FoxNews Shut Out of Canada

Fox Shut Out of Canada Because of a Law Against Lying During Newscasts

UPDATED:  1-12-12

News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, was hoping to open a propaganda branch in Canada — called “Sun News TV” (or “Fox North”).  It was hoping its crony in Ottawa, winger Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would be successful in overturning a law prohibiting lying on broadcast news.  (Imagine that.  There is a law in Canada prohibiting lying during newscasts.  How civilized.)  But, thank goodness there is still some sanity in the world; they were wrong:

As America’s middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades – against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News – fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

Canada’s Radio Act requires that “a licenser may not broadcast … any false or misleading news.” The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage, including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1987.

Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the US airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish the anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non-partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper’s proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right-wing network, “Sun TV News” which Canadians call “Fox News North.”

Something like this would never happen in the US because the people in Washington work for the corporations, not for the good of the country but, again, it’s nice to know sanity still exists somewhere in the world.

Congratulations Canada!

Now we wait to see if “Sun News TV” agrees not to lie, something I think it’s incapable of.  Telling the truth isn’t part of its consciousness or its business model.

UPDATED 1-12-12 @6:47 p.m. ET:  Thanks to all for the lively, well-informed and thought-provoking comments.  I would like to say a few things:  The person who put this post up is no longer with me.  After reading some of what has been said here, I followed the links through and I believe this is where the (inaccurate) assertion that News Corp. owns Sun News came from:

The run-up to the licensing of Sun TV News spurred passionate debate about whether Canadians will embrace a news channel modelled on the successful Fox News Channel in the U.S.

Quebecor Media¹s chances of landing a license for the upstart cable channel were dealt a blow when it was revealed that Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and representatives of Quebecor Media had secretly lunched in New York City with Rupert Murdoch and Fox News president Roger Ailes.

That forced Peladeau to disavow any links between Sun TV News and Fox News, as critics claimed, or that Harper¹s conservative government had conspired to bring a Fox-style news channel to Canada.

A link to that article is contained in the post one goes to when one clicks on “they were wrong” in the first paragraph above.  I apologize for not having noticed this error at the time this post went up and though, again, I did not compose it or post it, since this is my blog, it is my responsibility.

Second, there is this about Fox broadcasting in Canada now:

In 2003, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) rejected a Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA) application to bring Fox News to Canada because Fox News U.S. and Global Television were planning to create Fox News Canada, a combination of U.S. and Canadian news. However in 2004, after a Fox U.S. executive said there were no plans to create the combined channel, the CRTC approved an application to bring Fox News to Canada.^[77]

Fox News Channel is currently offered by Access Communications, Bell TV, Cogeco, Eastlink, Manitoba Telecom Services, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw Cable, Shaw Direct and Telus TV. A notable exception is Vidéotron, Canada’s third largest cable company, which has not added Fox News Channel to its lineup.

I don’t know if the individual who put up this post was aware of the above information — I would say not — but though the article says an application was approved to bring Fox News to Canada, despite some quick research, I do not get the impression that Fox News has a channel broadcast from Canada, staffed with Canadians, aimed at Canadians.  Far as I can tell, the Fox News seen in Canada is the Fox News produced out of New York City, and it is the same version we see here in the states.  So, again, far as I can tell, Fox still hasn’t been granted permission to produce a separate, Canadian-centered news show in Canada.

So, I hope this addresses some of the very good points made on the comment thread.  Again, this is my blog and I take full responsibility for the post but prior to today I had no idea it contained such major flaws, primarily the clear implication that News Corp. owns Sun News.

I am the only one posting here as of roughly seven months ago and I insofar as I believe propaganda spread by Fox and the U.S. corporate media is literally a threat to our democracy, I take facts and accuracy dead seriously and I apologize that the flaws in this post weren’t corrected immediately.

Melanie

http://sayitaintsoalready.com/2011/03/02/fox-shut-out-of-canada-because-of-a-law-against-lying-during-newscasts/

Vintage Bottle of Ant Poison Labels Fluoride As Deadly Poison

Fluoride soft kill continues amid overwhelming evidence of dangers

The Intel Hub
By Kyle Joseph
January 13, 2012

What I purchased is a vintage bottle of ant poison which surprisingly had never been opened.

I would not want to consume the contents inside this vintage bottle of insecticide, nor would I ever want to use this product, but in reality we have all consumed the contents in this insecticide because the active ingredient is composed of 95% Sodium Fluoride.

