OBAMA PLEDGED GOVERNMENT "TRANSPARENCY"
BUT THREATENS INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS
By Sherwood Ross
President
Obama, who pledged to run a "transparent" White House, instead is
threatening reporters with trial and imprisonment if they don't reveal
the identities of officials who leak information about government
wrongdoing.
"I've
felt the chill first-hand," Pulitzer Prize-winner David Barstow of The
New York Times says. "Trusted sources in Washington are scared to talk
by telephone, or by email, or even to meet for coffee, regardless
whether the subject touches on national security or not."
He
told "The Nation" (Oct. 27, 2014) magazine that the "vindictive"
efforts of the Bush and Obama regimes, by trying to force New York Times
reporter Jim Risen into betraying his sources, "has already done
substantial and lasting damage to journalism in the United States."
Not
only is Obama out to punish reporters for writing up his regime's
failures but he is threatening any Federal employees who talk to the
press with termination or worse. Sally Buzbee, the AP's Washington
Bureau Chief, said Transportation Department (DOT) employees are telling
her reporters they will be fired "if they're caught talking" to AP.
Recently, Obama's snoopers illegally tapped the phones of AP reporters.
Obama
has also created the "Insider Threat" program, which The Nation
co-authors Norman Solomon and Marcy Wheeler write is "insidious" as it
"pressures federal workers to monitor and report fellow employees
suspected of ideological or attitudinal deviance." Not surprisingly, The
Nation reports, "An atmosphere of fear has intensified inside
government." Their magazine article is titled, "The Government's War on
Whistleblowers."
The
lightning rod of the regime's wrath is Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winner
who revealed the vast scope of illegal secret domestic eavesdropping in
his 2006 book "State of War." A New York Times reporter who had covered
the CIA, the Agency might just be angry at him for exposing its flawed
intelligence work when it slipped nuclear documents to Iran it hoped
would screw up their alleged nuclear ops.
What's
more, on July 6, 2004, Risen's NYT article, "CIA Held Back Iraqi Arms
Data," showed the CIA likely had the data to show Saddam Hussein's
regime no longer had any plans to develop WMDs. "But the CIA kept mum
about those findings, even as the Bush White House continued to proclaim
that invading Iraq was necessary due to its purported WMD's."
"All
too frequently, the government claims that publication of certain
information will harm national security, when in reality, the
government's real concern is about covering up its own wrongdoing or
avoiding embarrassment," Risen told The Nation. Risen currently is under
subpoena and faces possible jail time for his courageous reporting.
Another Obama target was John Kiriakou, a CIA analyst and case officer.
His crime, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, was to blow
the whistle on secret CIA torture. A true pro-democracy president would
have given him a medal. Instead, Kiriakou got 30 months.
"To
date," the magazine said, "The Obama administration has charged nine
people with violating the 97-year-old Espionage Act---far more than all
other administrations combined." As Barstow of the Times observed, "My
fellow investigative reporters commiserate about how we're being forced
to act like drug dealers, taking extreme precautions to avoid leaving
any digital bread crumbs about where we've been and who we've met."
Some
people, Risen says, “don’t want to believe that Obama wants to crack
down on the press and whistle-blowers. But he does. He’s the greatest
enemy to press freedom in a generation.”
While
the views of reporters may be subjective, considering they are being
harassed and threatened, the results of an objective global survey by
Reporters Without Borders also finds Obama grossly deficient. Under Mr.
Obama, press freedom in America this year plunged to an unenviable 46th
in the world from 32nd. Some 180 countries were measured on how free
reporters are to report.
Yet
another blast against Obama's handling of the press comes from the
Committee to Protect Journalists. Rather than improving transparency,
Obama's waged an unprecedented fight to contain leaks and control his
administration's image, CPJ found
Overall,the press record of Obama's presidency doesn't resemble transparency as much as tyranny. #
(Sherwood
Ross formerly worked for the Chicago Daily News, wire services, and
holds an award for his civil rights coverage. To contribute to his
Anti-War News Service, which depends on publishers and public support,
reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)
sherwood ross
