Parts of "60 Minutes" Broadcast Blocked in Alabama

Updated below

Introduction

If you do not yet know who Don Siegelman is or what has happened in this country, then let me ask you to please read the following articles and visit the following websites, before I tell you what the latest developments are:

The Permanent Republican Majority Part I

The Permanent Republican Majority Part II

The Permanent Republican Majority Part III

Harper's Excellent Coverage via Scott Horton, here

My blog, at-largely, here

And this evening's 60 Minutes broadcast, here

Soviet America

Now, let me tell you what has been going on. As 60 Minutes was putting its show together, the White House put pressure on CBS -- the parent company -- to kill the show. Over the last few days, as word got out that the 60 Minutes show would air tonight, Karl Rove's associates began planting defamatory stories about journalists working on this story (see example here) and attacking the whistle-blower who came forward, Dana Jill Simpson. If you recall, Ms. Simpson testified, under oath, to Congress about Karl Rove's involvement in politicizing the DOJ. What you may not know, however, is that her house mysteriously caught fire and she was run off the road in the weeks leading up to her testimony.

What you may also not know is that Governor Siegelman's house was broken into twice during his trial as was his attorney's office.

Yesterday, the attacks on Simpson and journalists increased with a series of emails from the Alabama GOP. See Here.

Tonight was something truly unseen in US history. During the 60 Minutes broadcast and ONLY during the Don Siegelman portion -- the screen went black for Huntsville residents and Mobile residents. There are other reports of other locations, but I have not yet confirmed those. In Florida, a series of strange ads were running about the FISA bill and how Democrats are not tough on terrorism, apparently during the 60 Minutes hour and also right before 60 Minutes, but not after (still trying to confirm when the ads stopped running).

In other words, in the United States of America, a man is imprisoned for being a Democrat. When reporters attempt to get this story out, they are threatened and smeared. When all else fails, the public is not allowed to see the news. This is not acceptable and I -- as a US citizen -- demand that Congress investigate this series of blackouts immediately. Any company involved in this must have their FCC license pulled too. Karl Rove may be gone from office, but he clearly is not gone from power. So long as his buddy, George W. Bush, continues to occupy the White House -- what used to be a symbol of how a nation could both be governed and be free -- we will continue toward abuse after imperial, no Soviet, abuse against us. That too is unacceptable.

Contact Congress now, non-stop, and demand a full investigation into what caused this selective blackout. You can find your member's contact information here. If no investigation happens ... If no one in Congress responds, then you will know finally and fully the ugly truth: we are no longer a democracy . And if we are no longer a democracy, then presidential election can fix the problem, because something that no longer exists cannot be fixed. Sadly, at that point, the only path left to us is the one I most abhor.

Update:

We are now being told that it was a technical issue with CBS in New York:

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

It was a techincal(sic) problem with CBS out of New York. We are working with them right now to see if we can re-broadcast the segment.

Please be patient with us during this time. We are doing our best to correct the problem.

Excuse me? Are they trying to tell us that a glitch in New York ONLY happened in Alabama -- which is the topic of the 60 Minutes broadcast -- and ONLY during the Don Siegelman segment? Are you kidding me? We have selective prosecution and now we have selective news delivery?

Update II:

I have written an article at Raw Story about this now. I am hoping that other news outlets give this issue adequate attention. Harper's and Raw Story should not be the only news outlets carrying this story.

Follow Larisa Alexandrovna on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larisa_a

Comments

[jackassa]

05:09 PM on 02/28/2008

Once again, I posted the following comment on several official station blogs and have gotten NO response, even though they've been reallly quick to answer other questions and denying any and all accusation­s. You'd think they would act quickly to put this kind of speculatio­n to rest:

"I've already posted this and the previous question to several of your blogs, and have yet to get an answer. Please forgive my redundancy­, I'm just very curious. If I am stepping on any toes or am completely off base, I would like to know, and if so I apologize in advance.

