Jeremy Scahill: Obama's Vendetta Against the Press

"You have the president of the United States," says Dirty Wars author Jeremy Scahill, "a constitutional law professor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, keeping a respected Yemeni journalist in prison seemingly because he committed the crime of doing actual journalism."

Scahill is particularly horrified by the case of Abdulelah Haider Shaye, who was set to be pardoned and released by the government of Yemen until Barack Obama intervened in 2011. Major U.S. news outlets that worked with journalist - The Washington Post, ABC News, NBC News - have not said a thing about his case, says Scahill.

Scahill, whose searing, book-length expose of America's misdeeds in the global war on terror has been turned into an award-winning documentary of the same name (which goes into wide U.S. theatrical release this Friday), talks with Reason's Matt Welch about Barack Obama's inexplicable vendetta against individual journalists and whole news agences. 

About 1 minute.

Please share this video and be sure to watch the full 40-minute interview when it's posted at Reason TV and our YouTube channel.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Jim Epstein and Fisher.

MUSIC: "Dramamine" by Podington Bear (http://podingtonbear.com/)

Comments

[sarcasmic]

This video is private.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm beginning to wonder if the constitutional law professor and Nobel Peace Prize winner might be fraudulent credentials.

[WTF]

I'm pretty sure he was just adjunct faculty, never a professor.

[ATrumse]

This is certainly the nicest-work I have ever done.. Earn 10 to 80$/hr working from home with Google! On Saturday I got a gorgeous Ariel Atom after earning $6292 this ? four weeks past. I began this six months/ago and right away began to make at least $80.. per-hour. I work through this link, http://www.Bling6.com

[PS]

[jesse.in.mb]

Did you intentionally Fist that comment as a critique of his AM links first? or was that just incidental?

[Fist of Etiquette]

THE REASON CENSORSHIP HAS BEGUN.

[PS]

I was speaking to power.

[PS]

Damnit, (blank) to power. See, they are already trying to repress me.

[Brandon]

Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

[Killazontherun]

Candidate Obama debates President Obama on Government Surveillance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded

One pretty astute remark from that page:

"We're gonna have to make some choices as a society..."

ORLY, is that? why you implemented the program in SECRET? So we are *gonna have to* make choices about what you have already been doing?

And, one really dumb one:

I placed my faith in him, because his words rang true. I still have faith that he can be shown the error of turning his back on us and on his words. We are all Americans united now. No matter how we voted, no matter what we believe, we can stand for our Privacy. Stand with us RestoreTheFourth.? net

Face up, you got used, and you helped get the rest of us hosed.

[Brandon]

He means the royal "We," of course. That's why we elected him God-emperor.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Just because he is those things doesn't mean he'd do the right or wise thing. He can be fucking Napoleon in his head for all we know.

[WTF]

Major U.S. news outlets that worked with journalist - The Washington Post, ABC News, NBC News - have not said a thing about his case, says Scahill.

Well, there's a shocker.

[Dweebston]

A free press, like gun ownership, must be handled responsibly and with proper deference to the authorities. Because shouting fire in a crowded theater, or something.

[Fist of Etiquette]

...keeping a respected Yemeni journalist in prison seemingly because he committed the crime of doing actual journalism.

Do you know he was doing actual journalism? Were you reading his emails? Were you listening to his phone conversations? No, I didn't think so. Obama knows what he's doing. He's the president, he's the world's father and its boss and if he says one of his child-employees needs a laid off-time outed then you have to let it go and you don't have to report on it.

[Irish]

Plus if he blogs or anything like that, he isn't deserving of first amendment rights anyway. /Dick Durbin

[BakedPenguin]

Dick Derpin'

[Brandon]

You know what? Fuck that guy's parents. If they were prescient enough to name him "Dick," they should've just gone all the way and smothered him in his crib.

[jesse.in.mb]

he's the world's father

Now I can't shake the mental image of him as Odin with an eye-patch a grey cloak and a staff.

[JW]

Do you know he was doing actual journalism?

He was working for IslamaFaux News, so, no.

[The Late P Brooks]

"It's for your own good, America. Now, get back in that kitchen and make me a sammich."

[PS]

What do you call an American citizen with two droned eyes?

[Raston Bot]

Isn't it tell, not call?

[PS]

Yeah, you are right. I'm not bringing my A game today.

[Brandon]

Nothing, she's already been, uh, called, twice?

[grey]

+1 Richard Pryor

[RightNut]

If I link to this on facebook will I be put on a government watch list?

[Drake]

Registering a Reason account is probably sufficient.

[Suthenboy]

*Headsmack*

Silly RightNut.

If the IRS is targeting people because they have certain words associated with them then dollars to doughnuts everyone who has ever posted anything remotely anti-authoritarian on here is on that list.

I bet Reason is in the top ten 'to watch' sites.

[Suthenboy]

"Reason's Matt Welch about Barack Obama's inexplicable vendetta against individual journalists and whole news agences. "

Any number of banana republic dictator's treatment of the press was equally inexplicable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama believes in and supports the First Amendment.

So long as you only say nice things about it. Speech that criticizes the President isn't protected because...terrorism or something.

[DarrenM]

Obama believes in and supports the First Amendment.

Yes, but I'm not sure it's the same First Amendment we generally think of.

[Sevyy]

Scahill is a democratic socialist. Not a Liberal. An avowed leftist.
You can ask him yourself at Socialism 2014 in Chicago, where he will be
speaking.

[Brandon]

Clearly the press has just been too tough on Obama, and they really haven't given him a fair shake. He's only hitting them because he loves them so much.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Yeah, the press deserves it just like those Teabagging charities targeted by the IRS.

/progturd