Woo hoo! The more this is written about the more the American people can see it and respond --- and respond they will.

Thanks for your "reporting".

I am here, although my power might go out because of the storm.

Hi Larisa --- welcome to the blogathon!

I have a tough question for you:

What is the state of the police state?

Of all the topics I try to research, this is the hardest one to get a handle on ... at this point I think this is mostly because all this legislation is secret ... but what do I know?

Can you tell us anything more than I can?

Wow, you really know how to welcome a girl right off the bat (wink). In my opinion a police state is one in which there is a controlled populace and a suspension of civil liberties either through covert means or through direct legislation, or both.

A good example of that is Italy under Fascism and Germany under the Nazi regime. That said, a police state does not happen overnight, outside of a revolution that is. It happens over a period of time, so that the citizens of a state do not notice the control mechanisms and do not really comprehend the full impact of the situation, which is unfortunate.

Are you asking me if we are living in a police state or just to define a general broad concept, at least in my opinion?

I am asking ... how close are we now ... and what is happening with the legislation that wants to push us farther in that direction?

Well we are in a bad way now, that is for sure. With the original Patriot Act; then Real ID act; the Pentagon’s involvement in local law enforcement; and Homeland Security participating in helping local law enforcement monitor god knows what… we have crossed a serious line. Now we also have the “other” FBI, within the FBI, headed by Negroponte and our leadership is pushing for PAII, then we are pretty close. John Conyers said once “it has a distinct dictatorial flavor” and I tend to agree.

How about a wild hypothetical question:

Do you suppose any of our recent police-state legislation could be overturned on the grounds that is clearly unconstitutional?

They should be, yes, in fact in the last four years the majority of the security laws have done little to secure the country from anything other than a dissenting voice. A hypothetical would be difficult, because built into some of these laws is the “inability” to seek legal recourse through the courts. For example, PA’s FISA violations: so the FISA court is approached, told you did something somewhere, but the authorities deem it classified and that is that, they need not specify what you did, what the context is of that “doing,” etc. You are picked up, your family is presented with a document prohibiting them from speaking to anyone for any reason about the situation or they too will be arrested. So how are they and/or you to seek legal recourse that would result in overturning the law as unconstitutional?

John Conyers is asking for everyone's help in compiling all the administration's public comments pre-Iraq invasion; that is, I haven't made up my mind to invade, WMD claims, Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in, etc. He blogged (in more detail) yesterday over at DailyKos. But I think he wants a comprehensive timeline, complete with remarks and URLs. I know the Kossacks are working on it, but does RAW STORY (or you personally) have an archive that we can plumb to move the ball toward the goal?

RawStory is Johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to covering the stories that are ignored, glossed over, or slanted by corporate media. I especially appreciate your role in covering the Downing Street Minutes.

Is there anything new coming up regarding the DSM?

What other stories are you working on in the coming weeks?

re #8 --- It's the great Catch-22, isn't it? Clearly a law which deprives citizens of due process is not valid under the constitution. I know this administration has no respect for the constitution and that's not my point. My question, I think, is:

Where's the line?

What has to happen before somebody hires a good lawyer to file a class action suit on behalf of the 290 million [or so] Americans whose constitutional rights have been abrogated?

Is nobody willing to do that?

He posted our timeline at Kos, but here is the timeline link:

www.rawstory.com/exclusives/muriel/path_of_war_timeline_613.htm

The Path of War Timeline

Larissa, I want to thank you and follow your reports faithfully. I also have you listed on my site at Really News I don't do reporting myself, nor give commentary, I just present a compare and contrast of new sources to attempt to open the public's eyes.

I live close enough to DC to have seen "the police state" and the January 20th coronation was VERY unsettling as I watched DC look like a Military zone that day. It was sickening, the high gates, the snipers on every roof. (sigh) It was just ugly. thousands of police and security . .all of them terrified too at the angry crowds.

I also highlight some of your stories, properly linking you guys of course.

Well, I just wanted to say thank you for all you do.

