Homeland Security and Bloggers Meet

Chertoff Takes Bloggers Seriously as Part of a New Media - or Does He?

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.