Yeah, Government Believes in Freedom

Federal prosecutors secretly obtained telephone records from more than 20 lines belonging to The Associated Press and its journalists in an attempt to learn who leaked information on how the CIA thwarted an apparent terrorist plot hatched in Yemen.

You just have to know, don't you, that if secret search warrants and National Security Letters had existed in 1972, Nixon's goons would have been all over that like cash on a lobbyist. But here we have our current president, Richard Milhouse Obama, doing everything he possibly can to make sure that all we learn about government operations is what his Administration wants us to know. And nothing more.

So much for that "First Amendment" and "Fourth Estate" crap. Reporters had better start taking tradecraft lessons from KGB FSB instructors if they want to keep their sources safe from the thugs in the DOJ. It is clear that the press's role as a watchdog of government fuckery is under heavy attack by the Obama Administration. Sure, they deny that they have anything to do with it, and they ladle out the fiction that the DOJ is "independent". Which is horseshit.* The Attorney General is a cabinet member and he serves at the pleasure of the President. As does just about every other fucking attorney in the Department of "Justice".

We need to know what the government does, not just what they want us to know. If our democracy is to function, we need reporters out there, kicking over the rocks to expose the wrongdoings of government. What is the point of having a free press if the only role of the press is to act as stenographers for the government?**
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* Remember Monica Goodling and her use of a political litmus test for DOJ hiring??
** I'm looking at you, NY Times.