October 12, 2001

7:40 AM

How do you censor terrorists in the 21st Century?Bush has got networks to agree not to run raw bin Laden footage over fear of transmitting instructions. But how do you get every publication in the free world not to run the text of statements?
posted by darren (6 comments total)

Ya know, if these terrorists rely on images of Osama Bin Laden scratching his ass on CNN for their vital terror instructions, I think we're going to be ok.
posted by Doug at 7:49 AM on October 12, 2001

It's difficult to believe any words that escape from the lips of White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer now, given that he apparently fabricated that "credible threat" to Air Force One as an excuse for the President's not being immediately returned to D.C. on Sept. 11. Because of that, it's a lot harder to buy the spin that bin Laden might be putting out encoded messages. While not impossible, it sounds paranoid and misleading. Seems like a thinly disguised effort to censor and muzzle the U.S. press. And you're right, there's no way to stop the rest of the world's media outlets from airing, verbatim, the words of bin Laden.
posted by Vacaloca at 8:11 AM on October 12, 2001

Got A Dish? Al-Jazeera is Channel 645 on satellite TV (Brian Lamb plugged it on C-SPAN this morning during Washington Journal.)
posted by Carol Anne at 8:32 AM on October 12, 2001

You assume that the local and national news networks continue performing the duty that they've carried out efficiently for the past 20-odd years, and shield the American People from what's going on outside their borders.
posted by holgate at 8:52 AM on October 12, 2001

How do you censor darren?
posted by walrus at 9:09 AM on October 12, 2001

Salon ran an article today discussing, among other things, why this censorship is likely going to hurt the U.S. more than help.
posted by lia at 4:30 AM on October 14, 2001