SPJ national update II: Wiretap memos going public; won't talk, and you can't make me; church alliance denounces Iraq war; how much health care would that buy? Facing an FOI Act lawsuit, the Justice Department said it would begin releasing the internal memos the White House used to authorize its warrantless wiretaps. "There are real secrets and convenient secrets," said the National Security Archives' general counsel, Meredith Fuchs. "It may be convenient for the NSA to run this program in secret, but that policy debate, and consideration of the legality of the program, should be open." More here and here. ... Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich and his staff still don't have to talk to the Baltimore Sun. In a ruling in a lawsuit challenging Ehrlich's ban on talking with two Sun reporters, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the reporters "have not been chilled to any substantial degree in their reporting, as they have continued to write stories for The Sun, to comment, to criticize, and otherwise to speak with the full protection of the First Amendment." More here. ... Thirty-four U.S. members of the World Council of Churches on Feb. 18 sharply criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq, accusing Washington of "raining down terror" and apologizing to other nations for "the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown." The U.S. groups in the WCC include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox churches and some Baptist denominations. More here. ... The Bush administration spent 1.4 billion taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with ad agencies over the past 2 1/2 years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Feb. 14. Spending trends were not documented, but a prior study by the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee found that PR spending under Bush increased to $88 million in 2004 from $39 million in 2000, or 128 percent. More here and here.
SPJ national update III: Criticize the government, fear for your job; be a student, get a job; and it's important that the people don't know. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., asked Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson for an inquiry of his agency's investigation into whether a V.A. nurse's critical letter to the editor amounted to "sedition." In a letter to a weekly Albuquerque newspaper on the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war, Laura Berg, a clinical nurse specialist for 15 years, urged people to bring criminal charges against top administration officials, including the president, to remove them from power because they played games of "vicious deceit." The agency seized Berg's office computer and attempted to determine if the letter was written on it. Berg reportedly thinks she could lose her job. More here and here. ... Two students will be selected for the SPJ Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information Internships in Indianapolis, and an opportunity is available in Indianapolis for the Archibald Communications intern. Apply by March 15. Details at spj.org/internships.asp. Meanwhile, SPJ seeks 12 bright, hard-working student journalists to staff The Working Press, the daily tabloid that will cover the national conference, Aug. 24-27 in Chicago. Application deadline is April 19. Info at spj.org. ... In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have removed from public access more than 55,000 pages of documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians. More here.
