On Saudi Press Freedoms (Updated)

Time can always refuse to not participate Michael.

They've probably been watching the U.S. MSM, with its propensity for aggravating any and all controversy in the guise of "reporting."

I know it's just a matter of semantics but There is no right to a free press in Saudi Arabia is technically inaccurate. Just because rights are routinely violated doesn't mean they cease to exist. Otherwise they'd be 'privleges'

priveleges...
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I can spell, I just can't type.

privileges
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I guess I can't spell either!

There's anti-free press stuff going on here in the US, too:

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman -- called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 -- that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States." As long as the Defense Secretary certifies -- with no review possible -- that disclosure would "endanger" American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.

Just imagine if any other country did this. Imagine if a foreign government were accused of systematically torturing and otherwise brutally abusing detainees in its custody for years, and there was ample photographic evidence proving the extent and brutality of the abuse. Further imagine that the country's judiciary -- applying decades-old transparency laws -- ruled that the government was legally required to make that evidence public. But in response, that country's President demanded that those transparency laws be retroactively changed for no reason other than to explicitly empower him to keep the photographic evidence suppressed, and a compliant Congress then immediately passed a new law empowering the President to suppress that evidence. What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn't even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.

PD:

At least you can think. Meanwhile – two words: dictation software.

Elvis: I agree this is just wrong.

By the way is anyone in the MSM going to discuss and alert the american people about this proposed law. Other than Glenn?

So... is this different from previous trips under previous administrations? That would be a meaningful bit of context to add, wouldn't it?

I know it's not your beat, Michael, but the press isn't so free in Israel either. Amira Hess of Ha'aretz was arrested in May for going to Gaza.

"is this different from previous trips under previous administrations? That would be a meaningful bit of context to add, wouldn't it?"
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In my opinion free press members shouldn't go. Putting up a blog post or writing a lame article on this issue while dutifully getting on the plane and completely complying with the restrictions accomplishes nothing.

Michael Scherer:
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Is this hotel-arrest policy because of Saudi press restrictions, or because the Administration and the Saudis know that many US journalists traveling with the President are women, and would be subject to Saudi gender apartheid laws, and so both parties wish to avoid any unpleasantness arising from this Wahhabi apartheid's direct exposure to the US press corps?

gysgt:
Perhaps. But my point is that Mikey is identifying this as "by agreement between the Obama Administration and the Saudi government."

These are standard press restrictions that were also in place during the last administration. There is nothing nefarious about it. Please inquire of your more experienced colleagues whether this is standard procedure when the WH is visiting Saudi Arabia (it is), and then please clarify that to your loyal readers, Michael. You are giving them a wrong impression and causing rampant, unwarranted speculation. And I know you don't want that, and neither do I.

jay ell ay,
tee aitch ex & ell oh ell.

Sound like you need a Saudi Visa, Michael. What's stopping you?

"Not knew?
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There's a lot more than the Interwebz behind the decline of print journalism.

The Saudi governmemt is luck they have oil. They'd be regarded as just another repressive regime crying out for liberation and d3mocracy by our right wing if they didn't.

Saudi restrictions are no surprise. We had all kinds of problems when our forces were stationed there. Any journalist who finds the condition unacceptable should avoid the trip. The days are gone when we saw Mrs Greenspan butting heads with Sudanese security and forcing her way into a meeting between our SOS (Rice) and their President in Khartoum..

Paul Dirks Says: " I know it's just a matter of semantics .."

No worry. We revel in it. And duplicity too.
When all the cars were black, the car maker would tell the complaining public that they can have any color they wish - RIGHT - as long as it is black - REALITY.

In a land teeming with an over-abundance of job seekers where the ruling elite own the MSM we can talk about "free press" where the employees in the MSM (like MS) who are in dire need of a job - and desperately seeking to keep one - would reflexively observe "self-censorship".
[In short, don't write in support of "Islam" if your employer is rabidly "anti-Islam". [I know that the previous sentence would be even more compelling if I use the words "Israel" and "anti-semitic."]]

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" .. authorities have the right, under law, to "prevent anything that can lead to disunity, sedition, and separation," from being published. .."

If we do it, it is all good. If they do the same - a million curses on them.
[MS may not privately embrace the self-censorship - but he has a mouth to feed; a body to clothe and shelter; and perhaps he has a few other dependent mouths and bodies to worry about too. [Not forgetting an ego to stroke. And a veneer of faux intellectual excellence and sophistication to banish through access to the MSM..]
So, Bring on the self-censorship! And does it matter whether it comes for a government or the owners of the MSM - the ruling elite - that LARGELY 'control' the government?]

I need a grammar check as well as spellcheck.

And trust the impish god of the internet to forget to format my post properly. And trust the same impish god of the MSM to insert among POTUS's traveling press one whose name rhymes with "Michelle".

Now how about rhyming "Hussein" or "Obama"?