Homeland Security and Bloggers Meet

Someone in the administration of President George W. Bush is taking seriously the impact the blogosphere - citizen journalists? - are having on the way people see the world, and how they perceive government. That administration official is none other than Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security. But does Chertoff really embrace the new media - or was he just setting up a few political friends for some fodder for their keyboards?

Chertoff conducted a live question and answer session (at least, it is being reported by DHS as being live, according to the press release with the transcript) on April 2, 2008. Some of us recall an incident with other similar "news" from DHS, in which it turned out to be nothing except an advertising campaign with scripted questions and answers, and a dummy news conference.

WIRED magazine's blogger Ryan Singel corroborates that this was a live event in his blog. Singel writes the Threat Level column at WIRED identified the four invited bloggers, and indicates that a few other print journalists were also apparently in attendance, so perhaps this was a real, live interview.

The questions from these unidentified bloggers (unidentified by DHS) were quite astute, and reflected a fundamental understanding of issues, as well as being completely up on current events. Everything from immigration policy, to the transition of Homeland Security activities when the Bush administration leaves power in 2009 were asked about. Frankly, the transcript reads more like a few chums sitting around the dinner table talking about current events - "My Dinner With Andre" without the philosophy. Chertoff's answers seemed to be quite direct and forthcoming.

What the transcript from DHS fails to include is what Singel indicates was a rather heated exchange between Congressional Quarterly's national security editor Jeff Stein. One of the "old media" writers - who actually challenged Chertoff on the issue of pardons for the telecoms who allowed the Bush Administration security team to illegally wiretap us all.

Still - who were these bloggers that were involved - but DHS fails to identify? The DHS transcript does not identify them, nor tell us where to read what these 'citizen journalists' had to say about the interview - or about anything else. A little snooping around the infoverse - and it looks as if there were four 'key' bloggers in attendance, each of whom keeps tabs on Homeland Security at this, the second such roundtable arranged by Chertoff.

Jonah Czerwinski - He writes at DHSWatch (http://www.DHSwatch.com), and focuses on Home Land Security issues. His bio on DHSWatch (http://www.hlswatch.com): "Czerwinski is Managing Consultant, Global Business Services at IBM, working on homeland security policy issues, and is a Senior Fellow in IBM's Global Leadership Initiative. Jonah is a Senior Advisor, Homeland Security Projects, for the Center for the Study of the Presidency. He is a 2007 Senior Fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute of George Washington University."

Hmm... hardly seems like an unbiased fellow, not with his employer's close ties to DHS and other instruments of the security apparatus.

Amanda Carpenter - Carpenter writes for Townhall.com (http://www.townhall.com), a right-leaning political opinion web site. Carpenter is a National Political Reporter for Townhall.com. Townhall.com calls itself (drum roll please as we lead into the hyperbole) "the leading online publication for news, opinion, and talk."

J.Peter Freire - Managing Editor for American Spectator. American Spectator's tone is also decidedly right of central, and many of the pieces read like a manifesto for the GOP.

Andrew Cochran - Cochran is a vice president with Gage Business and Consulting group, and writes a column for the Counterterrorism Blog. The company, again, makes its big bucks from the advice it gives to government and companies on security issues.

So, Chertoff stacked the deck in who he invited. Is that such a surprise, that you'd prefer a few friendly faces at this event? But it also feels highly disingenuous to say Chertoff is embracing the new media - when the only wonks permitted in the room were going to view anything he said highly favorably - and not ask many tough questions.

And where is the missing exchange with Chertoff and Stein? Why is that excluded from the transcript? We'll only know after Stein gets published - these guys in DHS, NSA, FBI and the other alphabet soup of security agencies are very good at keeping secrets.

And getting yours.