The Nation: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal

[emulatorloo]

frazzled posted this link in a thread earlier today, I thought it deserved to be highlighted, Thanks for finding this article, Frazzled:

TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal
Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
November 23, 2010

http://www.thenation.com/article/156647/tsastroturf-washington-lobbyists-and-koch-funded-libertarians-behind-tsa-scandal

Much More at link, details various "events" that turned out to be untrue, here's a summing up paragraph as a snip:

Then there's Brian Sodergren, founder of the “National Opt-Out Day,” when “ordinary citizens standup for their rights.” But Sodergren is no “ordinary citizen.” Cached and scrubbed online LinkedIn records show that Brian Sodergren is a Washington lobbyist specializing in “grassroots education” for the American Dental Association and ADPAC, the American Dental Association Political Action Committee. No wonder that Sodergren has gone out of his way to scrub his employment record.

So now let’s take one more look at the TSA hysteria, and re-evaluate if we should continue to simply accept the surface narrative, or consider what we might learn by looking beneath the surface. Because everywhere you look, the alleged victims’ stories often turn out to be false or highly suspicious, promoted by lobbyists posing as “ordinary guys,” and everywhere the cast of characters is always the same: drawn from the cult-ish fringes of the libertarian movement, with trails leading straight to the billionaire Koch brothers’ network of libertarian think-tanks and advocacy groups.

We could take it all at face value and just trust that they’re all “ordinary guys.” Or we could ask, “Who profits?”

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Glenn Greenwald disagrees:

In his article "Anatomy of a Journalistic Smear Job" he takes The Nation to task:

One long-standing -- and justifiable -- progressive grievance is that whenever ordinary Americans allow their personal plight to enter the public sphere in a way that advances a liberal political goal, they are gratuitously probed and personally smeared by the Right. The most illustrative example is the Frost family, who allowed their 12-year-old son Graeme to deliver a moving radio address explaining the benefits he received from the CHIP program when he was in a serious car accident, only to be promptly stalked and smeared by Michelle Malkin, among others. Today, The Nation -- a magazine which generally offers very good journalism -- subjects John Tyner to similar treatment, with such a shoddy, fact-free, and reckless hit piece (by Mark Ames and Yasha Levine) that I'm genuinely surprised its editors published it. Beyond the inherent benefit of correcting the record, this particular article is suffused with all sorts of toxic though common premises that make it worth examining in detail.

More here:

http://www.salon.com/news/media_criticism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/11/24/tyner

[emulatorloo]

2. Thanks for the link, I will read thru it.

Sounds like the nation may have gotten it very wrong on Tyner.

I am still wondering though why so much of the noise is coming from the Right Wing - drudge limbaugh huckabee etc are pushing this story. Drudge initially by publishing Fake scan photos. These are people who never said a damn word about patdowns under Bush.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

5. Who stands to gain...

If Obama relaxes the rules and then there's a terrorist strike on a plane anytime in the next 2 years, who do you think stands to gain the most? The Right Wing or the Left Wing?

[alarimer]

6. They are wrong about him I think.

Jeremy Scahill (who writes for the Nation) condemned the article as a smear as well.

The ACLU has gotten 900 complaints about the scanners and the pat-down (actually a body search, we shouldn't whitewash it) and they all can't be funded by Koch.

[yurbud]

3. the same assholes profit either way. Chertoff sells the scanners to the public agency and makes

money then they use the scanner issue to demand privatizing TSA.

[somone]

4. They need more evidence against Tyner

I don't care much for the Ron Paul crowd, but this looks like a stupid smear.

FWIW they left out Tyner's college education: He graduated from the University of California, Riverside. Which is a very public and nonreligious institution.