off all of a sudden? Would this mean he will once again NOT be produced for questioning?"
Dan Riehl, another blogging Hussein doubter, responded today, "Fascinating. But let me be the first to say to the Left, before they lose themselves in glee, I don't see that bloggers have anything to apologize for, nor do I see this story being at an end."
Also on the right, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters admitted, "This certainly tends to discredit the blogospheric attacks on AP if true, as well as the U.S. and Iraqi protestations." But he raised "the question about the Iraqi intent to arrest Hussein. Why would they want to arrest him if he told the truth to the AP?"
Confederate Yankee allowed, "As far as the AP's story goes, it does raise some very interesting questions, and I think I'll have a very entertaining weekend trying to make sense of it all."
Eason Jordan, at his new IraqSlogger site, just two days ago had declared that AP was now in a major "scandal." He had earlier offered to fly Malkin and another blogger to Baghdad, on his own dime, to search for Hussein.
A prime Jamil Hussein doubter, Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald, wrote on his blog on Tuesday, "If Jamil Hussein's apparent failure to exist is ever acknowledged, it will be buried. The AP's clients, by and large, don't care. Nor to the 'ethics' gatekeepers in the business."
http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorandpublisher.com%2Feandp%2Fnews%2Farticle_display.jsp%3Fvnu_content_id%3D1003528028
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So Jamil Hussein still has not been produced?
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Gee, so apparently the Iraqi "government" and its U.S. "advisers" tell fantastic and ridiculous lies to cover up their atrocious violence . . . and even go so far as to smear journalists who report on it. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
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He still hasn't been "produced," no. Maybe Malkin will feel she just has to go there to find him. I'm sure she won't put any US serviceman in harm's way, right? Only mercenaries for Malkin, I hope. Because her little adventure into a war zone is not worth one death of our troops.
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So you have a ministry person, who deals with the press constantly, who claimed Jamil wasn't on the roles, now claiming he was, but only after AP themselves couldn't produce the guy, even to reuters, and suddenly Malkin and those who questioned the existence are wrong?
I think the story isn't over.
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<< . . . but only after AP themselves couldn't produce the guy . . . >
"AP themselves."
as if the power of the AP to produce an Iraqi officer were on the same level as the Interior Ministry of the officer's government
What on earth is so astonishing about the inability of a foreign news agency to produce an Iraqi officer in Iraq whom both the Iraqi "government" and its U.S. military "advisors" have reason to hide in order to cover up their own atrocities?
The obvious conclusion is that the Iraqi "government" and its U.S. "advisors" are covering up their crimes, not that AP invented the guy
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jamil was certainly available when he was quoted as a source for the burning of Sunni's at the mosque. Why would it be hard to corroborate his existence when asked? There are plenty of embedded bloggers overthere who could serve to verify his existence. Methinks Jamil is a fictitious entity. Different from an unnamed source which serves the same journalistic purpose, but a named source, named to add credibility to a charge.
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<<jamil was certainly available when he was quoted as a source for the burning of Sunni's at the mosque.>>
Ahh, the right-wing mind at work Available yesterday = available forever.
Even when the "government" and its "advisors" prefer otherwise.
Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Beetee. Where people can disappear faster than a taxpayer's dollar.
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Except that the ministry vouches for his existence or at least an entry now mysteriously appears in the roles.
How about he never existed and the AP made a donation to Khalafs favorite charity.
Would that surprise you?
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<<How about he never existed and the AP made a donation to Khalafs favorite charity.
<<Would that surprise you?>>
Sure it would surprise me. Because I never heard of the AP paying someone to cover up a fabrication made by one of its own journalists. It's a lot easier to express surprise and shock and fire the journalist. The latter has been done before on many occasions by many employers of journalists; the former, to my knowledge, has never happened.
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The latter has been done before on many occasions by many employers of journalists; the former, to my knowledge, has never happened.
Except the AP took ownership of the story, defended the report, scoffed at doubters. And when Jamil never materialized far more was at stake that a journalists career. The profits of the corporation were at stake. Are you saying corporations have never been known to pay bribes?
