<A
HREF="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/20000127_xcbtl_renos_2_mi.shtml
">Reno's $2 million 'private' spy</A>
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/20000127_xcbtl_renos_2_mi.shtml
Reno's $2 million
'private' spy
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Your federal government funded a paranoid, conspiracy-minded activist to the
tune of $2 million last year to, among other things, spy on little old me.
This self-proclaimed "militia watchdog" is Mark Pitcavage of Columbus, Ohio.
He's a one-man clearinghouse whose work on behalf of Janet Reno's Justice
Department includes trashing those investigating the Waco massacre. He boasts
on his website of being research director for the State and Local
Anti-Terrorism Training program, funded through the Justice Department's
Bureau of Justice Assistance through the Institute for Intergovernmental
Research.
A recent e-mail from Pitcavage sent in response to an inquiry about the
ownership of WorldNetDaily illustrates that this quasi-government snoop
dispenses more opinion and innuendo than facts.
"I don't know who 'owns' them (WorldNetDaily)," he writes, "but they do have
a clear agenda. They are an ultraconservative conspiracy-oriented (and,
needless to say, anti-government) 'news agency.' I put that last in quotes
because they attempt to make themselves seem like a respectable news agency,
but their stories are generally the same old conspiracy theories and similar
dead horses (land grabs, U.N. power, military urban exercises, Bill Clinton
is evil, etc.) that have been trotted out before. The difference is money,
which allows them to have paid, full-time journalists, and of course the
Internet, which gives them a veneer of respectability."
Mark Pitcavage, self-proclaimed "militia watchdog"
There's more, but let's just dissect this distortion from a man who calls
himself a "historian."
* On our "clear agenda": WorldNetDaily has never disguised its agenda. It is
to recapture a journalistic principle once widely accepted in America - that
the principle role of a free press in a free society is to serve as a
watchdog on government. That's it. Simple, straightforward and wholly in line
with what reporters and editors routinely accepted as their mission for 200
years in America.
* On the term "ultra-conservative": I'm the editor and founder of
WorldNetDaily. I don't belong to any political movement or party. I have
publicly disavowed and rejected the label "conservative." I have repeatedly
warned that the biggest political threat facing America today is fascism. I
have brought together into the WorldNetDaily fold a broad range of political
commentators and analysts and have been pilloried for doing so by many
conservatives.
* On the term "conspiracy-oriented": I find it interesting that the targets
of WorldNetDaily's investigative reports often resort to using this
characterization as their sole line of defense. They don't pick apart our
reporting. They don't cite inaccuracies. They don't deal in specifics.
Instead, they use broad strokes to discredit the one news agency in the world
that uses responsible journalistic techniques to carry out the most
traditional, honorable and noble work being done in our profession today.
That's what Pitcavage does. And he learned the trick from his masters in this
administration - Hillary Clinton to name names.
* On our money: We made it the old-fashioned way. We earned it - in the
marketplace of ideas as a content provider in a revolutionary new medium
known as the Internet. We don't have the government funding us. Got a problem
with that, pal? Jealous?
Pitcavage continues: "WorldNet has, however, proven invaluable for the
'patriot' movement, as it has provided a news source for all sorts of patriot
newsletters and magazines to glom material from; as a result, its stories are
very widely distributed and something that WorldNet puts out can run through
the entire patriot community in really no time at all. Sometimes they even
get picked up by what one would normally consider mainstream venues."
Now who's the conspiracy-monger? This is the same old, tired, "vast
right-wing conspiracy" described by Hillary Clinton years ago and discussed
in detail in the White House playbook, "The Communication Stream of
Conspiracy Commerce" back in 1995-96. They're still peddling the lies.
They're still calling the kettle black. They're still using taxpayer money to
keep dossiers and government force to target "enemies."
Pitcavage is small potatoes. I'm not suggesting he's really a key player in
the massive forms of abuse of power exercised by this administration. But
he's indicative of how far the abuse has gone. He should be stopped. He
should be defunded. But, more importantly, Congress and the people of the
United States must demand that his sponsors - Reno and the Clinton smear
machine - be brought to justice for their high crimes and misdemeanors.
If it was wrong for Nixon - and it was - it's equally wrong for the Clintons
to use all the power of the federal government to maintain "enemies lists"
and to target law-abiding critics and government watchdogs for retribution.
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