#10: thanks:) It used to be that the alternative press covered the "under-reported" stories, but now, we have to do it all.

There is much more to DSM, that is for sure. I imagine you will be seeing more coming out from various publications in the next few weeks.

I just did a an interview with Joe Wilson, which will be up early next week. Some of the other stories I cannot really comment on at this point in time. Yes, I am always this annoying too, just ask Brad... I never tell him anything and it drives him crazy:)

Larisa-

You "guys" at Raw Story, as well as other "alternative" progressive on-line media are doing a great job of getting the real stories out there but it doesn't seem like it can adequately counter the lethargy and, worse, down-right dishonesty in too much of the corporate controlled MSM. Any thoughts you could throw out there about how we can make the MSM more honest and responsive or are they bound to be less and less relevant in the fight for truth? If so, can the "alternative" media like Raw Story, gain credibility and readership in time to make a difference? I really feel like we need something, some smoking gun to wake up the populace that even the MSM can't ignore. Is there anything like that that you have any inkling might be out there? Is it your opinion that the London bombings will, in the near term, hurt or help the Bushites and their minions in regards to Middle East "policy"?

Larisa, thanks for being here! The world is a better place because you are in it. My question:

How about an accounting of what you see as potential tipping points? In other words, you've documented all of these crimes and travesties, dire threats to the Constitution, such an onslought on so many fronts. And yet there is a backlash and at times these last weeks it's seemed the Administration is back on it heels. What do you see as most likely to be the straw that breaks the backs of the war criminals that run our country? Yes, please speculate some! What are the x-factors? The 'unknown unknowns' that if known would precipitate the depth of transformation, god-willing, peaceful revolution required now to turn the tide and bring an end to the depravity of rights-crushing, bigoted, racist ploys of the criminal class and all the horrid suffering that follows?

Thank you. It is a great timeline, but I "believe" Rep. Conyers is already aware of it. At least I would hope so. It appears he wants more meat on the bones, as it were. Perhaps, and this is conjecture, there is something even more specific he's after, but I "think" what he really wants are ALL statements: Bush's as well as Condi's and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's and Wolfie's, et al., to get the whole propaganda/disinformation campaign put together into one database.

That would require Nexus/Lexus, Google, and searches in the foreign press as well, since the administration gave statements to foreign sources that may be somewhat different, more/less nuanced than here in the U.S. And somewhere amongst all that data, there will be some solid evidence and some rhetorical slip-ups that can and will be used against them (in a court of law).

#11 The line you ask about has been crossed. I honestly don’t know what can be done at this point. In any other reality, we would be well beyond impeachment. We would be talking about treason. I honestly have no idea how this will be resolved or how it should be at this point. I am confident humanity, free societies, etc., will survive. I just don’t know if this country will be part of a “free society” world or if it will continue to be even a fraction of what it used to be. Is that sad? Yes. Is it irreversible? I don’t know. But I do think, as I have said, that the end of American democracy is not the end of democracy or the end of enlightenment or humanity by any means.

#16- You are asking the same question I did in #15, but in a more compelling way! Hopefully, Larisa can answer our questions together.

Hi, Larissa:

Thanks for the great reporting at Raw Story!!

I've debated The Downing Street Memos (minutes) and briefings with a couple of very articulate people in the blogosphere who say that the DSM & briefings are a red herring. They prove nothing. It is just "opinion". In fact, they say, the opinion itself is nothing new. The media, at the time, had already provided the public with the same info.

I contest that it is not "just opinion". It is opinion from top-level British government officials about meeting with top-level American government officials. Also, regardless of the aggressive rhetoric that was being spread accross the airwaves at the time, the president (on numerous occasions) had said that he would use war "as a last resort". The DSM contradicts this administration's stance in a clear and authoratative way. It proves that the administration was LYING about it's intentions to go to war.

Is there anything you can add about the significance of The Downing Street Memos (minutes) & briefings?

