U.S. Government says journalists are terrorists.
From the Washington Blog:
While government pretends America values freedom of the press, real journalists are treated As terrorists.
We’ve previously noted that American journalists are an endangered species (click on the links for stunning details):
If they criticize those in power, they may be smeared by the government and targeted for arrest (and see this).
Indeed, because the core things which reporters do could be considered terrorism, in modern America, they could even targeted under counter-terrorism laws.
And an al-Jazeera journalist was held at Guantánamo for six years, partly in order to be interrogated about the Arabic news network. And see this.
Experts who write about the truth – without any middleman – are also being harassed (and see this).
Wikileaks’ head Julian Assange could face the death penalty for his heinous crime of leaking whistleblower information which make those in power uncomfortable … i.e. being a reporter.
Former attorney general Mukasey said the U.S. should prosecute Assange because it’s “easier” than prosecuting the New York Times. But now Congress is considering a bill which would make even mainstream reporters liable for publishing leaked information (part of an all-out war on whistleblowing).
Do you think that I am being melodramatic and over the top? Think again …
Glenn Greenwald wrote yesterday:
A US air force systems analyst who expressed support for WikiLeaksand accused leaker Bradley Manning triggered a formal military investigation last year to determine whether she herself had leaked any documents to the group.
The investigation was ultimately closed when they could find no evidence of unauthorized leaking, but what makes these documents [Air Force investigative documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request ] noteworthy is the possible crime cited by military officials as the one they were investigating: namely, “Communicating With the Enemy“, under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
That is one of the most serious crimes a person can commit – it carries the penalty of death – and is committed when a person engages in “unauthorized communication, correspondence, or intercourse with the enemy”. The military investigation form also requires investigators to identify the “victim” of the crime they are investigating, and here, they designated “society” as the victim:
The same [Obama] administration that has prosecuted whistleblowers under espionage charges that threatened to send them to prison for life without any evidence of harm to national security, and has brought double the number of such prosecutions as all prior administrations combined. Converting all leaks into capital offenses would be perfectly consistent with the unprecedented secrecy fixation on the part of the Most Transparent Administration Ever.
The irony from these developments is glaring. The real “enemies” of American “society” are not those who seek to inform the American people about the bad acts engaged in by their government in secret. As Democrats once recognized prior to the age of Obama – in the age of Daniel Ellsberg – people who do that are more aptly referred to as “heroes”. The actual “enemies” are those who abuse secrecy powers to conceal government actions and to threaten with life imprisonment or even execution those who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing.
And – after Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys.
The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge. Indeed, Hedges believes that the government has already detained American citizens under the NDAA.
As plaintiff Wolf notes:
I have discussed the terms of the Homeland Battlefield Bill – also known as the National Defense Authorization Act – with numerous other journalists, writers, and members of democracy-supporting organizations across the political spectrum, from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee to the Tenth Amendment Center. I have also discussed the bill with various political leaders, including city council members and legislators, who span the political spectrum in the United States. They all agree that the bill can potentially affect an American journalist who meets with and publishes reports on individuals connected to organizations deemed terrorist by the United States government.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/in-america-journalists-are-considered-terrorists.html