U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open
government, but he has fallen short of his promise.
According to a report from The Committee to Protect
Journalists, transparency advocates say
the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own
media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of
classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter
government sources from speaking to journalists.
In the Obama administration’s Washington , according to CPJ, government officials are
increasingly afraid to talk to the press. Those suspected of discussing with
reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to
investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and
e-mail records. An “Insider Threat Program” being implemented in every
government department requires all federal employees to help prevent
unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their
colleagues.
Six government employees, plus two contractors including
Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009
under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the
press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S.
administrations.
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