Doing big business with the CIA

The Washington Post and Amazon are doing Business with the CIA

By Norman Solomon

El presente artículo demuestra lo que es la iniciativa privada. El dinero señoras/es hay que buscarlo allí donde se encuentre. Y dónde mejor que en las arcas bien nutridas de agencias estatales estadounidenses como la NSA y la CIA. Amazon es una excelente fuente de colaboración. Pónganse a pensar lo que mueve en todo el mundo. Es la toma de la nube, algo mucho más importante que la conquista de un territorio sólido. Valor añadido, vamos. Lo del Washington Post, pues casi no resulta noticia. Que uno u otro diario venda su alma (y demás atributos, incluidos los sexuales), al poder  no es nuevo ni original. Pero han subido las cotizaciones. Me figuro la verde envidia de según que editores  in Spain. Darían lo que no nombro por obviar la zafiedad imperante, por recibir una jugosa oferta de Langley. ¿Se imaginan The Spanish ABC, The (very global) Country, The World, for example doing big business with (my dear) CIA. Pues va a ser que no.  

"Como las cambiantes realidades globales han reordenado la agenda de seguridad nacional (NSA), la CIA ha satisfecho estos retos:

• Creando centros especiales multidisciplinarios para dirigirse a asuntos de tan alta prioridad como la no proliferación, el contra-terrorismo, la contra-inteligencia, el crimen organizado internacional y el tráfico de narcóticos, el medio ambiente y la inteligencia del control de armas.
• Forjando sociedades más fuertes entre las disciplinas de recolección de diferentes inteligencias y los análisis de todas las fuentes.
• Tomando parte activa en los trabajos analíticos de la Comunidad de Inteligencia y produciendo análisis de todas las fuentes en el  rango total de tópicos que afectan la seguridad nacional.
• Contribuyendo a la efectividad de la Comunidad de Inteligencia, en general, administrando los servicios de interés común en análisis imaginario y en  una recolección de fuentes abiertas; y participando en asociaciones con otras agencias de inteligencia en las áreas de investigación y desarrollo de recolección técnica". (De la página CIA.gov)
• CIA, unlike any other agency in the Intelligence Community, much less federal 
• government, makes discretionary releases of historically significant documents 
• available to the public, journalists, and academicians in a purposefully organized 
• manner. CIA makes releases to the public through a variety of programs. CIA’s 
• Historical Review Program, for example, partners with a variety of public 
• organizations and institutions to provide public release events at Presidential 
• Libraries and at universities and other locations across the country. These 
• organized release events, often covered by C-SPAN and Associated Press, 
• provide in person access to the material, historians, and contemporary policy 
• makers and analysts.  
• CIA continues to inform record numbers of citizens, demonstrating our 
• commitment to the Open Government Initiative and its three goals of 
• transparency, participation, and collaboration. As mentioned above, CIA is now 
• accepting FOIA requests online. This change brings us in line with public 
• expectations, and we are confident that it will benefit requesters. It is also another 
• concrete example of CIA’s commitment to the President’s drive for increased 
• governmental transparency, openness, and ―electronic government.(Del Centro de Información Pública de la CIA).

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-washington-post-and-amazon-doing-business-with-the-cia/5362026


News media should illuminate conflicts of interest, not embody them. But the owner of the Washington Post is now doing big business with the Central Intelligence Agency, while readers of the newspaper’s CIA coverage are left in the dark.

The Post’s new owner, Jeff Bezos, is the founder and CEO of Amazon — which recently landed a $600 million contract with the CIA. But the Post’s articles about the CIA are not disclosing that the newspaper’s sole owner is the main owner of CIA business partner Amazon.

Even for a multi-billionaire like Bezos, a $600 million contract is a big deal. That’s more than twice as much as Bezos paid to buy the Post four months ago.

And there’s likely to be plenty more where that CIA largesse came from. Amazon’s offer wasn’t the low bid, but it won the CIA contract anyway by offering advanced high-tech “cloud” infrastructure.

Bezos personally and publicly touts Amazon Web Services, and it’s evident that Amazon will be seeking more CIA contracts. Last month, Amazon issued a statement saying, “We look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.”

As Amazon’s majority owner and the Post’s only owner, Bezos stands to gain a lot more if his newspaper does less ruffling and more soothing of CIA feathers.

Amazon has a bad history of currying favor with the U.S. government’s “national security” establishment. The media watch group FAIR pointed out what happened after WikiLeaks published State Department cables: “WikiLeaks was booted from Amazon’s webhosting service AWS. So at the height of public interest in what WikiLeaks was publishing, readers were unable to access the WikiLeaks website.”

How’s that for a commitment to the public’s right to know?

Days ago, my colleagues at RootsAction.org launched a petition that says: “The Washington Post’s coverage of the CIA should include full disclosure that the sole owner of the Post is also the main owner of Amazon — and Amazon is now gaining huge profits directly from the CIA.” More than 15,000 people have signed the petition so far this week, with many posting comments that underscore widespread belief in journalistic principles.

While the Post functions as a powerhouse media outlet in the Nation’s Capital, it’s also a national and global entity — read every day by millions of people who never hold its newsprint edition in their hands. Hundreds of daily papers reprint the Post’s news articles and opinion pieces, while online readership spans the world.

Propaganda largely depends on patterns of omission and repetition. If, in its coverage of the CIA, the Washington Post were willing to fully disclose the financial ties that bind its owner to the CIA, such candor would shed some light on how top-down power actually works in our society.

“The Post is unquestionably the political paper of record in the United States, and how it covers governance sets the agenda for the balance of the news media,” journalism scholar Robert W. McChesney points out. “Citizens need to know about this conflict of interest in the columns of the Post itself.”

In a statement just released by the Institute for Public Accuracy, McChesney added: “If some official enemy of the United States had a comparable situation — say the owner of the dominant newspaper in Caracas was getting $600 million in secretive contracts from the Maduro government — the Post itself would lead the howling chorus impaling that newspaper and that government for making a mockery of a free press. It is time for the Post to take a dose of its own medicine.”

From the Institute, we also contacted other media and intelligence analysts to ask for assessments; their comments are unlikely to ever appear in the Washington Post.

“What emerges now is what, in intelligence parlance, is called an ‘agent of influence’ owning the Post – with a huge financial interest in playing nice with the CIA,” said former CIA official Ray McGovern. “In other words, two main players nourishing the national security state in undisguised collaboration.”

A former reporter for the Washington Post and many other news organizations, John Hanrahan, said: “It’s all so basic. Readers of the Washington Post, which reports frequently on the CIA, are entitled to know — and to be reminded on a regular basis in stories and editorials in the newspaper and online — that the Post’s new owner Jeff Bezos stands to benefit substantially from Amazon’s $600 million contract with the CIA. Even with such disclosure, the public should not feel assured they are getting tough-minded reporting on the CIA. One thing is certain: Post reporters and editors are aware that Bezos, as majority owner of Amazon, has a financial stake in maintaining good relations with the CIA — and this sends a clear message to e ...(Visit URL. Las opiniones, datos y citas son del autor. El resto de la información y las fotos son de la CIA)