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."
While they're at it... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:While they're at it... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry isn't gonna cut it... try mass resignations!
A government organization went on national TV and intentionally tried to fool millions of Americans into believing a lie so that they didn't look bad.
Oh wait... never mind... I forgot, this is the USA. And we are talking about the government after all. The idiot who thought this up should run for President!
Flying Spaghetti Monster I cant wait until our government acts with our best interests in mind... hell I'd be happy to see it happen just once before I die.
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Well said. This is exactly the problem with warmongers: thinking that their ability to endure hardship and fight to the death is any greater than those they would fight. Just as we would would a grudge for generations if our lands were occupied, so will Iraqis.
Re:Sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what you would prefer, it matters what the Iraqis would prefer.
Re:Sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)
You might want to talk to an Iraqi about that. I don't think most of them regard a country with no jobs, no power, no fuel, no medical care, infested with trigger happy foreigners, and run by gangs who are fanatical and/or corrupt, as an vast improvement over a brutal dictatorship. And after I year or two, I imagine that you'd grab a Kalashnikov and start plinking at the gringos yourself.
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Re:Sorry... (Score:4, Funny)
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Pathetic and idiotic. The sort of tripe usually spouted by people who prefer socialism or communism or some other evil tyranny over the mind of man, the sort who would wear a Che Guevara T-shirt (celebrating a murderous pig)
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
Read up on the American revolution. There were some actions taken there that I would imagine you would have to disagree with. Your distinctions sound good for the official history but the real history is often nastier and uglier than will ever make it into the official books.
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Armed revolutions have never been a pleasant thing. And usually they're a last resort solution when things become really unbearable, where death doesn't sound more horrible than enduring it any longer. The US are far from anything like it.
And generally they're also not something the whole p
Yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, for the foreseeable future these lard suckers will continue to do what they are told and our politicians will continue to be a bunch of corrupt and hypocritical bastards whose only goal is to grab all the money they can for themselves. I'm hoping to be comfortably dead by the time this state of affairs changes, since it will probably end in a global environmental disaster, riots after all the oil runs out or economic collapse along the lines of what happened with Russia in the 90's.
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Ha
Seriously though, when the security infrastructure breaks down (as it did in Russia) those weapons become available to any fruitcake with an agenda. What amazes m
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But we need the wool..... (Score:3, Funny)
It's kinda sad, but unless your next government truly cleans up, you need a revolution, I'm scared and sad to say that less won't do.
I can tell you why that will not happen in two words:
"Baaaaaa......baaaaaaa......"
Cheeseburgers and circuses and... Blackwater. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it. They'll put up with enormous shit otherwise. So if you keep up the flow of cheeseburgers and TV, the dictators will rule forever. --Or until such a time as the rest of the world decides to invade or the whole system is so totally sucked dry that it collapses with a dry wheeze like Russia did at the end of the cold war. Yep, it's a grim situation. But it gets worse. . .
I'm not convinced that this is all about just simple control. Has anybody noticed there seem to be a lot more rocks falling out of the sky recently? I sure have. There's bigger stuff at stake here. All those miles of barbed wire enclosures don't get built for nothing. The next ten months are going to be interesting, to say the least. I hope for one of two things; that people wake the hell up and throw Bush and Cheney and crew in prison forever and reinstate a real government, or that we have a really, really good TV season in 2008 and that McDonnald's has a two for one special, because it's not just FEMA, --this Blackwater thing operating on American soil is totally freaky.
Excellent Youtube video [youtube.com] [youtube.com] dealing with this stuff. . .
-FL
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
Re:Sorrier... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the first few decades of the last century, labor unions were founded and became dominant in the US; by 1950 more than half of American workers were union, and, having won, the leaders turned to the next social problem, equal rights. Beginning in the mid-fifties, the same personalities, by and large, and methods were used to bring about legal racial equality, culminating in the Civil Rights and Voting Acts of 1964. In that year, the focus turned from unions and racial equality to (VietNam) war resistance.
Although both the Union and the Civil Rights movements survived many, many casualties in their struggle, they persisted until the goal was reached. Not so the the war resisters: the National Guard shootings of demonstrators at Kent State University, Ohio, stopped the "Peace" movement in its tracks.
Had the union or civil rights movements been abandoned because two people were killed in the resulting violence, nothing would have been accomplished.
Now, of course, no outrage is enough even to get our (US) citizens up in arms (pun intended).
The framers of our Constitution understood it was simply an *experiment* and once the government learned to game the people (as FEMA has apologized for) the people would replace it, having learned from the current experiment what pitfalls to avoid next time.
