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Obama administration brings chilling effect on journalism
WASHINGTON DC (AP) – The U.S. government’s aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration’s unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists’ records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad.
Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled “The Obama Administration and the Press.” The report notes President Barack Obama came into office pledging an open, transparent government after criticizing the Bush administration’s secrecy, “but he has fallen short of his promise.”
Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press–compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations.
“In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press,” wrote Downie, now a journalism professor at Arizona State University. “The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate.”
Continued below the fold …
‘US unchained itself from constitution’: Whistleblowers on RT after secret Snowden meeting
(RT) – A group of US whistleblowers and activists has present Snowden with a Sam Adams Award for ‘Integrity in Intelligence’ in Moscow this week.
“The irony is that the US has abandoned the rule of law,” Drake, who also revealed NSA secrets in the past, said of Snowden’s leaks.
“They’ve unchained itself from their own constitution – the mechanism by which we govern ourselves. And when you ban the real law and use a secret law and secret interpretations of law, we’re in a whole new ball game. It’s a Pandora’s Box.”
“Snowden had to escape the US to ensure any chance of freedom. And it wasn’t his plan to end up here. It was the US, who made him stateless by revoking his passport. And Russia – to its credit – actually recognized the international law and granted him political asylum.”
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has called Snowden “an extraordinary person,” who has “made his peace” with what he did. “He’s convinced that what he did was right. He has no regrets. And he’s willing to face whatever the future holds for him,” McGovern said.
Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and whistleblower, noted that Snowden was “remarkably centered,” while Jesselyn Radack, of the Government Accountability Project, described him as “brilliant, smart, funny and very engaged.”
- ○ Obama and the NSA Winning the War Against Journalists? Aug. 2, 2013
My diary @EuroTrib – Lavabit ‘Long Fight’ with Feds – 4th Circuit Court Oct. 7, 2013.
