[A-List] Fwd: The Obama administration's attacks on the media

[Suzanne de Kuyper]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sid Shniad <shniad at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 7:20 PM
Subject: The Obama administration's attacks on the media
To:


http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/16/opinion/la-ed-leaks-20100816

Los Angeles Times

     August 16, 2010

Editorial

The Obama administration's attacks on the media

Cases brought against journalists who ferreted out confidential
information appear to have little to do with protecting national
security interests.

It is a popular conservative myth to suggest that the "mainstream
media" is a liberal lapdog to the Obama administration, that reporters
favor the president and that he returns the admiration. In fact, this
administration has pursued a quiet but malicious campaign against the
news media and their sources, more aggressively attacking those who
ferret out confidential information than even the George W. Bush
administration did.

James Risen of the New York Times has been ordered to testify about
sources for his 2006 book, "State of War: The Secret History of the
CIA and the Bush Administration." (Risen, a former Los Angeles Times
reporter, is fighting that subpoena.) A former National Security
Agency official has been indicted for allegedly supplying material to
the Baltimore Sun, and for obstructing justice when he allegedly
destroyed information related to those contacts. A former FBI official
was prosecuted for leaking to a blogger. And now, the administration
is accusing the WikiLeaks website of causing vague harm to American
interests and operatives by posting classified material.

It is understandable that the administration has secrets and wants to
keep them. But this campaign to flush out sources has the feel of
chest-thumping and intimidation. It is one thing to protect
information that might put Americans in danger or undermine national
security; it is another to bring cases against whistle-blowers and
others who divulge information to spur debate and raise questions
about public policy.

Take the case of Thomas Drake, the former NSA official who is accused
of leaking to the Baltimore Sun. The paper reported extensively on
technical problems with an NSA program that Drake was involved with;
that reporting embarrassed the government, which indicted the
individual it says brought about that embarrassment. That smacks of
retaliation, not legitimate protection of sensitive information.
Similarly, Risen's book is now four years old and details the problems
of a bygone presidential administration. What purpose is served by
prolonging the case against him? As for WikiLeaks, its disclosures
contained little analysis of war policy but illuminated many of the
challenges of the United States' long war in Afghanistan, fueling a
debate that the administration may not want but that is urgently in
the nation's interest to have.

"Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here —
violating the government's trust by illegally retaining and disclosing
classified information — be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously," the
Justice Department stated when announcing the indictment of Drake.
Fair enough, but the duties of a democratic government include
embracing conflict and debate. Stifling information violates that
trust far more profoundly than does whistle-blowing or shedding light
on a war.