FEMA Sorry for Faking News Briefing 403
theodp writes "The Federal Emergency Management Agency's No. 2 official apologized Friday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters. All the while, real reporters listened on a telephone conference line and were barred from asking questions. In the briefing, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr., FEMA's deputy administrator, called on questioners who did not disclose that they were FEMA employees, and gave replies emphasizing that his agency's response to this week's California wildfires was far better than its response to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005."
We will get the government we deserve (Score:3, Interesting)
http://thisnovember5th.com/ [thisnovember5th.com]
Re:Duh? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sorry... (Score:1, Interesting)
Brilliant!!!
Re:Devistating, but no Katrina (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Firefighting aircraft grounded by bureaucracy (Score:2, Interesting)
http://thisnovember5th.com/ [thisnovember5th.com]
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
FEMA's lesson from Katrina (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, besides Jeff Gannon, we've seen this before. Here's another case:
March 29, 2005
Despite a rising chorus of condemnation from journalists and media critics, the George W. Bush administration shows no signs of abandoning its distribution of taxpayer-funded "news" to U.S. newspapers, radio and television stations.
Free press advocates are up in arms about what they say is the covert dissemination of propaganda by government agencies.
In one case, the administration -- seeking to build support among black families for its education reform plans -- paid a prominent African American pundit, Armstrong Williams, 240,000 dollars to promote the "No Child Left Behind" law on his nationally syndicated television show and through his newspaper column, and to urge other black journalists to do the same.
Two other nationally known journalists, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus, have also admitted accepting thousands of dollars to endorse government programs.
Since 2001, the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service has fielded 40 reporters, producers and public affairs specialists to create "good military news" to be beamed to home audiences via local news stations. The service's "good news" segments have reportedly reached 41 million Americans via local newscasts -- in most cases, without the station acknowledging their source.
More than 20 different federal agencies used taxpayer funds to produce television news segments promoting Bush administration policies. These "video news releases," or VNRs, were broadcast on hundreds of local news programs. without disclosing their source....
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0329-12.htm [commondreams.org]
Re:Firefighting aircraft grounded by bureaucracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sorry... (Score:1, Interesting)
I can guarantee that the moment it looks like there will be a revolution, "private security forces" will be hired by the government. They'll be exempted from any laws and repercussions and they'll have shoot-to-kill orders. If there is a revolution in the US, it will be one of the bloodiest the world has ever seen.
Lots of stuff matters. (Score:3, Interesting)
The mega-bank engineered self-bailout of their failed SIV gambles matters. The debate over fire code revisions in southern california matters. The upcoming elections in Kenya matter. The 17th China Party Congress matters. All this matters a lot, to everyone who reads this, whether they realize it or not.
But none of that means it belongs on slashdot.
"stuff that matters" doesn't mean "whatever zonk wants to post today".
And it doesn't mean that we get another ill-informed politico-hype site like
There are other, much, much better sources for this sort of material. All we get here is poorly understood issues presented in some sort of breathless grandstanding manner. It's old, it's on 50 other sites, and it's boring.
Re:Sorry... (Score:1, Interesting)
All you're relying on is irrational optimism to predict that it will be better in 20 years. It might be 200 years. It may never happen. After humans have exhausted the cheap sources of energy the entire global economy may begin to decay into a new dark age. Maybe everyone in Iraq will migrate to different places in such diluted numbers that they can't wage bloodbaths of old. Anyone can pull random hypotheticals out of their ass, really.
U.S. occupation would appeal to people more familiar with the cultural foundation of the U.S., I bet. You may be more forgiving of widespread chaos and death if you at least think you and your overlords are on the same page. Transitioning to America Jr. as an ideal, instead of Living for the Greater Glory of Leader, and all that.
Except of course we probably wouldn't really be on the same page. The U.S. has no actual problem dealing with despots--it just doesn't tolerate despots that don't do what it wants financially. It will blow a giant smoke cloud up anyone's ass if it will get them in line behind the financial interest of U.S. citizens.
Beware tigers bearing gifts of herbs and spices.
