(Sports) FIFA: Finally Someone Gave FIFA The Red Card for Bringing The Game Into Disrepute

The events of Wednesday which saw 9 FIFA officials arrested brought a lot of surprise among spectators of the sport but not much shock as football fans across the world are patently aware that FIFA is probably the most corrupt sporting organization in the history of sport itself.

The organization has been subject to one damaging report, inquiry, expose and incident after another for years on end with no one really taking real action to reform the organization or against the number of individuals under the organization’s banner who have been accused of graft until now with the US Department of Justice, in conjunction with the Swiss Attorney General, shocking the world with its bold action against a number of leading officials in the much disliked organization.

We’ve always known that a number of individuals in the organization we’re dirty but looking at the charges levied against the group Swiss authorities bagged up from the stylish Baur au Lac hotel, these soon to be former FIFA officials are looking at serious time behind should they found guilty. According to a report by Forbes magazine, “the charges allege a widespread pattern of corruption—including the bid process for World Cups as well as marketing and broadcast deals, according to three law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case. According to the report, charges include wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering, and officials said they targeted members of FIFA’s powerful executive committee”[1].

The nine individuals charged by US and Swiss authorities are or were high ranking officials in FIFA with some even holding more than one key role including current FIFA Vice president, executive committee member of Caribbean Football Union and Cayman Islands Football Association President Jeffrey Webb, Former FIFA vice president and CONCACAF president Jack Warner and current FIFA vice president and executive committee member Eugenio Figueredo. The charges are also levied against four other sports marketing executives.

This news comes at the worst time for FIFA president Sepp Blatter currently in the middle of a presidential election he’s heavily tipped to win and handily even in light of the news of a slew of current and former FIFA executive committee members have been placed under arrest and set to be extradited to the US.

However, while this news wasn’t welcome to FIFA HQ, it was the best news football fans and insiders have had about FIFA in years as, frankly, FIFA and football itself could have done with this type of bold action ages ago.

Allegations of corruption have engulfed the sporting body for years on end with little to no action taken against the individuals involved despite the countless reports providing solid evidence of wrongdoing. How FIFA is setup and run leaves it open to graft and outright bribery as accountability is left seriously wanting. The lack of accountability is why FIFA’s executive committee can get away with secretly awarding itself a pay rise and Blatter can allegedly, according to International Businesses Times, get away with rewarding the members of the  executive committee with “$4.4 million in bonuses after FIFA’s windfall at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa”[2].

This lack of accountability persists because the most powerful figures in FIFA with the power to effect change won’t push for reform because they’re complicit in the organization’s corruptibility. FIFA’s executive committee is easily it’s most corrupt decision making body in the organization as the majority of individuals mired in the scandals in the last 15 years where either serving or former vice presidents or members of  the committee.

Just two weeks before the Swiss raid, another executive committee member was mired in scandal as former FIFA vice president and Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) president Reynald Temarii was banned for 8 years for making the truly stupid mistake of taking money from former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam (mired in scandal himself as you’ll find out later) to fight, you guessed it, a corruption case back in 2011. Corruption on top of corruption is what you find when you take a closer look at truly rotten organization that is FIFA as the body initially punished Temarii for “breaking confidentiality and loyalty rules by discussing the World Cup votes with undercover reporters from the Sunday Times”[3].

Temarii, along with a slew of  current and former FIFA executive committee members, have all fallen victim from the fall out of Russia and Qatar winning the right to host the 2018 and 2022 with many still baffled as to how Qatar won the 2022 bid but just about everybody had the same idea about why they won.

Impropriety surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process has been part of the FBI’s investigation against the nine former and current FIFA executives which has led to their headline making arrest and inevitable extradition. Their investigation centered around, you guessed it, another former FIFA executive committee member and former General Secretary of CONCACAF Chuck Blazer who was cooperating the FBI in light of his own tax beef with the feds since 2011.

Chuck Blazer, who served under Jack Warner ( one of the nine targeted by the joint US and Swiss operation)  is responsible for Warner’s initial dismissal from FIFA as he informed FIFA back in 2011 of a vote buying plot between the then CONCACAF president and former FIFA presidential candidate Mohammed bin Hammam (remember him?) to sure up votes in Caribbean[4]. Blazer’s cooperation With the FBI saw him, according to the NY Daily News, wired up in conversations with “Russian, Hungarian, Australian and American soccer officials to arrange meetings the feds wanted him to secretly record” among others[5]. Blazer has been at the center of a sprawling investigation that’s global in nature and “stretch from the Caribbean to Zurich, from Australia to Moscow to Qatar, the small Arab nation playing host to the 2022 World Cup”[6]. Given how sprawling this investigation has been, there strong suggestion that the 14 arrests are just the beginning.