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<<Except the AP took ownership of the story, defended the report, scoffed at doubters. And when Jamil never materialized far more was at stake that a journalists career. The profits of the corporation were at stake. >>
Yaaaawwwwnnnnn. Seen it all before. Many many times.
<<Are you saying corporations have never been known to pay bribes?>>
No, I'm saying that I've seen this resolved the same way every time it happens. And it happens fairly often. The journalist's employer fires the journalist, they don't jump down the drain after him. It would be to my knowledge a first in journalistic history for the AP or any other news agency to spend their own money and further damage their reputation to fix the damage done by a bad reporter. It is SO much easier to fire the reporter. There are thousands of others ready and eager to step into his shoes. You just don't understand the real world - - only the paranoid world of right-wingers whose absurd views DEPEND on their utter divorce from reality.
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It is much easier just to fire the reporter, unless they took the wrong fork in the road and made the mistake their own.
And then with their credibility at stake it is a bit late to fire the reporter they defended.
Best to find another way out, one that saves face and isn't all that costly in dollars.
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<<It is much easier just to fire the reporter, unless they took the wrong fork in the road and made the mistake their own. >>
yeah, that's probably what happened. Why take in the news from reporters in the field when the back-office staff can get out there themselves and get the stories? No doubt the CEO of the AP and his executive assistant flew out to Baghdad to interview some massacre survivors and told their reporter to take the day off. Then they made up all these fictitious sources, went back to New York and the shit hit the fan. Fuck. What can we do? Can't even fire the fucking reporter cuz WE wrote up that shit ourselves. HEY!!!! Let's bribe the Iraqi Defence Minister. Nobody will ever know!!!!! He'll put the guy back on the books, no one will ever ask to see him, and the story will blow over.
<<And then with their credibility at stake it is a bit late to fire the reporter they defended. >>
Maybe then you'll explain to me what's so different about this story that they can't fire a reporter who besmirched their credibility when every other media outlet has been able to do so?
<<Best to find another way out, one that saves face and isn't all that costly in dollars. >>
Yeah, that'll work, firing a reporter for cause for filing a fake story with a fake witness is way more costly than getting involved in bribing somebody else to back up a reporter who we know has lied, and besides we save so much more face by bribing someone.
Wow, BT, WHAT are you smoking?
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yeah, that's probably what happened. Why take in the news from reporters in the field when the back-office staff can get out there themselves and get the stories? No doubt the CEO of the AP and his executive assistant flew out to Baghdad to interview some massacre survivors and told their reporter to take the day off. Then they made up all these fictitious sources, went back to New York and the shit hit the fan. Fuck. What can we do? Can't even fire the fucking reporter cuz WE wrote up that shit ourselves. HEY!!!! Let's bribe the Iraqi Defence Minister. Nobody will ever know!!!!! He'll put the guy back on the books, no one will ever ask to see him, and the story will blow over.
I'll give you some time to actually follow the timeline of the story, before spouting ignorant hyperbole about facts you are nowhere near a firstname basis with.
Get up to speed Mikey, before you embarrass yourself further.
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Michael,
This should acquaint you with this story. It is the right wingosphere gone amok.
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/credibility-of-right-wing-blogosphere.html
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Lanya,
I'm sure Mikey is quite familiar with hyperbole, however in this case his quest is the truth.
Why send him down dead end streets?
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Well, I followed BT's advice to familiarize myself with the facts of this case "before I embarrass myself further," which I consider a very sportsmanlike warning and want to thank BT for regardless of what I am going to say further on in this post, and I also wanted to thank Lanya for posting the link to the story which I read top to bottom. And the results of my further familiarizing myself with this story are:
nothing. Zip. Zilch. I already had the basics of this rather simple story. AP publishes stories using "source" Jamil Hussein an Iraqi captain, the US military and the Iraqi "government" take exceptions to the stories which are about the Iraqi army or Shi'ite death squads protected by them burning Sunnis alive in a mosque, US military claims that Captain Jamil Hussein is not a Baghdad police captain or an employee of the Ministry of the Interior, right-wing nutjobs including Malkin claim the guy is nonexistent and the AP made him up and then the MOI six weeks later admits the guy exists and is their employee. Maybe got a couple of trivial details wrong or omitted, but that's basically the story and it's basically the story I've been commenting on up to now.
