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Lucille
05-20-2013, 08:34 AM
Maybe now that the target is FOX News, GOP "leaders" will care (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?414943-Mitch-McConnell-Defends-Obama-Administration-On-AP-Scandal) about the freedom of the press.

It's hard to imagine Palin et al. calling for Rosen's head on a platter like they do for Assange, but they might have to, if they want to be consistent.

Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes
Yet another serious escalation of the Obama administration's attacks on press freedoms emerges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality?CMP=twt_gu


It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-peek-into-a-justice-department-leak-probe/2013/05/19/0bc473de-be5e-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html) that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJ's attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News' chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests - something Rosen then reported. Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist - something done every day in Washington - and, for that, this arms expert and long-time government employee faces more than a decade in prison for "espionage".

The focus of the Post's report yesterday is that the DOJ's surveillance of Rosen, the reporter, extended far beyond even what they did to AP reporters. The FBI tracked Rosen's movements in and out of the State Department, traced the timing of his calls, and - most amazingly - obtained a search warrant to read two days worth of his emails, as well as all of his emails with Kim. In this case, said the Post, "investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material." It added that "court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist".

But what makes this revelation particularly disturbing is that the DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that not only Kim, but also Rosen - the journalist - committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information - something investigative journalists do every day - Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]:


"Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, 'at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator'. That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target. Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a 'covert communications plan' and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information. . . . However, it remains an open question whether it's ever illegal, given the First Amendment's protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information. No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so."

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for "soliciting" the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself. These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.

That same "solicitation" theory, as the New York Times reported back in 2011, is the one the Obama DOJ has been using to justify its ongoing criminal investigation of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange: that because Assange solicited or encouraged Manning to leak classified information, the US government can "charge [Assange] as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them." When that theory was first disclosed, I wrote that it would enable the criminalization of investigative journalism generally:


"Very rarely do investigative journalists merely act as passive recipients of classified information; secret government programs aren't typically reported because leaks just suddenly show up one day in the email box of a passive reporter. Journalists virtually always take affirmative steps to encourage its dissemination. They try to cajole leakers to turn over documents to verify their claims and consent to their publication. They call other sources to obtain confirmation and elaboration in the form of further leaks and documents. Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau described how they granted anonymity to 'nearly a dozen current and former officials' to induce them to reveal information about Bush's NSA eavesdropping program. Dana Priest contacted numerous 'U.S. and foreign officials' to reveal the details of the CIA's 'black site' program. Both stories won Pulitzer Prizes and entailed numerous, active steps to cajole sources to reveal classified information for publication.

"In sum, investigative journalists routinely — really, by definition — do exactly that which the DOJ's new theory would seek to prove WikiLeaks did. To indict someone as a criminal 'conspirator' in a leak on the ground that they took steps to encourage the disclosures would be to criminalize investigative journalism every bit as much as charging Assange with 'espionage' for publishing classified information."
[...]
That's what always made the establishment media's silence (or even support) in the face of the criminal investigation of WikiLeaks so remarkable: it was so obvious from the start that the theories used there could easily be exploited to criminalize the acts of mainstream journalists. That's why James Goodale, the New York Times' general counsel during the paper's historic press freedom fights with the Nixon administration, has been warning that "the biggest challenge to the press today is the threatened prosecution of WikiLeaks, and it's absolutely frightening."

Indeed, as Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler noted recently in the New Republic, when the judge presiding over Manning's prosecution asked military lawyers if they would "have pressed the same charges if Manning had given the documents not to WikiLeaks but directly to the New York Times?", the prosecutor answered simply: "Yes, ma'am". It has long been clear that this WikiLeaks-as-criminals theory could and would be used to criminalize establishment media outlets which reported on that which the US government wanted concealed.

Now we know that the DOJ is doing exactly that: applying this theory to criminalize the acts of journalists who report on what the US government does in secret, even though there is no law that makes such reporting illegal and the First Amendment protects such conduct. Essentially accusing James Rosen of being an unindicted co-conspriator in these alleged crimes is a major escalation of the Obama DOJ's already dangerous attacks on press freedom.

Lots more at the link

RockEnds
05-20-2013, 08:38 AM
Wow.

Valli6
05-20-2013, 08:53 AM
Maybe now that the target is FOX News, GOP "leaders" will care (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?414943-Mitch-McConnell-Defends-Obama-Administration-On-AP-Scandal) about the freedom of the press.

It's hard to imagine Palin et al. calling for Rosen's head on a platter like they do for Assange, but they might have to, if they want to be consistent.

Conversely, will the rest of the mainstream media stay all outraged and defensive, on behalf of a Fox news reporter?

