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Veteran New York Times Reporter: “This Is Most Closed, Control-Freak Administration I’ve Ever Covered”
American constitutional experts say that Obama is worse than Nixon.
The government has taken to protecting criminal wrongdoing by attacking whistleblowers … and any journalists who have the nerve to report on the beans spilled by the whistleblowers. (The government has also repealed long-standing laws against using propaganda against Americans on U.S. soil, and the government is manipulating social media – more proof here and here).
The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined.
And it goes out of its way to smear whistleblowers, threaten reporters who discuss whistleblower information and harass honest analysts.
Journalism is not only being criminalized in America, but investigative reporting is actually treated like terrorism.
The government admits that journalists could be targeted with counter-terrorism laws (and here). For example, after Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge
After the government’s spying on the Associated Press made it clear to everyone that the government is trying to put a chill journalism, the senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek tweeted:
Serious idea. Instead of calling it Obama’s war on whistleblowers, let’s just call it what it is: Obama’s war on journalism.
Moreover:
- The Pentagon recently smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda
- Reporters covering the Occupy protests were targeted for arrest
- The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers, bloggers and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war
- In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of the bank’s wrongdoing, the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this)
And the American government has been instrumental in locking up journalists in America (and here), Yemen and elsewhere for the crime of embarrassing the U.S. government.
Moreover, while the Obama administration is spying on everyone in the country – it is at the same time the most secretive administration ever (background). That’s despite Obama saying he’s running the most transparent administration ever.
The Washington Post reports:
With the passage of the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a vast expansion of intelligence agencies and their powers, the aggressive exploitation of intrusive digital surveillance capabilities, the excessive classification of public documents and officials’ sophisticated control of the news media’s access to the workings of government, journalists who cover national security are facing vast and unprecedented challenges in their efforts to hold the government accountable to its citizens. They find that government officials are increasingly fearful of talking to them, and they worry that their communications with sources can be monitored at any time.So what are they doing? Many reporters covering national security and government policy in Washington these days are taking precautions to keep their sources from becoming casualties in the Obama administration’s war on leaks. They and their remaining government sources often avoid telephone conversations and e-mail exchanges, arranging furtive one-on-one meetings instead. A few news organizations have even set up separate computer networks and safe rooms for journalists trained in encryption and other ways to thwart surveillance.
“I worry now about calling somebody because the contact can be found out through a check of phone records or e-mails,” said veteran national security journalist R. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit accountability news organization. “It leaves a digital trail that makes it easier for government to monitor those contacts.”
“We have to think more about when we use cellphones, when we use e-mail and when we need to meet sources in person,” said Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of the Associated Press. “We need to be more and more aware that government can track our work without talking to our reporters, without letting us know.”
These concerns, expressed by numerous journalists I interviewed, are well-founded. Relying on the 1917 Espionage Act, which was rarely invoked before President Obama took office, this administration has secretly used the phone and e-mail records of government officials and reporters to identify and prosecute government sources for national security stories.
***
In addition to ongoing leak investigations, six government employees and two contractors, including fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have been prosecuted since 2009 under the Espionage Act for providing information to reporters about, among other subjects, the NSA’s communications surveillance, the CIA’s aggressive interrogation of terrorism suspects and, in the case of Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, diplomatic cables and Iraq and Afghanistan war documents.
***
The Obama administration has drawn a dubious distinction between whistleblowing that reveals bureaucratic waste or fraud, and leaks to the news media about unexamined secret government policies and activities; it punishes the latter as espionage.
***
Every disclosure to the press of classified information now triggers a leak investigation, said Washington Post national news editor Cameron Barr. “Investigations can be done electronically. They don’t need to compel journalists to reveal sources.”
The Post’s Justice Department reporter, Sari Horwitz, said a Justice official told her that “access to e-mail, phone records and cellphones make it easier to do now.”
After the New York Times published a 2012 story by David E. Sanger about covert cyberattacks by the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, federal prosecutors and the FBI questioned scores of officials throughout the government who were identified in computer analyses of phone, text and e-mail records as having contact with Sanger.
“A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and the intelligence agencies that told people to freeze and retain any e-mail, and presumably phone logs, of communications with me,” Sanger said. As a result, longtime sources no longer talk to him. “They tell me: ‘David, I love you, but don’t e-mail me. Let’s don’t chat until this blows over.’ ”
Sanger, who has worked for the Times in Washington for two decades, said, “This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”
***
A survey of government departments and agencies this summer by the Washington bureau of McClatchy newspapers found that they had wide latitude in defining what kinds of behavior constitute a threat. “Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material,” it reported in June. “They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for ‘high-risk persons or behaviors’ among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.”
Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, told me that the Insider Threat Program has already “created internal surveillance, heightened a degree of paranoia in government and made people conscious of contacts with the public, advocates and the press.”