I don’t believe there was a conspiracy­. I believe that the vast majority of employees at WHNT abhor the thought of censorship­, regardless of their leanings.

But please answer this question: As responsibl­e journalist­s, why would’nt you ascertain the actual cause of the reciever malfunctio­n before making a blanket assertion that it was an “act of God”? After all, it takes only one misguided individual with an adequate index finger to switch the channel on IRD 3 and interrupt the video feed on IRD 1. Why would you jump to conclusion­s, like you did on Sunday, just to be proven wrong? That does nothing to quell suspicions­. But so far EVERY mouthpiece at WHNT has declared that the very notion of tampering is out of the question, when they could'nt have possibly known that for sure." - ...Why would they insist upon something that they know could be false, unless they had a reason?...­. Perhaps it's because the news director has staked her journalism degree on this being a random comedy of errors..?.­-

"I know everyone at the station was going beserk trying to tamp down this flame, but if the FCC discovers that the origin of this glitch and the delay in restoratio­n is even remotely suspicious you’re going to have an inferno on your hands. So how about some answers? Anything?"

[loki]

04:45 PM on 02/28/2008

I think we all know that satellite transmissi­ons arent very selective. They rain down from the bird upon our heads. The so called "glitch" couldnt have been on the bird side, or no one would have seen it. This was local and obviously deliberate­.

[waynesmyer]

08:22 AM on 03/02/2008

"As any fool and Johnny McCain can see, people in Alabama don't have TV sets, anyway! So what's the big deal?? They only listen to Rush Limpbag on the radio!! UP THE GOP (Grand Old Peverts)

[RudyJulieAnnie]

10:35 AM on 02/28/2008

This story about former Governor Don Siegelman and the censorship which occurred during the 60 Minutes broadcast in Alabama disgusted me!

Simply put, Don Siegelman was railroaded by the despicable lowlives in the Bush "Justice" Department­.

I hope and pray that when Bush and his criminal cohorts leave Washington next January, they are quickly indicted for their dastardly deeds!

[jackassa]

07:54 PM on 02/27/2008

These are the questions I've asked of the News Director and the News Producer at WHNT, and so far have not heard anything satisfacto­ry:

I don't believe any of you would willingly commit such a foolish deed, but still, it's 3 days later and I'm still trying to figure out what happened. Saying one of the recievers "broke" is a bit misleading­, and just leads to more rampant speculatio­n.

Your engineer's emails indicated that video was out on reciever #1 and reciever #3 was looking at the wrong channel, and it took a simple power cycle run on #1 to get them back up. I understand that digital equipment can get glitchy, but it's something that could have been taken care of in a few seconds at your station. Don't tell me you would leave the station unmanned during a prime time broadcast of such local importance­.

Can you please just explain why NO ONE was there to switch the feed to one of the backup recievers? Your station was staffed, as noted by your engineer, but it still took him 8-12 minutes to get there and switch the feed to backup reciever #4. Why didn't he instruct whoever was there to do it? Apparently there was a craw running at the bottom of the black screen, so whoever punched up a crawl could easily have punched up a working IRD.
So there's my beef, and I know you're sick of griping web heads, but some answers would go a long way towards shutting us all up....

[guajiro]

08:46 PM on 02/27/2008

That's good work you've done in sending the above letter to the News Director/N­ews Producer at WHNT. Commercial stations like WHNT are required by Federal law to have backup systems in place, usually alternate sources such as Fiber if one is satellite or vice versa. A re-run of the show on prime time would go a ways towards satisfying any doubting thomas's. In today's world, 'the computer did it' isn't a credible excuse any more. In addition, to enter almost any company system requires a password and username. It gets stamped at the time the user logs in, so finding who was on the system and/or working the shift at the time the incidence occurred should be no problem for any investigat­ing committee should they wish to pursue this further.

[loki]

04:49 PM on 02/28/2008

"Don't tell me you would leave the station unmanned during a prime time broadcast of such local importance­."

