The New York Times Annual Meeting, Anthrax & Steven Hatfill

The National Ledger ^ | 04-17-06 | Cliff Kincaid

[Coastal]

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller is on the lecture circuit, pulling down $15,000-$20,000 a speech plus first class airfare. When she left the paper, after spending 85 days in jail, she wrote that “In my future writing, I intend to call attention to the internal and external threats to our country’s freedoms¯Al Qaeda and other forms of religious extremism, conventional and W.M.D. terrorism, and growing government secrecy in the name of national security¯subjects that have long defined my work.” Those are noble sentiments. But it’s the Times, more than any other media organization, which has prevented the government from solving the case of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks.

At the Times annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday, April 18, at 10:00 a.m. at the New Amsterdam Theater, I intend to ask Times Company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. about this.

[HawaiianGecko]

They want the public to think all of these secret “sources” are honest and courageous whistleblowers who provide factual information.

In logic, philosophy, debate and critical thinking this is called an "appeal to questionable authority."  It is a misdirection of a valid "appeal to authority" where one is led to believe that the person being quoted is an expert on the subject, but in fact is not.

No where in American society where real arguments really count is an appeal to questionable authority allowed. Not in academia, business, courtroom, debate teams or even around a dinner table, however, the media has very effectively convinced the vast majority of the American public to buy into these "unknown sources" that cannot be challenged or impeached.

[jpl]

Ping

[TrebleRebel]

Latest Hatfill memorandum filed yesterday:

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Hatfill72.pdf

notable quotes:

As we approach the May 31, 2006 discovery cut-off date set by this Court, there is no longer any question that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation violated the Privacy Act by revealing to the news media sensitive investigative information -- information that pertained to Dr. Steven J. Hatfill and the anthrax investigation. Defendants' disclosures not only resulted in the loss of Dr. Hatfill's job, but also subjected him to humiliation, anguish, emotional distress, and public opprobrium. Thanks to the defendants, Dr. Hatfill has been forced to endure baseless speculation that he masterminded one of the most vile terrorist attacks on American soil.


Numerous witnesses have testified under oath that many of the most damaging leaks about Dr. Hatfill came from employees of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over 100 such disclosures have already been laid to the defendants' account by uncontradicted testimony.

...

Faced with incontrovertible evidence of their own wrongdoing, the defendants are now reduced to caviling about whether they must pay Dr. Hatfill for all of the actual damage they caused him, or only some.