I recently wrote a column on the wholesale attack on press freedoms under President Obama that parallel his attack on other civil liberties and privacy principles (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). I testified on the erosion of press freedom under President George W. Bush but the assault on the free press has worsened under President Obama while Democratic members and supporters remain conspicuously silent. Reporters have not been so silent or reticent and have repeatedly tried to educate citizens of the danger to press freedoms under this President. Now one of the most respected journalists in the country, New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Risen, has declared that the Obama Administration is the greatest threat to a free press in a generation.
Risen spoke at the Sources and Secrets conference in New York City and told the crowd that the Obama administration “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.” Risen said that the Administration has actively sought to “narrow the field of national security reporting” and “create a path for accepted reporting” while threatening to punish those who do not yield.
Risen is not just some disgruntled reporter. He won the Pulitzer prize for National Reporting in 2006 for his stories about the Bush warrantless wiretapping program. He was also a group recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for coverage of 9/11 and terrorism. He is considered the gold standard for investigative reporting. In my recent column on the loss of press freedom, I referred to this time as “one of the most inspiring periods for journalism.” I was thinking of Risen and a couple of other courageous reporters who have revealed abuses under this and the prior administration ranging from torture to surveillance to secret prisons.
Previously, the New York Times editors lambasted Obama for his attack on the free press. New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson has added her voice:
This is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush’s first term.
I dealt directly with the Bush White House when they had concerns that stories we were about to run put the national security under threat. But, you know, they were not pursuing criminal leak investigations. The Obama administration has had seven criminal leak investigations. That is more than twice the number of any previous administration in our history. It’s on a scale never seen before. This is the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with.
Despite efforts from many of us to warn of the lasting damage being done to such freedoms by this President, the White House has been successful in blocking any real reforms or criticism in the Democratic ranks. It has an army of enablers and apologists who quickly redirect discussions to how much worse the Republicans would be. While some Democrats and liberals are beginning to say that they do not support such policies, they still rally to the President as soon as the subject changes from civil liberties. Most Democrats and liberals refuse to join civil libertarians in opposing this President. It is bread-and-circus politics at its worst. We are trading away civil liberties for a cult of personality, but that personality will eventually be gone . . . with many of these protections that died without a whimper of regret.
All that we can do is continue to warn about the rapid loss of civil liberties and protections under Obama. Risen is the latest and one of the most meaningful voices in that rising chorus. It is likely to cause just another pause before the White House changes the subject to the relief of its supporters. However, those pauses are increasing in number and perhaps there will be enough to give members sufficient courage to fulfill their oaths and fight to protect the Constitution against a clear and growing danger.
Obama’s new NSA proposal and Democratic partisan hackery
By Glenn Greenwald
25 Mar 2014
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/25/obamas-new-nsa-proposal-democratic-partisan-hackery/
Excerpt:
I vividly recall the first time I realized just how mindlessly and uncritically supportive of President Obama many Democrats were willing to be. In April, 2009, two federal courts, in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, ruled that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) required the Pentagon to disclose dozens of graphic photos it possessed showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Obama administration announced that, rather than contest or appeal those rulings, they would comply with the court orders and release all the photos. The ACLU praised that decision: “the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency.”
This decision instantly turned into a major political controversy. Bush-era neocons, led by Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney, excoriated Obama, arguing that release of the photos would endanger American troops and depict the US in a negative light; Cheney expressly accused Obama of “siding with the terrorists” by acquiescing to the ruling. By contrast, Democrats defended Obama on the ground that the disclosures were necessary for transparency and the rule of law, and they attacked the neocons for wanting to corruptly hide evidence of America’s war crimes. I don’t think there was a single Democratic official, pundit, writer, or blogger who criticized Obama for that decision.
But then – just two weeks later – Obama completely reversed himself, announcing that he would do everything possible to block the court order and prevent it from taking effect. ABC News described Obama’s decision as “a complete 180.” More amazingly still, Obama adopted the exact arguments that Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney were making over the prior two weeks to attack him specifically and transparency generally: to justify his desire to suppress this evidence, Obama said that “the most direct consequence of releasing the [photos], I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.”
Now, obviously, the people who had been defending Obama’s original pro-transparency position (which included the ACLU, human rights groups, and civil liberties writers including me) changed course and criticized him. That’s what rational people, by definition, do: if a political official takes a position you agree with, then you support him, but when he does a 180-degree reversal and takes the exact position that you’ve been disagreeing with, then you oppose him. That’s just basic. Thus, those of us who originally defended Obama’s decision to release the photos turned into critics once he took the opposite position – the one we disagreed with all along – and announced that he would try to suppress the photos.
Jill, Do you think Hollywood because it leans to the left in the minds of some should be subject to censorship as Samantha suggests? I object to all curtailment of free speech. I find that the right wing christian theocrats are highly critical of Obama but want to shut down liberals’ freedom of speech and their right to vote.
