Posted on 05/20/2013 10:29:19 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
The Obama administration has no business rummaging through journalists’ phone records, perusing their e-mails and tracking their movements in an attempt to keep them from gathering news. This heavy-handed business isn’t chilling, it’s just plain cold.
It also may well be unconstitutional. In my reading, the First Amendment prohibition against “abridging the freedom . . . of the press” should rule out secretly obtaining two months’ worth of the personal and professional phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, including calls to and from the main AP phone number at the House press gallery in the Capitol. Yet this is what the Justice Department did.
The unwarranted snooping, which was revealed last week, would be troubling enough if it were an isolated incident. But it is part of a pattern that threatens to redefine investigative reporting as criminal behavior.
The Post reported Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone and e-mail records for Fox News reporter James Rosen, and that the FBI even tracked his movements in and out of the main State Department building. Rosen’s only apparent transgression? Doing what reporters are supposed to do, which is to dig out the news.
In both instances, prosecutors were trying to build criminal cases under the 1917 Espionage Act against federal employees suspected of leaking classified information. Before President Obama took office, the Espionage Act had been used to prosecute leakers a grand total of three times, including the 1971 case of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Obama’s Justice Department has used the act six times. And counting.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
For the May 21st edition.
I don’t think the left wing press minds it a bit.
Don’t worry, Bambam. You’ll ALWAYS have PMSNBC
He's right on this. Very dangerous path we're on.
A warning from Obama to investigative reporters.
Holy crap. I hadn't even noticed Eugene Robinson's name in the byline. Wow!
If one of Obama's most adoring MSM sycophants is writing this, imagine what the rest of them are thinking. Whoa...
He won’t “lose” the press. They will happily fall in line.
While I tend to agree, I also believe everyone has a breaking point. The presstitutes adore the idea of Obama, but they are angry with the man right now.
Freedom of the press is the cardinal rule for the MSM. We’ll see if they stay pissed enough to practice random acts of journalism like this or if they revert back to cheerleading mode.
I think we will see many MSM outlets punishing reporters who do those random acts of journalism
He's already losing them, Geron.
The current scandals are paradigm shifting game changers, and even some of his left-wing minions are feeling a cold wind breathing down their backs.
We're in a whole new territory here. The business-as-usual games of slime ball are rapidly giving way to real palace intrigue and serious cutthroat double dealing in Washington back rooms.
Just like every Marxist dictator before him, Obama considers his useful idiots to be expendable in the greater quest for power and omnipotence. Some of those useful idiots have suddenly connected the dots that have been staring them in the face all along, and they're pissed.
Mark my words. People's instincts of self-preservation are kicking in, and that's going to cause them to either
A. Make stupid mistakes that open up even more revelations
B. Crack under the pressure, and suddenly find the need to "spend more time with their family"
C. Go full tilt crazy and go after the 'enemy', which winds up compounding the existing scandals
D. Roll over on their fellow travelers to save their own skins
Very few will have what it takes to maintain their composure, and weather the storm. Most will react in ways that are destructive to the regime in ways large and small. These people are cowards at heart.
All the Obamanation of Desolation will have to do is apologize to the left wing press and throw a party on the White House lawn with lots of free booze
The left puts its ideology over the truth, dignity and intelligence all the time.
If all else fails they will just start chanting “But Bush lied!” or “Dan Quayle couldn’t spell! “Reagan was a reckless cowboy!” in unison until everyone else leaves in frustration.
If that doesn’t work they’ll hide behind good intentions
I guess the alligator is finally going after the last man on the boat and the last man doesn’t like it.
The liberal media doesn’t practice journalism, so they are not worried
the whitehouse must be positively giddy over yesterday’s weather
Dang that Weather Underground... how did they get Rove’s weather machine?
Most “journalists” entered their line of work because of an innate idealism, in most cases naive, about the function of the press and the possibility of “good” government.
The AP scandal aroused revulsion among the press, but the Rosen/FNC scandal provokes fear, and also a profound feeling of dissonance. They always believed (because of the Watergate experience, as well as some of GWB’s misbegotten policies) that the frontal assault on civil liberties would come from a GOP administration.
They are in the process of becoming a true oppositional press again. This takes time. Robinson speaking out is a sign that change is afoot.
Wow. I believe Eugene Robinson is an analyst at MSNBC. A liberal black analyst at that.
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