Presiden
Amerika Syarikat, Barack Obama (US President
Barack Obama (AFP Photo/Jewel Samad – think IN pictures @1WORLDCommunity)
SitiWanMahani - Surat ke White House, senarai cadangan
‘laundry list’ untuk Presiden dan laporan 29 muka surat mengenai serangan
pentadbiran di akhbar percuma semua disusun dalam persembahan terbaru dari
Pusat Melindungi Wartawan .
The CPJ, bukan keuntungan yang
diasaskan lebih 30 tahun yang lalu untuk menggalakkan “kebebasan akhbar di
seluruh DUNIA & mempertahankan hak wartawan untuk melaporkan berita tanpa
takut tindakan balas,” yang disiarkan laporan khas pada hari Khamis ditulis
oleh lama Washington Post eksekutif editor Leonard Downie Jr . di mana beliau
dismantles rawatan Presiden Amerika Syarikat Barack Obama wartawan dengan
bantuan pemberita keselamatan utama negara di negara ini.
Walaupun berkempen sepenuhnya
kepada janji meningkat ketelusan kerajaan dan pentadbiran yang paling terbuka
lagi, Pres. Obama 4-dan- setengah tahun di White House setakat ini termasuk
beberapa contoh yang dipetik oleh Downie di mana pemberita disiasat, pemberi
maklumat ditegur dan tindakan pentadbiran yang dibenarkan untuk menyejukkan
kewartawanan, kedua-dua di dalam dan di peringkat global .
Pres. Obama “datang ke pejabat
berikrar kerajaan yang terbuka, tetapi dia telah jatuh singkat janji beliau,”
prefaces Downie laporannya.
“Wartawan dan penyokong
ketelusan mengatakan White House sekatan pendedahan rutin maklumat dan mengatur
media sendiri untuk mengelakkan penelitian oleh akhbar, “katanya terus, sambil
menambah,” pendakwaan agresif leakers maklumat rahsia dan program pengawasan
yang luas elektronik menghalang sumber-sumber kerajaan daripada bercakap kepada
wartawan.”
Obama blasted for cracking down on free press
A letter to the White House, a
laundry list of recommendations for the president and a 29-page report about
the administration’s assault on free press are all compiled in the latest
offering from the Center to Protect Journalists.
The CPJ, a non-profit founded
over 30 years ago to promote “press freedom worldwide and defends the right of
journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal,” published a special
report on Thursday penned by longtime Washington Post executive editor Leonard
Downie Jr. in which he dismantles United States President Barack Obama’s
treatment of journalists with assistance from the country’s foremost national
security reporters.
Despite campaigning heavily on
the promise of increased government transparency and the most open
administration yet, Pres. Obama’s four-and-a-half-years in the White House so
far have included a number of instances cited by Downie in which reporters were
investigated, whistleblowers reprimanded and administrative actions allowed for
the chilling of journalism, both domestically and on a global level.
Pres. Obama “came into office
pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise,” Downie
prefaces his report.
“Journalists and
transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of
information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press,” he
continues, adding, “Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information
and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from
speaking to journalists.”
Laporan dan artikel yang
disertakan dan surat kepada White House menandakan satu peristiwa yang jarang
berlaku di mana CPJ satu daripada Amerika Syarikat untuk melanggar kebebasan
akhbar, berpaling dari contoh-contoh antarabangsa yang biasanya disiasat oleh
organisasi, seperti wartawan dibuang , dipenjarakan atau dibunuh untuk
melakukan kerja-kerja mereka, dan sekatan ke atas media terbuka di
negara-negara yang lebih menindas luar negara.
Glenn Greenwald, penulis
Guardian yang telah bekerja rapat dengan harta dokumen rahsia yang dibekalkan
kepada akhbar beliau, telah menulis di Twitter bahawa dia menganggap laporan
itu sebagai “dakwaan pedas” serangan akhbar White House.
Lukisan pada contoh-contoh
baru-baru ini Wikileaks sumber Chelsea Manning dan Keselamatan Negara Agensi
leaker Edward Snowden - serta rakyat Amerika lain yang dikenakan dengan
pengintipan untuk mendedahkan inisiatif kerajaan dikatakan mengerikan dengan
akhbar - Downie dan rakan-rakannya mempersoalkan usaha White House untuk
mengendalikan yang tidak dibenarkan pendedahan maklumat sulit dan kesan
penyejukan mereka mempunyai percubaan ke atas wartawan di seluruh DUNIA.
“6 kakitangan kerajaan, serta
dua kontraktor termasuk Edward Snowden, subjek telah pendakwaan jenayah feloni
sejak tahun 2009 di bawah Akta 1917 Perisikan,” mengimbas kembali Downie, yang
mengakui bahawa tally rakyat Amerika didakwa di bawah undang-undang yang
melebihi 2 kali ganda jumlah dari pentadbiran sebelumnya digabungkan.
