Trump's targeting of a New York Times journalist, explained by experts
The Trump administration took its war with the media to the next level this week when federal authorities seized years of phone records from New York Times reporter Ali Watkins as part of a federal investigation into leaks of classified information.
Watkins, who previously worked for BuzzFeed News and Politico, had a three-year relationship with James Wolfe, a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide who was arrested on Thursday and charged with lying to federal agents investigating the classified leaks.
The seizure set off alarm bells about the relationship between the administration and the media. The Department of Justice under Obama took phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors, named a Fox News reporter an unindicted "co-conspirator" in a leak case, and prosecuted multiple cases involving whistleblowers and leakers. So is what Trump doing more of the same? Or is a president who routinely bashes the media and threatens to jail leakers finally turning his rhetoric into reality?
"It's deeply alarming that the Trump administration has decided to build off of the worst of the Obama legacy on leak investigations and reporter-source protection," said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Also at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Emptywheel, and Fox News.
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(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:42AM (5 children)
If you believe that whistleblowing is primarily a political act then sure, all that matters is what side you are on. If you believe that whistleblowing might or should have application beyond the political arena then you couldn't be more wrong.
The terms whistleblowing and whistleblower derive from sport -- the whole thing is a sports analogy. The whistleblower takes on the role of the referee blowing a figurative whistle when they spot an illegal play or action. The challenge for the would be whistleblower is to understand what they are seeing and to blow the whistle only when the rules of the sport they are watching (or participating in) are violated. A foul in Basketball is barely considered contact in Lacrosse. Touching a ball with the hands is illegal (usually) in European Football but (usually) legal in the American Football. And then there's boxing...
Elsewhere in this thread I saw reference to the idea that whistleblowing is somehow related to the government doing 'terrible things'. Nonsense. Political nonsense. Using the very relevant analogy from sport, that attempts to justify a would be whistleblower behaving like a 'hometown ref' with a stake in the outcome. political nonsense.
If whistleblowing is politics then there is nothing noble about it. If it is more... then we must differentiate the political actors from the genuine article.
IRL,
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:48AM (4 children)
Someone can be politically motivated and still absolutely correct. They're not mutually exclusive.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:03PM (1 child)
Agreed. But there is a different word for that. Not whistleblower, but rather 'Activist'.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 16 2018, @09:02PM
So what is a "whistleblower" to you, the equivalent of a grammar nazi who has absolutely no skin in the game? NOTHING is apolitical, not in the long run.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @05:00PM (1 child)
Someone like you can be politically motivated, and still be absolutely wrong.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 16 2018, @09:01PM
Sure, I can be wrong. Just not on this occasion :) Eat it, AC.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...