“This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” said David E. Despite President Barack Obama’s repeated promise that his administration would be the most open and transparent in American history, reporters and government transparency advocates said they are disappointed by its performance in improving access to the information they need. If we consider aggressive press coverage of government activities being at the core of American democracy, this tips the balance heavily in favor of the government.”Īt the same time, the journalists told me, designated administration spokesmen are often unresponsive or hostile to press inquiries, even when reporters have been sent to them by officials who won’t talk on their own.
Sources are now afraid to enter that gray zone. There’s a gray zone between classified and unclassified information, and most sources were in that gray zone. “Most people are deterred by those leaks prosecutions. “I think we have a real problem,” said New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane. “It leaves a digital trail that makes it easier for the government to monitor those contacts,” he said. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity, an influential nonprofit government accountability news organization in Washington. “I worry now about calling somebody because the contact can be found out through a check of phone records or e-mails,” said veteran national security journalist R. Numerous Washington-based journalists told me that officials are reluctant to discuss even unclassified information with them because they fear that leak investigations and government surveillance make it more difficult for reporters to protect them as sources. More in this reportĬompounding the concerns of journalists and the government officials they contact, news stories based on classified documents obtained from Snowden have revealed extensive surveillance of Americans’ telephone and e-mail traffic by the National Security Agency. In another leak case, a New York Times reporter has been ordered to testify against a defendant or go to jail. Reporters’ phone logs and e-mails were secretly subpoenaed and seized by the Justice Department in two of the investigations, and a Fox News reporter was accused in an affidavit for one of those subpoenas of being “an aider, abettor and/or conspirator” of an indicted leak defendant, exposing him to possible prosecution for doing his job as a journalist. Still more criminal investigations into leaks are under way.
#OBAMA COLUMBIA RECORDS PLUS#
Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press-compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S.
An “Insider Threat Program” being implemented in every government department requires all federal employees to help prevent unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their colleagues. Those suspected of discussing with reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and e-mail records. In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.
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