If you are curious as to why Sodium Fluoride is the active ingredient in a vintage bottle of ant poison, the answer is simple: because it has patents for it.

Yes, Sodium Fluoride has patents for insecticides dating back to 1896 when Charles Henry HIGBEE patented the compounds of fluorine for the purpose of destroying insects.

The bottle of Ant Pizen I have states:

“CAUTION This preparation contains sodium fluoride which is a deadly poison”

It can be difficult to find such direct information regarding sodium fluoride as a poison, but it is a true fact.

Sodium Fluoride is both a contact and a stomach poison; for this reason, most exterminators know the substance to work tremendously better on grown insects rather than larvae because adults have self cleaning habits which larvae do not.

Needless to say, sodium fluoride does not sound safe for human consumption.

A deadly poison & patented insecticide, Sodium Fluoride really is all this and more. How did public water supplies become vehicles for the delivery of a toxic substance which is dangerous to both our health and the environment as well?

The truth is that sodium fluoride made it’s way into public water supplies due to massive, if not astronomical, conflicts of interest.

A report dating back to the Cold war (once classified for reasons of national security) brings to light very valuable information that we must all recognize.

The report had been commissioned during the ultra-secret Manhattan project and was to assess the effect of fluoride on humans.

Millions of tons of fluoride was essential in the production of bomb-grade uranium & plutonium.

If the public had known that fluoride was one of the most toxic chemicals known and that fluoride was the leading chemical health hazard of the US atomic bomb program then it would have pulled the rug out from under the army.

Big industries also play a role with conflicts of interest. Both the aluminum industry & phosphate mining operations also create toxic fluoride chemicals.

These chemicals had at one time been released directly from smokestacks, but this was placed to an end when signs of environmental destruction became obvious.

Upon well-deserved litigation, polluting corporations were forced to capture the highly toxic gaseous compounds which soon became accomplished with the installation of wet scrubber systems. Environmental destruction and pollution could now be avoided, but this came at a cost.

Industries were now required to pay money for the proper disposal of their hazardous waste, that is until a money making miracle happened.

Should it be of any surprise that the first suggestion to fluoridate water came from Francis C. Frary, a director of the aluminum laboratory for the aluminum company of America?

Now big industries have the ability to not only waive costs for the proper disposal of their hazardous wastes, but they also make a profit by selling their waste as a premium product.

Muskoka alone pays approximately $30,000 for these chemicals annually plus the addition of $13,200 in operational costs.

It should also be known that the capital cost for the construction of the chemical feed system was in the order of $100,000. A money making miracle for big industries, but a misfortune for ourselves.

Do not allow this crime to continue! Please partake in the surety of the safety of our water. Participate in the movement to end artificial water fluoridation which will directly benefit our health, our local environment and Muskoka’s accounts.

http://theintelhub.com/2012/01/13/vintage-bottle-of-ant-poison-labels-fluoride-as-deadly-poison/

Indian study proves that fluoride consumption causes brain, neurological damage
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Consuming sodium fluoride, a toxic chemical commonly added to US water supplies to allegedly help prevent tooth decay, definitively causes neurodegenerative damage in the brain, spinal cord, and sciatic nerve. These are the findings of a recent study published in theJournal of Medical and Allied Sciences, and ones that, by all scientific standards, put to rest the failed myth that fluoride consumption is in any way safe.

Conducted by K. Pratap Reddy of Osmania University in India, the study confirms that fluoride chemicals "cross the blood-brain barrier and alter the structure and function of neural tissue." Repeated exposure to fluoride chemicals in test rats was found to lower body weights; reduce the organic somatic index of their brains; and contaminate their hippocampus, neocortex, cerebellum, spinal cord, and sciatic nerve tissues with persistent fluoride chemicals.

The blood-brain barrier is the body's natural way of protecting the brain and central nervous system from damage by harmful toxins. In other words, it is meant to allow only nutrients and other beneficial metabolic products access to the brain, while filtering out all other materials.

But fluoride chemicals possess uniquely harmful characteristics that allow them to bypass this protective barrier and lodge themselves within brain tissue. The end result is a cascade of neurodegeneration throughout the brain and central nervous system, which in turn can lead to a host of severe and potentially deadly conditions, some of which are irreversible.