This agency has a hidden agenda (Score:5, Interesting)
While researching FEMA initially I was looking to disprove disturbing things I had heard and read; it was not a case where I went looking to substantiate fears, if anything I went into the research with a "FEMA are the good guys" bias, but what I found was far worse than I imagined it could be, and I am genuinely concerned for the security of my country.
I have posted before about FEMA and the executive orders which created and empower it. Rather than repeat any of that, I would urge anyone reading this to look into FEMA and it's mandate and actions on their own. Google it, especially the executive orders and the current anti-terror laws which have removed a lot of your rights.
"If and when martial law comes to America at large, it will be under the auspices of the shadowy Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA"), a massive, secretive agency operated from a huge, fortified bunker in Virginia, and established by unconstitutional means to carry out an unconstitutional and indeed anti-constitutional program."
- excerpt from RICO complaint pending against Bush II admin (I am not claiming that the RICO case is with or without merit, only that the particular statement quoted is accurate in my opinion).
Re:Sorrier... (Score:5, Interesting)
My Kent State example was not that demonstrators should have shot back at Guardsmen, but that the "Peace Movement" had neither the courage nor even the integrity to continue regardless of personal danger -- courage that the union movement and civil rights movement found. Those movemenets did not take arms against the government, they persisted until the government's cupidity was profoundly unmasked, and the voters changed the government's policies.
I am the last to advocate war. I am a Viet Nam vet. I have seen war. You will not like it.
But no empire lasts forever; it looks like the US Empire is falling faster than any before it. Look to the history of Great Britain after World War Two for a clue as to what will happen to the US -- that is, IF we find an undiscovered stash of oil on the order of the one in the North Sea that has been keeping GB monetarily afloat for decades.
But that's another story.
Hint: it might be a crime for a US citizen to advocate taking up arms against his government. It might be called treason.
Re:Sorry... (Score:3, Interesting)
Terrorist:
1. Targets innocent people for destruction, in order to force change by terrorizing the masses
2. Does not serve a county and wear a uniform (nobody is accountable for his acts but him)
3. Usually lacks the guts to be accountable for his actions. Either hides his face behind a mask, of kills himself in the attack to avoid capture and punishment.
4. Often seeks to replace a government with some form of tyranny or worse government
Freedom fighter:
1. Targets government forces or opposing terrorists/guerrillas
2. Often organized into militia-like forms with intent to become military of new government
3. Usually proud to be identified and plans to survive to the end to see freedom
4. Seeks to replace some form of tyranny with a better government and more freedom
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
The government has managed the news for quite some time, in all manner of creative ways. FEMA simply got caught. Don't think for a moment that this is the first time something like this has been done either by FEMA or by the government in general. They have long been of the mind that the citizens (and the fourth estate, and the constitution) are an inconvenience, rather than supervisory bodies and limits they are responsible to.
Just spend a little time with Google looking for managed news, faked news, and government.
Oh, get real. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh please. Naomi Wolf didn't cut the video together herself. I know plenty of people all over the political spectrum who make typos, and far worse, so that's an exceptionally lame excuse for not wanting to listen to a lecture. If you don't like the material being discussed, why not just say so rather than find excuses to avoid listening? --Or maybe, (horrors), offer up your own 'reasoned argument' for why you think the material is at fault. --I've written many hundreds of such arguments in my time, so I figured it couldn't hurt to hear it from another person's perspective. --I thought she did a pretty succinct job, although a little more confidence at the end of her speech might have been appropriate.
-FL
as an MPA, I think all of them should be fired (Score:1, Interesting)
You cannot have a disaster response agency that no one trusts. I just finished my public administration degree, and even though it was from a crappy third tier school I don't think any of my peers would have been stupid enough to do something like that (speaking from a risk perspective).
However, from an ethical/service perspective...i'm afraid that people from all walks of life would be sure to attempt it if they thought the could get away with it. The problem here is that not one of the employees had the leadership and ethical capability to stand up and challenge the plan before it happened--therefore all participants should be fired.