#13 Thanks, it means a great deal to hear that. We do try, that is for sure. I know what you mean. I watched a journalist get beaten in Florida by the police. It was reported on for 2 seconds by the Herald, now you cannot even locate that story in Lex/Nex.

re #17 Sorry to quibble, SherAn ... but there is more than enough evidence --- in plain sight --- to put these guys away forever --- and there always has been; We don't really need MORE smoking guns, do we? What we really need is a sheriff!!

Steve:

You are assuming the MSM can be salvaged. I don’t see that as a possibility any longer, much in the same way that Yellow Journalism failed against the new mediums and alternative voices that rose up against it, which then became the MSM. We are watching the MSM self-implode and demoted to status of rumor, conjecture, and theory.

I think alternative sources are already credible, if they were not, we would be sitting in the dark believing that a “mission accomplished” thing actually occurred somewhere. So the goal is to put our resources, as a community, into the alternative press. Not just money, but fully backing our journalists on the ground. I have Will Pitt’s back, because I respect him, even if he writes something I don’t agree with. I have Brad’s back and so forth. The community has to protect its truth tellers so that they can do that, tell the truth.

As for a smoking gun, we already have a smoking cannons and on many topics. The problem is that everyone assumes that there is a point of singularity, as it were, that will explain, prove, convince, and move mountains. That is not correct.

I cannot say about the London bombing in terms of its impact on any one administration. The reality is, we are seeing too many discrepancies between what the American press is reporting and the British press is reporting. That said, there is a lot of confusion and it make some time to shake all of the facts out. At this point, I have no clue what group, person (s), agendas, etc., were behind the attacks. For all we know it could have been a single person who was simply just that pissed off. So until we know more, I think the speculation should be left up to Fox.:)

#22 Right on Winter Patriot. But where to turn for the sheriff? On the 9/11 front we went to NY AG Spitzer with a well documented complaint signed by family members only to be ignored. We've prepared a similar complaint to file with Morganthau the Manhattan DA. This is the wake off a massive cover-up by the 9/11 Commission. There are suggestions someone file a fraud suit againt the Commissioners and the master cover-up fraud, Condi Rice's new special counsel in State, Dr. Zelikow. In the meantime, there is talk of lobbying Davis in the House Reform Cmte to heed Waxman's call for hearings about the shocking FAA/52 warnings monograph released 3 days after Rice was confirmed at State. Waxman even suggested this new information means we must look at whether or not she lied when she said they weren't specific warnings about the attacks. Obviously, I think the lies of 9/11 if exposed would be the tipping point. Coy cat out of bag.

#16: I actually think we have tipped, as you say, toward a serious shift. People are seeing the reality and that it does not mesh with the propaganda. I think the thing that will in the end bring justice, if at all, is the Plame leak. As important as it is, I have felt the torture issue, for example, was far more urgent, pressing, and required serious accountability. In the end, it is the small and messy errors that make criminals show themselves, not the big crimes, which sometimes are too big for people to ever fully grasp or even want to at times. Like the Iraq war, for example. People don’t want to have to believe they were lied to. I agree with them in that we have to be able to trust those who represent us not to betray us or to lead us in to harm. But I see that is what has happened, where as some, are still unwilling to see it because it requires that they give up certain notions, ideals, etc.

#17, I agree, he is looking not so much for a smoking gun as there is already a smoking set of guns. He is looking for a way to illustrate the process by which the "facts were fixed". IMO, of course as I cannot presume to speak for him. Sorry I did not get that in your first question, I thought you asked if we had put a resource together, a time line. Hope this answers it.

WinterPatriot, I do not quibble (#17, #22). I was ready to impeach in January 2001! I live in Broward (Home of the Chad) County, Florida! I worked the election, again in Florida, in 2004, and I saw firsthand the discrepancies at the polls here.

It is not me that wants a more complete timeline and additional comments, it is John Conyers! Since he has asked, we must assist in every possible way. Clearly, he has something in mind that is not known to the rest of us.

Having worked in the legal field for more than twenty years, I can vouch that sometimes a case is decided on the basis of "one word." One word. Consider that the word "not" is the most powerful word in the English language.

