AP: Sources Aren't Talking To Us Out Of Fear The US Government Will Spy On Them
Dominic Rushe, The Guardian     | May 19, 2013, 1:38 PM | 2,089 | 8

ATTORNEY GENERAL: 'I Don't Know What Happened' With The AP And The Justice Department
eric holder

Everyone Apoplectic About The Government Seizing AP Phone Records Should At Least Understand Current Law
Reince Priebus

GOP CHAIR: Obama's Attorney General Should Resign Over The DOJ's AP Phone Scandal
The Obama administration's decision to seize phone records from the Associated Press was "unconstitutional" and sends a message that "if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you", the news agency's boss Gary Pruitt said Sunday.

AP revealed last week that the Justice Department had obtained two months' worth of phone records of calls made by reporters and editors without informing the organisation in advance. The move was an apparent effort by US officials to identify the source of a story about the CIA foiling an alleged terrorist plot by an al Qaida terrorist affiliate in Yemen.

News of the seizure has caused a political firestorm and comes amid a widening scandal into the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party groups over their tax exemptions and the White House's handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack last year.

Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Pruitt, AP's president and chief executive officer, said the government's seizure of the phone records was "unconstitutional" and was already clearly harming the press's ability to do its job.

"We don't question their right to conduct these sort of investigations. We just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretly, so abusively and harassingly and over-broad that it constitutes, that it is, an unconstitutional act," he said.

"We are already seeing some impact. Already officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they are a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government. We are already seeing that. It's not hypothetical," said Pruitt.

The government investigation was seemingly triggered by an AP exclusive about a joint US-Saudi spy operation that had foiled a plot involving an improved version of the "underwear" bomb that failed to detonate properly on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009. AP agreed to delay publication after officials cited national security concerns.

Pruitt said he would normally expect dialogue with government officials ahead of any decision to ask for or demand records relating to the news organisation's activities. Those requests would usually be subject to negotiation and if an agreement could not be reached, they would be put before a judge, he said.

In this case, the Justice Department has claimed it made every reasonable effort to obtain the information through alternative means, as is required by law. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws," it said in a statement.

Pruitt said he had not received any explanation as to why AP had not been consulted ahead of the seizure. "I really do not know what their motive is. I know what the message being sent is, it's that if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you," he said.

Pruitt said the Justice Department had acted "as judge jury and executioner, in secret".

If the government restricts the "news gathering apparatus" then "the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know. And that's not what the framers of constitution had in mind when they wrote the first amendment," Pruitt said.

The White House has denied knowledge of the Justice Department's move. It comes as officials face mounting criticism over an IRS investigation into Tea Party groups. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the IRS controversy demonstrated a "culture of intimidation" by the administration.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com.....2013-5#ixzz2U2I0pV57

After IRS scandal: Right-wing fear of government isn't paranoid

Whatever the motivations for the IRS targeting conservative groups, it has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Liberals also worry the scandal will feed right-wing paranoia of government. But for conservatives, fear of federal agencies is rooted in history, not hysteria.

By Nicole Hemmer, Op-ed contributor / May 17, 2013

Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller testifies on Capitol Hill, May 17, before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the extra scrutiny the IRS gave tea party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. Op-ed contributor Nicole Hemmer writes: '[A]s conservatives (as well as many on the left) have been constantly reminded...power is never neutral.'

Last week’s revelation that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups was met with near universal disapproval. The IRS singled out organizations with words like "tea party" and "patriot" in their name for scrutiny. In the words of Treasury officials, this focus was clearly “inappropriate.”

    Gallery: Monitor Political Cartoons

What’s less clear is whether the IRS’s motivations were partisan or practical. Were they deliberately trying to stifle conservative voices? Or were they simply using a shortcut to weed out new political groups who don’t meet tax-exempt status? Whatever the motivations, the results have drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. But criticisms from the left have also been tinged with concern about how the episode would bolster the conservative argument against big government.

Many liberals worried the IRS scandal would feed what one Democratic aide called “the right-wing paranoia that the government is out to get them.” MSNBC host Chris Matthews grumbled recently, "They always expect the worst." But for conservatives, fear of federal agencies is rooted in history, not hysteria.

OPINION: 6 ways to make tax reform happen

Fifty years ago this month, journalists Donald Janson and Bernard Eismann published “The Far Right,” a catalogue of conservative organizations across America. Raising the alarm about the coming conservative threat was something of a cottage industry in the early 1960s. “The Far Right” would share shelf-space with books like “The Radical Right” and “Danger on the Right.” But what separated “The Far Right” from the rest was its revelation of the Reuther Memorandum.

Commissioned by Attorney General Robert Kennedy and penned by labor leader Victor Reuther, the 24-page memo detailed “possible Administration policies and programs to combat the radical right.”

Reuther defined the “radical right” as “bounded on the left by Senator Goldwater and on the right by [John Birch Society founder] Robert Welch.” And he suggested plenty of ways for the government to curtail the right’s influence, from putting conservatives on the attorney general’s subversive list to using the Federal Communications Commission to limit their airtime.