T. Jefferson reckoned the consititution ought to be replace every thirty years or so. We're WAAAYY overdue.
Liberty is fed with the blood of tyrants.
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Since when did the Kent State Massacre put an end to the anti-war movement? That's not how I remember it, and I've never even seen anyone claim this. The movement continued, the war became increasingly unpopular, and the US withdrew.
Incidentally, four students were killed at Kent State, not two: Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder. Only the first two were participants in the protest; the second two were bystanders.
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.
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And you folks once again miss the big picture! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, sireee, you had to get pissed because they got busted lying. This was an attempt to see how hijacking the press would work, is my guess. I don't recall if "commandeering" the press is yet among the executive orders, but the rest is in place.
Somehow, "I told you so" just does not seem to tell it.
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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=341413&cid=21136749 [slashdot.org]
Our government has repeatedly passed legislation, or denied legislation based upon business interests over individual interests for quite some time now. It's not surprising, considering that the risks are low that they will face consequences, and the rewards are spectacular. The worst bit is tha
We will get the government we deserve (Score:3, Interesting)
http://thisnovember5th.com/ [thisnovember5th.com]
Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
HEY! Back Off! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Three Stooges were firemen, and in the army, and plumbers, football players...
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
"What the hell did they manage to do before, so that they thought
they'd could also get this through?"
You are not going from zero to full speed when starting playing dirty.
You start small, next time you get a little bit more couragous,
and each time more. You either stop increasing the risk at
one point, or you'll get caught eventually.
The question is, what kind of ploys have been done by the jokers
responsible for this before, and didn't get noticed???
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
This was a really transparent and poorly executed scam, based probably on some sort of hubris-laden supposition that the American people will buy just about anything. Not too far from the truth, but apparently just far enough.
Katrina Response (Score:2, Funny)
FEMA candidate Slogans (Score:5, Funny)
FEMA: Where bad decision make someones life better.. we hope.
FEMA: If you can't take the heat fake the press.
FEMA: When drinking becomes a profession.
FEMA: You still get more upside out of us then your executive branch.
FEMA: When disasters strikes.. ohh god your fucked.
FEMA: for great justice.
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Ah, the joys of watching C-SPAN in the middle of the night...
I love this quote (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all... your the director of external affairs... Yep you should have stopped it... SO WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU.
Second, your working very hard to establish credibility and integrity... by trying to trick us into thinking your credible and trustworthy... that's exactly what you DON'T do to establish credibility and integrity.
Finally... I would say that doing exactly the wrong thing hasn't undermine your credibility and integrity, you didn't have any to begin with... this simply ensures that you never will until the current >20% has been eliminated, everyone in that conference resigns, and your agency actually handles a disaster like it knows what it is doing.
It is kind of ironic that FEMA, the agency that is supposed to clean up disasters, actually turns every disaster it is involved in into a bigger disaster through it's absolute incompetence and piss poor public image.
Re:I love this quote (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I love this quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Because he thought he'd get away with it?
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Re:I love this quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Devistating, but no Katrina (Score:5, Insightful)
Halle-frickin-lujah, Brother (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Devistating, but no Katrina (Score:5, Interesting)
So... (Score:5, Funny)
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I'll wait for Netcraft for confirmation.
Juxtaposition.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In essence, FEMA is not there to simply help out with expected situations, though that may be part of it. No matter the nobility or necessity, however, it is there, primarily, for unexpected emergencies, and it is simply not doing that job at the moment. Consider the juxtaposition between the rich socialites who have lived in the wildfire-prone region of California for so many years, and the disgustingly poor, predominately black population of New Orleans, who have lived there because their parents lived there, and because they cannot afford to move or live anywhere else. It all boils down to wealth disparity, and who benefits from it. I would encourage everyone to consider that.
Re:Juxtaposition.. (Score:4, Informative)
Baloney. Saying that California wildfires "happen every year, almost like clockwork" is like saying the same for hurricanes hitting the gulf coast, and discounting Katrina as a minor, typical event. Wildfires may be common, but fires that burn down hundreds of homes (many of them track homes, not out in the wilderness somewhere), shut down the greater part of a county, and force the evacuation of a half million people, are another thing altogether.
That said, I do agree with the poster above you that pointed out that the devastation caused by Katrina was probably far greater and that much harder to manage than the CA fires. FEMA had a relatively small role in this one. Evacuations were coordinated by the county and city. Firefighting was coordinated by Cal Fire. And FEMA did what exactly? Oh yes, they had news conferences. At least that's what I got from watching it on the news for 2-3 days non stop.
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Quote Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Which of my rights online is this about? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just asking.
This is a tech site you know, not Zonk's personal playground.