Giovanna De La Paz
Do you mean to tell me that it has taken this Pulitzer Prize winning reporter five years to discover the deceptive policies of the current Democratic administration? Unbelievable! I am a humble peon and I figured it out. Was this reporter waiting for the news to come to him, or is he truly a genuine Pulitzer reporter who goes out and investigates to get the REAL story.
*****
Giovanna,
Risen has been dealing with the Obama Aministration for years. He has known for quite some time what the Obama Administration has been up to. I wrote a post about the DOJ going after whistleblowers three years ago. I’ll include a link to the post–as well as an excerpt from it.
Promises, Promises: Is the Obama DOJ Going after Whistleblowers?
3/6/11
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/03/06/promises-promises-is-the-obama-doj-going-after-whistleblowers/
Excerpt:
Let’s step back a little. Last April, the Department of Justice served a subpoena on author James Risen. The DOJ wanted to know the identity of the source for a story about a botched CIA attempt to “trip up” Iran’s nuclear program that was included in Risen’s 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. According to Josh Gerstein (Politco): “The scheme involved using a Russian defector to deliver the faulty blueprints to the Iranians, but the defector blew the CIA’s plot by alerting the Iranians to the flaws — negating the value of the program, and perhaps even advancing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”
Greenwald says that the subpoena was originally served but then later abandoned by the Bush DOJ. One has to ask why a President who campaigned on a platform of protecting whistleblowers decided to go after a whistleblower when the previous administration decided to drop the case.
The DOJ eventually uncovered the identity of the alleged source for Risen’s story without Risen’s help. It was Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who left the agency in 2002.
Maybe you’d like to know how Sterling’s identity was uncovered. Well, federal investigators targeted author/reporter Risen. They obtained Risen’s “three private credit reports, examined his personal bank records and obtained information about his phone calls and travel…”
Gerstein says the revelation that the government obtained that information about Risen has alarmed First Amendment advocates, particularly in light of Justice Department rules requiring the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas directed to members of the media and on requests for their phone records. And Risen told POLITICO that the disclosures, while not shocking, made him feel “like a target of spying.”
Greenwald says what he finds “particularly indefensible” is how the Obama DOJ is going back into the past to dig up “forgotten episodes.”
This is how Greenwald closes his article:
For a President who insists that we must “Look Forward, Not Backward” — when it comes to investigating war crimes by high-level Bush officials — this anti-whistleblower assault reflects not only an obsession on preserving and bolstering the National Security State’s secrecy regime, but also an intense fixation on the past. And increasingly extremist weapons — now including trolling through reporters’ banking and phone records — are being wielded to achieve it. As Thomas Jefferson warned long ago: “Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”
S.M. I was wondering how you felt about the abridgment of speech by the administration. I see that you object to that abridgment when it concerns Hollywood. Do you object to the abridgment of the right of free speech by Obama? If not, what is the reason you object to it in the one case, or in the case of a future Republican president, but not of the current abridgment of free speech rights by this administration? What is your underlying rational in objecting?
“to join civil libertarians in opposing this President”
What does that mean, exactly? Impeachment? Rand Paul for President?
And, gee, I wonder if giving corporations carte blanch under Citizens United to buy politicians might have something to do with this…
randyjet,
Your argument has, at it’s basis, the premise that the US is filled with an uniformed population. I agree with you about that. The government has worked very hard at suppressing knowledge. Reporting about illegal spying and wars of empire are two such areas where the American public is woefully uninformed. In part, that is because of the multiple prosecutions of journalists by this administration.
Further, OWS was a large, mass movement protest. It was spied on from the beginning. It’s people were beaten, threatened with death, illegally detained and imprisoned for no reason. It took great courage and risk to participate in this movement. The response to this protest was swift. It was coordinated at the local, state, federal govt. along with various private entities. These were massive violations of our Constitutional rights and of people’s bodily integrity.
It is strange that you and others would feel safe under these circumstances.
A generation is 20 years…. I love this transparency…..
samantha: “At what point do we put a lid on treasonous scripts and lyrics”. I think Joe McCarthy attempted to “put a lid on” Holllywood as you suggest. I thought this article was about having more free speech not less.
From this article I see that the reporters are upset that they no longer have “confidential” sources who will wine and dine them to get their point of view run by a subservient press corps. I usually like to see actual facts or violations of the law enumerated. Since when is pursuing the unauthorized disclosure of classified material a violation of law? The complaints are mainly that of inaction to prosecute the violations of international law. It also leaves out the FACT that Obama DID order waterboarding to STOP, unlike Bush who said it was legal. Could somebody please tell me how that is worse than BUSH?Obama DID try and close Guantanamo, but you forget that Congress and the mayor of NYC fought him tooth and nail against closing it. SO PLEASE tell the whole story.
