Radio Sweethearts

Edit: FOIA=Freedom of Information Act. Better for everyone that everyone knows. 

  Is anyone else absolutely thrilled that this episode doesn’t open with election coverage? Instead, it opens with some serious rage.

Ladies and gentlemen, the FOIA Ombudsman is dead, and it seems that President Bush buried the orders for the kill deep within his 2009 Budget proposal.

The ombudsman is supposed to be a neutral third party, there to make sure that every FOIA request is treated fairly and filled within the 20-day time period.

This position is necessary, because there are current FOIA requests that have been languishing in the system for 15 years. If FOIA works, journalists and regular citizens can have access to all kinds of government records. It’s designed to make government more open.FOIA fun fact: FOIA was originally (and surprisingly) introduced to Congress by a republican. Right now, there’s no federal database for processing FOIA requests. Most of the time, people who make requests wind up in court. Brooke is talking to Rebecca Carr of Cox Newspapers, who sounds like she’s about to cry.I get where she’s coming from - I don’t like the idea of having such an important job dismissed on page 293 of a budget proposal. 

There is hope, though - Congress is aware of the issue, and they have several options for fixing it.Feeling outraged yet? If not, there’s another bit of bad news. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is disfunctional. Not that it was really able to function properly anyway - it was (for some strange reason) made a part of the executive branch, which means that this five-person board (made up of four Republicans - the one Democrat quit!) serves at the whims of the president. They’ve only held one public meeting, at which the press wasn’t allowed to ask any questions. The annual reports of the group are all about wiretapping and lots of other fun invasions of privacy and civil liberties. There is good news - the board is no longer functioning, as the terms of its members have expired. No one has been replaced. Congress is also making the board independent of the White House. So, there’s outrage, but Congress seems to be on its game in terms of fixing it. I’m suddenly feeling all warm and fuzzy about the legislature. Weird. There’s a story about journalists and unrest in Kenya, and it’s interesting enough, but not nearly as interesting as what follows. Eli Lilly has been having some legal troubles. One of the lawyers at Pepper Hamilton accidentally sent a confidential email to a New York Times reporter who has been covering Eli Lilly’s legal issues.Alone in Russia, Times reporter Alex Berenson sees the mis-sent email in his in-box. Dude is living the dream - he received substantiation for a story he had been withholding for lack of sources - completely on accident. It’s possibly one of the most serendipitous things that can ever happen to a journalist, and I’m totally jealous. t’s clear that Bob is turning a bit green, too. He’s trying to play the straight man, asking Berenson if he thought that it was ethical to run the story, but it’s obvious that he’s giddy. He’s just wishing that this would happen to him. That one day, Brooke would confess her love for him in an email to someone else, and send it to him by mistake. Alas, lucky breaks are few and far between, and he’s cool with geeking out with Real American Journalism Hero Alex Berenson. It’s a really great week on OTM - no election coverage, plenty of attacks on our freedom, and a visit from the luckiest journalist ever. But don’t step away from that podcast, kids, ’cause it’s about to get even better. Bob (who is really being allowed a chance to shine on some hard-hitting stories this week) introduces a segment about Media Defender. It’s a company that puts fake files of things you’d want to download (movies, songs, etc.) on torrent sites. It works like this - after a person spends two days downloading a movie, they press play only to find out that they’ve just wasted two days downloading static. They’re trying to make people crazy. Media Defender is going after files on sites like the Pirate Bay, which is a search engine for bittorrent downloads. And then, something weird happens. Bob says “ARRRRRGH!” like a pirate. I shit you not. He just arrrgh-ed. It’s awesome, but I’m a little scared. Apparently, hackers are the new ninjas - a 16-year-old kid named Ethan accidentally stealthily hacked his way into Media Defender. He had access to everything - corporate emails, financial statements, etc for six months. In September, he posted all of the emails that he had saved up and posted them on torrent sites, successfully bringing down Media Defender. Score one for the pirates! Arrrrgh! Next up: Freedom of Speech 101. I’m going to forgo the recap to make a quick public service announcement. The First Amendment is absolutely crucial to democracy. As people who totally believe in the power of the 1st Amendment, Matthew and I both recommend that you listen to this segment. Wrapping up the week’s episode is Brooke’s segment on Guantanamo Bay and pop culture. Gitmo has become a bit of a cultural icon - there are movies, poetry books, and songs decrying the prison and its unending sentences. There’s even a play called “Jesus: The Guantanamo Years.” People have always created art about politics and the need for social change. And though I find some of the pop culture references to Guantanamo funny, it’s more in the laugh-to-keep-from-crying kind of way. I can’t help but hope that the pop culture references will bring lawmakers’ attention to the subject. Sometimes, it seems like they’ve forgotten that that tiny silver of Cuba belongs to us, the most free nation in the world. This week’s recap was written by Kerry, and edited by Matthew.