So, clearly, he's after something specific, although even he may not know for certain exactly what it is at this time. The least additional searches can do is keep the matter upfront in the public's mind until either we've reached a tipping point (polls reflecting >50% for impeachment) or accumulated evidence and public demand forces the moderates in the House and Senate to support impeachment proceedings.

And in response to your question re: what can we do to stop the creeping police state, a class action lawsuit has NO chance of succeeding until this administration is put out of office. Plus, you must consider that the overwhelming majority of federal judges are Republicans. Do you think they would rule favorably in a class action case? Puleeze. No one here is that naive.

Larisa-

Just a point of clarification. I didn't mean to suggest that the alternative media doesn't have credibility. Certainly with many of us, it is the only thing with credibility out there. What I should have asked is how we can push its credibility more into the mainstream, make more people aware where the truth can be found. Is there a way you can think of to bring the alternative media "together", in a figurative sense, into a more unified and potent entity. Perhaps an AP-like newsservice that is dedicated to internet and alternative media?

One more question that has been straining my brain.

Do you have any insight on Judy Miller and Novak?
I'm no fan of either but it seems odd that she went to jail for refusing to give up the source for a story she never wrote. Yet Novak did write the story, it was published (and Plame was outed and her CIA agents were killed as a result) and no one is asking him anything. Or have I missed something?

#20, I think you have captured the meaning of the DSM (May) fully. In context, you can see more than a just a desire to go to war without fact, lie to the people in order to do it, and use the press in order to achieve that end. What you see is that we had already started a war, a war before the war, if you will. We started air strikes so concentrated that even our own press noticed and commented. The extent of those attacks is severe and we did not attack military installations, only, although there was not much of military infrastructure left. So you have a President telling the nation and the Congress that he is pursuing diplomatic means, when in fact, he has already launched a full blown campaign. The other issues, and there are many, include for example, illegally diverting funds from the Afghan war toward a yet unauthorized war in Iraq. There are many many issues with regard to how complex and truly disturbing this information is. It is not old news because the public never new it, regardless of when the mainstream new it. If anything, it makes the mainstream complicit.

It is also not opinion because in order for it to be opinion it would have to be proved false, when in fact the documents and statements therein have been proved factual by many sources.

One more thing, the context of this extends to not only the pre-war mechanism, but to the cover up of that mechanism, example, the Plame outing. So you have many criminal allegations here that are hardly old news or irrelevant. There has never been anything more relevant than mass murder ad hoc and on our dime. That makes us all responsible and as such, it should make all of us concerned.

Larissa, Steve brings up something that Raw Story reported on a couple of months ago. Don't I recall that Raw Story and some bloggers were in the process of organizing an alternative to AP? Sort of a clearing house for alternative media. I didn't dream that, did I? It's an outstanding idea. What is happening with that?

Larisa, you wrote:
In the end, it is the small and messy errors that make criminals show themselves, not the big crimes...

I'm thinking 9/11 --- BIG CRIME. And what the press has missed thus far across the board (MSM and Indy/Alt.) is the small and messy errors within the big crime of 9/11. And if only investigative reporters beside Sy Hersh would get into the nitty gritty of lies and 'errors' as you say, then the whole or at least most of the official narrative would be exposed for what it is...a farce, a whitewash, cover-up and of course the ultimate of pretexts or trump cards. Only problem is when reporters like Daniel Pearl, may he rest in peace, who follow one of the 'errors' (ie. the trail behind the $100,000 wire transfer to lead hijacker M. Atta approved by the head of the Pakistani intelligence service ) and end up dead it's sends an aweful chilling message. Ahhhh, but there is safety in numbers. Only problem, outside of Gail Sheehy of Newsday, Bill Bunch in Philly, Jim Ridgeway of Village Voice, Sy Hersh the numbers are just not there yet. Perhaps, the upcoming 'hearings' on the Hill sponsored by Rep. McKinney will be a tipping point in terms of getting more members of the press to pick up what hot trails might lead to the errors of the Big Crime of 9/11?