I should say, in my comments which were directed to BT's arguments that the AP was paying (bribing) the MOI to "find" Jamil on its records so as to avoid the embarrassment of having disseminated false news based on fake sources,a great deal of sarcasm was freely employed to ridicule BT's theories. Some of the sarcasm took the form of re-stating BT's views in a context which would make their ridiculousness even more apparent than they might appear on first reading. I am wondering now if Lanya and/or BT failed to follow the sarcasm in my posts and felt that I was misstating actual facts or had failed to understand the situation. If so, the fault would be entirely mine, for writing with insufficient clarity.
However, having re-familiarized myself with a summary of the case as provided by Lanya's link, I have to say that I stand by everything that I've posted up to now on this and if there are errors or fallacies there, please have at me. Bring it on!!
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Michael,
I thought you were doing fine; I just wanted to post that article by Glenn Greenwald. He summed it up so well.
I've been reading about this a lot lately.
Here's something I'd forgotten:
Meanwhile, Brian Whitaker, Middle East editor at The Guardian of London since 2000, concludes his summary of the latest twist today this way: "Because of the number of reporters quoting Jamil Hussein, the bloggers were in effect alleging a generalised conspiracy by AP's Baghdad staff to deceive the news-reading public - an idea so unlikely as to be almost incredible.
"Interestingly, something similar happened with the hoax allegations relating to the Lebanese ambulances. As the bloggers pursued their claims, the only way they could support their claims was by implicating more and more Red Cross workers in a conspiracy to deceive - a conspiracy that, in the end, existed only in their imaginations.
"Back in Iraq, the good news today is that Capt Jamil Hussein really does exist, and the interior ministry's spokesman has finally and officially confirmed it. The bad news is that they have issued a warrant for his arrest for 'having contacts with the media.'
"Congratulations, bloggers. He won't be talking to AP again now."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528028
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The are a few minor details you missed. The MOI also said they had no Jamil Huseein on there roles.
AP insisted that he did but failed to produce him for the six weeks or so this controversy took place, in fact he still hasn't been produced. What has happened is the same functionary who said he did not exist , now says he does, conveniently getting AP off the hook.
I'm not sure they get to claim victory on the issue without producing a body.
And Greenwald has been challenged all over the blogosphre. He is one of those who posts on right leaning blogs under assumed names praising himself, yet is so lame he doesn't realize that IPs can be checked. On more than one occasion he has been found having dialogs and lovefests with himself.
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<<What has happened is the same functionary who said he did not exist , now says he does, conveniently getting AP off the hook. >>
Well this is consistent with two scenarios, one that AP induced the functionary to change his story in order to cover up for dishonest staff and spare themselves embarrassment. Not only would this be a very foolish course for AP to follow (it risks further and greater embarrassment when the U.S. military with all the power at its disposal uncovers the flipflop and inculpates AP) but it runs counter to the actions of every other news agency or medium that I am aware of, which are to fire the wrongdoer (who is very easily replaceable,) apologize to its readers and move on. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that AP would bribe the functionary to cover for its dishonest employees - - it's illogical, unethical, bad for business, and risks immediate exposure. AND no other news agency or other employer of dishonest journalists has ever, to my knowledge, ever dealt with the situation that way. Probably for the very reasons I just gave.
The second interpretation is that the U.S. military and/or the Iraqi "government" are once again caught in another of their innumberable stupid and pathetic lies to try to cover up yet another instance of their insane violence and atrocities against innocent civilians. This is something that HAS happened before, numerous times, and will happen again, numerous times, as long as the U.S. sends its armed thugs and goons to murder, torture, rob and rape in the Third World. It's an old story, unfortunately, but one that I have no trouble believing, for (a) there is ample historical precedent and (b) it is simple, believable and does not require any stretching of my imagination. Unlike BT's weird theory.