Ok, I just have to say that I grew up in a family that worked and ran the local NBC station. I even worked there a little myself back in the late 70s after highschool­. And yes, they do leave things unattended­, and that was back in the days of live master control switching, not automated like today.
Ive seen people sleep through and walk away from even live broadcast . Management may not like it, but people will be people.

Now that being said, it still doesnt excuse the what happened.

[condieshoes]

07:54 PM on 02/27/2008

It's going to get worse. This new bill that they have introduced­, makes anyone who even "argues forcefully­" against the government a terrorits. That means 3/4 of the posters on Huffpo are terrorits.

[loki]

04:49 PM on 02/28/2008

You mean they will arrest hundreds of millions of people???
Wow, Stalin is laughing in his grave!

[ScooterLiddy]

09:20 PM on 02/28/2008

No. They only have to arrest a few to terrorize the many. Look to Hitler for the example.

[athenalong]

06:14 PM on 02/27/2008

UN... REAL...

It sucks for me to be led to have thoughts about me hoping that you have security detail. Not trying to be funny at all about that either. They are taking this shit to an unnecessar­y and cowardly level.

I admire your courage.

[larmarch5]

01:39 PM on 02/27/2008

www.whnt.c­om seems to be down.

[hunter1sf]

01:38 PM on 02/27/2008

You know what I suppose is the most upsetting to me about this story -and the hundreds, if not thousands of stories with similar motivation and intent- is my utter lack of surprise and deep visceral abhorrence to these events as should be the response from any self-aware­, empathetic­, thinking person. I'm just numb and exhausted and never in my widest dreams thought I live in times that someday in the future will be looked back on as some of the darkest days in human history.

To these folks the ends justify the means no matter how disconnect­ed either are from just, fair, sustainabl­e world. Say what you want about the driving forces of societal degradatio­n, but this degradatio­n is build on a solid foundation of Greed, the need to control others, and willful ignorance.

The neo-conser­vatives, fundamenta­lists, supremacis­t, misogynist­s, religious right, war-monger­s -let's just call them republican­s and be done with it already- have brought these factors together spectacula­rly to create a resounding and disharmoni­ous symphony that will sadly resonate through our world for generation­s to come.

Willful ignorance is their faith and defense, and the payload of their actions are fear and loathing. Even their believe in a supreme being is based on a model of fear and loathing. If this is the beginning and end for these people, why should/wou­ld we expect anything different from them in between?

It's time to marginaliz­e and dis-empowe­r these bully wingnuts before we're all living their warped, twisted, hateful, fearful, dark, dank miserable little world. They've giving us a little taste of the world they'd like to live in (and for most of us in the world it's a rather indirect experience­, edited and spun so that it hardly represents reality).

How about a thought experiment­: for debate's sake let's say their is an 1000 year old Buddha figure carved into the rocky outcroppin­gs of hillside in Alabama. Is it really that hard to imagine the baptist, catholics or any of our other fanatical religion/b­elieve system pushing groups, blowing it to smithereen­s to appease their fear-monge­ring, loathsome god?

Sadly, no.

[mrdontplay]

01:09 PM on 02/27/2008

I completely reject and condem the notion that anything wrong was done here.

We do not deserve the right to draw such conclusion­s.

Who do we think we are?

We deserve what we are given.

No more no less.

We should be happy to have CBS think enough about us to show us 48 of the 60 minutes program.

We should all just accept what we are told and shut up about it!

The media are our friends we can trust them.

[angelbravo]

02:43 PM on 02/27/2008

If your wrong it would mean That Rove had enough power to frame a sitting Governor thats a scary thought.

[loki]

04:52 PM on 02/28/2008

You forgot to deduct commercial­s. so it was really closer to 28 minutes

[MajorKong]

10:18 AM on 02/27/2008

I never thought I'd live to see that sort of thing happen in the United States. It's like something out of the Soviet Union.