#28 (by the way you guys, sorry it takes me so long to answer, doing my best):

I think something like the Paper Chase, a project we did a bit earlier this year is a good idea. You take news, real news as opposed to partisan statements, and you print it, make copies and take those copies wherever you go. I spend a great deal of time at the Dr., so I take the copies with me there and slide them inside magazines, leave them on the tables, etc. I do the same at the gas station, book stores, wherever I go. That is a way to reach the public who is either not plugged in or is too Foxed in.

Another suggestion is working closely across all of the alternative mediums. For example, alternative press and alternative radio as well as blogs. We have the news and the journalists, what we need are a delivery mechanism. That mechanism is the readership.

#30 - Larisa, you have succinctly summarized the case on the DSM. There are, of course, a number of other unrelated high crimes and misdemeanors for which impeachment is warranted, but the easiest for the public to digest is the unnecessary war.

#29, I have written some pretty long comments on the Miller/Novak/Cooper/Rove slumber party. I have a fixed position on this, to be sure. In terms of what my own theory is regarding the how, why, when, etc., that is a conversation we should have in private. I mean it is only theory, but even theory requires responsibility or it will run aflame on the net within moments and become fact before the person theorizing has blinked. So IM me and I would be more than to speculate. In the meantime, my view of Miller can be found at the Huffington Post in my last blog entry there.

Larissa:

To follow up:

Obviously you don't believe that the Iraqis firing at U.S. & British aircraft in the No-fly zone makes the war legal. However, I've heard that argument made.

Can you articulately explain (as I know you can) WHY the war is still "illegal", given this scenario.

Thanks, again!

#31 No, you are not dreaming it. You are speaking of OSPA (Open Source Press Association). The problem is that we are so busy reporting, writing, researching, interviewing, and occasionally napping, that no one has had a moment to stop and work on it or the resources that are needed such as funds. It is something that is real and we do plan on pushing it forward, but it may just take some time.

Larissa:

Oooh --- I just thought of another juicy one.

Richard Perle publically called the Iraq war "ILLEGAL" in 2003. He was one of the chief architects of the war in Iraq. Why hasn't more been made of that shocking statement?

#33 The Paper Chase is great, and it works.

I have been able to convince MSM reporters to write stories after I emailed them blog entries and news articles from other sources. It's really helpful to email items to the smaller media outlets (press and air) that rely very heavily on the wire services.

I have running correspondence with a handful of "big time" reporters and have sparked them to write in major dailies, but it's much harder to convince them than to convince the lesser knowns.

Another area to work in is to distribute well-researched blog entries to some of the consolidator websites. They link to those items, and then their readership has a chance to read the item, also.

Think Johnny Appleseed. Sprinkle a little here, a little there. It does take time, but it does really work.

#32: The problem with 9/11 is not the fact or the missing pieces, it is the public. If you consider, for example, that democracy is much like a religion then 9/11 is akin to finding the body of God. People, despite the facts and despite the inconsistencies of the official story, will not be able to wrap their minds around it, even if you show them proof beyond any doubt. My own thoughts are and have always been clear on this: the official version is ridiculous at best. What actually transpired is something we may never know or who was behind it is something we may never know. As journalists, you can beat your head against a wall or you can slowly cover pieces, building upon pieces, until the questions begin to form in the reader’s own mind. So we cannot start off with 9/11 was done in “this and this way.” We must start with what we can prove and what people can handle, such as DSM. If you notice, more people are talking about 9/11 as a result of DSM than they were prior. So you focus on the facts and if they are hard pills to swallow, you have to be ethical and only force one pill down at a time.

Hello Larisa!

I want to applaud you on the fabulous service to this county you're providing with your excellent investigative journalism.

FISA is a scary matter, so are 50-year secrecy contracts required of our political leaders, government employees, and military members if given CIA/FBI briefings or access to confidential information. I remember Dennis Kucinich speaking on the matter a few years back, but he didn't get a lot of media coverage. Contracts were ushered in under Bush I with very little challenge even by ACLU (they basically acquiesed). IT's no wonder our government isn't responsive to the people any longer.

