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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPresident Obama will surely pass Nixon as the worst president ever on the issue of press freedom
James C. Goodale
James C. Goodale, who represented The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, is a First Amendment lawyer and author of Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles.
May 21, 2013
The search warrant filed to investigate the Fox News reporter James Rosen proved as many had suspected: President Obama wants to make it a crime for a reporter to talk to a leaker. It is a further example of how President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.
The government's subpoena of The Associated Press's phone records was bad enough. But the disclosure of the search warrant in the Rosen case shows President Obama has delved into territory never before reached by previous presidents.
The Justice Department obtained Rosens e-mail by using a search warrant in which it alleged that Rosen was a co-conspirator with a government adviser named Stephen Kim.
This conspiracy, as imagined by the Justice Department, commenced as soon as Rosen started e-mailing or talking with Kim. But reporters have the right to talk to anyone, under the First Amendment. Obamas theory of conspiracy therefore strikes at the heart of that amendment.
Until President Obama came into office, no one thought talking or emailing was not protected by the First Amendment. President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information. This will stop reporters from asking for information that might be classified. Leaks will stop and so will the free flow of information to the public.
more: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/21/obama-the-media-and-national-security/only-nixon-harmed-a-free-press-more
peace13
(11,076 posts)We had no real press during the Cheeney administration. The invention of Faux News and consolidation of all news outlets pretty much wrapped that up.
It all boils down to investigating doctored emails and leaks! That is what the outrage is about! Go figure!
warrior1
(12,325 posts)Itchinjim
(3,084 posts)BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)except for very few exceptions here and there. Corporate Media is dominated with Jon Karl-Cons acting like impartial reporters while pushing pro-corporate propaganda like crack cocaine on the American masses. Real journalists get buried in the newspapers, on cable, and especially on the airwaves.
Nixon existed during the time when we actually had a modicum of free press. If we had even that tiny bit of free press during Duhbya's years, Phil Donahue wouldn't have been chased off of MSNBC and they would have reported the facts that would have informed the American people enough that our country would've been hard pressed to find a rational in order to go to war against Iraq.
So I can understand why Pro-Con Corporate Media dislike President Obama so much. It's the fact that they never liked him to begin with. He's, after all, a Democrat.
BeyondGeography
(39,339 posts)Pragdem
(233 posts)That matter most to them.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)What else is new?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)MineralMan
(146,248 posts)A guy can write any bullshit imaginable, I suppose.
jehop61
(1,735 posts)the righties will now stop calling it the liberal press?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)And wow look at that ... his ground breaking book came out in April 2013. About a month ago.
I'm psychic.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Arkana
(24,347 posts)Nixon was.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)how quaint........
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)the AP is 100% criminal in what they did as was the leaker of Valerie Plame
Didn't the altmedia writer care about Valerie Plame?
fredamae
(4,458 posts)enormous failures of the Fourth Estate over the past several decades...many Loathe what they've become--nothing more than a mere corp propaganda machine, basically...
So why are we surprised and indignant over these investigations? Haven't Many been calling for just that? And why do We feel that the Modern Corporatized MSM needs Us to protect Them?
We are the ones needing Protection From them, imo.
liberal N proud
(60,332 posts)Flip on all the channels at once sometime. The same talking heads repeating the same propaganda. Pundits have been cloned to feed all the networks and everyone goes through life thinking their flavor of propaganda is the only flavor.
Drink the kool-aid.
dennis4868
(9,774 posts)Under Bush the media's phones were wiretapped without a warrant for no apparent reasons. But when DOJ under Obama is investigating a real crime and obtain phone records from a media outlet, that is like what Nixon did? It's like the 8 years of Bush never happened in the minds of the GOP and media.
rurallib
(62,373 posts)but if a Dem administration veers slightly, nail their asses
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)emulatorloo
(44,057 posts)September 30, 2010
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130192940
<SNIP>
In the two decades that followed, the conflict became so ferocious, Feldstein says, that Nixon ordered CIA surveillance of Anderson and his family and White House operatives seriously considered assassinating the journalist.
