The Reason I’m Helping Chris Hedges’ Lawsuit against the NDAA
MEDIA, 2 Apr 2012
By placing journalists in jeopardy for reporting on ‘terrorists’, the Homeland Battlefield Bill has had a chilling effect on media work.
I have discussed the terms of the Homeland Battlefield Bill – also known as the National Defense Authorization Act – with numerous other journalists, writers, and members of democracy-supporting organizations across the political spectrum, from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee to the Tenth Amendment Center. I have also discussed the bill with various political leaders, including city council members and legislators, who span the political spectrum in the United States. They all agree that the bill can potentially affect an American journalist who meets with and publishes reports on individuals connected to organizations deemed terrorist by the United States government.
To state the obvious, I do not support terrorism or any terrorist groups. I do not believe acts of violence against civilian populations are an appropriate way to achieve political, or any other change. I have never supported or condoned the actions of any terrorist organization.
I do, however, believe that a properly functioning media should report on newsworthy items, including discussions with and beliefs professed by various groups, including persons whom the United States government has labeled as terrorists. I believe part of my job involves meeting with, discussing ideas with, and publishing stories about persons and groups who have, or are under threat of being, labeled a terrorist or terrorist group.
My understanding of the bill, however, has forced me to decline to meet with certain newsworthy individuals, and groups of people, for fear that my communications with them and publishing articles on these individuals could be considered to be providing material support to a terrorist or terrorist organization. I have forgone meeting with individuals, and reporting on facts and stories, that I otherwise believe are newsworthy, and contribute to a healthy national discourse – for no other reason than to avoid potential repercussions under the bill.
I wish to highlight several instances of my having had to decline to meet with individuals in situations in which, under the normal conditions of my profession, meeting them, and potentially interviewing them, would have led to investigative articles for publication that I believe would have served the public interest.
In November 2011, I declined, in writing, a proposed meeting with Vaughan Smith and Julian Assange, because of statements made by high-level United States officials regarding their belief that Assange is a terrorist, as well as the ongoing Department of Justice investigation, which, as I understand it, could lead to terrorism and/or espionage charges against him. I have declined to meet directly with members of Occupy Wall Street, because that group is being threatened with being named as terrorists in Miami. As a result, I have ceased conducting one-on-one interviews with them.
I have declined, in writing, to follow up with a proposed meeting with a support group in London that serves former prisoners, released without charge by the US government from the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay. Because some of these prisoners were released without government determination of whether they were connected to a terrorist organization, I declined to meet with this group for fear that this story could conceivably be considered some form of support to a group affiliated with terrorists.
I declined, in writing, to give additional media attention to a reporter who produced a documentary based on the bombardment of Gaza, and its effect on the Palestinian civilian population. Since I did not know who else, or which other entities, may have contributed to its production, I was concerned that my shining a media spotlight on the film, and gathering other members of the press to see it, might lead to wider attention and further fundraising that could conceivably fall under the term “material support”.
Thus the Homeland Battlefield Bill has already a chilling effect upon my ability to investigate and document matters of national controversy that would ordinarily be subject to my professional inquiry. It has therefore prevented my readers from receiving the full spectrum of truthful reporting which, in a functioning democracy, they have a right to expect.
• This article is based on an affidavit in support of journalist Chris Hedges’ lawsuit against Barack Obama and Leon Panetta, regarding the National Defense Authorization Act. Other plaintiffs in the case include Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky
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Naomi Wolf is the author, among other books, of The Beauty Myth and Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. She is a graduate of Yale University and New College, Oxford.
Go to Original – guardian.co.uk
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