Compared to rats not given sodium fluoride, those given the chemicals as part of the study experienced "vacuolation of Schwann cells with enlarged axons and disrupted myelin sheaths" in their sciatic nerves; "irregular nuclei with normal nucleoli, vacuolated cytosol and axons with split myelin," in their spinal cords; and altered morphology in cerebellar tissue that resulted in "dumbbell shaped and [crenulated] nuclear membrane."

You can read the full study for yourself at:
http://static.infowars.com/2011/12/...

In simple terms, these changes signify severe neurological damage that can manifest itself in a variety of different ways. Lowered IQ, reduced cognitive function, learning disabilities, and hyperactivity are some of the forms of brain damage caused by fluoride consumption.

"Who in their right mind would risk lowering their child's intelligence in order to reduce a small amount of tooth decay, for which the evidence is very weak?" asked Tara Blank, PhD, the Fluoride Action Network's (FAN) Science and Health Officer, after the release of a Chinese fluoride study earlier this year that found similar results.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/034399_fluoride_brain_damage_water_supply.html#ixzz1jOCAyju7

Use this simple online petition to tell your Congressmen that you oppose water fluoridation
Monday, November 14, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Legislators across the US will soon reconvene for their winter sessions, which means that now is the time to start bombarding them with information about the dangers of toxic fluoride, and urging them to support legislation that will put an end to it. The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has made this easy by creating a simple petition letter that you can customize and send to your local and state representatives.

You can access the petition here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/...

Momentum against fluoride is strong and growing, evidenced by the numerous towns, cities, and counties that have ended their water fluoridation programs in recent months and years (http://www.fluoridealert.org/commun...). But many legislators and local city council members still have no idea what all the fuss is about, and know very little about the dangers associated with fluoride exposure and ingestion.

So in order to help get the word out in time for the upcoming legislative sessions, FAN has created a simple online petition that links up directly with your local legislators. All you have to do is indicate where you live, and the portal will automatically direct your message to the appropriate local representatives, as well as your state's senators and governor.

Several studies published just this year have shown that fluoride consumption leads to serious health problems. A study published in the journalNeurologia, for instance, found that the fluoride chemicals can cause serious brain and neurological damage (http://www.naturalnews.com/032957_f...). Another study published in the journalEnvironmental Health Perspectivesfound that fluoride exposure can lower IQ levels and even lead to mental retardation in children (http://www.naturalnews.com/030928_f...).

When customizing your petition, be sure to reference the plethora of additional information about the health dangers of fluoride that FAN has made available on its website. These conditions include dental fluorosis, kidney problems, allergies, brain damage, pineal and thyroid gland poisoning, bone damage and fracturing, gastrointestinal disorders, tooth decay (yes, fluoride can cause the very problem it is touted as preventing), and cancer (http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluori...).

The form letter might be a bit timid for some, so feel free to craft it in your own forceful and asserting way -- just remember to highlight the facts and express clear and unwavering opposition to fluoride. Our representatives need to know that mass medication of the public without consent is unacceptable and a crime against humanity.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/034141_water_fluoridation_petition.html#ixzz1jOD7fU7f

On Jan. 18th there is going to be an all-out strike on the internet.

On Jan. 18th there is going to be an all-out strike on the internet. Websites across the internet are going dark in protest of the internet censorship bills in Congress, SOPA and PIPA.

Some of the biggest sites in the world are participating: Reddit, Mozilla. And some others may join (e.g. a leading micro-blogging platform and a popular collaboratively-written encyclopedia), but they need a nudge. If we can get them to join this will be EPIC.

Can ask sites to join the petition here 

Thought it'd be worth posting since a lot of us are concerned about these bills and want to do something about it. Perhaps even SzaboServices.com can boycott the web for a day. :o)

Mainstream Media Seeks To Bully Bloggers Out Of ‘Fair Use’

The Intel Hub -R.F. Goggin January 12, 2012

The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, along with 28 other news organizations, are launching a company which hopes to further profit on their news reporting, by seeking to make paying customers out of websites or blogs which reproduce their content, either in full or in part.

The new company will go by the ridiculous name of ‘NewsRight’, to make it better appear to the general public that these mainstream media outlets have some kind of exclusivity over the very flow of human existence of any significance (or as equally likely, insignificance) taking place anywhere in the world.

With technology available to the media organizations which I have mentioned to clandestinely encode news stories or articles with the writer’s name and date published, NewsRight, will not only know when content under their watchful eye, has been copied and pasted elsewhere on the Internet, but also the privacy infringing details of just who may be viewing it.