"They actually conducted surveillance. They followed him from his work to his house," Feldstein says. "They staked out his house. They looked at it for vulnerabilities ... [and dicussed] how they could plant poison in his aspirin bottle. They talked about how they could spike his drink and they talked about smearing LSD on his steering wheel so that he would absorb it through his skin and die in a hallucination-crazed auto crash."
The plot was ultimately called off, Feldstein says, because Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt, the two men who were supposed to assassinate Anderson, were instead tapped to break into Watergate.
<SNIP>
======================
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)No reporter was prevented from talking to anyone.
Under a warrant, issued according to the Fourth Amendment, communications can indeed be obtained if there is probable cause to believe a crime was committed.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)First Amendment lawyer James C. Goodale, who represented the New York Times in the Penaton Papers case, wrote in the newspaper on Tuesday that President Barack Obama is poised to surpass former President Richard Nixon "as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom."
Goodale wrote that the Department of Justice's subpoena of Associated Press phone records was "bad enough," but that the search warrant to access Fox News reporter James Rosen's personal emails was unprecedented.
"Until President Obama came into office, no one thought talking or emailing was not protected by the First Amendment," Goodale wrote. "President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information. This will stop reporters from asking for information that might be classified. Leaks will stop and so will the free flow of information to the public."
Read Goodale's entire piece here.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/pentagon-papers-attorney-obama-will-top-nixon-on
The expectation that people jump to the defense of Fox Noise is disgusting.
The current slate of controversies consuming the White Hosue has some people comparing President Barack Obama to former President Richard Nixon, but a former top Nixon aide thinks that's ridiculous.
John Dean, who served as White House counsel under the disgraced former president, said that anyone applying the Nixonian label to Obama due is "challenged in their understanding of history." There's no legitimate comparison, Dean argued, between the Internal Revenue Service's improper targeting of conservative groups, the Department of Justice's subpoena of Associated Press phone records or the investigation into the dealy attack in Benghazi, Libya and the scandals that ultimately led to Nixon's undoing.
There are no comparisons. Theyre not comparable with any of the burgeoning scandals, Dean told the Boston Globe.
Dean was present in the Oval Office when Nixon suggested using the IRS to target his foes.
Obama on Thursday urged people to "read the history" and decide for themselves if the Nixon comparison is approrpiate. Famed journalist Bob Woodward on Friday said that it's premature to compare the IRS scandal to Watergate, but he invoked Nixon's name when discussing Benghazi.
- more -
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nixons-counsel-says-obama-is-no-nixon
Where the hell was the media on these issues for the last ten years?
WaPo: DOJ Spied On Fox News Reporter (a perfect example of media complicity - updated)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022871121
Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022850304
Leaks could sink Obama Whitehouse (2012)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022843810
The AP's being investigated by a grand jury for who they coordinated with in Congress over the leak.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022848186
AP Leak ended informant's rare opportunity, why DOJ went after AP records
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022869034
By WILLIAM P. BARR, JAMIE S. GORELICK and KENNETH L. WAINSTEIN
<...>
As former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obamas, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to the government officials who are responsible for our national security.
While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the governments public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously. The leak which resulted in a May 2012 article by The A.P. about the disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner significantly damaged our national security.
<...>
At the time the article was published, there were strong bipartisan calls for the Justice Department to find the leaker. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. gave that assignment to Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who is known for his meticulous and dedicated work. Importantly, his assignment was to identify and prosecute the government official who leaked the sensitive information; it was not to conduct an inquiry into the news organization that published it.
