NEWS RELEASE -- 'Defend the Press' Organizes to Support Reporter Sarah Olson, Subpoenaed in Court Martial of Ehren Watada

Submitted by John Stauber on

Contact: www.DefendThePress.org
Scott Goodstein, Defend The Press, (202) 256-8320
Sarah Olson, Free Press Working Group, (415) 298-5573
John Stauber, Center for Media and Democracy, (608) 260-9713
Email: Editor AT PRWatch.org

SARAH OLSON, INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST, FACES PRISON FOR SIMPLY DOING HER JOB

(Madison, WI) The Center for Media and Democracy announces the launch of Defend The Press, a new coalition of journalists, public interest groups, academics and citizen activists. Defend The Press is asking the US Army to drop its subpoena of Sarah Olson, an independent print and radio journalist based in Oakland, California, in the court martial of Iraq war resister Lieutenant Ehren Watada. Olson interviewed Watada in May 2006, and in June he announced he would not go to war in Iraq, challenging its legality. Watada's Army court martial begins February 5, 2007, at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Sarah Olson has been served with a subpoena from the President of the United States requiring her to be a prosecution witness against Lieutenant Watada. The subpoena states "failure to appear may result in your being taken into custody and brought before the court martial." Olson risks felony charges, jail and a fine if she fails to cooperate.

Sarah Olson recently wrote in an editorial column, "I stand firmly by a conviction I share with many: a member of the press should never be placed in the position of aiding a government prosecution of political speech. This goes against the grain of even the most basic understanding of the First Amendment's free press guarantees and the expectation of a democracy that relies on a free flow of information and perspectives without fear of censure or retribution."

Defend The Press believes journalists should not be forced to participate in government prosecutions -- especially prosecutions seeking to criminalize political speech. Defend The Press supports Sarah Olson and journalists like her; independent journalists especially need stronger protection of their rights in the age of the Internet.

Among the dozens of noted journalists and authors participating in Defend The Press are Noam Chomsky, Phil Donahue, Daniel Ellsberg, Barbara Ehrenreich, Diane Farsetta, Laura Flanders, Robert McChesney, Greg Palast, Sheldon Rampton and Howard Zinn.

Defend The Press was founded by the non-profit Center for Media and Democracy of Madison, Wisconsin, and by Free Press Working Group of Oakland, California, in the belief that the press cannot function if it is used by the government to prosecute political speech. Turning reporters into the investigative arm of the government subverts press freedoms, and chills dissenting speech in the United States.

Contact: www.DefendThePress.org
Scott Goodstein, Defend The Press, 202-256-8320
Sarah Olson, Free Press Working Group, (415) 298-5573
John Stauber, Center for Media and Democracy, (608) 260-9713
Email: Editor AT PRWatch.org

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publion replied on

You're on the right track here - this recent gambit is a classic MJ/JAG move to use a current event as a way to surf their way further into the protected realm of civilian society and out of the once-tightly fenced reservation to which MJ was originally restricted. If successful, it will create yet another corrosive precedent that will weaken the protections afforded by civil (and Constitutional) justice. But remember, JAGs are military officers as well as lawyers, and thus twice as cagey. Simply by engaging them as if they were a legitimate court (as any attorney would rightly advise you to do) already grants them their first victory: you are implicitly acknowledging their system as legitimate (you are merely quibbling over a particular choice they made). But an excellent case can be made to the public that the MJ system is not as legitimate as it would very much like to be perceived. It is a Rube-Goldberg contraption constructed over a Constitutional abyss, and actually in contravention of the clearly printed text of the Fifth Amendment. Parts 1 and 2 of "Military Justice Is No Music" over on Chez Odysseus site at Blogspot goes into this in detail with legal citations. On the same site, "Warrior Professionals" and "Bishops Bomb" deal with the very dicey position of 'professionals' (attorneys, doctors, clergy) within the military system. Their dilemma (not often faced up to) is a formally institutionalized problem that intensifies the 'embed' dilemma of journalists trying to cover the military during actual operations. A simple engagement in the court forum (which any competent attorney would properly recommend) is insufficient and will play into their hands. Like Grant at Vicksburg, you have to go around to the other side of the fortress that is confronting you; a frontal assault over ground that they have long-prepared and 'registered' is almost doomed to failure unless it is supported by a significant program of public education into just what a dangerous and growing monstrosity this MJ system is nowadays. If it was a dubious Constitutional proposition at the very outset and was yet closely caged, it is now seeking to grow in public esteem and expand its writ. And this is on top of the 'militarization' of our police and our law enforcement and prosecutors (not just SWAT chic and rampages such as Paul Roberts discusses today on the Counterpunch site) who now ignore 'due process' in order to achieve the Outcome of Victory, in the process making the 'accused' into an 'enemy' who must be made the object of a well-coordinated assault. This is not how the Constitution envisions the Justicial process. Prosecutor Nifong of the Duke rape case is a classic example: accidentally exposed to the light because he overplayed his hand, but his tactics and strategy are pure military: once you've declared someone 'the enemy' then it's only a matter of putting together the best assault on him to achieve victory over him. (And does that sound like the unilateral declaration of just about anybody as an 'enemy combatant'?) So a wide approach to defending Ms. Olson will not only help her situation but will help educate the public into what has become a serious and sustained eroding of Constitutional protections and the corrupting of civil society (and ultimately our civil culture).