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Guest Post: State Dept Launches "Free The Press" Campaign As DoJ Tries To Jail Reporter
Submitted by Trevor Timm via The Freedom of the Press Foundation,
The US State Department announced the launch of its third annual "Free the Press" campaign today, which will purportedly highlight "journalists or media outlets that are censored, attacked, threatened, or otherwise oppressed because of their reporting." A noble mission for sure. But maybe they should kick off the campaign by criticizing their own Justice Department, which on the very same day, has asked the Supreme Court to help them force Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter James Risen into jail.
Politico's Josh Gerstein reports that the Justice Department filed a legal brief today urging the Supreme Court to reject Risen's petition to hear his reporter's privilege case, in which the Fourth Circuit ruled earlier this year that James Risen (and all journalists) can be forced to testify against their sources without any regard to the confidentiality required by their profession. This flies in the face of common law precedent all over the country, as well as the clear district court reasoning in Risen's case in 2012. (The government's Supreme Court brief can be read here.)
Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee commendably grilled the State Department spokesman about the contradiction of its press freedom campaign and the James Risen case at today's briefing on the State Department initiative, repeatedly asking if the government considers press freedom issues in the United States the same way it does abroad. The full transcript is below.
As Gerstein noted, "The Justice Department brief is unflinchingly hostile to the idea of the Supreme Court creating or finding protections for journalists," and if the Justice Department succeeds "it could place President Barack Obama in the awkward position of presiding over the jailing of a journalist in an administration the president has vowed to make the most transparent in history."
The government does mention it is working with Congress to craft a reporter's shield bill, which should give you some indication that the proposed bill is at best a watered-down, toothless version of what many courts have offered journalists for decades, and that would be no help to James Risen—the exact type of reporter that we should be attempting to protect the most. It's important to remember that in Risen's case, the government has previously analogized reporter's privilege to a criminal receiving drugs from someone and refusing to testify about it.
We'll have more on both the shield law and the Risen case soon, but it's clear that the US government still refuses to walk the walk when providing journalists the protections it claims to believe in.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, maybe the State Department can use its "Free the Press" campaign to put pressure on one of its staunchest allies, the United Kingdom, which is using terrorism laws to suppress acts of journalism—something the State Department has condemned many times in the past.
Here's the full interaction between the AP's Matthew Lee and the State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki on James Risen and US press freedom at today's State Department briefing:
JENNIFER PSAKI: One more announcement for all of you: With World Press Freedom Day around the world on May 3rd, the department will launch its third annual Free the Press campaign later this afternoon in New York at the U.S. U.N. mission. Beginning on Monday and all of next week, we will highlight emblematic cases of imperiled reporters and media outlets that have been targeted, oppressed, imprisoned or otherwise harassed because of their professional work. The first two cases will be announced by Assistant Secretary -- Assistant Secretary Tom Malinowski later at the -- at U.S. U.N. And we invite you of course to follow Tom at Twitter, who has -- on Twitter who, as you all know, was just confirmed several weeks, @Malinowski and to keep up with human rights issues on DRL's website.
With that --
Q: Sure. Just on that, reporters who are, what, harassed? I'm sorry --
MS. PSAKI: Targeted, oppressed, imprisoned or otherwise harassed.
Q: Otherwise harassed. Does that include those who may have been targeted, harassed, imprisoned and otherwise whatever by the United States government?
MS. PSAKI: I'm --
Q: No?
MS. PSAKI: I think you're familiar with our Free the Press campaign, Matt, but --
Q: Fair enough. So it does not include those who might have been harassed by --
MS. PSAKI: We highlight, as we often do, where we see issues with media freedom around the world.
Q: Right, I understand. But you would say that you don't -- the U.S. does not believe that it has a problem with press freedom, or if it does, that it's not nearly as severe as the problems in other countries.
MS. PSAKI: We do not. I think we can look at many of the problems --
On media press freedom?
Oh. Go ahead. And then we'll go to you, (Paul ?).
Did you have another question on media press freedom, or --
...
Q: If I could just go back to the overall, in general, the administration does not regard attempting to prosecute American journalists as an infringement of press freedom?
MS. PSAKI: I'm not sure which case you're -- what you're referring to.
Q: Well, there's several cases that are out there right now. The one that comes -- springs to mind is the James Risen case, where the Justice Department is attempting to prosecute. I just want to be clear. I'm not trying to --
MS. PSAKI: Well, Matt, I --
Q: I just want to know if you regard that as an infringement on press freedom or not. And I suspect that you do not, but I want to make sure that that's the case.
