December 21, 2005: Reporter: Bush Response to NSA Wiretapping Story Similar to South African Attempts to Silence Stories About Apartheid

Reporter Arlene Getz equates President Bush’s attempt at controlling the media exposure of the warrantless wiretapping program (see December 15, 2005 and December 6, 2005) to similar media manipulation programs undertaken by the white apartheid regime in South Africa during the 1980s, and the acceptance of the controlled media by some South African citizens. Getz, who reported extensively on South Africa’s government, writes: “For anyone who has lived under an authoritarian regime, phone tapping—or at least the threat of it—is always a given. But US citizens have always been lucky enough to believe themselves protected from such government intrusion. So why have they reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of US civil liberties?” She extends the comparison: “While Bush uses the rhetoric of ‘evildoers’ and the ‘global war on terror,’ Pretoria talked of ‘total onslaught.’ This was the catchphrase of P. W. Botha, South Africa’s head of state from 1978 to 1989.…Botha liked to tell South Africans that the country was under ‘total onslaught’ from forces both within and without, and that this global assault was his rationale for allowing opponents to be jailed, beaten or killed. Likewise, the Bush administration has adopted the argument that anything is justified in the name of national security.” [Newsweek, 12/21/2005]