The impunity with which the
American government spies on journalists and attorneys is
undermining the American people's ability to hold their
leaders accountable, thus threatening the core of our
democracy, charged a joint report published Monday by two
leading rights organizations.
The report—
With
Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is
Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy,
published by the
American
Civil Liberties Union and
Human
Rights Watch—draws from extensive interviews with dozens
of top journalists, lawyers and senior government officials.
What the authors found is that recent revelations of
widespread government surveillance have forced many
professionals to alter or abandon work related to "matters of
great public concern."
According to the report, "Surveillance has magnified
existing concerns among journalists and their sources over the
administration’s crackdown on leaks." With increasing
prosecution of whistleblowers, restrictions on communication
between intelligence officials and the media, and snitch
programs for federal workers, journalists say that their
sources have become "increasingly scared to talk about
anything."
"It's a terrible time to be covering government," NPR
correspondent Tom Gjelten told the report authors.
Further, journalists are forced to employ elaborate means of
communicating with their sources, such as encryption and
"burner" phones, which hampers their work.
The report argues that these increasing impediments have
resulted in "less information reaching the public," thus
having a "direct effect on the public’s ability to obtain
important information about government activities, and on the
ability of the media to serve as a check on government."
"Secrecy works against all of us," said Dana Priest, a
reporter for the
Washington Post. "What makes
government better is our work exposing information. It's not
just that it's harder for me to do my job, though it is. It
[also] makes the country less safe."
Similarly, lawyers say that government surveillance has
crippled their ability to maintain confidential correspondence
with their clients, threatening the trust, free exchange of
information, and potentially the security of those involved.
Jason Wright, a member of the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate
General's Corps who does work before the Guantanamo
commissions, told the researchers that he and his colleagues
are "fearful" that their communications with witnesses abroad
are being monitored and consequently, attempts to build their
case "might put people in harm's way."
The authors charge that this amounts to the "erosion of the
right to counsel," which they say is a "pillar of procedural
justice under human rights law and the US Constitution."
"The US holds itself out as a model of freedom and democracy,
but its own surveillance programs are threatening the values
it claims to represent,"
said
report author Alex Sinha, Aryeh Neier Fellow at HRW and the
ACLU. "The US should genuinely confront the fact that its
massive surveillance programs are damaging many critically
important rights."
Along with the report, the groups published this video
highlighting their work.
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bloPC_BHCDQ