But the administration’s real power, Reuther argued, lay with the IRS. Conservative media and organizations needed money to function. Therefore, “action to dam up these funds may be the quickest way to turn the tide” against right-wing groups.

He called for revocation of organizations’ tax-exempt status, a tactic similar to the approach which the IRS is currently under fire for possibly employing. Reuther also suggested the IRS investigate corporations that advertised in right-wing media, contending they were peddling propaganda rather than selling products.

Finally, Reuther hinted conservative donors and media personalities should be audited, noting “there is the big question whether [they] are themselves complying with the tax laws.”

While it is unclear whether the memo served as the basis for policy, during the Kennedy administration the IRS cracked down on “ideological organizations” and the FCC targeted conservative broadcasters.

Obama’s Toxic Stew Reaches Farther Than You Think
The president's burgeoning problems affect more than this week’s three scandals

By Mary Kate Cary
May 17, 2013 RSS Feed Print



There's a toxic stew right now in Washington: a White House whose credibility is completely gone; a federal government whose abuse of power against citizens, political opponents and the media is out of control; a policymaking apparatus that is defined by inaction and malfeasance; and an economy in which businesses have little confidence, and expansion is almost impossible.

The Benghazi story is a major problem for the White House because it gives citizens good reason not to trust their government. The administration still cannot get its story straight, with multiple explanations of what happened the night that our ambassador to Libya was murdered by terrorists. The revelations that the Internal Revenue Service has been selectively enforcing tax laws against conservative groups is a big deal for the White House, as well, because it gives citizens good reason not to trust the government. In this case, credibility is one problem – again, the White House can't seem to get the facts right – but added to that is the abuse of power. This year marked the first time that Pew researchers found that a majority of Americans view the federal government as a threat to their personal rights and freedoms. I'll bet that majority has grown from 53 percent at the beginning of this year because abuse of power against one's political opponents is something no American wants to see coming from the White House.

That poll was taken before the Associated Press announced that the Justice Department had secretly seized phone records of reporters and editors as part of an unprecedented leak investigation. When the Pew poll was published, the press seemed mystified at the numbers. Now journalists get it. Abuse of power against political opponents is outrageous enough, but to reporters abuse of power against the press is beyond the pale.

The administration is now facing a crisis of its own making. The two narratives – first, that the White House is incapable of telling the truth; and, second, that this administration is willing to allow the abuse of federal power against citizens and the press – mean there's a disaster in the making for the president's entire second term.

For example, even the most ardent gun control advocates have to admit they now have a problem. This administration has lost its ability to convince the American people that turning over sensitive background check information to the federal government is a good idea, given the recent behavior of the IRS and the Justice Department. For that matter, is trusting your health care to the government a good idea?

Speaking of health care reform, in about six months the IRS will charge a new tax on health insurance plans. As a result, small businesses with between 50 and 500 employees that purchase health plans will see their premiums go up. According to the White House publication titled, "The Affordable Care Act Increases Choice and Saving Money [sic] for Small Businesses," the law will provide "enormous benefits" to millions of small business owners and employees by, among other things, "lowering costs." That's just not credible coming from the White House.


Large businesses with more than 500 employees are exempt from the tax because most self-insure. Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees – which make up 96 percent of all small businesses, according to the White House – are also exempt. That means the tax will apply to only 4 percent of small businesses.

Here's the problem: The revenue generated by taxing that small slice of small businesses helps pay for expanding coverage to millions of uninsured Americans – which gives you an idea of how massive that tax will be. Given the IRS's current problems with selective enforcement, I'd say the agency has more trouble coming. It's going to look like they are doing the same thing to small businesses that they did to conservative groups: singling out the president's political opponents.

The rational thing for small business owners to do is to stay under 50 full-time employees, either by laying people off or by forcing people to go part time. That's exactly what's happening: last month, unemployment stayed stubbornly high and the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons ("sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers," explains the Bureau of Labor Statistics) increased by 278,000. Staying under the 50 full-time employee limit keeps small business owners out of trouble.

These days, businesses don't know what to expect out of Washington. In order to create some economic certainty, Obama's deficit commission co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles unveiled in late April a new-and-improved plan for deficit reduction, "a roadmap to a grand bargain," as they called it. The plan contained a mix of spending cuts, tax and entitlement reforms, and long-term debt reduction that was designed to encourage bipartisan compromise and business confidence. Reaction in Washington was muted when it first came a few weeks ago, before the White House went into crisis mode. You'd better believe it's dead now.

Washington is paralyzed. "Obama's aloof mien and holier-than-thou rhetoric have left him with little good will, even among Democrats. And the press, after years of being accused of being soft on Obama while being berated by West Wing aides on matters big and small, now has every incentive to be as ruthless as can be," write Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Politico. The "dam of solid Democratic solidarity has collapsed," they report, and so, too, has any hope of getting our country back on the right track any time soon. I'm concerned for our democracy. I'm worried about our economy. And I hate to think what all of this is teaching young people about right and wrong.