NewsRight, is to be led by former ABC News president David Westin, who apparently has insufficient grasp of public sentiment toward greedy corporations or conglomerates, these days, as he inform us :

“More news is available more ways than ever in history. But if reliable information is to continue to flourish, the company’s investing in creating content need efficient ways to license it as broadly as possible,” Westin said in a statement. “NewsRight’s mission is to make sure consumers continue to benefit from the all the original news reporting they want while ensuring those who republish content do so with integrity.”

Integrity? If information is to continue to flourish?..

Fortunate for me then, I suppose, that I’ve come equipped with enough integrity to know a crock of utter bullshit when its sent my way. What if what it is being reported, has no integrity associated with it to begin with?

This load of tedium (above), is the kind of outdated propaganda that mainstream, big media thinks the general public capable of swallowing, hook, line and sinker. Certainly people like Westin ought to know that most folks who get their news from the Internet are smarter than the average sheep?

Or that shrouding complete greed in noble appearance, has become predictable enough stuff, indeed, to precipitate a backlash when taking intelligent human beings who spend time occupying the medium of cyberspace, for a gullible collection of indiscriminate fools?
According to the US Copyright office on the doctrine of ‘Fair Use’ :

“Copyright protects the particular way authors have expressed themselves. It does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in a work.”

 Now is there a soul present consuming this article, who can sit there and tell me that other than in some print media op-ed or opinion article of some sort, there is any semblance of ’originality’ whatsoever in reporting actual or factual news or events?

It’s absurd by its very nature to suggest a such a propriety, as Westin clearly does, and it would hardly stand up in a court of law, I would reckon, even if the said news event were reproduced from one of his clients – word for word.

So therefore, what we basically have here, is a case of good old-fashioned, power-playing, American bullying, seeking to take shape. The NewsRight company hopes to dictate the terms of its existence to a publication such as The New World Reporter – being, either you fall in line where we think you belong and pay us for reproducing a factual news story, or we will sue you for copyright infringement, even as we try to banish your site into some bottomless blacklist, or have it pulled from the web entirely.

Where have I heard something like this before? Oh right, S.O.P.A. (Stop On-line Piracy Act), minus the Congressional kickback.

If a single news organization were to choose to lease out content, which some do, that’s something entirely different, of course, than dozens of large companies banding together to attempt to control both the market, and the content, of Internet news.

There are anti-trust issues at play here, which far surpass copyright protection at the heart of such an ungainly collusion, whether or not an individual information outlet could indeed claim copyright to the course of human activity.

Yet, without the backing of a governmental body behind this effort, this new attempt to curtail free speech and/or personal liberty, has no discernible teeth worthy of consideration.

Consequently, I can do little but laugh whilst I snicker at the very idea of this thing called ‘Newsright’, and wish them every success in convincing anyone at all that anything I publish via the resources of their well-to-do overseers – is every bit as likewise ‘original’ a story, as their own version.

Henceforth, it would be wise of me, it seems, that instead of adding a source link to such material as I was hitherto inclined to do in such case, that this not so humble editor and chief on such matters, shall simply be obliged to change a few words here and there, so as to be completely sure not to anger whatever gluttonous beast of which copied such news to begin with via perfectly ‘original’ human affairs, circumstances and/or events.

http://theintelhub.com/2012/01/12/mainstream-media-seeks-to-bully-bloggers-out-of-%E2%80%98fair-use%E2%80%99/

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/mainstream-media-to-bully-bloggers-out.html

War Propaganda Exposed: Mass Media Warmongering Against Iran

Uploaded by RepresentativePress on Jan 7, 2012

Aided and Abetted by Mass Media, Bachmann's Lies Still Dominate Public Discourse even with her dropping out of the GOP race. Those peddling War Propaganda are given a free ride, notice that mainstream media hasn't informed most people that Bachmann and others are lying about Iran and they are ignoring and breaking international law. Stephen M. Walt debunked her premise in his critique of Matthew Kroenig's "textbook example of war-mongering disguised as "analysis:" "If this bizarre fantasy were true, why couldn't the former Soviet Union do similar things during the Cold War, and why can't other nuclear powers make similar threats today when they don't like a particular American initiative? The simple reason is that threatening nuclear war against the United States is not credible unless one is willing to commit national suicide, and even Kroenig concedes that Tehran is not suicidal. Nuclear weapons are good for deterring attacks on one's own territory (and perhaps the territory of very close allies), but that's about it. They are not good for blackmail, coercive diplomacy, or anything else." - Stephen M. Walt http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2012/01/openly-calling-for-his-countr...
☉ Also note how US media failed to give the Pentagon press secretary's recent statement the coverage it deserved: "We have no indication that the Iranians have made a decision to develop a nuclear weapon."
PASS IT ON ☞ http://tinyurl.com/DerailWarTrain
PASS IT ON ☞ http://tinyurl.com/WarmongerCalledOut
PASS IT ON ☞ http://tinyurl.com/WarPropagandaExposed
☀ There's Strength in Numbers: http://tinyurl.com/JoinEmail
CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 & 3 and MORE VIDEOS

:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eGJh-S6Mgw&feature=BFa&list=PLC45E101...
Remember the Liberty
Noam Chomsky writes about the USS Liberty: The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians ‪http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0896086011/ref=nosim/representativ-20‬ 

The well respected author Noam Chomsky has written about Israel's intentional attack on the USS Liberty: "The truth of the matter is that Israel has been granted a unique immunity from criticism in mainstream journalism and scholarship ... the attack on the unmistakably identified U.S. Liberty with rockets, aircraft cannon, napalm, torpedoes and machine guns, clearly premeditated, leaving 34 crewmen dead and 75 wounded in "the Navy's bloodiest 'peacetime' international incident of the 20th century" ... the general reaction of the press and scholarship has been silence or misrepresentation. ... The nature of the attack on the Liberty was also evaded not only by the press fairly generally but by the government and by a U.S. Naval Board of Inquiry, though high-ranking figures had no doubt that the official report was a whitewash; former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, for example, states that the attack "could not possibly have been a case of mistaken identity," as officially claimed." pp31-32
✭ ‪http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2012/01/truth-of-matter.html‬
Here is Ahmadinejad's actual quote translated directly to English: ❝The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.❞
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mScWWtRfGQ&feature=BFa&list=PLC45E101...
LISTEN: The International Atomic Energy Agency published its latest report on Iran on November 8th, but for nearly two weeks beforehand news media were rife with leak-based stories promising the report would be "game changing." What did it actually say, and what of that is to be believed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-o9fiEQK-o#t=10m5s 

No War on Iran! Stop Pentagon's Lies!

Iraq – Afghanistan – Libya  

NOW IRAN

LIES, LIES & MORE
PENTAGON LIES!

SIGN  THE ONLINE PETITION DEMANDING AN END TO THE PHONY WAR HYPE FABRICATED ACCUSATIONS AGAINST IRAN! atstopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml 

A worsening economic crisis; three disastrous wars that have killed millions of people and cost trillions of dollars stolen from essential programs for OIL, OIL, OIL and the U.S. corporate drive for markets, profit and empire – this is why the U.S. government has FALSELY accused the Iranian government of sponsoring a terrorist plot in the United States. 
Washington’s campaign against Iran for an alleged assassination plot lacks evidence and fails every test of logic The U.S government is making unbelievable, far-tetched allegations that somehow the Iranian government was involved in a bizarre plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington.  Anyone capable of independent thought has raised questions as to its truth. So why is the U.S. government desperate to use an unbelievable pretext to begin a campaign of sanctions and possible war against Iran?

The accusation comes as militant mass actions spurred by austerity and mass suffering at the hands of corporate greed are literally sweeping the globe. The Occupy Wall Street movement has captured peoples' imagination everywhere. Within the U.S. over 110 ongoing occupations and 1,454 support actions have been reported, while mass uprisings are continuing across the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.

The wild and fabricated charge against Iran has been rolled out in an all too familiar pattern which was used to hype the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya: unfounded charges with no evidence, high level leaks, scripted quotes about threats to national security from top officials, calls for stricter sanctions, and military retaliation. All is repeated by a frenzied, coordinated media (big business corporate media tied to the military) campaign. The point is to set the stage in the minds of millions of people who are now rising up in righteous anger against the Wall Street banks and the U.S. Government that their enemy is somewhere else, rather than right here at home. 

NO WAR AGAINST IRAN,

NO MORE WARS!!!

While the U.S. accuses Iran of terrorism, in fact the U.S. government and its allies have been carrying out a large scale program of deadly drone attacks against Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, along with terror against Iran including assassinating four Iranian scientists and imprisoning a large number of kidnapped Iranian citizens in the U.S. The financial assets of the Iranian government and its people have been seized and are being held in U.S. banks for their use. 
Join people around the world in opposing another criminal U.S. war.

