Wednesday, July 30, 2014

AMERICA - The Tog-of-War Between Journalists and National Security

"Report examines effects of surveillance on reporters’ sources" PBS NewsHour 7/29/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The relationship between government and investigative journalists has often been fraught, one wanting to hold onto classified intelligence, the other seeking to pry open secrets, each believing it’s serving the public interest.

But a new report makes the claim that in the post-9/11 era, the government has gone too far in clamping down on the work of reporters and their sources.

Jeffrey Brown has our look.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  The report comes from the advocacy groups Human Rights Watch and the ACLU and is titled “With Liberty To Monitor All:  How Large-Scale U.S. Surveillance Is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy.”

It was produced after talking with dozens of public officials, lawyers, and most of all, journalists.

One of the latter is with us now, Dana Priest, an investigative reporter for The Washington Post and a professor at the University of Maryland.  With another view of the situation, we’re joined by Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security in the Bush administration.  He’s also a former general counsel at the NSA in the 1990s.

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