Nieman Watchdog is a new web-based project devoted to questions the press should ask. It's run by Barry Susman, assisted by my brother (who will be doing this in addition to his White House Briefing gig). As you'd expect with anything supported by the Nieman Foundation, it boasts a star-studded (if Ivy-heavy) list of contributors …one of whom I'm happy to see is Brad DeLong.
Check out the list of questions the Neiman Watchdog thinks reporters should be asking.
JURIST reports that Australia asks US to lift gag on terror suspect's lawyers:
Following claims that two Australian nationals were abused while detained at Guantanamo Bay, the Australian government has asked the US to lift a confidentiality agreement signed by lawyers for David Hicks that bars the attorneys from revealing details of the abuse at Guantanamo Bay. Australia has also asked for a psychological assessment of a second detainee, Mamdouh Habib, whom a former cellmate said has become mentally unbalanced after guards falsely told him that his wife and children have died.
It just gets worse.
More later, but meanwhile just a note to say that I'm involved in this lawsuit, about which there is now early press coverage.
The case raises very interesting and difficult legal issues.
I love the look of the blogbook, evoking as it does that Book which is the bane of every law students' first year, and of every law journal editor's third year, albeit the guarantor of employment for legions of research assistants. That said, the project itself—finding a standard way for legal authors to cite blogs—produces decidedly mixed emotions of 'makes sense' and 'neutered already?'.
Only a Few Spoke Up on Abuse as Many Soldiers Stayed Silent—the New York Times reports on Joseph Darby and the small number of other soldiers with the decency and the guts to report abuses.
As we know, neither the right-wing media nor his neighbors have been especially kind to Spec. Darby, the soldier who made one of the important early reports.
One way to begin to restore some of my confidence in the system would be to give Spec. Darby and the other early complainants a medal or two. If there isn't an appropriate medal in the military arsenal, then it is time to create one.
It would be the right thing to do.
This Diogenes Cynic guy says he has 53 Bush Campaign Lies — that's from the 2004 campaign, doesn't count the ones from 2000. (spotted via Talk Left)
Jotwell Blenderlaw