Freedom of the Press Lost in Iraq

By Eric on July 2, 2008

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU reveals how the Defense Department restricts American journalists’ freedom of the press in order to paint a deceptively positive picture of the War in Iraq:

Through its FOIA project, the ACLU has made public information on Defense Department policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These practices include:

• Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas;
• Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;
• Inviting U.S. journalists to “embed” with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review;
• Erasing journalists’ footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and
• Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.

The Pentagon’s domestic propaganda program was only the tip of the iceberg. We’ll be hearing about more atrocities well into the Obama administration.

(via ThinkProgress)

Tags: ACLU, First Amendment, FOIA, Iraq, propaganda

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