FIFA, instead of seriously attempting to address the numerous accounts of corruptions surrounding the 2018 and 2022 bidding process has either done nothing to reform how decisions get made in the organization or stymied independent investigations into wrongdoing surrounding the bidding process.

The best example to illustrate just how impervious FIFA is to true accountability is how it basically killed Michael Garcia’s report regarding the 2018 and 2022 bidding process as FIFA’ ethics committee published just 40 pages of Garcia’s 430 page that cleared Russia and Qatar (and by extension FIFA itself) of all wrongdoing.

However, Garcia’s report was doomed from the start as Bonita Mersiades, a FIFA whistleblower who claimed she received threats in planning to release a book about the World Cup bidding process, rightly noted that “The whole concept of having an investigation by FIFA about FIFA by people paid by FIFA - that's not what an independent investigation is”[7].

This ridiculous state of affairs is only matched by the justifications for not publishing Garcia’s report in full with current FIFA president Sepp Blatter citing that publishing the report in full would “violate not only it's in rules and regulations but also Swiss law by making public the report in question”[8]. Blatter is well aware that this is not particularly true as his main motive is not get to the truth about the world cup bidding process but protect the organization from legal attacks as Blatter believed “every person in the report would have to give consent to publication - something that would be practically impossible”[9].

However Blatter and FIFA are going to need more than ridiculous excuses to survive the aftermath of US and Swiss operation that started with the surprising decision to go with Russia and Qatar given, according to Grantland “FIFA’s inspection team had evaluated all nine bids and rated Russia and Qatar as the riskiest of the lot”[10] . Both nations’s ability to host an event of the World Cups magnitude were questioned as Russia “presented major infrastructure problems” and Qatar, according to FIFA’s own inspection team members, blazing hot summers posed a “ potential health risk for players, officials, the FIFA family and spectators”[11]. The winning bids also didn’t make commercial sense as other bids from countries like England, the United States and Japan ”outperformed the winning nations in both tournament-readiness and revenue potential”[12].

Add into the pot that both countries have poor human rights records, a less than cordial stance towards the LGBT community and are both undemocratic, you get the feeling that something is amiss.

Since then, Qatar has been a rolling headache for FIFA and Blatter since the announcement of their winning bid with the press, unions and various human rights organizations shinning a damning light on the horrendous conditions suffered by migrant workers charged with bringing to life Qatar ambitions plans for World Cup 2022. FIFA has a lost a number of sponsors thanks to the tragic stories of workers dying on site, their families not being able to bury their dead and workers being denied their ability to leave as Deadspin reported that They’re (migrant workers, mostly from Nepal) generally banned from leaving the country, period, or quitting their jobs, or traveling anywhere in a FIFA-branded Kia, because they are slaves”[13].

The increasing focus on the horrible conditions of migrant workers in Qatar has also shone light on the business deals that made these horrible conditions possible with Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz zeroing in on oil company Petrolina and it director who not only sits on the FIFA executive committee but backed Russia’s and Qatar’s winning bids. Petrolina has come up trumps since as the cyprus based company made  lucrative energy deals with both Russia and Qatar which saw their “profits (go up) by a third”[14].

The terrible conditions suffered by migrant workers in Qatar has inspired outrage from the Nepalese government (Nepal has a large number of citizens working in Qatar) who were less than pleased when the gulf country refused to give Nepal workers on World Cup construction projects special leave  who lost their relatives in a deadly earthquake a month ago. The reason given for the refusal was quite telling as Qatar stressed, according to Nepal’s labour minister, “the pressure to complete (World Cup) projects on time”[15]. What this means is, thanks to FIFA migrant workers from Nepal will have wait to say goodbye to loved ones because their bosses are feeling the pressure from on high to make further progress at their expense.

This horrible state of affairs is only possible because Nepal is neither the biggest or most powerful country in world which allows Qatar and FIFA to basically ignore the country and the needs of citizens just to keep up on schedule for the 2022 deadline which shows A level indifference and D level humanity on part of both Qatar and FIFA.     

