Obama, The Press, The First Amendment

For the mainstream media, it has been a hard spring--the scales have dropped from their eyes--they now see their worst nightmares in the form of Barack Obama and Eric Holder and this administration's abuse of first amendment freedoms--

It has been apparent for several years that the Obama Administration has departed from the First Amendment norms established during the seven Presidencies since Branzburg. Holder has overseen six prosecutions of government officials for aiding the press, more than were brought by all previous Administrations combined. (source infra)

Steve Coll: Why Journalists Deserve Better Protections : The New Yorker: " . . . Obama inherited a bloated national-security state. It contains far too many official secrets and far too many secret-keepers—more than a million people now hold top-secret clearances. Under a thirty-year-old executive order issued by the White House, the intelligence agencies must inform the Justice Department whenever they believe that classified information has been disclosed illegally to the press. These referrals operate on a kind of automatic pilot, and the system is unbalanced. Prosecutors in Justice’s national-security division initially decide on whether to make a criminal case or to defer to the First Amendment. The record shows that in recent years the division has been bent on action. . . ."

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