Here is how we nailed the Corps of Engineers. Using free software available to any amateur blogger, I could easily see (in red) that IP address 155.76.159.253 belonged to the Upusace.
Updated June 30, 2014.
Katie Reckdahl, reporting for the Times Picayune, interviewed me yesterday on the Corps Comment Scandal. Her main question was how I came to possess a copy of Jon Donley’s affidavit.
I explained that I asked Mr. Donley to write it when I realized that the Times Picayune did not intend to comply with my request for the usernames and the comments that originated from the Corps.
I have two remarks about the TP story. First, it described Mr. Donley in the opening sentence as a “consultant.” Hardly. Mr. Donley was managing editor of nola.com, the TP’s online affiliate. The top dog. And that explains his access to all the chicanery.
Second, in writing about my request for additional comments data, the reporter wrote “..The Times-Picayune, does not release the identities of online commenters except under court order.”
That implies I requested the identities of the commenters. I did not. I requested the public usernames and the public comments. The TP’s lawyer told me there was no legal reason to NOT let Levees.org see the data. But they refused anyway, citing “policy.”
Click here for the Times Picayune story.
The same day I returned from a congressional delegation visit to Holland with US Senator Mary Landrieu, I found an unsigned 3-page single spaced letter in my mailbox. She wrote:
Sworn affadavit: Cadre at Corps attacked its citizen critics
This shop window in Amsterdam, Netherlands boasts a “Hold the Corps Accountable” sign. The owners of this taco shop are from New Orleans.
Updated June 30, 2014.
In a sworn affidavit, the former managing editor of Nola.com, New Orleans’ largest online news source describes how the Army Corps of Engineers used significant tax payer resources to attack critics of the Corps.
According to the affidavit, a cadre of about 20 people, for over a period of 3 years, disguised their identities, pretended to be uninvolved and posted disparaging comments on the Times-Picayune affiliate’s articles and forums that smeared New Orleanians and obscured the facts of the Corps of Engineers’ responsibility for the failure of its flood protection.
The affidavit also described how many of the posts “appealed to racial division and at times engaged in racial slurs against African Americans.”
Levees.org discovered evidence of this activity six months ago, and early this year submitted a written request to the Times Picayune to see all the comments data.
But the newspaper’s lawyer, Neil Rosenhouse of Sabin, Bermant & Gould responded by saying, while there is no legal reason to deny access to the comments, his client still won’t release them citing “policy.”
Believing the full extent of this unethical behavior should be made public, Levees.org encourages citizens to write to Jim Amoss, Editor of the Times Picayune at this email address jamoss@timespicayune.com, and say this:
Levees.org also suggests citizens might leave a message on Mr. Amoss’s voice mail by calling his direct line: 504-826-3475.
In response to this disturbing information, Levees.org filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) earlier this week. We requested all communications between the Corps of Engineers and its $5 million dollar PR firm Outreach Process Partners (OPP) which recently claimed on its website to play a “fundamental part” of reducing the volume of negative news stories about the Corps.
The PR firm spoke of “fostering strategic relationships” with news outlets. The Times Picayune is one of the news outlets with which OPP boasted of “providing media support.”
These revelations–the sworn affidavit and the OPP claims–are two more reasons that the citizens of America deserve the 8/29 Investigation Act, a truly independent analysis of the flood protection failures, and the organizational component, that occurred in August 2005.
Click here for the WWL TV Channel 4 Eyewitness News story:
http://www.wwltv.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=372400
Click here to see a copy of the sworn affidavit.
https://levees.org/affidavit.pdf
Click here to see examples of the insulting comments and lies posted to the internet by individuals at the Army Corps of Engineers.
https://levees.org/?page_id=379