***
“People think they’re looking at reporters’ records,” Post national security reporter Dana Priest told me. “I’m writing fewer things in e-mail. I’m even afraid to tell officials what I want to talk about because it’s all going into one giant computer.”
***
“Whenever I’m asked what is the most manipulative and secretive administration I’ve covered, I always say it’s the one in office now,” Bob Schieffer, CBS News anchor and chief Washington correspondent, told me. “Every administration learns from the previous administration. They become more secretive and put tighter clamps on information. This administration exercises more control than George W. Bush’s did, and his before that.”
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Good and honest people do not need to keep secrets. Only those who fear to be exposed for what they are, generally evil, keep secrets.
Keeping secrets is never in the interest of the public. It is in the interest of the secret keepers.
Alright, please immediately post your SSN, DL#, all bank account numbers, political affiliations, and "everything you got to say about yourself" immediately.
In an age where idiots want to kill people for not being gay, for being male being white, owning firearms, having more brains than a brussels sprout, or for just not being like them, you want us all to sit around, sing kunbaya, and bare everything to a pack of psychopaths, leeches, and professional victims.
I really hope I just missed the sarc tag.
Good and honest people do not need to keep secrets.
Tell that to Jesus, to Thomas Jefferson and Sam Adams. These men WORKED to keep things secret.
Was that sarc, or do you work for the state?
The Big Book of Cherrypicking Soundbytes, John 18.20: Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. So the banksters prosecuted Him for tourism.
Wait - Jesus was gay?!? Had a twin sister? Divorced? A Zionist?
Do you work for Israel?
~~~
By your reasoning, the government must be totally evil as it is probably the biggest keeper of secrets.
Of couse the government is having more success discovering peoples who are doing what it is not wanting them to be doing, it is having many many better technologies for detecting those peoples. This would be happening no matter who the president was being because it isn't the president who is making it happen. So many stupids are keeping their eyes on Obama the president when the place they should be looking is where they are not even knowing.
Why are so many stupids not seeing this? The president who was Kennedy and the president who was Johnson could not fire J E Hoover even though they had many hatings for the man because the power he was having was very much greater than the power of the president.
So, wise guy/gal: Where should we be looking?
Where should we be looking?
Want an honest answer? In a mirror.
American rulers have enjoyed 100% compliance for a long time.
As long as everyone obeys, why should they bother to change?
The system is against us but can't survive without us. Think cancer. Those who are dependant on us will likely hate us the most all while demanding more. As true of our government as of those living on entitlements. It is the self destructive nature of humans and the more we empower our government to save us from ourselves, the greater our doom.
The reason Obama is worse than bush is because bush was a stupid. Obama is better at doing anything better than bush, even the bad things he is doing. When the peoples who are pulling the strings were having a new puppet they were knowing having a stupid puppet was not a good thing to be having so the puppet they were having the next was a very smarter puppet. The cheney who was president was having much angries at his stupid puppet was having the knowledges to not be using puppets who were being too stupid again.
And Howdy Doody was Mensa.
Der sonne ist scheint und der himmel ist blau!!
Was the user name Lorem Ipsum taken?
If I understood your off English, I would comment on the actual context of it.
"much angries," though, is great.
Obama administration blackmailed Chief Justice Roberts to get the 5-4 constitutional vote for ObamaCare.
And what a crock that was! It's a fine, no it's a tax, no it's Obamacare!
Skynet transitioning into the matrix. We think of it as being taken over by computers but is the "system" that takes over. By computers or humans is incidental. By being self aware it seeks to sustain itself, prosper and grow and will attempt to destroy anything that represents a challenge to that. The best part is that any competing system that cannot easily be subdued is co-opted into serving their purposes and it looks like chaos.....but its not. Politicians.
where are the three laws of robotics? WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?
I'm telling ya,this planet's being set up for colonisation.
forget Obummer, he's just a front. a plastic face.
Open Letter...
Nixon and Obama never let me down. Kings of suck.
Lunatic Fringe
I am telling you....Obama administration blackmailed Chief Justice Roberts to get the 5-4 constitutional vote for ObamaCare.
“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator,” said William Sullivan, who became the number three official in the bureau under Hoover, “he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter. But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/02/fbi-director-hoover-s-dirty-files-excerpt-from-ronald-kessler-s-the-secrets-of-the-fbi.html
Sorry posting this(Dupe) so MANY may see it, your takes?.
http://www.eutimes.net/2013/10/pentagon-warns-to-expect-radical-change-in-us-government-soon/
Better call Saul...Alinsky
Sort of like NSA blackmailing Obama over some "Kenya" stuff. You think they don't know what is in those records Obama refuses to release?
