In the Brave New post-9/11 World “national security” has
become a mantra uttered to justify and sanctify countless Executive Branch
actions. Today, President Obama made official his willingness to use national
security as justification for even the most draconian of measures—the unprecedented seizure of Associated Press records. Anyone who had hoped
that yesterday’s announprecedented secret seizure of Associated Press recorduncement of Administration support for a federal “shield law” designed to protect press freedoms was the precursor for an Obama apology
for the Justice Department’s actions was quickly disappointed by Obama’s
announcement today. Here is how the Washington Post is reporting Obama’s response to questions about the scandal:
President
Obama on Thursday strongly defended the Justice Department leaks investigation
that secretly gathered private phone records of Associated Press journalists,
suggesting that protecting U.S. personnel overseas outweighs press privileges
in this case.
“Leaks related to national security can put people at risk. They
can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk,”
Obama said during a news conference with visiting Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “And so I make no apologies, and I don’t
think the American people would expect me, as commander in chief, not to be
concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get
them killed.”
What is really going on
here? Was the Obama administration really going after the Associated Press’s
records in order to identify the leaker or is the scope of their actions
against the AP indicative of an effort to punish the news organization for its
handling of the story? The story is still developing, but the brilliant
investigative reporter Michael Isikoff has a story now up that is filling in
the pieces:
Justice
Department and Associated Press officials clashed Tuesday over leaked
classified information that led the government to seize AP phone records, with
Attorney General Eric Holder saying it “put the American people at risk” and
the news organization’s chief executive insisting it delayed publishing its
story until it was assured “national security concerns had passed.”… Holder’s
comments and a letter from Deputy Attorney General James Cole defending the
seizure of the AP records – without notifying the news organization until last
week -- drew a stern response from AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. He
blasted the action as "overbroad under the law," saying
that "more than 100 journalists work in the locations served by
those telephones."
"Rather
than talk to us in advance, they seized these phone records in secret, saying
that notifying us would compromise their investigation," Pruitt said in a
statement late Tuesday. “They offer no explanation of this, however.
"Instead
they captured the telephone numbers between scores of AP journalists and the
many people they talk to in the normal business of gathering news."
Pruitt
also defended the AP's decision to publish the story that apparently sparked
the leak investigation…
Pruitt on
Tuesday denied the article posed a threat to national security.
"We
held that story until the government assured us that the national security
concerns had passed," he said. "Indeed, the White House was preparing
to publicly announce that the bomb plot had been foiled.
"The
White House had said there was no credible threat to the American people in May
of 2012. The AP story suggested otherwise, and we felt that was important
information and the public deserved to know it."
Pruitt's
statement came after he received a letter from
Cole, the deputy attorney general, which said "there was
a basis to believe" the phone numbers subpoenaed "were associated
with AP personnel involved in the reporting of classified information." He
said the subpoenas were "limited to a reasonable period of time" and
were only taken after all "alternative investigative steps had been taken
… including conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands
of documents."
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