His office, which has an experienced national security team, undertook a methodical and measured investigation. Did prosecutors immediately seek the reporters toll records? No. Did they subpoena the reporters to testify or compel them to turn over their notes? No. Rather, according to the Justice Departments May 14 letter to The A.P., they first interviewed 550 people, presumably those who knew or might have known about the agent, and scoured the documentary record. But after eight months of intensive effort, it appears that they still could not identify the leaker...after pursuing all reasonable alternative investigative steps, as required by the departments regulations that investigators proposed obtaining telephone toll records (logs of calls made and received) for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with A.P. journalists...The decision was made at the highest levels of the Justice Department, under longstanding regulations that are well within the boundaries of the Constitution. Having participated in similar decisions, we know that they are made after careful deliberation, because the government does not lightly seek information about a reporters work. Along with the obligation to investigate and prosecute government employees who violate their duty to protect operational secrets, Justice Department officials recognize the need to minimize any intrusion into the operations of the free press.
<...>
William P. Barr was the United States attorney general from 1991 to 1993. Jamie S. Gorelick was deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997. Kenneth L. Wainstein was assistant attorney general for national security from 2006 to 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/opinion/stop-the-leaks.html
Politicub
(12,165 posts)The press martyr routine is tiresome.
I heart the press. I really do.
But the over-the-top rhetoric about how media outlets are somehow sacrosanct has got to stop unless it is balanced with a critical eye from the media to analyze its own practices.
But the media isn't going to criticize its own since the establishment would have to admit that some of the largest news outlets act as nothing more than stenographers for government and industry.
The idea of a free press is a noble one, but it's a two way street between the media and the public. The media isn't keeping up its half of the bargain by unquestionably reporting what is spoon-fed to them.
This story entered crazy town when Fox was called a news outlet. And we're supposed to take the pious media seriously?
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)Generic Other
(28,979 posts)Long before the Watergate break-in, gumshoeing, burglary, wiretapping and political sabotage had become a way of life in the Nixon White House. "
Nixon's 5 wars:
1. The war against the
antiwar movement
Nixons first war was against the anti-Vietnam War movement. The president considered it subversive and thought it constrained his ability to prosecute the war in Southeast Asia on his terms. In 1970, he approved the top-secret Huston Plan, authorizing the CIA, the FBI and military intelligence units to intensify electronic surveillance of individuals identified as domestic security threats. The plan called for, among other things, intercepting mail and lifting restrictions on surreptitious entry that is, break-ins or black bag jobs.
news media
"In response to suspected leaks to the press about Vietnam, Kissinger had ordered FBI wiretaps in 1969 on the telephones of 17 journalists and White House aides, without court approval...In a tape from the Oval Office on Feb. 22, 1971, Nixon said, 'In the short run, it would be so much easier, wouldnt it, to run this war in a dictatorial way, kill all the reporters and carry on the war...The press is your enemy,' Nixon explained."
"In Nixons third war, he took the weapons in place the Plumbers, wiretapping and burglary and deployed them against the Democrats challenging his reelection."
"The arrest of the Watergate burglars set in motion Nixons fourth war, against the American system of justice. It was a war of lies and hush money, a conspiracy that became necessary to conceal the roles of top officials and to hide the presidents campaign of illegal espionage and political sabotage, including the covert operations..."
Criminals in the old fashioned sense.
5. The war on history
"Nixons final war, waged even to this day by some former aides and historical revisionists, aims to play down the significance of Watergate and present it as a blip on the presidents record. Nixon lived for 20 years after his resignation and worked tirelessly to minimize the scandal. "
Apparently this includes Woodward himself since he wrote this article a year ago! So in one year Obama has been so evil as to supplant Nixon as most evil president ever? Horseshit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/woodward-and-bernstein-40-years-after-watergate-nixon-was-far-worse-than-we-thought/2012/06/08/gJQAlsi0NV_story.html
11 Bravo
(23,925 posts)Nope, I've never seen anything like this before!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022884525
Leaking classified information to the press is "good." Exposing a liar is a "crime."
EC
(12,287 posts)They are getting really whiny.
By the way...the name of this guy's book..."Saving the Press"
still_one
(92,058 posts)Buys it
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
bloggers
smartphones with cameras
all social media
the entire internet
global instant communications
On edit I forgot Fox, CNN, MSNBC. Al Jazeera and other networks?
???????
Oh that's right! HE DIDN'T!