Freedom of the (de)press(ed): The Supreme Court refused to step in on the case of James Risen and so gave an implicit stamp of approval to the Obama administrations persecution (oops, I meant prosecution) of the NYTimes Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter for not being willing to hand over the name of a source who gave him information on the U.S. secret campaign against Irans nuclear program. You have to go back at least to the Nixon administration for a moment when the freedom of the press to report on the secret acts of government was quite so embattled. Lets face it, it is depressing. If on leaving the Oval Office, Obama goes back to teaching the Constitution anywhere, some student should take him to court for fraud. Tom The case against Sterling [the CIA agent who is the assumed leaker to Risen] is one of several the Justice Department has brought against people charged with leaking government secrets. This crackdown on leaks has been accompanied by investigations into journalists, which included the Justice Department secretly obtaining telephone records for Associated Press journalists and investigators extensively tracking the movements of a Fox News reporter. In addition, law enforcement officials looked extensively into Risen’s phone calls, banking records and travel history, a court filing noted in 2011. Journalists have criticized the administration’s handling of leaks and reporters. Earlier this year, Risen called the Obama administration the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation. Margaret Sullivan, public editor for the Times, has written about the administration’s unprecedented attacks on a free press. In a report for the Committee to Protect Journalists, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. called the administration’s efforts to control information the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 05:22:24 +0000
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