neonascent

I’ve only recently heard about enforced “Free Speech Zones” or “Protest Zones” set up for city visits by President Bush and other high-level officials; The Secret Service is instructing local police to arrest any protester who will not move into the designated zone - typically a closed in pen out of sight of the motorcade. Of course this keeps signs of dissent away from both the President and the accompanying media.

The American Civil Liberties Group is in the process of legal action to obtain an injuction against the Secret Service, as well as many many other issues of civil liberties in America. Their website features a vast survey of alleged rights violations by the Bush administration, and is well worth a look.

• wikipedia entry
• ACLU

You may have heard that a bi-polar airline passenger has recently been shot by undercover air marshals. The BBC reports “Man shot dead at Florida airport”. There are certainly issues of balance with regards to offensive force to pre-empt terrorist action, as well as the question of whether terrorists would hit the airlines again now that it is no longer the “weak link”. I’m agitated by the lack of intelligent debate on these issues, but that’s not what has made me blog today. (Okay the entry title is a giveaway)

The US air marshal statement released is the most extreme case of biased textual representation I have seen in a long time:

“As he was attempting to evade them, his actions caused the FAMs to fire shots, and in fact he is deceased.”

Journalists regularly place sentences in the passive to elliminate blame, but this is going much further. IMHO, this is absolutely disgusting and moreso because most people won’t even notice - the power of rhetoric such as “collateral damage”, and the language used here is that it is insidious. While they could have completely removed the FAMs (air marshals) from the sentance to make it “Shots were fired”, they present the firing of shots as something totally undirected and not implicitly violent. Shots were not fired “at the man”, and post-text of “in fact he is deseased.” does not offer the slightest causal connection between these shots being fired and the man dying.

>> Link

ABC News reports that the independant candidate for Pittwater has just won the seat. His reaction is idiosyncratically Australian:

“I think I’m going to have a celebratory beer. My boy over here tells me that there are some waves at North Avalon tomorrow, so he’s going to pick me up at half past five. We’re going to have an early surf.”

Good to see the Australian spirit is alive and strong in this nations political representatives!

Note that the image accompanying this entry is for illustration only. The original can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1517487.htm