FBI and Media Still Addicted to Ginning Up Terrorist Hysteria – But They Have Never Been Right by Adam Johnson is a stunning indictment of our national media as “uncritical” of goverment terrorist warnings.
I say “uncritical” because despite forty (40) false terrorist warning in a row, there has been no, repeat no terrorist attack in the United States related to those warnings. Not one.
The national media, say the New York Times of my youth, would have “broke” the news of a terrorist warning, but then it would have sought information to verify that warning. That is why is the government issuing a warning today and not yesterday, or next week?
Failing to find such evidence, which it would have in the past forty (40) cases, it would have pressed, investigated and mocked the government until its thin tissue of lies were plain for all to see.
How many times does a government source have to misrepresent facts before your report starts with:
Just in from the habitual liars at the Department of Homeland Security…
and includes a back story on how the Department of Homeland Security has never been right on one of its warnings, nor has its Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) ever caught a terrorist.
Instead, as Adam reports, this is what we get:
On Monday, several mainstream media outlets repeated the latest press release by the FBI that country was under a new “heightened terror alert” from “ISIL-inspired attacks” “leading up to the July 4th weekend.” One of the more sensational outlets, CNN, led with the breathless warning on several of its cable programs, complete with a special report by The Lead’s Jim Sciutto in primetime:
The threat was given extra credence when former CIA director—and consultant at DC PR firm Beacon Global Strategies—Michael Morell went on CBS This Morning (6/29/15) and scared the ever-living bejesus out of everyone by saying he “wouldn’t be surprised if we were sitting [in the studio] next week discussing an attack on the US.” The first piece of evidence Morell used to justify his apocalyptic posture, the “50 ISIS arrests,” was accompanied by a scary map on the CBS jumbotron showing “ISIS arrests” all throughout the US:
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But one key detail is missing from this graphic: None of these “ISIS arrests” involved any actual members of ISIS, only members of the FBI—and their network of informants—posing as such. (The one exception being the man arrested in Arizona, who, while having no contact with ISIS, was also not prompted by the FBI.) So even if one thinks the threat of “lone wolf” attacks is a serious one, it cannot be said these are really “ISIS arrests.” Perhaps on some meta-level, it shows an increase of “radicalization,” but it’s impossible to distinguish between this and simply more aggressive sting operations by the FBI.
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I would think that competent, enterprising reporters could have ferreted out all the material that Adam mentions in his post. They could have make the case for the groundless nature of the 4th of July security warning.
But no member of the national media did.
In the aftermath of yet another bogus terror warning, the national media should say why it dons pom-poms to promote every terror alert from the FBI or DHS, instead of serving the public’s interest with critical investigation of alleged terror threats.