Left Side of the Aisle #110 - Part 4

Update 1: DOJ vs. media

I've got updates on two things I've noted recently.

First is that the real Obama scandal of recent weeks, the Justice Department's investigation and surveillance of the Associated Press and Fox News, has led to a sustained wave of criticism of the administration's media policies.

Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists declared that the DOJ's secret subpoenas for over 20 AP phone lines "represent a damaging setback for press freedom in the United States." Over 50 media outlets signed a letter to the DOJ which made similar arguments.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank called labeling Fox reporter James Rosen a "co-conspirator" in court papers "a flagrant assault on civil liberties."

Even the New York Times got in on the act, charging in an editorial that the White House "has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press."

One additional observation: This business also serves to point up - again - the utter amoral hypocrisy of the right wing. They have been screaming about the surveillance of James Rosen. But a few years ago, when New York Times reporter James Risen was being pursued in court first by the Shrub team and then the Obama gang over a leak involving the massive, secret surveillance of international communications by the National Security Agency and another leak about a botched intelligence operation in Iran, the parts of the right wing that didn't stand mute were calling for the NYT to be prosecuted for printing Risen's story about the NSA.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/nytimes-obama-white-house-doj-investigations_n_3318748.html