Tag: James Risen

James Risen’s Painful Truths

President Obama promised a “transparent” administration but the American people didn’t know the transparency would go only one way, letting the government look at the people while blocking the public’s view of the government, a reality described in James Risen’s new…

Cracking Down on Truth-telling

President Obama entered office vowing to run a transparent government. But instead he has clamped down on leaks, prosecuted whistleblowers and threatened truth-telling journalists with jail if they don’t reveal sources, as Marcy Wheeler recounts.

Debating Secrecy vs. a Free Press

The U.S. government’s campaign against “leakers” has pushed together some odd media bedfellows, with representatives of the mainstream news media joining with more active players who help disseminate government secrets in a conference on the dangers now facing a free…

Chilling the First Amendment

President Obama has overseen an unprecedented legal campaign against leaks of classified information with New York Times journalist James Risen now facing possible jail for refusing to testify in the trial of ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling for a leak published…

The NYT’s Favor and Fear

Exclusive: A federal court opinion has revealed that the New York Times’s 2004 spiking of the story about President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of Americans didn’t stand alone. A year earlier, the Times bowed to another White House demand to kill a sensitive…

Obama Comes for the Journalists

Since taking office, President Barack Obama has sought to assure the national security establishment that he can be trusted with the government’s secrets and thus has been even more aggressive in going after leakers than his predecessors. Now, as Rory…