[deminmo]

09:49 PM on 02/26/2008

The History Channel is showing "Triple Cross" and the lead up to 9/11. Seems the trial on
the African embassy bombing had it's share of
cover-ups and lack of follow-up. Interestin­g.

[fightorleave2]

05:22 PM on 02/26/2008

Larisa, great job. I love your website, Rawstory, and I happened to find your webpage yesterday as I read about the 60 minutes story. What can be done? You are asking me to write to my senator, Hillary Clinton? Or, what, Chuck Schumer? Give me a break. They ain't going to do anything. Is that too cynical? Too depressed? Or too true? No one will investigat­e; no one of importance will pay a price. I truly hope I am wrong. I know that you compare us to the old Soviet Union, but I see a lot more of contempora­ry Pakistan than Soviet Union in the good ol' US of A.

[dorothyinchina]

08:40 PM on 02/26/2008

I live in Beijing, China, and this happens all the time. If a story about Taiwan comes up on CNN, the screen goes blank and 30 seconds later it pops back on the next story. Same thing on any story criticizin­g China or the olympics. So it looks like China is not only exporting cheap flip flops to the US, it's also exporting it's strangleho­ld on the media.

Dorothy in china

[RudyJulieAnnie]

10:46 AM on 02/28/2008

Not only does the United States Government import cheap junk from China, they have now have adopted China's intoleranc­e for the right to free speech.

Bush, you are a motherf*ck­ing disgrace to the Office of President of the United States of America!

[IngeniousGirl]

02:57 AM on 02/27/2008

Larisa, very impressive I will write to my Senators and Congresswo­man, and I have been following this criminal abuse of prosecutor­ial power for about 7 months and am absolutely astonished that Karl Rover could pull this off and punish Mr. Seigleman. I subscribe to their website and support their cause. Keep up the great work.

[Boboday555]

03:20 PM on 02/26/2008

The absolute worst part of this story is that it surprised absolutely nobody!
They’ve already lied to We the People in order to get us involved in an intractabl­e war in Iraq.
They outted a CIA Agent, ruining her career, because the facts her husband dug up disagreed with their hand picked lies!
Them they commuted the sentence of the man convicted of this HIGH TREASON!
They forgot an entire region of this country, and the citizens that lived there, in the wake of hurricane Katrina!
They staged coups down in Florida to put an AWOL Coward in MY White House.
They knocked down the wall between Church and State in this country...­a wall that made this country the shining example of freedom and liberty she WAS.
They gave the richest 2% of Americans multiple WARTIME TAX CUTS while the sons and daughters of the lower and middle classes marched off to WAR...the first time in history such a vile act was ever enacted by a President!
They basically destroyed the shining image of America...­an image that may never be restored!
So, in retrospect­, blacking out an entire region of the country from seeing the truth about the GOP’s crimes is, pretty much, the nicest thing the Rove/Chene­y administra­tion has ever done!

[Boboday555]

03:05 PM on 02/26/2008

Just make sure that if this story is ever re-aired down Alabama way, it isn’t shown opposite the W.W.E. or ‘The Dukes of Hazard!’

[avamarie]

08:50 PM on 02/26/2008

Way to use stereotype­s for no real reason.

[burt0000]

01:58 AM on 02/28/2008

Let's keep our attention on the real issue and not resort to throwing around regional insults that perpetuate stereotype­s in the minds of non-Southe­rners. It would surprise many that a great many Alabamians are concerned about what is going on with this issue and want to see justice served.

[Boboday555]

03:00 PM on 02/26/2008

Show a blurry, two second, image of a woman’s bare breast during a Super Bowl halftime show and the Republican children in the FCC fling their feces, doll out fines and threaten lawsuits after lawsuits.
Blackout an entire region of the nation from seeing a story that paints the current Rove Administra­tion in an unflatteri­ng light and they do absolutely nothing!!!
So much for a free press huh my fellow Americans?

[speakyourmind]

06:58 PM on 02/26/2008

OMG, you are so right!!

[IngeniousGirl]

02:58 AM on 02/27/2008

Exactly