I just heard Judy Miller on Fox news say that the DOJ's AP investigation doesn't pass the smell test. And then I read this sanctimonious tale of poor John Solomon a veteran journalist who says he lost all his sources because the DOJ subpoenaed his phone records. These two are not the best reporters to be taking up the cause, I'm afraid. Solomon made his name pimping non-scandals about hair-dos and phony fundraising, almost exclusively against Democrats. It's not as if he's ever blown the lid off of anything that wasn't purely political in nature. And Miller wasn't exactly protecting whistleblowers in her battle with the government --- she was protecting her powerful government sources who were using her to quell dissent. I'm not sure she understands the difference, but the rest of us should.
However, none of that means I am anything bit appalled by what appears to be a request for AP reporters' phone records over a protracted period of time in what appears to be a wide-spread fishing expedition. No, it's not the only example of this sort of thing happening over the past few years, but it may have been the most sweeping. It's very, very ugly.
In my view, any DOJ that does this by going around the media company itself and using the telecom company is subverting the constitutional principles underlying both the first and the fourth amendment. Yes, the courts have upheld these practices, but I don't believe that makes it right to do so. These first amendment issues are fundamental to our freedoms and need to be dealt with in the light of day. If the DOJ wants to subpoena media companies it should serve them directly and then let the media companies take it through the courts if they object.
Moreover, there is a bigger issue here that is overdue for scrutiny by the American public --- this War on Whistleblowers is very real. Brave New Films has documented this story in its new film by the same name.
You undoubtedly recognize Jane Mayer and Dana Priest in that trailer. Unlike John Solomon and Judith Miller they are not servants of the GOP.
Neither is this guy:
@PeteWilliamsNBC: "This administration has been more aggressive about going after leaks than any other administration." #AMR
The press knows very well that what's been happening is an unprecedented clampdown on whistleblowers. And in the process, they're clamping down on the first amendment and freedom of the press. By looking at a bunch of different reporters' phone records over the course of a two month period with no limit or boundaries it's not hard to imagine that they will come up with all sorts of information, political and otherwise, which compromises the freedom of the press.
This is a very dicey area and even those who believe that national security should be protected at all costs should probably be aware of the fact that we've "national securitized" vast swaths of government activities and created mountains of "classified" information over the past decade, most of it without any decent oversight. We honestly have no idea about what they're calling "national security" these days. If you follow out politics at all, you certainly have reason to be suspicious that the government has a fairly loose definition of what that might include.
If nothing else, watch this frontline documentary with Dana Priest called Top Secret America, which "traces journey from 9/11 to the Marathon bombings and investigates the secret history of the 12-year battle against terrorism." Do we think it would be a good thing if Dana Priest had been unable to uncover the black torture sights around the globe under the Bush administration? There's every chance that she would have been unable to do it under the Obama administration's hardcore approach.
Our government is now fetishizing secrecy and that is toxic to a free society. Once again, terrorism is a very real threat, but it's not an existential threat and it does not require that we toss out all of our norms and rules in order to fight it. It's counterproductive to say the least. We're just doing their dirty work for them.
Update: This too, with identification of all the investigative journalists commenting in the War on Whistleblowers