Yeah, it's not actually that clear in this case: the Saudi regime for instance, most evil theocracy on the planet and great friends of the U.S., do not get a pass from these guys, as your theory would predict.

And the U.S. themselves only rank around #30 on their Press Freedom Index, last time I checked. But that is compiled from reports by actual journalists in the field, IIRC, so might be more difficult for them to doctor.

Because Reporters Without Borders is an organization of considerably more dubious repute than the similarly named Doctors Without Borders. For one thing Otto Reich was involved, and besides State Dept there are very persistent accusations of ties with Western intelligence outfits. They were active in propaganda campaigns all over South America, Cuba in particular.

I guess this AC is just one of the many folks, on both sides, caught up in black/white thinking: my criticism of Clinton is therefore a sure indicator I must support the other side.

None at all, actually, other than some choice bits courtesy of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.

By the way, it just occurred to me: wasn't a young Hilary part of the legal team advising the articles of impeachment back when Nixon was caught erasing tapes? The irony.

Seems to me the reasons for her decision to use a private server for government business are pretty simple. It means that she (and her staff) get to decide which documents should be forked over in response to FOIA requests.

In a just world this server would now at an independent expert for thorough inspection.

Same thing for congressional oversight. Case in point: Benghazi.

Also, it keeps all of her correspondence out of the official protocols. She wants to delete some stuff? No problem. That would be more complicated if she had used her government-issued means of communication.

I seem to remember from earlier incidents (like the hack of Sarah Palin's personal mail) that this is *not legal*. For good reasons.

Finally, it is basically a given that some of her correspondence contains sensitive, if not outright secret, information. If someone like Thomas Drake gets threatened with ridiculous punishment for having *un*classified information on his home PC, surely this here should land Mrs Clinton in a whole lot of trouble. But, well, who am I kidding, right?

The point is they were widely being used before being scrutinized.

Some of the compounds listed in that report (which I don't think claims to be exhaustive) are known or suspected carcinogens. Depending on the local geology, much of them stay in the ground -- never mind that the fossil fuel lobby argued otherwise when they managed to prevent EPA from regulating fracking.

And that qualification is objective and unbiased?

This.

Requiring EPA to use publicly available data sound reasonable enough until you realize that many of these same (mostly GOP) people have no problem with (often times heavily subsidized) companies refusing to share data.

Like the fracking example parent mentioned; nobody is able to research their methods and the compounds used, because trade secrets. Something similar happened with GM crops, which have been widely planted for over a decade before the scientific community at large were able/allowed to research them.

"Seeking to remake the membership and procedures" is just code for subverting, eroding, EPA until it is a hollow shell of what it was intended to be.

Sorry, late reply and not much time... Just wanted to point out that yes there are cases where unarmed folks are a real threat (Chuck Norris et al, or the severely deranged or psychotic, say due to substance abuse).

But mostly the mere fact that LEO are armed should be sufficiently threatening to subdue and solicit cooperation of unarmed individuals. So when shots are fired in such circumstances it merits rigorous scrutiny via a transparent investigation.

Second, the Grand Jury system as I understand it is a bit of a quirky thing, discarded in most places except the U.S. It was meant as a protection of the public from excessive use of executive power, but arguably used in cases such as Ferguson to the opposite effect. Why not simply a regularly prosecuted case?

Finally, your argument that bodycams will mean that "friendly" and informal police actions like letting people off with warnings for minor offenses... That is a good thing. Because it is arbitrary judgment on the part of the officer in question, as to what constitutes "minor" and when to exercise such leniency, and as such is subject to bias. That you would mention this suggests to me you probably don't belong to a group regularly considered victims of the corollary "bad" kind of police bias.

Well, torture is certainly something that we'd want to avoid... But I agree with someone further up, this trigger for recording misses the circumstances leading up to the event. Was the person actually a threat? is one of the important questions that remain unanswered. Technically the continuously overwritten ring buffer seems hardly more difficult to implement.

Btw, I found this turn of phrase in the story a bit unsettling:

Tasering is a routine activity now? I would hope not, although it is better than discharging live rounds at unarmed kids of course.

You're right I guess, but I can see how we'd get confused. "Businessman" is a much over-represented group in Congress (this is true in lots of other countries of course).

The ways in which common folk will suffer losses from this type of corporate sabotage, e.g. that institutional investors such as pension funds are "required" to be a part of the stock casino and dodgy derivative financial contraptions, is another discussion. Worth having, imho.

More on topic, perhaps, FTS:

I wonder whether the perpetrators are not at some remove employed by much the same demographic as the victims...

Exactly. But they don't.

The problem is that what FB, Google are currently presenting as "aid" or "development" for underprivileged regions is 1) restricted to their own services and 2) likely to be shut down in the near future on their whim.

If they are serious about development, that's great, but it seems to me there are far less self-interested avenues for them to do so.

Meanwhile these zero-rate programs are just another attempt at re-defining The Internet to be what they have on offer, and probably end up getting in the way of more general availability of the web.

Not sure I'd agree that nobody cares about policy. But "rightfully so"? Because different faces, or parties for that matter, tend to pursue similar policies? It seems to me that that is a good reason that people /should/ care... And try to improve on that sorry state of affairs.

Problem is that there is whole show about (relatively) minor differences of opinion and these are greatly exaggerated, creating the illusion of real choice. Whereas the various "faces" somehow wind up agreeing with one another on exactly those policies that the people they supposedly represent do not favour.

A two-party system is in practice much more like a single-party system (ie not democratic) than it is like multi-party systems where coalition and compromises are required to achieve majorities.

He clearly suggested "Both sides are dishonest" and yet you somehow read that as pro-Russian. That says more about your bias than his, it seems to me.

I abhor Putin and have done for about as long as I've known about the bastard. Doesn't mean I'm blind to Nato's meddling in Ukraine, which cablegate (among other tidbits) proved was going on for years and cost billions.

I'm curious how US woul respond if Russia spent billions undermining a pro-US government in, say, Mexico and after they'd accomplish regime change in favour of hand picked anti-US government presumed to level harsh economic sanctions against the US for troop movements on their own soil, say Texas.

Because, until very recently, that is about the size of it from the Russian perspective.

Now of course, to the surprise of absolutely no one at all, Putin's domestic strongman persona leaves him little choice but to retroactively prove the accusers right.