Repressing the Press: Obama's Oppressive Assault on Journalistic Freedoms

[XLFD]

President Barack Obama has charmed the majority of the mainstream media throughout his career, his popularity arising from a cult of personality that has been fostered in most newsrooms across the country.  Indubitably, his outlook, history, and policies have spawned criticism from commentators on the right side of the political spectrum on talk radio, Fox News, and websites, but until quite recently, the mesmerized mainstream press have walked in lockstep with the president. 

Most still do carry the water (to mix with the Kool Aid) but some of the ones who still respect the profession of journalism are beginning to look at the tea (party) leaves now that the evidence is mounting that this President, even more so than his predecessor, has attacked the very foundations of journalism.

Those of us who have seen this administration and its sympathizers in Congress attack the core freedoms of average Americans and encroach on every possible liberty granted to us by the Founding Fathers, wonder where these reporters have been all this time when they weren't the focus of Obama's political machine.   

Why was there so little concern expressed by the Media when Obama’s national security apparatus conducted raids on oppositional organizations, expanded the infiltration of lawful organizations and increased domestic electronic and communication surveillance?  Where was the press when the administration made kill lists and claimed the power to be the judge, jury and executioner of U.S. Citizens, and others in their efforts to curb terrorism, while avoiding that designation?    Why did the sycophantic journalists  ignore the expansion of executive power that narrowed the range of constitutional and human rights of individuals and groups in the U.S., particularly when they often protested when Obama's predecessor did far less intrusions?

So while the administration clamped down on whistleblowers, coordinated "Occupy" efforts for their own political gains, worked on growing the power of the Patriot Act, advocated regulating the internet, where was the mainstream media?   In Obama's first assault on the press, in the form of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, the press parroted the administration's lines and painted Assange with a black hat.  Never realizing that the legal theories advanced by the administration in the criminal investigation of the WikiLeaks leader could be easily applied to criminalize the acts of mainstream journalists.  After all, Assange's activities at Wikileaks were journalistic in nature.

 

 

But with the revelation of the intrusive investigations by the administration into the Associated Press phone records of its reporters, and the naming of journalist James Rosen as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Department of Justice's investigation based on nothing more than meeting with and asking questions of government adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim (who told him the non-shocking information that North Korea could very well respond to United Nations sanctions with more nuclear tests)-- the Assange precedent is, and will be, used.  Meeting an official and asking questions, which is what journalists do, is now being interpreted as criminal conspiracy by the US Justice Department.

The United States is perilously close to normalizing police state practices, and one hurdle to this is the ability to convey information and express opinion that the public now enjoys through various media outlets, and that can be effectively neutralized by what the administration has done to Wikileaks, the AP, and James Rosen, carried out on all others that fail to toe the official line expressly. 

 

Will the recent events awaken the slumbering corporate press into action?  Whereas, it should, and whereas there has been signs of progress, few in the press will likely get out of their comfort zone unless they or their close brethren are personally affronted, and only if their superiors are willing to take the risk and approve. 

The more information that's out there and the more debate about liberty the press publishes could provide an impetus reaching critical mass by enough energized freedom-lovers in this country who understand the implications of what's in the balance.   Their inalienable and fundamental human rights guaranteed to them by the documents our nation was founded upon, which includes freedom of the press, high among them.

    

[Dave]

I think this might be what finally gets the mainstream media to pay attention to what the administration is really capable of. Some of the mainstream press has already made it known that what's taken place is unacceptable which is a nice change. Course there are a few people that have their heads buried so far up the lefts rectum that they will continue to follow until the bitter end. Needless to say though, if we don't see some departures/firings of some officials in the near future, Obama will be in trouble. Eric Holder is such a joke of an AG and his role in the James Rosen incident (which he claimed a week ago to have no knowledge of yet he apparently approved or signed the warrant) is quite possibly what finally does him in... its been a long time coming but a person can only be so painfully inept before he finally has to get what he really deserves.

[XLFD]

When 9-11 happened and the Patriot Act and other policies were passed, it set the table for what is happening now-- however, I cannot recall GWB's administration ever abusing the powers and privileges like this administration is against the media (even friendly media)-- and Bush 43 had a mostly hostile press corps.  Even for two terms, GWB made sure the anti-terror policies were used to defeat the best laid plans of terrorists, not fellow Americans without any terrorist leanings.

[easymoney]

Don't bet on it. They are already running articles to avert attention away from the problems.

And O's joke, we'll have the DOJ check out problems with the DOJ. DUH.

Bush led with his heart for the benefit of the country. O's leading with politics to better his image.

[XLFD]

Just in case you haven't heard of what happened with James Rosen, here's a recap courtesy of Former Judge (and my first pick for the Supreme Court, and Rosen's fellow FOX employee) Andrew Napolitano:   One of Rosen's sources apparently was a former employee of a federal contractor who was on detail to the State Department, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. Kim is an expert in arms control and national defense whose lawyers have stated that his job was to explain byzantine government behavior so we all can understand it. When he was indicted for communicating top secret and sensitive information, presumably to Rosen, his lawyers replied by stating that the information he discussed was already in the public domain, and thus it wasn't secret.

Prior to securing Kim's indictment, the Department of Justice obtained a search warrant for Google's records of Rosen's personal emails by telling a federal judge that Rosen had committed the crime of conspiracy by undue flattery of Kim and appealing to Kim's vanity until Kim told Rosen what he wanted to hear. In a word, that is rubbish. And the FBI agent who claimed that asking a source for information and the federal judge who found that the flattering questions alone constituted criminal behavior were gravely in error.

Reporters are protected in their craft by the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has ruled that they can ask whatever questions they wish without fear of prosecution. If Kim revealed classified information to Rosen -- a charge Kim vigorously denies -- that is Kim's crime, not Rosen's. The Supreme Court ruled in the Pentagon Papers case that it is not a crime for a journalist to seek secrets, to receive them, to possess them and to publish them so long as they affect a matter of material public interest.

The government's behavior here is very troubling. Government lawyers and FBI agents are charged with knowing the law. They must have known that Rosen committed no crime, and they no doubt never intended to charge him, and they never have. They materially misled the judge, who saw the phrase "probable cause" of criminal activity (taken from the Fourth Amendment) in their affidavit in support of the search warrant they sought, and he signed.

[Brian Carlson]

The people on the Left having been enjoying the free ride with the media up until now. Any news reporter who has any self-respect has to realize that King Obama has gone too far. There will still be the blind fools who believe that Obama can do no wrong, but mainstream America is starting to ask where this will all end.

People have to realize that if they support Obama's control over the media that they could be the next to have their First Amendment rights taken away.

[XLFD]

This will be a great test of the news media to find out who among them have the ability to report objectively on this attack on friendly and critical media outlets.  I was at a fast food restaurant the other day during the peak of the recent Obama mega-gates and seen them going on for a half hour about how Republicans were putting everyone at risk by not allowing more money to be used for spending on bridges everywhere. 

Seriously?!  This was a bridge in a blue state that had been repeatedly struck by trucks in the past that went down after being hit by a truck carrying an over-sized load driven by (more than likely) a unionized democrat truck driver.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/26/us-usa-bridge-collapse-id...  Blaming House Republicans for this is just plain humorous, and shows that honest journalism is pretty much dead on that channel.

 

[Brian Carlson]

The tornados were also the Republicans fault because of Global Warming. Or wait, it's no longer Global Warming, it's "Climate Change". The weather changes. Do we need Al Gore to tell us that? It's still the Republicans fault.