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.
It would be nice to believe such a turning point. Not sure I see it. BO continues not to admit any wrongdoing himself. The little that is admitted to looks like three steps forward to ironclad totalitarianism & and one step back to freedom.
Edward Snowden Statement on Administration’s NSA Reform Plan
https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/edward-snowden-statement-administrations-nsa-reform-plan
March 25, 2014
The following is a statement from Edward Snowden provided to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is coordinating his legal advice and representation:
“I believed that if the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people.
“The very first open and adversarial court to ever judge these programs has now declared them ‘Orwellian’ and ‘likely unconstitutional.’ In the USA FREEDOM Act, Congress is considering historic, albeit incomplete reforms. And President Obama has now confirmed that these mass surveillance programs, kept secret from the public and defended out of reflex rather than reason, are in fact unnecessary and should be ended.
“This is a turning point, and it marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public’s seat at the table of government.”
“Mr. Obama’s Limits on Phone Records”
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, MARCH 25, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/opinion/mr-obamas-limits-on-phone-records.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=1
Editorial:
If President Obama really wants to end the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records, he doesn’t need to ask the permission of Congress, as he said on Tuesday he would do. He can just end it himself, immediately.
That’s what Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, urged him to do. “The president could end bulk collection once and for all on Friday by not seeking reauthorization of this program,” Mr. Leahy said.
Ending bulk collection now wouldn’t undermine Mr. Obama’s proposal to Congress. In fact, if his promise is matched by the final details (which are not yet available), it could be an important and positive break from the widespread invasion of privacy secretly practiced by the National Security Agency for years. Getting a law to create strong judicial oversight of data collection would be a check on the ambitions of future presidents. But once the question is tossed into the maelstrom of Congress, where one party routinely opposes anything the president wants, the limits could be delayed, or diluted, or just killed.
And while lawmakers wring their hands, the invasion of privacy will continue.
As Charlie Savage reported in The Times on Tuesday, the president is planning to ask Congress to end the N.S.A.’s systematic collection of telephone records begun under President George W. Bush, an action already endorsed by his independent board of advisers. The records will be left in the hands of the phone companies, where they belong, until the N.S.A. gets permission from a judge to review an individual record because of a possible tie to terrorism. (The companies would only have to store the data 18 months, compared with the agency’s five years.)
The requirement for judicial review is one of the most important parts of the president’s plan. Just as police departments have to get a court order for a wiretap, the intelligence agencies need to present their justification to an outside arbiter for a request of telephone data, which can be as revealing as the content of a conversation. The provision distinguishes the White House plan from a much weaker bill introduced by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, which would allow the N.S.A. to subpoena individual records without judicial approval.
But there are still important unknown details. What standard of suspicion does the government need to meet to persuade a judge? Administration officials said it would be the “reasonable, articulable suspicion” of terror ties now used by the N.S.A. when examining phone records, but that remains an unacceptably weak level of proof. Judicial review should require a clearer, stronger standard, though it is doubtful Congress will approve one.
It’s not clear, as Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote, whether the proposal covers all the methods the intelligence agencies use to collect personal and financial records, and whether the N.S.A. will delete the records it has. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which will consider the requests for records, should be required to disclose how often it says yes.
The immediate question, though, is why the president feels he needs to wait for Congress before stopping mass collection. As Mr. Obama said on Tuesday, because of Edward Snowden’s revelations, “we have to win back the trust not just of governments but, more important, of ordinary citizens.” Continuing the current surveillance program while lawmakers argue is not the way to begin winning back the country’s trust.
Obama’s New NSA Proposal and Democratic Partisan Hackery
By Glenn Greenwald 25 Mar 2014, 9:49 AM EDT
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/25/obamas-new-nsa-proposal-democratic-partisan-hackery/
Vichy, vichy, vichy…
… Sounds like a bunch of hicks with as speach impediment seeking to blame the cowpie on the lamb.
speaking of dogs, where did the dog pack go? Humpin Dog, Barkin Dog, Seeing Eye Dog, Ball Scratchin Dog, Ball Lickin Dog, where did they go?
Did they get put down by their owners?
Moonbat alert.
O is a Company man. identified and groomed starting when he was a young man. They helped “prove” he was born in Hawaii, gave him an “authentic” passport to enter Pakistan when it was illegal to travel there (terrorist state), and on and on.
