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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....
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To: Sully- who wrote (22330)9/12/2006 10:51:44 AM
From: Sully-   of 35834
 
Are we safer

Betsy's Page

The Media Research Center has done a study of how the nightly news has covered the war on terror to show that the major focus has been on the threat to our liberties rather than on the terrorism such methods might be preventing. Context is missing.

<<< According to a new study by the Media Research Center (MRC), in fact, TV coverage of the domestic War on Terror has focused most intently not on the threat to our lives but on alleged threats to civil liberties.

The latter demands discussion in an era when potentially intrusive law- enforcement tools are indispensable weapons against an unconventional enemy. Yet when the MRC reviewed all CBS, ABC and NBC evening news segments about three major aspects of the war -- a total of 496 reports since 9/11 -- it found almost no debate or context. Judging by most of the segments, the Patriot Act, the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay and NSA surveillance are legal atrocities with little or no security value.

The full MRC study will be available today on its Web site, www.mrc.org. In summary, it found that "most TV news stories about the Patriot Act (62%) highlighted complaints or fears that the law infringed on the civil liberties of innocent Americans....Only one report suggested the Patriot Act and other anti-terrorism measures 'may not be enough.'"

Of 277 segments about Guantanamo, the MRC says, "most of the network coverage...focused on charges that the captured al-Qaeda terrorists were due additional rights or privileges...or allegations that detainees were being mistreated or abused....Only 39 stories described the inmates as dangerous, and just six stories revealed that ex-detainees had committed new acts of terror after being released."

Finally, on phone-call monitoring, "most network stories (59%) cast the NSA's post-9/11 terrorist surveillance program as either legally dubious or outright illegal. Only 21 stories (16%) focused on the program's value as a weapon in the War on Terror." >>>

Yes, it is important to know if the government is limiting our liberties, but it is also important to get an idea if the measures the government has taken actually are protecting us. Then we can better make an evaluation of the tradeoffs involved.

betsyspage.blogspot.com

online.wsj.com
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