Editorial “A threat to freedom” opines:
“Across party lines, presidents tend to be obsessed with security breaches in their administrations. The Obama administration, sadly, has been demonstrating its own obsession in a search for leaks that now threatens press freedoms in a Nixonian way.”
“The First Amendment trumps embarrassment. Better a leak of information than a clog in the pipeline of American rights.”
WATCHDOG: Now please note the prior NewsLanc excerpt and link to the New York Times Op-Ed “Stop the Leaks”.
“As former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obama’s, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to the government officials who are responsible for our national security.
“While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors’ decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the government’s public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously. The leak — which resulted in a May 2012 article by The A.P. about the disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner — significantly damaged our national security.”
As we then noted: “The above is the other side of the story which is largely overlooked in the current ‘feeding frenzy’ by journalists over their ‘rights.’ In England, not only would the notes have been seized by the reporter thrown in jail for violating the Official Secrets Act.”
It is highly simplistic and unfair to describe the Justice Department’s action as “Nixonian”.
