Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

AP (via WTTW, 9/10/25)

This week on CounterSpin: Some outlets report that the White House’s designation of people in boats in the Caribbean, and now in the Pacific, as “drug smugglers,” therefore “unlawful combatants,” therefore targets in the “war on terror,” therefore undeserving of due process, “raises legal questions.”

That’s corporate mediaspeak for “We’re going to wait till the White House comes up with some language we can report as making some kinda sense, so we can pose it against everyone else who says, what the actual hell is going on here?”

Even the resignation of the head of US Southern Command, which oversees US military operations in Latin America, didn’t move corporate reporters beyond scratching their heads over how this bombing campaign might be legal, rather than discussing what tools we have to respond to wildly illegal actions by government officials. We talk with Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, about efforts for, minimally, transparency on these lethal actions that look to be expanding by the day.

Transcript: ‘The Government’s Own Disclosures Demonstrate These Strikes Are Not Lawful’

Truthout (8/7/25)

Also on the show: When it comes to airlines and other companies mining your personal data to suss out how much you can possibly pay so they can charge you precisely that and no less, media have a choice. They can write, like USA Today, about how “AI might make airline pricing more complex”—an explainer that explains that, in answer to how airlines price tickets, “a shrugging emoticon is appropriate,” and ends with, no joke, “trust your gut.”

Or you can do what our guest is doing: ask why industries are talking about saving consumers money with AI surveillance pricing, while at the same time telling investors how they’re maximizing revenue by pushing consumers to their “pain point.” How does that square? And who’s standing up for consumers, since it doesn’t?

We hear from reporter Katya Schwenk on that story.

Transcript: ‘They Are Trying to Maximize the Amount of Money They Can Get Any Given Consumer to Pay’