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Umm, how about the one to not be snowed by a government agency? If it's not a right it should be.
But please, keep posting about how stories don't fit their categories because I'm sure it will do you some good soon. After all you are the first person to think of it, and now that you've pointed out the error in the editors' ways I'm sure they'll correct it expediently.
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It's not even that the government tries to blow money into an inefficient system, more it's government trying to bullshit you into thinking everything's allright.
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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
Why we love the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
See, this is why, faults and all, the USA is loved around the world. It's like watching your goofy cousin make a fool of himself at the wedding reception.
Well
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stockpile of nuclear-tipped ICBMs, anyhow.
There, fixed it for you.
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That he's drunk most of the time doesn't really increase your trust in him either.
Harvey E. Johnson Jr. studied in Soviet Russia? (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia FEMA PR manual rushed to you.
How was Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University Harvey E. Johnson Jr?
They still don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
But regardless of whether they are truly sorry for this fiasco, they STILL don't get the problem. It's not that they staged a news conference, it's why they staged the conference that is the issue. They don't care about "emergency management", they only care about *public relations*. And while they claim that things are so much better than Katrina, this mock press conference only proves that nothing has changed.
On the positive side, Kanye West might be heartened to learn that it isn't just black people [boingboing.net] -- George Bush doesn't care about *anybody*.
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Wait 'til something like that happens in Texas.
Hardly unexpected (Score:2)
"Are you familiar with FEMA? What the Federal Emergency Management Agency's real power is? FEMA allows the White House to suspend constitutional government upon declaration of a national emergency. To create a non-elected government. Think about that."
The scientist goes on to describe FEMA's "broad, sweeping power."
FEMA's next step? (Score:5, Funny)
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Firefighting aircraft grounded by bureaucracy (Score:5, Informative)
The military offered helicopters for dropping water on the fires, but they weren't allowed to because California State Department of Forestry rules required that a CDF fire spotter ride in each aircraft. Not only did it take more than 24 hours to get the fire spotters to the choppers, but there weren't enough spotters to man all the available aircraft.
Some official allowed an exception to the rule to allow just one spotter for each squadron of three, but by the time this was all sorted out, the high winds proved to be too dangerous, and so the aircraft were grounded.
Had they been able to take off when first called upon, the winds wouldn't have been so severe and they might have been able to contain the fire.
What's worse is that the military has several C-130 transport planes on call for dropping very large amounts of water from the air. I saw one of these at the Big Bear Lake fire in 1985, and it was a truly awesome sight to behold.
However, it was determined that their tanks were unsafe, so several years ago they were taken out of service until a new tank could be designed. The first try at a new tank didn't fit in the planes - yes, you read that right - so they went back to the drawing board.
It's been four years since then and they still don't have a new tank design.
Let me find you a link [sfgate.com].
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http://thisnovember5th.com/ [thisnovember5th.com]
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And your post shows how effective the Republican strategy of discrediting Federal government is. FEMA was just as bad under Bush Sr [washingtonmonthly.com], after which Clinton made it into an effective organization (by appointing competent people), only for
the view from outside the US... (Score:2)
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So... (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife (Score:3, Insightful)
She's in Shanghai right now giving company training, getting disrespect from her students because she's 5'4", blond, and female (most of all); and there's nothing she can do about it because the double standard nowadays is that we as Americans MUST respect everyone else's culture but they are allowed to do fuck all to us in their homeland and in ours and we must respect that lest they perceive insult... When our own government makes a mockery of itself in full view of it's constituents then how are we any different from any hard-line, third-world, dictator state?
Wow that went south in a hurry. Sorry for that. Fema sucks.
fire them, they broke the law (Score:4, Informative)
here's the relevant letter from the GAO: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20050222093810-51492.pdf [house.gov]
any FEMA administrator that knew that fake reporters were asking the questions needs to immediately resign or be indicted if they try to avoid responsibility for this propaganda
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]
"Philbin's last ... day at FEMA was Thursday" (Score:5, Informative)
From the end of the TFA:
O. M. G.
Par for the course... (Score:4, Insightful)
Goofy cousin with ICBMs, indeed. Not just goofy, but aggressive, arrogant and loud-mouthed as well.
Fortunately, your fascism will be a capitalist one, so it's OK!
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).
Mistaken topic (Score:4, Informative)
Start impersonating competent people (Score:5, Funny)
in which FEMA employees posed as reporters
Maybe one of these days FEMA employees could start impersonating first responders.
Sorry? (Score:3)
Re:Fake news (Score:4)
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(FX:Sits back and waits for hoards that don't)
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Re:First Post (Score:4, Informative)
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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.