smell the freedom.

* Independent via RImone:

"‘An anti-Iraq war protester was questioned by police outside Downing Street because she was reading The Independent. Charity Sweet, 40, and a mother-of-three, was holding a copy of Thursday’s edition which carried the headline: “Warning: if you read this newspaper you may be arrested under the Government’s anti-terror laws.”"

* FP via rimone:

"The military has started censoring many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story — they use the word slant — what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don't like what you have done before, they refuse to take you. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with the work they had done on embed."

smell the freedom.

* marc ash:

We were amused to see Murray Waas writing for the The National Journal Monday "break" the news that George W. Bush in fact authorized Dick Cheney to respond to Joseph Wilson back in 2003 when Wilson's Op-Ed first appeared in The New York Times. Waas's piece titled, "Bush Directed Cheney To Counter War Critic" is causing quite a stir in digital politics this holiday weekend.

It's nice that another journalist has belatedly covered this story, but it was Jason Leopold writing for Truthout nearly 3 months ago who first reported Bush's involvement in his piece titled, "Bush at Center of Intelligence Leak".

Not the first time. In January Leopold reported for TO that, "Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11". Over 6 months later, on June 30th Bloomberg finally checked in with their report confirming Leopold's, "Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11".

We are often asked, 'why is Jason Leopold so far out in front?' Or, 'how come no one else is reporting this story?' We think those are excellent questions."