Moving Forward
A New Era
The Obama administration is prosecuting leakers, subpoenaing journalists and increasing the amount of classified documents at unprecedented rates. These efforts have caused some to harden their position, while others have called for cooperation.
"Why should somebody who is a reporter, who wasn’t elected to public office, who has taken no oath to preserve the Constitution of the United States or faithfully execute the responsibilities of an elected public servant. Why should somebody who has taken none of that responsibility on, and has none of that accountability, be able to take information and decide whether or not very sensitive information should be released or not. That’s really the job of the elected official who was subject to the accountability and the laws and the responsibilities that he or she has signed up for. It’s not up to the reporter, but the reporter knows that if the reporter will grant anonymity to the source, then the source doesn’t have to worry about any repercussions and the reporter doesn’t worry about it because the reporter is under the assumption that no judge is going to convict a reporter because of the First Amendment." from interview with Porter Goss (former Director of the CIA) |
"Whenever there's something that the reporters obviously see as a potentially sensitive piece of information, I will tell [the government] what it is before I publish it and ask for a comment, but also give them a chance, if they want to or if they feel that it's necessary to say, that piece of information would really be damaging to an ongoing operation, people's lives, things like that." Dana Priest (reporter, The Washington Post) |
"On the other side there’s a principal that is equally important which is if there is criminal conduct out there that you or I or anybody knows about, you darn well ought to get that information to those in charge of law enforcement. The reporter’s mantra is: It’s the public’s right to know. I think the public has a right to know. I also believe that if the reporter knows the identity of someone who has committed a crime, the public has the right to know that just as much." William Bradford Reynolds (former Assistant US Attorney General) |
"If a reporter steps over the line drawn by the Justice Department, he or she may become a criminal. In short, the government has criminalized the news-gathering process…. When the government brings these cases, the only thing to do is to fight like a tiger and risk going to jail if necessary. Anything less diminishes the freedom of the press." James Goodale former New York Times General Counsel |
" I don’t think anybody – special prosecutor, FBI, Department of Justice – really relishes the idea of using a grand jury or a subpoena to go and have a reporter talk. But I think it also goes to the issue that these are serious matters at times, and that decisions have to be made about whether or not the need to protect sources, methods, operations, intelligence gathering for the country is paramount." David Szady (former FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence) |
"It's been said that information is the oxygen of democracy, and when you cut back on it, the quality of our democratic life suffers. Sure the press has problems, and the press has to deal with them one way or another. But they're not only the press' problems. They're the problems of all of us who are concerned citizens, and if we don't find a way to reinvigorate public access to information, then we all pay the price." Steven Aftergood. (Director of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy) |
The First Amendment is not just about censorship and control. New issues constantly emerge. Can the government search a reporter’s e-mails or listen to her phone calls to find out who is leaking the classified information? Is the reporter an accomplice to a crime? What about press in the digital age? Does a blogger get First Amendment protection?
"You bet it’s difficult. And that’s a problem for a lawyer who represents the press. Why? Well, because I have to answer just that question when a judge says 'Are you saying that everyone that tells someone else a secret and says please don’t tell -- that a grand jury can’t find out what was said even if it is really relevant in a criminal case?' -- the answer has to be no. It can’t be everyone." Floyd Abrams |
Recent articles exploring the new issues about rights and responsibilities in the press.