It was recently discovered that the Justice Department secretly seized hundreds of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press in an effort to hunt down the source of a leak that exposed a CIA operation. This is a dramatic escalation in the government’s efforts to conceal its activities and to intimidate and punish anyone in the government who dares to expose criminal activity and wrongdoing. It is another front in the continuing campaign by Obama’s Justice Department to harass and persecute whistleblowers, several of whom appear in Seizing Power. Not only does this kind of privacy intrusion intimidate whistleblowing, it creates a chilling effect on news gathering and freedom of the press. As investigative reporter Charles Lewis points out in Seizing Power, “It’s hard enough to do journalism, but if you’re being monitored while you’re doing the journalism, you have no chance at all. An anonymous source is a thing of the past. Is there any better way to chill the media itself? I don’t think so.”

Justice Dept Seizes AP Phone Records

Threats to Free Press are Clear