Manning sedang menjalani
hukuman penjara 35 tahun untuk bocor sensitif dokumen diplomatik dan
ketenteraan kepada Wikileaks semasa berkhidmat dalam Angkatan Tentera Amerika
Syarikat, dan sebelum itu telah diadakan di kurungan dalam kici tentera selama
hampir setahun. Dan Snowden - kontraktor perisikan bekas yang terdedah alat
pengawasan yang luas NSA itu - telah terpaksa menerima perlindungan di Rusia
ketika dia pertempuran dakwaan yang boleh membawa hukuman yang lebih dahsyat
daripada askar.
Dan manakala kerajaan telah
bergantung kepada undang-undang yang ditubuhkan untuk mengesahkan kes tersebut,
Downie dan berhati-hati syarikat itu taktik pentadbiran telah mengubah industri
kewartawanan secara keseluruhan terima kasih kepada takut kerap di kalangan
pemberita bahawa setiap aspek kehidupan mereka adalah di bawah pengawasan.
“Banyak wartawan yang
berpangkalan di Washington memberitahu saya bahawa pegawai-pegawai yang enggan
membincangkan maklumat walaupun dikelaskan dengan mereka kerana mereka takut
bahawa siasatan kebocoran dan pengawasan kerajaan membuat ia lebih sukar bagi
pemberita untuk melindungi mereka sebagai sumber,” tulis Downie .
Scott Shane, New York Times
wartawan kebangsaan keselamatan yang dihubungi bekas Perisikan Pusat Agensi
pegawai John Kiriakou sebelum dia didakwa untuk perisikan, memberitahu Downie
bahawa taktik White House berhubung dengan mendiamkan kebocoran adalah “masalah
yang sebenar.”
“Kebanyakan orang terhalang
oleh kebocoran yang pendakwaan. Mereka takut kepada kematian. Terdapat zon
kelabu di antara maklumat sulit dan tidak dikelaskan, dan kebanyakan
sumber-sumber yang berada di dalam zon kelabu. Sumber kini takut untuk memasuki
zon kelabu,” Shane memberitahunya. “Ia mempunyai kesan penghalang. Jika kita
menganggap liputan media agresif aktiviti kerajaan berada di teras demokrasi
Amerika, ini tips baki banyak memihak kepada kerajaan.”
Hanya beberapa jam sebelum CPJ
menerbitkan penemuan mereka, wartawan memenangi Hadiah Pulitzer Barton Gellman
kepada penonton di panel di Washington bahawa” Apabila anda berada sasaran yang
sebenar, tidak ada langkah-langkah teknologi yang anda boleh ambil untuk
melindungi diri anda sepenuhnya” dari pengawasan, mengikut kepada Kesatuan
Kebebasan Sivil Amerika teknologi Chris Soghoian .
The report and its accompanying
articles and letter to the White House mark a rare occasion in which the CPJ
single-out the US for infringing on press freedoms, turning away from the
international examples that are usually investigated by the organization, such
as journalists exiled, imprisoned or killed for doing their work, and
restrictions on the open-media in more repressive countries overseas.
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian
writer who has worked closely with a trove of top-secret documents supplied to
his newspaper, wrote on Twitter that he considered the report to be a “scathing
indictment” of the White House’s press attacks.
Drawing on the recent examples
of WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning and National Security Agency leaker Edward
Snowden - as well as other US citizens charged with espionage for exposing
arguably egregious government initiatives with the press - Downie and his
colleagues question the White House’s efforts to handle the unauthorized
disclosures of classified information and the chilling effect those attempts
have had on journalists around the globe.
“Six government employees, plus
two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal
prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act,” recalls Downie, who
acknowledges that the tally of Americans indicted under that law exceeds double
the total from all previous administrations combined.
Manning is currently serving a
35-year prison sentence for leaking sensitive diplomatic and military documents
to WikiLeaks while serving in the US Army, and before that was held in solitary
confinement in a military brig for almost a year. And Snowden - the former
intelligence contractor that exposed the NSA’s vast surveillance apparatus -
has resorted to accepting asylum in Russia while he battles an indictment that
could carry an even harsher sentence than the soldier.
And while the government has
relied on established legislation to legitimize those cases, Downie and company
caution that the administration’s tactics have transformed the journalism
industry as a whole thanks to frequent fear among reporters that every aspect
of their lives is under surveillance.
“Numerous Washington-based
journalists told me that officials are reluctant to discuss even unclassified
information with them because they fear that leak investigations and government
surveillance make it more difficult for reporters to protect them as sources,”
wrote Downie.
Scott Shane, the New York Times
national security reporter who contacted former Central Intelligence Agency
officer John Kiriakou before he was indicted for espionage, told Downie that
the White House’s tactics with regards to silencing leaks is “a real problem.”
“Most people are deterred by
those leaks prosecutions. They’re scared to death. There’s a gray zone between
classified and unclassified information, and most sources were in that gray
zone. Sources are now afraid to enter that gray zone,” Shane told him. “It’s
having a deterrent effect. If we consider aggressive press coverage of
government activities being at the core of American democracy, this tips the
balance heavily in favor of the government.” Only hours before the CPJ
published their findings, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman told
an audience at a panel in Washington that “Once you are an actual target, there
are no technological steps you can take to fully protect yourself” from
surveillance, according to American Civil Liberties Union technologist Chris
Soghoian.
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