This A level Indifference and D level Humanity was displayed by current FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke who recently paid a visit to Qatar and praised the facilities despite surely being aware that World Cup construction sites has claimed thousands of lives and if the 2022 World Cup goes ahead, is estimated to claim more lives than the September 11^th attacks[16].

FIFA has been under pressure from sponsors of late after thanks to the truly miserable conditions migrant workers find themselves in building the vision Qatari officials sold FIFA on to host the 2022 world cup. Just last week long time FIFA sponsor Visa was compelled to release to encourage FIFA to "remedy" the harrowing stories regarding the poor conditions of migrant workers[17].  Sponsors almost never urge Fifa to take on issues like the treatment of migrant workers but given how bad it’s making both FIFA and its sponsors look, it was only a matter of time.

Sponsors themselves have the subject of external pressure as the guardian reported “a coalition of trade union groups and MPs coordinated by Jaimie Fuller, chairman of the sportswear company Skins, called on sponsors to take a stand against the abuse of migrant workers in the tiny Gulf state (Qatar)”[18].

Russia on the other hand, much like Brazil previously, are feeling the weight of the financial burden placed on the country. There are even questions surrounding whether Russia has the means to brook the financial cost to host the 2018 World Cup in lieu of crippling sanctions from the west. Also taking into consideration that the low oil prices has had a detrimental effect to Russia’s energy driven economy, it’s no surprise that the Russian government has announced a $71 million cut to its $13.2 billion World Cup budget[19] .

Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, has so far had no charges levied against him by the DoJ or Swiss authorizes but has received calls from far and wide to resign from his post just a day out from the organization's presidential election which he is slated to win handily. This is quite remarkable given the sitting FIFA president has been surrounded by scandal pretty much since he got the top job. Unlike any other election, you'll hear no hear no praise nor read no tracts bolstering his incumbency simply because no one, and I mean no one, is in support of his presidency outside of the large sums of money FIFA has generated and distributed to its member nations over his reign.

Blatter is comfortably the most unpopular man in the sport and yet it looks like he will get an extra four years presiding over an organization that has brought the beautiful game into disrepute. FIFA's current president will likely hear numerous calls for him to step down as his position has become untenable given the level of corruption that has proliferated under his watch which exposes Blatter to claims of either his complicity or incompetence given that so much graft has been exposed in the past but largely gone unpunished.

How such a man can endure in a position of power while being a grossly unpopular figure is testament to how the organization itself is setup and the returns FIFA have made off the World Cups sponsorship and TV deals under Blatter's reign. While FIFA is a non-profit, the organization makes money hand over fist and this gives Blatter a lot of power to buy friends in the organization to secure his power base. Because the member nation’s benefit from the fantastic return Blatter has managed under his reign, it gives member nations the incentive to, in the words of Forbes Magazine's Zach Bergson, "vote for status quo and more financial success by many delegates"

This  sorry state of affairs ensures that despite how bad the organization reeks of corruption, member of FIFA's congress have to grin and bear one shameful scandal after another as their choice to stick with the devil they know rather they angel they don't ensures the sport is set to endure more incidents that blacken the name of the sport.

It also ensures that Blatter can even gloat about his staying power as he recently referred to himself as a “mountain goat that keeps going and going and going” after his two of his rivals for the presidency dropped out of the campaign[20]. However the stamina of the mountain goal is not appreciated everybody as Argentine and all time football great Diego Maradona laid waste to the incumbent Fifa president emphasizing the damning irony of the notable lack of popular support for Blatter’s presidency yet the air of inevitability among many in the sport about his re-election as Fifa president.

Maradona attacked the incumbent president record on addressing racism in the sport and women’s football as he barbed ““Recently he pledged to follow through in addressing racism in football and promoting women in the sport. That made me laugh. My question is: ‘Sepp, what were you doing in your last four terms?’”[21]. However, Maradona last sentence regarding Blatter reign and Fifa seemed to echo associated the sentiment of just about everybody in the sport as he noted “If this is the face of international, we are in a very bad place”.

A very bad place indeed.