Why would anyone expect him to be any different than he is?
Dogs should have a right to free speech too.
“Freedom of the Press” is narrow wordage. The First Amendment guarantees our right to assemble, to speech at the assembly, to therefore petition our government for redress of grievances. The free press is a parallel right but we no longer have to rely upon a printing press to express ourselves do we? Radio has been around for longer than Jack Buck. Television has been around longer than me. The short wave radio was a big medium when I was a kid. Remember Radio Free Europe and Voice of America? The internet and blogging trumps them all. No reference to The Donald here. All of us can now get a computer and speak our minds to the whole world without typing on paper and having some crew print it out on paper at the “printing press”. So, if someone wants to discuss this issue they need to get out of the arcane confines of Freedom of The Press.
Now if I could just figure out how to press this button to make this thing transmit to y’all, I would be in business. But, of course I am handcuffed by WordPress and some guy called Moderation. Two topics which need to be discussed here on this blog.
The Top 10% pay 70% of the taxes. That has been climbing steadily over the past 25 years. In the mid 1980’s, the Top 10% paid 55% of the taxes. When you create this class envy horseshit philosophy you “eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Raff, I’m pleased to see you now realize I was simply using your example of salary and FICA. However, you still don’t seem to understand my point of positive incentive. The 50k person should strive to make 150k so they can have that benefit. That’s how capitalism works.
Vichy Politician
“Except for the “classical liberals” who still adhered to the traditions of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, most modern liberals embraced the redistribution of wealth, larger government agencies, and a bureaucratic society dependent on the largesse of the political system. They have legislated womb-to-tomb economic policies reminiscent of 1930s–40s national socialism in Europe, embodied in the Vichy regime in France – hence my term “Vichy liberalism.”
Vichy liberals have somehow failed to realize that the larger the ruling authority, the greater the temptation for abuse. In addition, as that abuse enlarges, so does an arrogant self-righteous attitude toward citizens, as if ordinary people were put on the earth merely to provide the political elite with money and employment.”
Lou Rockwell
How can you argue with that?
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig7/samuels7.html “Vichy Liberalsim” is from Lou Rockwell , raff.
samantha:
good post.
rafflaw, are not social security benefits capped, based on contributions? In other words, if an employee is forced to pay Social Security taxes on income of $1,000,000, his benefit would then have to be something like 20,000 dollars per month. The system is fair to the extent that benefits are based on contributions.
Many people never pay a nickle into the social security system, yet receive a benefit for life. Would it be more fair to exclude them?
As for the capped tax rate on passive income, what do you suggest for alternative incentive for consumers to divert their income from spending money on boats, RVs, and other luxuries, towards investing instead? Keep in mind that there would be no manufacturing capacity without stockholders to make those boats, RVs, and other luxuries, in the first place. Also keep in mind that much of passive income is taxed twice, anyway. I do not drive a mercedes benz simply because I’m not willing to forgo the lost opportunity of the return on the capital it takes to buy a mercedes-benz. I certainly would rethink things, if my ROI would be confiscated. In other words, if I can drive the Mercedes Benz, myself, I’m sure not going to let you have it. A world without investors, is a world of renegades, whose future is only viable to the extent existing resources are not depleted. How would that be more fair than what we had today? Meanwhile, you should be content with investor incentives, which go towards raising the standard of living for everyone, providing pots for people to pee in. I know this is an unknown concept for those in the White House, but it doesn’t mean we should follow their ignorance of economics.
nick,
I included the 15% for taxes because that is another example of how your “incentive plan” is wrong. You are right that SS taxes are based on gross income, but the problem is the same for SS taxes and income taxes. The people who make more than the cap amount get to stop paying SS taxes while the majority who make less than the current cap. pay a hundred percent of their earnings in SS taxes. The 15% example is the same concept that the wealthy get advantages that they have not “earned” and the rest of us get stiffed. I fear for the US because of people who believe that the wealthy should have any benefits over the rest of us when it comes to paying any taxes.
Bron, Flat Tax, flat tax, flat tax, flat tax!!
Working hard is what made this country great, and w/ some of the attitudes expressed here, and from DC, I fear for the US.