News media giving up the fight for information?

Journalists at a National Press Club forum in Denver think so. One panelist raised quite an disconcerting thought: Perhaps the government realizes the media companies are struggling financially and can't afford to take legal action every time they put up a road block to requested information.

Squeezed for profits, news media companies no longer are pushing for access to information as they once did, a panel of Denver journalists said at a National Press Club forum here Tuesday.

"The media seems less and less willing to fight back and to challenge government authority in a legal sense," said Brian Maass, who leads the investigative team at Denver's CBS 4.

He was speaking at a National Press Club Centennial Forum on the First Amendment, freedom of the press and the future of journalism at the Denver Press Club.

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ACLU FOIA Request Yields Thousands of Pages

From the ACLU...

The American Civil Liberties Union today released thousands of pages of documents related to Navy investigations of civilians killed by Coalition Forces in Iraq, including the cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. Released today in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the ACLU filed in June 2006, these records provide a vivid snapshot of the circumstances surrounding civilian deaths in Iraq.

"At every step of the way, the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "Our democracy depends on an informed public and that is why it is so important that the American people see these documents. These documents will help to fill the information void around the issue of civilian casualties in Iraq and will lead to a more complete understanding of the prosecution of the war."

The ACLU obtained documents from eight Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigations. One of the files documents the investigation of the death of Mohammed al-Sumaidaie, a cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S, Samir al-Sumaidaie. In 2006, the ambassador accused Marines of "intentionally" killing his cousin and today's records shed light on al-Sumaidaie's NCIS investigation for the first time. Among the findings uncovered in this file are conflicting accounts of events, questions of credibility, possible command influence issues and cover-ups.

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