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[1] M. Brown, 2015, More Than 10 FIFA Officials Arrested Over Corruption, Scheduled To Be Extradited To US, http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2015/05/27/more-than-10-fifa-officials-arrested-over-corruption-scheduled-to-be-extradited-to-the-u-s/

[2] T. Barrabi, 2014, FIFA Secret Pay Raises: Executive Committee members had Salaries Doubled, report says, http://www.ibtimes.com/fifa-secret-pay-raises-executive-committee-members-had-salaries-doubled-report-says-1609148

[3]

[4] T.Thompson et al, 2014, Soccer Rat! The inside story of Chuck Blazer, ex-US soccer executive and FIFA bigwig, became a confidential informant for the FBI, http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/soccer/soccer-rat-ex-u-s-soccer-exec-chuck-blazer-fbi-informant-article-1.1995761

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] Sky Sports, 2014, FIFA corruption whistleblower reveals threats over book about 2022 bidding process, http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12098/9566360/fifa-corruption-whistleblower-reveals-threats-over-book-about-2022-bidding-process

[8] Daily Record, 2014,  FIFA president Sepp Blatter rejects English FA over allegations of corruption, http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/fifa-president-sepp-blatter-rejects-4656947

[9] Ibid      

[10] B. Phillips, 2011, Corruption, Murder, and the Beautiful Game, http://grantland.com/features/corruption-murder-beautiful-game/

[11] Ibid, (quote by B.Phillips)

[12] Ibid

[13] T.Burke, 2015, FIFA Slaves Banned From Attending Relatives Funerals, http://deadspin.com/fifa-slaves-banned-from-attending-relatives-funerals-1706700425

[14] D.Moskovitz, 2015, German TV program Shows Qatar Slave Conditions, More FIFA Corruption, http://screamer.deadspin.com/german-tv-program-shows-qatar-slave-conditions-more-fi-1702124833

[15] M. Hanrahan, 2015, Nepali Minister Blast Qatar, FIFA, Over Treatment Of World Cup Migrant Workers, http://www.ibtimes.com/nepali-minister-blasts-qatar-fifa-over-treatment-world-cup-migrant-workers-1936125

[16] B. Glanville, 2015, FIFA’s den of thieves free to carry on with their corruption, http://www.worldsoccer.com/columnists/brian-glanville/fifas-den-of-thieves-free-to-carry-on-with-their-corruption-360053

[17] O. Gibson, 2015, Visa expresses ‘grave concern’ to Fifa over migrant work in Qatar, http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/20/visa-fifa-migrant-workers-qatar-world-cup

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid

[20] The Guardian, 2015, Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, likens himself to a mountain goat, http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/24/sepp-blatter-fifa-president-mountain-goat

[21] Ibid, ( Quote by the Guardian)

(The Big Disrupt) Comcast: Did The DoJ Just Do Comcast A Favour?

Comcast has been working overtime to secure their $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable but with the recent news of the DoJ preparing to block the merger, it look like Comcast might be unsuccessful in its bid.

While Comcast might feel like the DoJ sent a fax to Cleveland in their cornflakes, there's a strong argument that the DoJ just did Comcast a solid. Mergers are not exactly a bad thing and could, if done right, benefit both parties but as recent history has shown, mergers are particularly difficult to pull off. There are a number of reasons why mergers are difficult but the most difficult obstacle in the way of success is merging the organizational culture of the parties involved which, more often than not, are likely to clash. 

Companies have enough trouble trying to get the culture right in their own organization so just imagine the tumult caused by trying to create a new culture when both parties were more than happy with the ones they had. Why Comcast would be prepared to take on all these hard issues to merger with Time Warner might seem strange given the history of high profile mergers failing but in Comcast case, it's actually a decent strategy. If the merger happens, Comcast would bolster their dominant position in both cable and broadband. 

It would also allow Comcast turn the screws on Netflix (which has both Comcast and its nearest competitors beat combined in subscribers) even more than it has already and check the trend led by HBO (who just happen to be owned by Time Warner) and other popular cable networks of raising transmission fees while launching their own standalone services to reach out to millennial who largely get their entertainment fix online.

These rising transmission fees is why Comcast is known for its exorbitant monthly cable fees and why there's a whole generation is cutting their cable or avoiding cable altogether. Simply put, Comcast can see the blood on the leaves and a merger with Time Warner is a move in the right direction to make sure it's not theirs. But, in the end, the blood on leaves will be theirs as regulators, cable networks and most importantly consumers see the merger attempt for what it is.

