The Obama Administration's "quiet but malicious campaign against the news media and their sources"
My former colleagues at the L.A. Times Editorial Board take aim at the president:
[T]his 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.
Whole thing here; link via Glenn Greenwald's Twitter feed. For a similar and more detailed critique from a more surprising source, check out this feature in the latest Washingtonian magazine (pictured).
I talked about Obama's transparency record last week.
