[Peace-discuss] USG thought control

[Robert Naiman]

We should get T-shirts and bumper stickers printed up.

"I read WikiLeaks cables and I vote"

"Another American who reads WikiLeaks cables"

"I'd rather be reading WikiLeaks cables"

"I read WikiLeaks cables, thanks to the First Amendment"

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 6:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
> Air Force Abandons WikiLeaks Threats Against Servicemembers’ Families
> Backs Off Threat to Try Average Americans as Spies for Reading Docs
> by Jason Ditz, February 08, 2011
>
> The US Air Force has backed off of its puzzling threat to prosecute members
> of servicemembers’ families for “espionage” if they read WikiLeaks today,
> insisting that the “guidance” they released was actually not sanctions by
> headquarters and was not in keeping with official policy.
>
> The guidance was dated Friday but only became public knowledge yesterday,
> and insisted that anyone who read the documents faced prosecution under the
> Espionage Act, warning members of the Air Force to make sure their families
> in particular didn’t attempt to read the cables.
>
> Later, a spokeswoman for the Air Force sought to justify the guidance,
> insisting it was meant to “give guidance to military and civilian
> servicemembers and employees to control their young’uns,” because apparently
> having young people reading about foreign policy was a big problem.
>
> But the threat, like so many before them, was illusory and immediately
> abandoned when people began to question it. The Obama Administration has
> still not reversed its ban on millions of federal employees reading the
> documents, and the Air Force has still banned websites which contain
> information related to the cables from their computers.
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-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org