The only authorized operatives to release (mis)information work for Rove apparently. Our news agencies continue to print regurgitated White House press releases. Sad situation.

Ever get overwhelmed? How do you deal with it?

#36, I have 5 minutes left and to make an adequate summary for you as to how the Clinton bombings, for example, differed from the Bush bombings is far too long to explain right now. And that is just one element of the legal issue. Feel free to email me and I will do my best to answer.

#31, There is the IPA (Independent Press Association) which COULD, with the funding needed as Larisa pointed out, could sponsor an independent newswire/service. Such could be supported and seeded by Brad DeGraf's MediaVenture/Venture Collective which helped set up the IPA and plugged into IWTNews.org out of Canada which seems to have gotten support from virtually everyone (present guest blogger excepted) in the independent media community. This is just the sort of networking and mutual support Larisa that you suggested we needed to supplant the MSM altogether. I understand that one of Brad DeGraf's colleagues, Henri Poole of Affero, has set up a Ebay-modelled online marketplace for progressive ventures now in Beta. I'll be sure that Brad, our host here gets the details when available. Let's hope such pieces fall into place to give us all a stronger more credible voice, the sooner the better.

#41: I do get overwhelmed, frustrated, sometimes desperately confused. I don’t know how I deal with it. I think I don’t have a choice really; perhaps that is how I deal with it. What I mean is, perhaps I am simply not able to look outside of the focal point because it is like looking down over a cliff, if you look, you are more likely to fall. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

Thanks very much Larisa! This has been great of you to sit in with us today typing like a mad woman!

lovely and talented INDEED!!

Winter:

I have an idea, given that my time is up, can people just post whatever questions they have as needed and then I will simply answer them over the next few days as time allows? That way, everyone gets everything answered. How does that sound to everyone?

sounds great, Larisa. Come back anytime, and post anything you got ... links, favorite paragraphs, love letters, whatever

OOPS! I mean: post anything you'd like to share!!

But definitely come back anytime!!

and anyone who disagrees with me on this is gonna have to fight his way outta here!

#46 Thank you Larisa. Just a closing comment from me really. Relative to the public and 9/11. It seems to me that the mass of the media and press have succumbed to the same malaise as the public has relative to the most uncomfortable prospect of complicity from within our government or country in the attacks of September 11th. And that's a fear-driven malaise...particularly fear of being labelled a conspiracy nut or theorist which has led the press, even those with the highest integrity, to not look close enough, to follow leads wherever they go, to not report facts that raise disturbing guestions that beg for explanation. I will shout out until I'm heard, because I believe that only by going to the master lie, the trump card pulled again and again by the Administration, can we hope to reverse course. " We have nothing to fear but fear itself." In this case, fear of looking more closely at the lies and deceptions surrounding Sept. 11th will only end up delaying a rectification and reversal of furtune. Too many big lies have gone unchallenged. When will we stop the madness and draw a line?

Larisa-

Thank you so much. The job you did here was even better than I imagined and I had pretty high expectations for you. It would be incredibly nice of you and way beyond the call of duty to continue answering questions here over the next few days. You should probably draw some end point though and tell people that will be it because people are likely to keep posting questions here for at least the next couple of days.

The responses you gave here, once you have time to go back and read them (I'm sure it was kind of frantic trying to respond "live") were quite interesting and even profound in places, and I almost wonder if you might copy and paste some or many ("the best of") of the questions and your answers and use them for a "Larisa Explains It All" story in Raw Story (kind of a take on the old "kid's" TV show Clarissa Explains It All" that was on Nickelodeon (I think reruns still are).
Sound too trite? I'd read it and I've already seen it "live" here. THANX!, Steve

This has been incredible! Thank you so much Larisa!

For anyone who missed it, here's Larisa's article at The Huffington Post: Judith Miller - the Patron Saint of Propaganda, 7/7/05. I sent the link to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer this morning to give them an idea of why the MSM has lost credibility...

And The Paper Chase tradition lives on at The Whispering Campaign Thank you Winter Patriot!