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but it runs counter to the actions of every other news agency or medium that I am aware of, which are to fire the wrongdoer (who is very easily replaceable,) apologize to its readers and move on.
This isn't the first time NBC's news division got caught with their fingers in the fabrication cookie jar: In 1993, NBC's "Dateline" aired a story on exploding General Motors pickup trucks. The show alleged that the trucks were unsafe because upon impact they are liable to explode.
However, during their tests, they just couldn't get the darn test truck to explode for the camera. So they hooked up some hidden explosives and staged the segment. NBC didn't admit to the deception until threatened by a lawsuit and public ridicule.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7805 (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7805)
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http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/ap_says_iraqi_g.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamil_Hussein
Associated Press maintains that after questions about the accuracy of events were raised, they returned and found 'more witnesses who described the attack in particular detail'; these new witnesses are all anonymous,"
I could beleive this or not , this is the kind of crime that is really being committed , it is also the kind of lie that is often being told in justification of other crimes.
Agent Provocateurs are wanting more pointless fighting , what object do they have in mind?
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Exploding trucks - - story not clear about WHO planted explosives - - management or the same team that produced the original bad story? Either way, no one was committing any criminal act by faking an exploding truck and whoever it was risked nothing more than a civil lawsuit and public ridicule. Bribing a foreign government officer is a federal crime in the U.S.A. and that's a ridiculous risk for management to run when the alternative would be to just fire the offending reporter(s) and take their lumps. Nobody even remembers the exploding truck story today.
Returning to find more witnesses doesn't strike me as out of ordinary possibilities. Why would they keep taking more witnesses the first time once they already had enough for the show they were producing?
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Prior to Jamilgate, Hussein was listed as a source in 61 AP stories. 61 AP stories that were not corroborated by any other news agency. Sounds like he was readily available then. Since the burning at the mosque story, Jamil has not been quoted once.
What is up with that?
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Prior to Jamilgate, Hussein was listed as a source in 61 AP stories. 61 AP stories that were not corroborated by any other news agency. Sounds like he was readily available then. Since the burning at the mosque story, Jamil has not been quoted once.
What is up with that?
Easy. He's more scared of the Iraqi "government" and their U.S. military "advisors" who told him to shut up and make himself scarce than he is of the A.P. After all, how many people has the A.P. burned alive?
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Easy.
Not so easy.
He was quoted as a named source in 61 stories prior to that. Over an extended period. If he was afraid of the authorities why be named on record. My guess is he never existed. And his non existence would be brought to light by those meddling bloggers demanding that AP produce their eye witness.
Seems to me the asiest way to make the problem go away is to bribe a whore collaborator with the occupation army to say oh yeah he does exist but he is on the lam because even though we didn't chase him down when he was named in 61 previous stories, the last one was over the line.
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Easy.
Not so easy.
He was quoted as a named source in 61 stories prior to that. Over an extended period. If he was afraid of the authorities why be named on record.
It's laughably easy. How many of the 61 stories were about Sunnis being burned alive in a mosque by the Iraqi "government?" A child could see what happened. The guy is quoted on 60 stories that don't attract anyone's ire, and the one "bad" story that shouldn't have gotten out, THAT'S the one that gets the "government" and its U.S. "advisers" a mite peeved. If they haven't killed the guy by now, they have probably told him to make himself scarce, and if he knows what's good for him, that's EXACTLY what he'll do. As I said, he has a lot more reason to fear the "government" and its American "advisors" than he does to fear the A.P.
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That's how I see it too. The 'burned alive' story was the one that got him noticed, which in wartime Iraq is not a good thing. I just hope he's still alive.
The thing that gets me about this is Michelle Malkin and her ilk really do believe that the AP is just making shit up. Why would they do that? Oh, nothing better to do, I guess. It's crazy.
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The thing that gets me about this is Michelle Malkin and her ilk really do believe that the AP is just making shit up. Why would they do that? Oh, nothing better to do, I guess. It's crazy.
