{"id":108149,"date":"2014-02-17T07:41:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T07:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=851b7feb0863d3898319f854520c68e7"},"modified":"2014-02-17T07:41:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T07:41:00","slug":"us-press-freedom-threatened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/us-press-freedom-threatened\/","title":{"rendered":"US Press Freedom Threatened"},"content":{"rendered":"
US Press Freedom Threatened<\/b><\/div>\n
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by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n
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First Amendment rights matter most. Without them all other freedoms are at risk. Post-9\/11 policies threaten them.<\/div>\n
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Bush waged war against them. Obama escalated it. He promised transparency, accountability and reform. He called whistleblowing “acts of courage and patriotism.” He said one thing. He did another.<\/div>\n
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Press freedoms are endangered. An October Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report<\/span><\/a> discussed Obama and the press. <\/div>\n
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Journalists say he’s waging war on dissent. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He’s heading America on a fast track to tyranny.<\/div>\n
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He wants information people have a right to know suppressed. He evades press scrutiny. He aggressively targets leakers.<\/div>\n
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Anyone suspected of disclosing information he wants concealed is vulnerable. Press freedom is gravely threatened.<\/div>\n
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On February 12, a CPJ press release<\/span><\/a> headlined “Attacks on the Press: CPJ to launch annual global assessment of press freedom.” <\/div>\n
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It named three key threats. They include digital surveillance, murdering journalists, and pressuring them to suppress what governments don’t want revealed.<\/div>\n
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Authoritarian states used to be primary battlegrounds, said CPJ. No longer. New technologies potentially threaten press freedom everywhere.<\/div>\n
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“Governments’ capacity to store transactional data and the content of communications undermines journalists’ ability to protect sources,” said CPJ.<\/div>\n
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Out-of-control NSA spying harms everyone. It’s driving a stake in the heart of press freedom. It’s compromised gravely in America.<\/div>\n
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CPJ first published “Attacks on the Press” in 1986. This year’s edition features a chapter titled<\/span><\/a> “The NSA Puts Journalists Under a Cloud of Suspicion.”<\/div>\n
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Mass agency surveillance collects enormous amounts of data. It’s retained. Doing so “poses a unique threat to journalism in the digital age,” said CPJ.<\/div>\n
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Virtually everything digital can be monitored. NSA “recreate(s) a reporter’s research.” It retraces sources’ movements.<\/div>\n
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It follows current and past communications. It uncovers confidential sources. It does so with technological ease.<\/div>\n
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It renders confidentiality promises meaningless. If current interactions escape scrutiny, they’re reconstructed later on.<\/div>\n
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Doing so compromises free data flows. Sources become reluctant to cooperate. Disclosing information Washington wants concealed entails risks.<\/div>\n
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Suppressing what people need to know compromises press freedom. Advanced data storage technology creates another potential risk.<\/div>\n
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“It provides a deep breeding ground for artificial intelligence systems, which may in the future lead to more efficient, even predictive, spying machines,” said CPJ.<\/div>\n
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Washington and other governments will spot what they most wish to know. Perhaps they’ll do it in advance.<\/div>\n
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Imagine the potential ability to discover things before they happen. Unless checked, out-of-control spying may destroy press freedom entirely. Maybe all freedoms.<\/div>\n
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Perhaps what’s ongoing now is prelude to much worse. CPJ interviewed William Binney. America is “a police state,” he said. Mass spying is “a totalitarian process.”<\/div>\n
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NSA monitors all journalists. It maintains “a record of all of them so (it) can investigate, so (it) can look at who they’ll calling – who are the potential sources that they’re involved  in, what probable stories they’re working on, and things like that.”<\/div>\n
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National security expert James Bamford told CPJ he believes certain journalists get extra scrutiny.<\/div>\n
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“If you’re writing about national security or the NSA itself, they consider you…a national security danger, and so they feel justified in doing whatever they’re doing,” he said.<\/div>\n
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ACLU attorney Alex Abdo litigated against NSA. At issue are compromised constitutionally guaranteed free speech and privacy rights.<\/div>\n
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“(A)ll reporters should be worried,” he believes. Different things affect them.<\/div>\n
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“Reporters who work for the largest media organizations should be worried probably primarily because their sources will dry up as (they) recognize that there is no way to cover their trail.”<\/div>\n
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Independent journalists may be targeted. They’re vulnerable on their own. They lack “institutional protections” MSM reporters get.<\/div>\n
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When questioned, NSA consistently lies. Spokeswoman Vanee Vines told CPJ:<\/div>\n
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“NSA is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets in order to protect the nation and its interests from threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”<\/div>\n
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It bears repeating what other articles explained. America’s only threats are ones it invents.<\/div>\n
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Post-9\/11, NSA spying uncovered zero terrorist threats. None! Claims otherwise are false.<\/div>\n
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Obama lied saying “US intelligence agencies (are) anchored in a system of checks and balances – with oversight from elected leaders, and protections for ordinary citizens.”<\/div>\n
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He lied claiming mass surveillance “prevented multiple attacks and saved lives – not just here in the United States, but around the globe.”<\/div>\n
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He lied saying federal courts and congressional oversight curbed “some of the worst excesses that emerged after 9\/11…”<\/div>\n
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He lied saying he ordered “increased oversight and auditing, including new structures aimed at compliance.”<\/div>\n
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He lied claiming nothing he’s seen “indicate(s) that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of (American) citizens.”<\/div>\n
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He lied saying “the men and women of the intelligence community, including the NSA, consistently follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people.”<\/div>\n
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He lied claiming “(t)hey’re not abusing authority in order to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails.”<\/div>\n
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He lied saying “(w)hen mistakes are made…they correct” them.<\/div>\n
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He lied saying “our intelligence community follows the law.”<\/div>\n
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He lied claiming terrorist threats “are not going away any time soon. They are going to continue to be a major problem.”<\/div>\n
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Director of National Intelligence (DNI) head James Clapper is an acknowledged perjurer. He belatedly admitted lying to Congress.<\/div>\n
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Senator Ron Wyden asked him: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”<\/div>\n
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“No sir,” said Clapper, “not wittingly.” Facing perjury charges he wrote Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairwoman Diane Feinstein. He apologized for “clearly erroneous” remarks under oath.<\/div>\n
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Russell Tice is a former Office of Naval Intelligence\/Defense Intelligence Agency\/NSA analyst. His career spanned 20 years.<\/div>\n
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Earlier he accused NSA of unconstitutionally wiretapping US citizens, saying:<\/div>\n
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“Everyone at NSA knew what they were doing was illegal, because it\u2019s drilled into our heads over and over that it’s against NSA policy, that you do not do that. The choice is to speak out and get fired.”<\/div>\n
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Tice personally witnessed agency spying on news organizations and journalists.<\/div>\n
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Former army intelligence Sgt. Adrienne Kinne said she monitored phone conversations between journalists in Iraq and their spouses and editors.<\/div>\n
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Snowden revelations explained much more. Clapper lied to Congress claiming he caused “profound damage.”<\/div>\n
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He exposed lawless spying. He connected important dots for millions. He told people what they need to know. <\/div>\n
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He’s outrageously charged under the 1917 Espionage Act. It’s a WW I relic. It has no relevancy today. <\/div>\n
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Obama uses against whistleblowers. He targeted more than all his predecessors combined.<\/div>\n
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Snowden charges include:<\/div>\n
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