IMO it is not 'Kenya stuff', but records such as original birth cert likely showing FM Davis as biological father. I would bet that a DNA test would show that Mark Davis is Barack Obama's half-brother, both fathered by FM Davis.
'History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes' Samuel Clemens.
I've taken to reading history over the last year...there are remarkable parallels to America today and 1920's Italy.
“In Italy an anti-democratic movement took power in the 1920’s which gave politics a new term—‘fascism’. It was supported and promoted by Italians who sought to win support by terrorizing their opponents, advertising their strength and ruthlessness, and recommending the adoption of tough, authoritarian measures to solve Italy’s problems. Although Italy had been on the winning side [of WWI], many Italians felt bitter that she had not got more out of the peace settlement. Their patriotic feelings were exploited by the Fascists, who blamed Italy’s constitutional government and democratic allies for the betrayal of the country. In proportion to Italy’s numbers and wealth her casualties had been heavy. Grave damage had been done to her economy, which had never been strong. After the war, inflation had ruined people in all ranks of society, and the plight of the poor grew worse. Prices soared and they could not buy food, while unemployment plagued the cities. Though some Italians turned to socialism and communism, fear of revolution drove many others into the arms of the Fascists.
By 1922, there were several Fascist members of parliament and in many Italian towns the Fascists had used violence to turn out communist local authorities, and had broken up the offices of trades unions and socialist newspapers. The existing government could not (or would not) maintain law and order, and in many places a majority of Italians seemed willing to let the Fascists do what they liked. Their undisputed leader was a former socialist journalist called Benito Mussolini. He had a bombastic, bullying style and was something of a virtuoso as an orator and public relations expert, though it is now hard to see why he was so successful. Mussolini succeeded in bluffing the king into dismissing the government of the day and letting him form a new one with members of other parties in it. Once installed at the levers of government, he then used them to bring about fundamental changes, step by step. Dictatorship was only gradually imposed, but in 1925 the old liberal constitution of 1861 itself was set aside and democratic parliamentarianism came to an end. Soon, opponents of the regime were being rounded up; a few were murdered. …”
A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, J.M. Roberts, Pages 497-498, New York Oxford University Press, 1995
the rhyme is similar today, except the fascists are not 'getting into office' .. they are already in office and hide behind the political party name Democrat and Republican
And Germany post-Bismarck....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor
Some more Italian fascist history: George Seldes books such as Sawdust Caesar the Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism [archive.org].
Your exactly right, bravo. Many people where in shock that Roberts did a 180 on what he's been talking against for over a year. Many started talking about blackmail and with all this NSA stuff going on I bet they found something and used it against him.
You don't need the NSA to find bigtime dirt on Roberts ,, although it couldn't hurt.. Gay man with illegal foreign adoptions ,, somewhere in his circle of "friends" you know there's got to be a few whose perversions aren't legal that he can be tied to ,, if even in a tangential way. Bastard doesn't have the balls to say "screw you" to his extortionists ,, still thinks he has the "respect of the nation and the world".
In "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" you see that after they offer position and money, there's blackmail and if that doesn't work, they send in the jackals.
And this wasn't happening routinely under Bush II? How was it that the warrantless wiretapping PRECEDED 9/11 by more than 6 months? Got to get the dirt on everyone....
Remember how all these REPUBLICAN Congressmen and Senators were SCREAMING about the loss of rights and the unConstitutionality of the Patriot Act and such - but they all voted in lockstep to support W's expansion of Executive power....what was held over their heads?
If you know where someone's skeletons are buried you can get them to do whatever you want - and THAT hasbeen the motivation behind the all encompassing surveillnce state. WHatever happened to 'Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely?'
No need to burgularize the Watergate when you can read someone's e-mails and listen in on any phone conversation they have.
Give ANYONE as much power as is now available and they will be tempted to misuse it.
Give it to them without public oversight and it's guaranteed.
Down vote for your red/blue label use.
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19230806,00.html
Premier Benito Mussolini celebrated his 41st birthday in Rome. During the day more than 30,000 congratulatory messages were sent to him. On all sides he was praised for the great work he had accomplished "for the good of Italy and of humanity."
Signor Benito Mussolini, full of Napoleonic gestures, was born at Varano di Costa on July 29, 1882. He is the son of an iron worker and started life as a laborer. His first important political appearance was at Milan when he was beaten in a parliamentary election by a rich opponent. ..you get the idea
Man of the Year
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539,00.html
Man of the Year
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19681213,00.html
Person of the Year
http://poy.time.com/2012/12/19/person-of-the-year-barack-obama/
Nobel Ceremony
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1946836,00.html
Good Luck, kids.
Veteran New York Times Reporter: “This Is Most Closed, Control-Freak Administration I’ve Ever Covered”
It is all fun and games until it’s your ass in the crosshairs. Not so fucking funny now is it?