CBS memos wiped from your mind? The NBC "trucks blowing up" story I mentioned earlier?
The news services have a long history of "making shit up."
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As I said, he has a lot more reason to fear the "government" and its American "advisor's" than he does to fear the A.P.
You miss the mark. The issue is whether it is plausible for AP to bribe an Iraqi official to say a nebulous source exists and make an embarrassing situation go away.
Not whether Jamils life is in danger for AP naming him as a source. If he doesn't exist he has no life to pt into danger.
There is no real evidence that the guy exists. Just some MOI guys and the APs word.
more:
http://richardminiter.pajamasmedia.com/2007/01/02/jamil_hussein_and_confederate.php
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<<You miss the mark. The issue is whether it is plausible for AP to bribe an Iraqi official to say a nebulous source exists and make an embarrassing situation go away. >>
When the alternative is just to fire the guy who made up the source, it is highly IMPLAUSIBLE that the AP would compound its employee's wrongdoing and commit a federal crime rather than fire the guy. It's never happened before. The SOP is to fire the reporter, apologize profusely and move on. THAT'S plausible.
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AP would compound its employee's wrongdoing and commit a federal crime
Which federal crime would AP be committing if it lied about a source?
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<<Which federal crime would AP be committing if it lied about a source?>>
I wasn't referring to lying about a source. BT's theory was that the AP paid the Iraqi MOI guy to "find" Jamil's name in its records. Bribery of a foreign government official is a federal crime.
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The SOP is to fire the reporter, apologize profusely and move on. THAT'S plausible.
WIth 61 articles,presumably passing through fact checkers and editors, and denials from executive editors, this case went beyond the original journalist pretty quickly. Corporate credibility was a stake and that can be dangerous in these post rathergate days.
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I wasn't referring to lying about a source. BT's theory was that the AP paid the Iraqi MOI guy to "find" Jamil's name in its records. Bribery of a foreign government official is a federal crime.
Actually, it's not.
From US Code:
CHAPTER 11--BRIBERY, GRAFT, AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Sec. 201. Bribery of public officials and witnesses
(a) For the purpose of this section--
(1) the term ``public official'' means Member of Congress, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, either before or after such official has qualified, or an officer or employee or person acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any department, agency or branch of Government thereof, including the District of Columbia, in any official function, under or by authority of any such department, agency, or branch of Government, or a juror;
(2) the term ``person who has been selected to be a public official'' means any person who has been nominated or appointed to be a public official, or has been officially informed that such person will be so nominated or appointed; and
(3) the term ``official act'' means any decision or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before any public official, in such official's official capacity, or in such official's place of trust or profit.
http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=312462194209+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve (http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=312462194209+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve)
So, bribing an official of the US Government is a federal offense, but bribing an official of a foreign government is not.
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I believe there is another statute or another section of the statute you quoted from that makes it a federal offence to bribe a foreign government officer.
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I believe there is another statute or another section of the statute you quoted from that makes it a federal offence to bribe a foreign government officer.
Feel free to quote it, then. I did, after all, provide a source.
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I believe there is another statute or another section of the statute you quoted from that makes it a federal offence to bribe a foreign government officer.
Feel free to quote it, then. I did, after all, provide a source.
This should be interesting :)
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http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/dojdocb.htm
That wasn't too hard. It's expressed in terms of bribing for business favours, but there is an obvious business benefit in store for the AP in preserving its credibility and alteration of the official records or lying about their contents certainly confers a business benefit on a dishonest or incompetent news bureau by making it look more credible than it actually is.
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http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/dojdocb.htm
That wasn't too hard. It's expressed in terms of bribing for business favours, but there is an obvious business benefit in store for the AP in preserving its credibility and alteration of the official records or lying about their contents certainly confers a business benefit on a dishonest or incompetent news bureau by making it look more credible than it actually is.
Sincerely doubt it would apply. AP's business is in the US, so any bribery doesn't apply under the "make and keep business" clause. They don't publish in Iraq.