Kotin
05-20-2013, 09:38 AM
Whoa..

NIU Students for Liberty
05-20-2013, 10:08 AM
Conversely, will the rest of the mainstream media stay all outraged and defensive, on behalf of a Fox news reporter?

The Hipster glasses wearing talking heads on MSNBC will say that the Obama administration was protecting the American public from potential violent anti-government radicals, while CNN will send 2 of their people to report live from the DOJ parking lot with absolutely no new information.

sailingaway
05-20-2013, 10:45 AM
OK, since you got here first, I'll post this instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LevDYUKuvxI

--
Is it tyranny yet?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality?CMP=twt_gu

although isn't this essentially what the whole wikileaks thing was at least as far as Assange is concerned?

Lucille
05-20-2013, 10:48 AM
It sure was.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?415001-Obama-DOJ-formally-accuses-journalist-in-leak-case-of-committing-crimes

sailingaway
05-20-2013, 10:54 AM
It sure was.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?415001-Obama-DOJ-formally-accuses-journalist-in-leak-case-of-committing-crimes

I glanced for what I thought were the key words.....

OK, so I consider this write up of Ron's "Revolution a Manifesto", "You say you want a Revolution....." to be appropriate here:

http://takimag.com/article/you_say_you_want_a_revolution/print#axzz2TqacsVbt

Lucille
05-20-2013, 11:28 AM
^ Absolutely.

Obama's War Against the Free Press Gets Creepier
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/20/obamas-war-against-the-free-press-gets-c


Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the U.S. Department of Justice "investigation" of Fox News chief correspondent James Rosen isn't the intrusive tracking of his movements and contacts — although that's disturbing enough — but the basis for the criminal charges he may ultimately face. At its heart, the allegation that Rosen broke the law "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” is 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. That's right. Meeting an official and asking questions, which is what journalists do, is interpreted as criminal conspiracy. Taken with the already brewing scandal over the snooping of Associated Press phone records, we're looking at a full-fledged assault on the free press.

The path that led to allegations of illegal journalism is bad enough. In search of leaks, reports the Washington Post, Justice Department officials went full spy movie:


They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.

So, now we have a control-freak government that's determined to plug every source of unauthorized information and that has already prosecuted more leakers than all of its predecessors combined. So much for transparency. But to go after journalists who receive that information and to actually accuse them of crimes for asking questions is a fresh new step. [...]

Glenn Greenwald points out in the Guardian that the idea that asking questions can be criminal is at the root of the U.S. government's efforts against Julian Assange.


That same "solicitation" theory, as the New York Times reported back in 2011, is the one the Obama DOJ has been using to justify its ongoing criminal investigation of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange: that because Assange solicited or encouraged Manning to leak classified information, the US government can "charge [Assange] as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them."

Having been tried out against a relative outlier like Assange, the theory that soliciting information can be criminal is apparently now ready for application against the mainstream press. We already know that the president explicitly considers freedom of the press to be only one consideration among several that have to be balanced, apparently according to the priorities of officials in his administration.
[...]
So, in the name of "balancing" government officials' priorities with core individual freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights, we're at a point now where journalists can be spied upon to find out their sources of information. Ad then they may actually be prosecuted for asking the "wrong" questions.

Lucille
05-20-2013, 11:39 AM
Please remind conservatives how they can't have it both ways. Freaking out over this, but calling for Assange and Manning's heads on platters only makes them look like the partisan, hypocritical hacks they are.

Report: Three Fox News Staffers Targeted By Justice Department
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/05/20/Three-Fox-News-Staffers-Targeted-By-DOJ


Fox News reports that three Fox staffers, two reporters and one producer, were targeted by Barack Obama's Justice Department. Fox doesn't have all the details yet on a reporter William La Jeunesse and producer Mike Levine, but their emails showed up in a IG report regarding Fast and Furious. Either their emails were leaked by the Justice Department officials they were sent to, or the email accounts of both were subpoenaed and invaded by government investigators.

sailingaway
05-20-2013, 12:46 PM
I'd leave Manning out of it. I think he long ago paid full price for what he did, but there is a difference when someone in the Army makes a unilateral decision to turn over secret army material. Generally speaking people feel that those on the line aren't the right ones to make that decision, and it muddies the water. Wikileaks is just another publisher like the AP or Fox News, however, yet 'mainstream media' didn't see this coming.

amy31416
05-20-2013, 12:55 PM
Maybe it's good that the DOJ targeted "mainstream" journalists.

If we are to learn anything about strategy from the sociopaths in gov't, we should never let a crisis go to waste.