What angers most about the Comcast and Time Warner is not the merger itself but that Comcast has other options, the first being that the Philadelphia company could go on the offensive and tackle issues with its service and the new trends in their marketplace head on but instead, Comcast has resorted to playing defense, badly. The executives at Comcast are smart enough to know that a whole generation is more likely to flick on their laptop or smartphone than their TV sets when they want to watch their favorite shows but fail to meet the new demand for unbundled "al a carte" television or even address its notoriously bad customer service adequately.    

Comcast isn't necessarily doing anything wrong merging with Time Warner but they're employing a defensive strategy that might buy them time and some leverage but not for long. While Comcast is largely adopting a strategy of mergers and acquisition that has come to define the cable and media industry, it only points to the weakness of the industry as a whole as they try to arrest the winds of change by huddling around a dimming camp fire.

In sum, whether the DoJ and/or the FCC (which they likely won't) approve the merger or not, Comcast fate is largely in their hands.

(Politics) Department of Justice: News of the DOJ targeting AP for spying should be no shock to anybody, especially AP

There has been an uproar across the media with the news of the Department of Justice running a secret investigation on the Associated Press in which the DOJ had  “secretly obtained the phone records of journalists at the wire service’s (AP) news-gathering operations”[1]. The investigation was spurred by a series of ‘damaging’ leaks which led to US Attorney General Eric Holder hiring US attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.  to investigate the news organisation due to its apparent leak of  “classified information about a foiled terror plot in Yemen”[2].

In light of the public reaction to the secretly conducted investigation into AP, Holder has done his best to deflect responsibility from himself citing the role of his deputy James Cole in signing off on the investigation and his decision to recuse “himself early on in the investigation”[3]. However his efforts to quell the criticism of himself and the DOJ were quashed as AP sought to offer their public response.

AP president Gary Pruitt was less than pleased as he right admonished the DOJ opting to investigate in  secret “rather than talk to us in advance…”[4]. Pruitt was also critical of the usual rationale of “national security” offered by governments when caught red handed when point out that “They (DOJ) say this secrecy is important for national security. It is always difficult to respond to that, particularly since they still haven’t told us specifically what they are investigating”[5].

Republicans in response have made haste in admonishing Holder with Reince Priebus, Head of the RNC, stating the importance of the first amendment and that must be respected[6]. If past events are to count for anything, Holder could face White House pressure to resign as the government was quick to distance itself from Holder and the DOJ  as Whitehouse Press Secretary Jay Carney stated that “president is a strong defender of the first amendment” as if he was speaking in response to Priebus’s remarks[7]. However for all of the talk offered about the violation of the first amendment, what really should be up for discussion is the daily violation of the fourth.

Just last week, the DOJ came in for criticism after a report came to light that the DOJ  and the FBI were of the position that “they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files”[8]. What this means in practice is that the DOJ and FBI can obtain private information without a warrant and a subpoena is enough “ to obtain nearly "all records from an ISP”[9].

To do this the DOJ  has been flouting a court ruling made three years ago that deemed “warrantless access to e-mail violates the Fourth Amendment” with the FBI instructing its agents that they "may subpoena" e-mail records from companies "without running afoul of" the Fourth Amendment”[10].

While US lawmakers have paid much lip service about doing something about constant violation of the fourth amendment by the DOJ, Congress has largely helped usher in laws that undermine the right to privacy, starting with the still controversial 2001 Patriot Act, which was the brainchild of the DOJ .

While Democratic Senator Mark Udall of Colorado and others has expressed his “concern” regarding the DOJ and the FBI stance and use of “warrantless searches” and the need to make amendments to the 27 year old Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Udall and others had been more scornful of the IRS recent breach of the Fourth Amendment in a signed letter stating their belief that the IRS’s “… actions are a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures"[11]

US companies have been more forthcoming with their reservations about the DOJ wanton violation of the Fourth Amendment a number of companies  “including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, eBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and Twitter, as well as liberal, conservative, and libertarian advocacy groups” have been asking for changes current laws that ensure that “ law enforcement needs a warrant to access private communications and the locations of mobile devices”[12].

The cruel irony of  the use of warrantless searches and seizure violating the Fourth amendment is that it provides an avenue for the very people used to justify them to weaken the cases prosecuting them. This is happening in a case against two brothers who embarked on a failed terror plot as the evidence against them was obtained “through the National Security Agency’s post-9/11 mass surveillance program” which would be fine if it didn’t mean that the “constitutionality of the NSA’s surveillance methods would be scrutinized”[13]. This has huge ramifications as this can lead to “legal challenges” upon whether the methods used obtain the evidence in question was constitutional triggering appeals to the Supreme Court[14].