SIGN  THE ONLINE PETITION DEMANDING AN END TO THE PHONY WAR HYPE FABRICATED ACCUSATIONS AGAINST IRAN! 

at stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml 

www.StopWarOnIran.org 

Join actions in support of Occupy Wall Street all across the country.

www.OccupyTogether.org 

Join coordinated national antiwar demonstrations on Sat. Oct 15.

www.UNACpeace.org 
We need Jobs, Education, Health Care and Housing, NOT War!

www.IACenter.org

http://www.iacenter.org/iran/nowaroniran_stoppentagonlies_10142011/

Homeland Security Is Monitoring The Drudge Report, The New York Times

ADAM CLARK ESTES - 5:46 PM ET - THEATLANTICWIRE.COM

It's unclear exactly why, but the Department of Homeland has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" program to monitor the top blogs, forums and social networks online for at least the past 18 months. Based on a privacy compliance review from last November recently obtained by Reuters, the purpose of the project is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture." Whatever that means. Either way, the list of sites reported by Reuters reveals in a Wednesday afternoon exclusive is pretty intriguing:

Social Networks

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Myspace

Blogs

• The Drudge Report
• The Huffington Post
• The New York Times's Lede blog
• Wired's Threat Level
• Wired's Danger Room
• ABC News' investigative blog The Blotter
• "blogs that cover bird flu … news and activity along U.S. borders … drug trafficking and cybercrime"

Multimedia

• Hulu
• YouTube
• Flickr

In conclusion, the Department of Homeland Security is just like you. We've seen no reports of The Atlantic Wire being on the list. But if we are, hello Department of Homeland Security employees -- thanks for reading!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/01/homeland-security-monitoring-drudge-report-new-york-times/47300/

Homeland Security watches Twitter, social media

By Mark Hosenball - reuters.com

Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:15pm EST

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.

A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards."

The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."

The document adds, using more plain language, that such monitoring is designed to help DHS and its numerous agencies, which include the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A DHS official familiar with the monitoring program said that it was intended purely to enable command center officials to keep in touch with various Internet-era media so that they were aware of major, developing events to which the Department or its agencies might have to respond.

The document outlining the monitoring program says that all the websites which the command center will be monitoring were "publicly available and... all use of data published via social media sites was solely to provide more accurate situational awareness, a more complete common operating pictures, and more timely information for decision makers..."

The DHS official said that under the program's rules, the department would not keep permanent copies of the internet traffic it monitors. However, the document outlining the program does say that the operations center "will retain information for no more than five years."

The monitoring scheme also features a five-page list, attached to the privacy review document, of websites the Department's command center expected to be monitoring.

CONTROVERSIAL SITES

These include social networking sites Facebook and My Space - though there is a parenthetical notice that My Space only affords a "limited search" capability - and more than a dozen sites that monitor, aggregate and enable searches of Twitter messages and exchanges.

Among blogs and aggregators on the list are ABC News' investigative blog "The Blotter;" blogs that cover bird flu; several blogs related to news and activity along U.S. borders (DHS runs border and immigration agencies); blogs that cover drug trafficking and cybercrime; and websites that follow wildfires in Los Angeles and hurricanes.

News and gossip sites on the monitoring list include popular destinations such as the Drudge Report, Huffington Post and "NY Times Lede Blog", as well as more focused techie fare such as the Wired blogs "Threat Level" and "Danger Room." Numerous blogs related to terrorism and security are also on the list.

Some of the sites on the list are potentially controversial. WikiLeaks is listed for monitoring, even though officials in some other government agencies were warned against using their official computers to access WikiLeaks material because much of it is still legally classified under U.S. government rules.

Another blog on the list, Cryptome, also periodically posts leaked documents and was one of the first websites to post information related to the Homeland Security monitoring program.

Also on the list are JihadWatch and Informed Comment, blogs that cover issues related to Islam through sharp political prisms, which have sometimes led critics to accuse the sites of political bias.

Also on the list are various video and photo-sharing sites, including Hulu, Youtube and Flickr.

While a DHS official involved in the monitoring program confirmed the authenticity of the list, officials authorized to speak for the Department did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Eric Walsh)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-usa-homelandsecurity-websites-idUSTRE80A1RC20120111