MS. PSAKI: As you know, and I'll, of course, refer to the Department of Justice, but the leaking of classified information is in a separate category. What we're talking about here, as you all know and unfortunately we have talk about on a regular basis here, is the targeting of journalists, the arrests, the imprisonment for simply exercising their ability to tell the story.
Q: Right. I understand that. And we're all, I'm sure, myself and all my colleagues, we're very appreciative of that.
But the reporters in question here have not leaked the information; they simply published it. So is it correct, then, that you don't believe -- you don't regard that as an infringement of press freedom?
MS. PSAKI: We don't. I don't have anything more to say on that case.
Q: OK.
MS. PSAKI: Do we have a new topic?
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Comment of the day!
Talk about irony. A government using "Free the Press" campaigns when we all know what they really want.
Telling us what we all want to hear...
I think that it's all modeled after Bernays and Orwell.
John Kerry whining about RT and the little red head girl who is the spokesperson for the state department conducts herself like a ten year old. It is very sad. They really think they are good at their jobs, it is like they just got back from smoking weed in Colorado. The 3rd world nations have better leaders than this. Come on people!
"They really think they are good at their jobs, it is like they just got back from smoking weed in Colorado."
Well, you've done a good job of placing out your stereotypes...
If you think that a bunch of stoners would be stiring up wars then you're clueless.
"The 3rd world nations have better leaders than this."
The very notion of "third world" is a classification made up by the controllers. Our problem is not that we have "third world leaders" it's that wer've had "leaders" who think that they are supperior humans, that they know better than those "third worlders."
Yeah, Kerry et all are pieces of shit. But in no way are they stupid. The times are a stupid, these folks just are finding that it's necessary to DO stupid in order to (try to) navigate things: to serve their real masters (who are losing their control). The real stupidity is in our insisting that we have better "leaders" in a system that is meant to oppress us (equal rights for all except some animal [rich, white landowners] are more equal than other [women, blacks/slaves and non-landowners]).
Worth every minute it takes to watch this
Docudrama about the death of an Airline Pilot and his two children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGdialRMdjU#t=232
Will the real party in interest please stand up. The first challenge should be, who is the USA, and by what authority do they have standing.
I'm thinking that the natives were asking that question a LONG time ago. The answer was delivered in lead...
The real USA was and is the Constitution.
Unfortunately, it lies in tatters. The rest is predictable.
More proof, if anyone really needed it, that govts are not run by evil geniuses, but by grubby little thieving whores who can't even coordinate their lies.
I'll give you the occasional flash of Machiavellian brilliance, (Fed reserve, income tax) but on the whole, when exposed, they're a pathetically banal lot.
Unfortunately, that seems to be all it takes.
It all depends who is in office Dems or Repubs. When Bush was prez Sen. Pat "Leaky" Leahy's office was always leaking info to the press that compromised US positions. Hypocrites.
These mini-Stalins in charge of the gov't have got to go.
BTW, don't be fooled by the "reporters sheild bill"-it lets gov't determine exactly what a "journalist" member of the press is.
It would neatly disqualify internet news and info sources-like Tyler for example. They would have no 1st amendment rights/protection.
"More proof, if anyone really needed it, that govts are not run by evil geniuses, but by grubby little thieving whores who can't even coordinate their lies."
Proof?
Seems that they're still there and oppressing the lot of us. If they are total incompetents then that would make us...
It was merely a glitch in the Matrix. The Matrix continues on...
9/11 wasn't pulled off by amateurs.
Matt Lee better have his brakes checked...
Matt Lee has been a pain in Psaki's ass for a while. Problem is, people don't pay attention to him. There are quite a few videos of him ripping into her that would be quality entertainment, if it weren't for the fact that this bitch is part of our federal government.
Where has this guy been? I mean, he seems to have just popped up. Would have been nice to have had him around during the Bush era...
Reset time?
Part I:
What Is 'American System' Economics
Part II:
The 'American System' Means Sovereignty, Not Free Trade
Part III:
The 'American System' Requires That a Nation Control Its Own Currency
Part IV:
The 'American System' Requires a National Bank
As long as you provide for a power structure you will get a concentration of power and of the abuse of power. Pretend all that you want, but there is NO way to stop it w/o blood-letting. So, whenever you accept the premise of a power structure then you MUST accept that it will ALWAYS exceed it's orginal parameters/mandates (history clearly demonstrates this) and the ONLY way that it "corrects" is through some very nasty, non-legal/non-court-enivonrment way.
You don't ask POWER to change.
Every administration ...