In sum, While there has widespread surprise and anger towards Holder and the DOJ, what happened to the Associated press was just the symptom of a much larger cancer that ailed the United States for more than decade and has made a mockery of  the Fourth Amendment. This case bring into play an old but still relevant date between the compromise between liberty and security however a brief study of what has happened over the last decade will make clear for anybody willing to see that this debate has now become obsolete.    

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[1] J. C. Timm, 2013, Justice Department seizes journalists’ records,

 http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/14/ap-stunned-as-doj-seizes-journalists-records/

[2] Ibid

[3] Fox News, 2013, Holder says AP proble handled by deputy after he recued himself, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/14/holder-recuses-himself-from-doj-probe-associated-press-phone-records/

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] D. McCullagh, 2013, DOJ: We don’t need warrants for e-mail, facebook chats,

 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57583395-38/doj-we-dont-need-warrants-for-e-mail-facebook-chats/

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] D. McCullagh, 2013, Senators demands DOJ, Fbi seek warrants to read e-mail, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57583743-38/senator-demands-doj-fbi-seek-warrants-to-read-e-mail/

[12] D. McCullagh, 2013, DOJ: We don’t need warrants for e-mail, facebook chats,

 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57583395-38/doj-we-dont-need-warrants-for-e-mail-facebook-chats/

[13] N. Lennard, 2013, New York terror suspect case could challenge NSA spying, http://www.salon.com/2013/05/13/new_york_terror_suspect_case_could_challenge_nsa_spying/singleton/

[14] Ibid

(Politics) AP Phone Records Seized: Justice Department Under Fire

Attorney General Eric Holder testifies in defense of the Justice Department

With increasing opposition amid the recent privacy laws passed in the last couple years, it seems that such a controversy could not have arisen at a more pointed time. In fact, the Justice Department of the United States Government has just recently been in the spotlight for extending big brother’s arm – just a little bit too far. The JD surreptitiously has obtained over two months of phone record information from journalists on staff at the Associated Press in what AP execs are calling a “"massive and unprecedented intrusion.” Why AP was targeted, and for what reason the specific duration – April and May of 2012 –was sought after still remains a mystery.

The records, albeit detailed, really only track incoming and outgoing phone calls, the phone numbers involved, the length of each telephone call, and personal and general phone numbers for AP staff members across the United States; namely, in New York, Washington, and Connecticut. Even still, the Justice Department snagged over twenty different phone lines from various journalists who had reported numerous stories and incidents concerning debatable governmental issues last year. Hence, it appears the aforementioned journalists were, in fact, targeted for a specific reason.

Nevertheless, the Associated Press is vehemently fighting back in what they believe is an unprecedented attack on the freedom of speech and the right to privacy. President of AP and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt stated: “the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation.” Pruitt is challenging the government to return all records obtained and the phone numbers therewith. Although the two month period seems relatively short, Pruitt is vexed by the fact that even such a small duration could easily expose intercourse with confidential sources whereby AP garnered many of their inside news stories. Such exposure would compromise the Associated Press’ entire proceedings of gathering information about the government.

In a response letter to Pruitt, the government revealed no information about how the information was obtained, and offered no explanation as to why the records were usurped as well. The records were, however, speculatively gathered in order to investigate specific reporters who supposedly leaked confidential information back in May of 2012. Even still, there was never any evidence that such obtained phone calls were ever monitored by the government. All such information, even still, is sheer conjecture.

What is known, however, is the story which was so highly contested by the government, back on May 7, 2012. Written by AP journalists, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman –along with contributions from Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram – these journalists exposed covert CIA action in Yemen, and their attempt to stop a supposed attempted terror bomb plot. The story shed a glimmer of light on some of the secret operations of the CIA, and how heavily involved the military is in the Middle-East and Africa regardless of what the main-stream media is propagating to the contrary. All of the aforesaid journalists who worked on the May 7 story were among the reporters who had their phone records seized by the Justice Department.

The Carnage Report // http://thecarnagereport.blogspot.com // 2013

Brent McCulley on Twitter // http://twitter.com/brentthewalrus

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