The New York Times ran a powerful editorial in support of press freedom in the UK, crediting UK's The Guardian for its reporting on documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden and sharply criticizing UK government efforts to prosecuted the paper:
The global debate now taking place about intelligence agencies collecting information on the phone calls, emails and Internet use of private citizens owes much to The Guardian’s intrepid journalism. In a free society, the price for printing uncomfortable truths should not be parliamentary and criminal inquisition.
Despite the fact that the U.S. enshrines freedom of the press in the First Amendment, the U.S. is working and in glove with the UK in threatening journalists.
The Times quite rightly assesses the threats journalism in the UK. Here are just a few U.S. government actions that threaten the freedom of the press:
*The U.S. Justice Department has brought an unprecedented number of Espionage Act prosecutions against so-called "leakers," who are usually whistleblowers like NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who objected to massive fraud, waste, and abuse of power and unconstitutional spying at NSA.
*The Justice Department has fought repeatedly to force New York Times journalist Jim Risen to testify about his source, arguing in court that there is no reporters' privilege protecting communications between journalists and sources.
*Using sweeping, overboard subpoenas, the Justice Department secretly obtained Associated Press phone records impacting over 100 journalists in an apparent violation of its own regulation.
*In order to put Fox News Journalist James Rosen under surveillance, the Justice Department argued that a court that by simply doing his job, Rosen was a potential "co-conspirator" to violate the Espionage Act.
*Just as UK citizen and Wikileaks journalist Sarah Harrison cannot travel home for fear of prosecution, U.S. journalists Laura Poitras (who has already endured systematic, invasive searches every time she returned home) and Glenn Greenwald are afraid to travel home to the U.S. for fear of prosecutions. As Greenwald said, attorney general Eric Holder's generalized statement that he would not prosecute anyone engaged in "real journalism" is not reassuring from an attorney general that has presided over unprecedented Justice Department assaults on the free press:
“That this question is even on people’s minds is a rather grim reflection of the Obama administration’s record on press freedoms,” [Greenwald] said in an e-mail. “It is a positive step that the Attorney General expressly recognizes that journalism is not and should not be a crime in the United States, but given this administration’s poor record on press freedoms, I’ll consult with my counsel on whether one can or should rely on such caveat-riddled oral assertions about the government’s intentions.”
All of these attacks on the American press are punctuated by the NSA's massive surveillance operation that secretly collects data hundreds of millions of innocent Americans with no meaningful oversight from Congress or the courts, and which by its nature has a immeasurable chilling effect on sources, reporters, and free speech. The
Times is right to speak out against threats to press freedom abroad, but the UK has pulled many of its anti-press cards from the US' deck.
