AP, Fox News scandals strike at liberty's heart

It could be said that the emergence of a "free press" is one of the most important developments to come out of the years we now remember as the "Age of Enlightenment." That freedom was not a direct result of that philosophy, of course, but it was certainly intertwined with the period that saw men, for the first time, truly challenge the authority of institutions — of popes and kings, monarchs and gods — that had previously been considered absolute.

And nowhere, we have been led to believe, is that concept of a free press as utterly sacred as it is here in America, where we, after separating from the intrusive British crown, not only enumerated it in the Constitution, but made it the first, and most visible, amendment.

However, with the news that the Department of Justice, in its zeal to find out who leaked classified information for a 2012 Associated Press story on a CIA investigation, subpoenaed the personal and work telephone records of about 20 AP reporters and editors, all of us (especially those of us in journalism) have learned that according to them, even the inalienable rights endowed by our mighty Creator have limits.

And then there was the follow-up story that revealed that the same department had been investigating the newsgathering activities of Fox News's chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, sought to label him as a "co-conspirator" for his attempts to solicit classified government information about North Korea for stories — in other words, for reporting.

Combine that with the Obama administration's extraordinarily aggressive crackdown on whistleblowers (it has brought six cases against employees under the 1917 Espionage Act, three more than have ever been prosecuted previously), and it's beginning to look like this president is not altogether fond of the idea of having an independent press.

He backpedaled furiously this week, and said Thursday that he doesn't believe reporters should be "at legal risk for doing their jobs." Unfortunately, the policies that his people, including his snake-in-the-grass attorney general, have implemented run directly contrary to that belief.

As one famous writer might say, "Words are wind," and Obama's ring hollow.

I can understand the government's frustration with regard to the leaks. We are still in the midst of a low-level war against a myriad of Islamist threats that are unlikely to ever cease, and in a democracy, there will always be the need to weigh the First Amendment's protections against national security concerns.

That, however, does not mean that the unequivocal freedom of the press can be infringed upon in the manner it has. I'm not just saying that because of my chosen profession, either. I'm saying it because I have long believed that government entities — big or small, national or local — simply cannot be trusted; as the cliché goes, power corrupts.

The average citizen inevitably has but a limited amount of tools at their disposal should they choose to take on that corruption, and most can easily be swatted away, discredited, or stonewalled by the governmental machine.

But if there is one group that every government everywhere has always felt threatened by, it's the one that includes those of us blessed with a gifted pen, a few strong opinions, and the stony spine needed to publish them.

Our Founding Fathers were all too aware of the potent power of the written word — the fiery Samuel Adams not only launched his own paper in 1748, but regularly used a similar platform later on as a means of inciting the public towards revolution.

"It does not take a majority to prevail," he once said, "but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

That, in itself, is exactly what a free press does. And, even if they prove legal, this administration's attempts to strike at the heart of that is both Nixonian in its deviousness and despicable in its execution.

Perhaps Washington Post's Dana Milbank put it best when he so eloquently reminded his readers that the right to speak out precedes all others in matters of importance.

"To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn't want made public — deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based. Guns? Privacy? Due process? Equal protection? If you can't speak out, you can't defend those rights, either," he wrote.

He's right. And if this president is truly looking to strike a balance between the freedom of the press and the country's national security interests, he's got to take the Department of Justice's foot off the scale first.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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