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<<Sincerely doubt it would apply. AP's business is in the US, so any bribery doesn't apply under the "make and keep business" clause. They don't publish in Iraq.>>
AP's business is to gather the news and to publish the news. They certainly gather it from all over the world, Iraq included, and are published everywhere people read their stories. "Publication" is the act of dissemination of the news, not just running paper through presses.
If they published material on the brutality of U.S. and/or puppet forces, the U.S. federal government would be powerless to stop them - - but if they also bribed a foreign official, God help them! The U.S. would prosecute them to the limits of its ability.
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If they published material on the brutality of U.S. and/or puppet forces, the U.S. federal government would be powerless to stop them - - but if they also bribed a foreign official, God help them! The U.S. would prosecute them to the limits of its ability.
I say we audit AP and get to the bottom of this corporate malfeasance. Where is Elliot Spitzer when you need him.
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AP's business is to gather the news and to publish the news. They certainly gather it from all over the world, Iraq included, and are published everywhere people read their stories. "Publication" is the act of dissemination of the news, not just running paper through presses.
I guess then AP would just and use one of the affirmative defenses for that act:
(c) Affirmative defenses
It shall be an affirmative defense to actions under subsection (a) or (g) of this section that—
(1) the payment, gift, offer, or promise of anything of value that was made, was lawful under the written laws and regulations of the foreign official’s, political party’s, party official’s, or candidate’s country; or
(2) the payment, gift, offer, or promise of anything of value that was made, was a reasonable and bona fide expenditure, such as travel and lodging expenses, incurred by or on behalf of a foreign official, party, party official, or candidate and was directly related to—
(A) the promotion, demonstration, or explanation of products or services; or
(B) the execution or performance of a contract with a foreign government or agency thereof.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/usc_sec_15_00000078--dd001-.html (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/usc_sec_15_00000078--dd001-.html)
Hey, if the prosecution can stretch the definition of "doing business with" to include "watching them" then I'm sure AP's lawyers can stretch the definition of "promotion, demonstration, or explanation of products or services" to include making up some records of a "source."
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It's touching to see the faith you have in the AP's lawyers. However, I think that most reasonable businessmen, given the choice of
(a) firing one or more incompetent and/or dishonest employees (in a field where there are notoriously more job-seekers than job-holders) and just moving on - - or,
(b) committing what might possibly be a federal offence and hoping that the company's lawyers will be skillful enough, with or without the assistance and counsel of Amianthus, to get them off, in which case - - even if the lawyers DO get them off - - their reputation is shattered far beyond what it would have been had they just fired the reporters and moved on;
would, if they had a single fucking brain in their head, opt for choice (a), which has the added advantages of not leaving them vulnerable to perpetual blackmail by the bribed government official, not costing them any more money in bribes and lawyers' fees, not exposing them to further risk of embarrassment by keeping a bunch of dishonest and/or incompetent schmucks on the payroll, and last but not least, of doing the right thing.
In fact, the whole raft of advantages that arise from firing the reporters is so overwhelming, and the disadvantages of bribing the Iraqi so obviously wrong, that it is nowhere but in the fevered imagination of a rightwing fruitcake that one could even seriously entertain option for even a microsecond. It's what I mean EXACTLY when I say that the rightwing has got its head stuck up its ass so far that it has permanently lost all connection to the real world.
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would, if they had a single fucking brain in their head, opt for choice (a), which has the added advantages of not leaving them vulnerable to perpetual blackmail by the bribed government official, not costing them any more money in bribes and lawyers' fees, not exposing them to further risk of embarrassment by keeping a bunch of dishonest and/or incompetent schmucks on the payroll, and last but not least, of doing the right thing.
And you'd think the same thing of the CBS "forged memos" which CBS stood behind, until they came out as a hoax.
And you'd think the same thing of the NBC "exploding truck" report, which NBC also stood behind, until proof came out that the "tests" they did included an explosive because they couldn't get the truck to actually explode just by hitting it with another vehicle.