Then the overblown complaints about killing US citizens abroad by drones is misplaced since those people are actively waging WAR against the US. I have yet to see any person answer my question whether or not during WWII, it would have been a violation of our civil liberties if the US had bombed Ezra Pounds villa for broadcasting in support of fascist Italy. The US also executed US citizens during WWII after putting them on trial by military commissions as well as executing POWs who killed other POWs. Did that result in a loss of all our civil liberties? I hardly think so.
It is also absurd to slander those of us who do not act like Chicken Little in decrying the loss of liberty under Obama by saying that we have a hero worship thing for him. I disagree with Obama on quite a few positions and think he is wrong on a lot of foreign and domestic policies, so how that translates into blind obedience to our leader is beyond me. It is only those who are blind to reality who try and ignore reasonable actions and inflate it beyond rational limits who are the blind followers. The fact is that while some of the policies dealing with the press and especially surveillance are wrong, it is hardly an outright assault on our liberties. As I never tire of pointing out, we are FAR more free NOW than when I was growing up which is why there is not a mass movement against Obama. It is mainly because the American people do not wish to follow chicken littles who are alarmists.
samantha,
I agree with you that Obama and Democrats have many apologists in Hollywood. They do use their power to make films justifying the abuses of the govt. along with making substantial donations to same. But what is the ethical and intellectual underpinning of your argument?
It is wrong for Obama and friends to abrogate the Constitution. Not one person should back away from saying that. However, our Constitution guarantees the right of freedom of speech. We are tested to uphold that right when someone we disagree with speaks.
The way out of this mess is to honor the rights of all and to speak up for those rights, even when we disagree with the other’s speech.
You have a good point, samentha. Movies have become so pathetic lately. TV has been pathetic for more than 30 years.
The most dangerous enablers and apologists are found in Hollywood, brown nosing the administration, serving up popular culture that destroys virtue and makes fashionable vice among our most impressionable, precious minds. At what point do we put a lid on treasonous scripts and lyrics, in the way we do with yelling fire in a movie theater? It might not be so bad if there was some political balance, but Hollywood leans far left as much as does academia and the mass media.
Do you mean to tell me that it has taken this Pulitzer Prize winning reporter five years to discover the deceptive policies of the current Democratic administration? Unbelievable! I am a humble peon and I figured it out. Was this reporter waiting for the news to come to him, or is he truly a genuine Pulitzer reporter who goes out and investigates to get the REAL story.
Professor Turley, I think ever since you and few other Democrats stood up and publicly denounced the erosion of this country’s freedoms, some others are finally beginning to follow suit. Unfortunately, most Democrats and Independents don’t want to admit that this president, most of his administration, and his party, have been a destructive force of the American Republic as we have known it. Bush made mistakes, but this administration had made disastrous blunders.
This president tells his party to jump and Harry Reid and others say, “How high.”
Remember how only ’embedded’ journalists got the government information scoop during the Iraqi war? Well, obviously there are a few good journalists left to try and save. These days I tend to trust Al Jezeera and RT over anything with American ties. The BBC is only better on a few subjects and generally can’t be trusted either.
Good article
That summed up the problem we are facing with this administration effectively.
press freedom?
Are those stupid fukers just waking up?
This administration is the enemy of freedom in general.
What I tried to write is this. I thought Democrats would see through Obama. They did not. Why?
Fear mongering is an excellent tool of propaganda and it really works for the left. It makes no sense to worry about what a future administration will do to the rule of law while ignoring what the current administration is actually doing.
Everyday I see supporters justify what Obama is doing while warning of the great evil which will happen when a Republican engages in those very same actions. At that point, why worry about it in either case? Why is it wrong with these actions when a Republican does them, but makes them fine when a Democrat does them? How does this rationally add up?
I see this country moving straight into totalitarianism because of the left wing, not just the right wing. There is absolutely no coherent ethical or intellectual underlayment to the argument that we should fear the same actions when they are committed by the “other” party. The actions are either bad right now or they are just fine.
If we want to stop totalitarianism we need a citizenry who has consistent ethics. We must be angry about the destruction of the rule of law, no matter who is doing it. That will mobilize us to protest in the present.
Thank you Prof. Turley! I agree with you 100% No one could have said it better. To the following statements:
” It has an army of enablers and apologists who quickly redirect discussions to how much worse the Republicans would be. While some Democrats and liberals are beginning to say that they do not support such policies, they still rally to the President as soon as the subject changes from civil liberties. Most Democrats and liberals refuse to join civil libertarians in opposing this President.’
ONE WOULD BETTER CHARACTERIZE THIS FOLLOWING AS HIS DRONES AND PAID VOTING THRONG. (Unions, recipients of all the perks he has given away so freely, Obama phones, stimulus package, all the illegals and dead who vote, etc. etc., etc.)
Thank you for laying the truth out before his believers.
Are these the same editors who praised Judith Miller’s comprehensive stenography skills leading to the Iraq War we all know and love? And Jason Blair, too?
JT, my comment will not post.