Obama tries for total censorship of the internet & the media.
He is using the Bradley Manning case as precedence to intimidate people into self censorship.
What prosecutor Fein said in those closing arguments was absolutely chilling.
“Pfc. Manning was not a humanist; he was a hacker,” Major Fein noted.
“He was not a whistle-blower. He was a traitor, a traitor who understood the value of compromised information in the hands of the enemy and took deliberate steps to ensure that they, along with the world, received it.”
The quote is scary.
Critics of this case have warned that a Manning conviction of “aiding the enemy” would criminalize journalism. Even here in this quote, Fein alludes to journalists as being "the hands of the enemy."
As the New York Times explains:
"As the trial has moved toward its conclusion, the more philosophical questions confronting [Col. Denise Lind] are re-emerging center stage — including whether WikiLeaks played a journalistic role and whether providing information to the anti-secrecy group was any different, for legal purposes, from providing it to a traditional news outlet."
It is believed that a guilty verdict for aiding the enemy would establish a government precedent that giving information to an outlet that publishes it online is the same as handing it over to an enemy, the Times adds.
Read more at:-
Obama steps up his war on the press
The part of the First Amendment that prohibits “abridging the freedom … of the press” is now up against the wall, as the Obama administration continues to assault the kind of journalism that can expose government secrets.
Last Friday the administration got what it wanted—an ice-cold chilling effect—from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on the case of New York Times reporter James Risen. The court “delivered a blow to investigative journalism in America by ruling that reporters have no First Amendment protection that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in the event of a criminal trial,” the Guardian reported.
Last Friday the administration got what it wanted—an ice-cold chilling effect—from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on the case of New York Times reporter James Risen. The court “delivered a blow to investigative journalism in America by ruling that reporters have no First Amendment protection that would safeguard the confidentiality of their sources in the event of a criminal trial,” the Guardian reported.
Read more at:-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023312251
This is about nothing less than whether America has any sort of investigative journalism in the future.
It is about whether Americans will be allowed to be critical of their own government in the future.
This is about nothing less than whether America has any sort of investigative journalism in the future.
It is about whether Americans will be allowed to be critical of their own government in the future.
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