And you'd think the same thing of Reuters, standing behind a photographer who routinely "Photoshopped" his pictures (and claiming it was "standard practice"), until they took too much heat for it.
There is a whole history of media "embellishing" the truth, going back decades.
You've seen this photo of Lincoln, right?
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/lincoln1.jpg)
That's Lincoln's head on Calhoun's body. Guess Calhoun's body looked better. Here is the original photo:
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/lincoln2.jpg)
Here's another one, this one was on a live feed:
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/cbs1.jpg)
That CBS logo on the building in Times Square behind the reporter was, in reality, an NBC logo - the computer switched logos on the live feed as it was being broadcast, in real time.
There are many, many more cases that can be documented of media companies performing questionable acts. It's touching to see the faith you have in the media "doing the right thing."
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Here's another one, this time with an election 2004 theme:
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/kerryfonda1.jpg)
Here are the original photos, each taken at completely different events, in different years:
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/kerryfonda2.jpg)
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/kerryfonda3.jpg)
But you go on believeing that media in general will "do the right thing."
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YAAAAAWWWWNNNN. Wake me up when you find media execs who actually risk committing a federal offense to cover for a dishonest employee. Who actually bribe a government officer to produce a false report.
Hint: standing up initially for the employee until his case becomes insupportable doesn't count.
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Here's another one, this time with an election 2004 theme:
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/kerryfonda1.jpg)
Here are the original photos, each taken at completely different events, in different years:
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/kerryfonda2.jpg)
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/kerryfonda3.jpg)
But you go on believeing that media in general will "do the right thing."
I believe they'll go to a certain level to cover up for an employee, but you're implying they'll take it to a whole new level, and the level you argue they'll take it to has its own unique disadvantages, not the least of them being risk of federal prosecution, added expense, vulnerability to blackmail, exponentially magnified damage to reputation, etc. The extremes that you claim to have shown aren't extreme at all in comparison to what you say they would do in the instant case. It's just silly and crazy to believe that's how things work. The reporter is expendable. There are plenty more where he or she came from. The usual case is the guy gets fired and everyone moves on. Your examples are bizarre exceptions but nowhere near as bizarre as what you propose.
But thanks for the photos of a truly beautiful woman. I've always been a fan and it's great to be reminded again with concrete evidence of Jane Fonda's dazzling beauty of mind, body and spirit.
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There is an old saying that the coverup is often worse than the crime.
The crime was sloppy editing. Someone at AP should have demanded that Jamil Huessien be produced the minute there was a question as to who he was and where he was assigned. Not like he was an anomynous source who preferred to remain clandestine for fear of retaliation. AP named him in 61 stories. Apparently they were not too concerned for his well being.
And when it became apparent producing Jamil was easier said than done, AP management went into full blown coverup and stonewall mode that would have done Nixon proud.
And you say it is unlikely they would have bribed an Iraqi official in a culture where bribery is as commonplace as figs?
Please.
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Wake me up when you find media execs who actually risk committing a federal offense to cover for a dishonest employee.
Putting a vehicle on the air and saying it is so poorly designed that it will explode, then showing a faked film sequence of the truck exploding to support it, is fraud.
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<<Putting a vehicle on the air and saying it is so poorly designed that it will explode, then showing a faked film sequence of the truck exploding to support it, is fraud.>>
You still haven't established the culpability of the media executives in the alleged fraud. As far as I know, it could have been the same guys who produced the original report.
And we don't know that any actual fraud was committed - - nobody was charged with fraud, nobody convicted. We don't know, in fact, if anything was done that constituted a fraud that slipped through the cracks of the criminal justice system.
What you're alleging is that the borderline episodes you've dredged up are somehow as blatant as bribing an official of a foreign government to alter a record. As open to blackmail as the bribing of a government official. And you haven't come close. You don't have a single historical example of anything like what BT is alleging.
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You still haven't established the culpability of the media executives in the alleged fraud. As far as I know, it could have been the same guys who produced the original report.
Michael G. Gartner, president of the news division, resigned over the incident. I guess he felt guilty for "doing the right thing."