• Tag Archives 1st Amendment

  • Justice Department affidavit labels Fox News journalist as possible ‘co-conspirator’

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    A Fox News correspondent was accused in a Justice Department affidavit of being a possible criminal “co-conspirator” for his alleged role in publishing sensitive security information — in a leak case that takes the highly unusual step of claiming a journalist broke the law.

    According to court documents, the Justice Department obtained a portfolio of information about Fox News’ James Rosen’s conversations and visits to the State Department. This included a search warrant for his personal emails.

    The effort follows that by the department to secretly obtain two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as part of a separate leak probe. The department in this case, though, went a step further — as an FBI agent claimed there’s evidence the Fox News correspondent broke the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

    Michael Clemente, Fox News’ executive vice president of news, defended Rosen in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

    “We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” Clemente said. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

    Full article: http://www.foxnews.c … fox-news-journalist/

     


    📂This entry was posted in News and Politics 📎and tagged

  • AP CEO calls government seizure of phone records unconstitutional, says chill already felt

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government’s secret seizure of two months of reporters’ phone records “unconstitutional” and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department.

    Gary Pruitt, in his first television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans’ information from all news outlets.

    Pruitt told CBS’ ”Face the Nation” that the government has no business monitoring the AP’s newsgathering activities.

    “And if they restrict that apparatus … the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,” he said.

    In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said the news cooperative had not decided its next move but had not ruled out legal action against the government. He said the Justice Department’s investigation is out of control and President Barack Obama should rein it in.

    “It’s too early to know if we’ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated,” Pruitt said.

    “They’ve been secretive, they’ve been overbroad and abusive — so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights,” he added.

    Full article: http://www.washingto … 1ae807a8a_print.html

     


    📂This entry was posted in News and Politics 📎and tagged