Obama Press Intimidation - The Death of a Republic

The Death of a Republic

• Caesar Obama's growing Police State actions are deliberately designed to intimidate the press and the anonymous whistleblowers that report wrongdoing to them.

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 news gathering activities reports the Washington Post.

“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.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky took the side of an Imperial Police State and said the government needs to stop leaks by whatever means necessary.

“This is an investigation that needs to happen because national security leaks, of course, can get our agents overseas killed,” he said.

The AP has seen an effect on its news gathering since the disclosure of the Justice Department’s subpoena.

“Officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of news gathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us,” Pruitt said. “They fear that they will be monitored by the government.”

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of personal and work telephone records for several reporters and editors, as well as general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

“It was sweeping and broad and beyond what they needed to do,” Pruitt said.

He objected to the “Justice Department acting on its own being the judge, jury and executioner in secret,” saying the AP would not back down.

Armed DHS "Police" Escort Reporters
According to ABC News, a "armed uniform police officer with the Federal Protective Service" "escorted" reporters through the IRS public building. ABC says if the intent wasn't to "scare off" employees who might talk, "it was the effect."
(Breitbart.com - Armed Police)