‘My object is to be of service to you’: Carl Ackerman and the Wilson administration during World War I

The press was outraged in the 1970s when investigations exposed the CIA’s use of American journalists as undercover informants during the Cold War. This was treated as a shocking break in the traditional line between journalism and government. A study of journalist Carl W. Ackerman’s activities in the Great War, however, reveals such cooperation had precedents. While reporting oversees, Ackerman, later dean of Columbia Journalism School, worked behind the scenes with officials to shape and promote the Wilson administration’s foreign policy. This paper is a first step to understanding that pervasive, close relationships between journalists and government were well established at the beginning of the twentieth century.     

Internet gambling: Community flop or the Texas Hold'em poker rules1

Transformed by technology, the virtualisation of gambling has prompted administrations around the world to respond swiftly to the challenges posed by the new way of carrying out an age-old practice. However, approaches to regulation differ. Within the USA online gambling is prohibited by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act 31 U.S.C. 5361-5367 (enacted in the USA in October 2006). This has been played out by the threats of extradition and arrests of senior executives in Texas and ultimately imprisonment for criminal infringements in among other places Las Vegas. By contrast the UK has implemented a regulatory regime through the Gambling Act 2005. The European Community has provided a regime somewhere between the two following recent European Court of Justice decisions (Plancanica 2 CMLR 25) finding against Member States operating state monopolies preventing the establishment of private providers in this specific sphere of commercial activity, contrary to Article 43TEC (right of establishment) and Article 49TEC (the right to provide services, this will of course also have the corollary of the right to receive services). The appropriateness of these responses leads the commentators back towards embryonic Internet governance discussions on cyber-paternalism and cyber-liberalism with online gambling as the case study.     

The Government Centralization-Decentralization Debate in Metropolitan Areas

The extent of centralized or decentralized government has been an issue in America's governing system since the Revolutionary War. The major issues debated at the Constitutional Convention revolved around the amount of authority the national government should possess in relation to the states. The centralization-decentralization issue is still a matter of contention, but a major focus of the debate has shifted to the metropolitan area. Despite the differences in time and levels of governments, many of the same arguments made during the constitutional debates are similar to the arguments made for and against government reform in metropolitan areas today. The author reconsiders the centralization-decentralization issues debated at the Constitutional Convention and the ratification fight in the context of the current debate in metropolitan areas. Theoretical support for this exercise is provided by the international relations model. An application of the issues debated and resolved by the colonists to the current debate on the extent of centralized government in metropolitan areas would favor the establishment of metropolitan government.