Monday, April 30, 2007
Maintaining an Open Society
I was thinking about the former French investigating magistrate Eva Joly's comparison of American and French systems for fighting corruption, when I was reminded of a comment by an FBI secretary we encountered during one of our investigations of financial fraud that was funding a network of right-wing vigilantes in the Pacific Northwest. Paraphrasing, she candidly remarked that, "90 % of the cases we solve are dropped in our lap by informers, private investigators, or ordinary citizens who happen to stumble on evidence of a crime." Joly, now Special Advisor to the Norwegian Government on Corruption and Money Laundering, observed that while rich people in both France and the US have advantages to stop their dirty laundry being aired, in France they at least get investigated, while in the US system they often avoid even that.
Locating this reality within the rapidly evolving context of a US Department of Justice deliberately disabled by criminal interests promoting privatization of our government, lends all the more urgency to FAIR's criticism of the media industry for its subversion of investigative journalism.
Not that we at Public Good can resolve this dire situation alone through our proposed national investigative research learning center, but we can make a contribution to instituting the knowledge, skills, and experience required in maintaining an open society--a challenge, if neglected, can lead to extremely undesirable consequences.
Locating this reality within the rapidly evolving context of a US Department of Justice deliberately disabled by criminal interests promoting privatization of our government, lends all the more urgency to FAIR's criticism of the media industry for its subversion of investigative journalism.
Not that we at Public Good can resolve this dire situation alone through our proposed national investigative research learning center, but we can make a contribution to instituting the knowledge, skills, and experience required in maintaining an open society--a challenge, if neglected, can lead to extremely undesirable consequences.
