The U.S. Supreme Court seemed to side with the Secret Service in a hearing of a free speech lawsuit contesting the arrest of a man protesting the Bush administration’s war policies to Vice President Dick Cheney at a Colorado shopping mall. -db From The New York Times, March 22, 2012, by Adam Liptak. Full story
The Obama administration’s record number of prosecutions for leakers may not be attributed solely to their zeal for secret government but rather more to the ease with which the administration can catch leakers with better surveillance and the availability of electronic records. A journalist at the 14th annual National Freedom of Information Day conference said if he were a government employee with information on wrong doing, he would never use the telephone or e-mail to
The Obama administration is asking Congress to grant new exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to keep secret selected information about cybersecurity, government computer networks, and certain industrial plants and pipelines. The FOIA already allows the government to withhold information that would hurt national security, invade personal privacy, reveal business secrets or compromise decision-making in certain areas. -db From the Washington Post, March 13, 2012, by Associated Press. Full story
In fashioning a bill to make it illegal to trespass on White House grounds, Congress extended the law to allow the government to prosecute protesters at political events across the country. Under the law approved by both houses of Congress, the prohibition on trespass extends to any building or grounds the president is visiting. -db From an editorial in RT, February 29, 2012. Full story
With the Obama administration aggressively prosecuting government workers for revealing classified information to the media, journalists are finding it more difficult in the age of improved surveillance technology to protect their sources. It used to be that the government had to pressure the journalists directly for the identities of their sources, but increasingly they can find out on their own by keeping an eye on government workers with security clearances. -db From an analysis in