Obama admin tries to block whistleblowing agent's Fast and Furious book

[Little-Acorn]

The number of lids the Obama administration is trying to keep on various scandals and petty behavior, is skyrocketing.

Remember "Fast and Furious"? Started under President Bush, whose administration would let a criminal walk into a gun dealer, not knowing he was under close surveillance, buy a gun, and then arrest him as he walked out.

Under the Obama administration, though , this was changed. Criminals were allowed to buy hundreds of guns, and then wer not arrested, then or later. Many crossed the border into Mexico and turned the illegally purchsed guns over to Mexiucan drug cartels. Many people have been murdered, including at least on U.S. Border Patrol agent as the operation reeled out of control.

Now one of the people who blew the whistle on the out-of-control Federal operation, wants to write about it in a book.

Not so fast, says the Obama administration. But not for National-security or Crime-prevention purposes. The problem is, Obama's agency says, that could make us look bad to our own people.

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/6/atf-tries-block-whistleblowing-agents-fast-and-fur/

ATF tries to block whistleblowing agent’s Fast and Furious book

1st Amendment battle over ‘gun-walking’ expose

by John Solomon
The Washington Times
Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is blocking the main whistleblower in the Fast and Furious case from publishing a book, claiming his retelling of the Mexico “gun-walking” scandal will hurt morale inside the embattled law enforcement agency, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.

ATF’s dispute with Special Agent John Dodson is setting up a First Amendment showdown that is poised to bring together liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and conservatives in Congress who have championed Mr. Dodson’s protection as a whistleblower.

Their rejection made no claims that the book would release sensitive or classified information or compromise ongoing law enforcement proceedings.

Rather, the supervisors offered a different reason for their decision. “This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [Field Division] and would have a detrimental effect on our relationships with DEA and FBI.”

[hjmick]

And on that note...


NYT reporter: Obama admin “most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered” (http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/05/nyt-reporter-obama-admin-most-closed-control-freak-administration-ive-ever-covered/)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The number of lids the Obama administration is trying to keep on various scandals and petty behavior, is skyrocketing.

Remember "Fast and Furious"? Started under President Bush, whose administration would let a criminal walk into a gun dealer, not knowing he was under close surveillance, buy a gun, and then arrest him as he walked out.

Under the Obama administration, though , this was changed. Criminals were allowed to buy hundreds of guns, and then wer not arrested, then or later. Many crossed the border into Mexico and turned the illegally purchsed guns over to Mexiucan drug cartels. Many people have been murdered, including at least on U.S. Border Patrol agent as the operation reeled out of control.

Now one of the people who blew the whistle on the out-of-control Federal operation, wants to write about it in a book.

Not so fast, says the Obama administration. But not for National-security or Crime-prevention purposes. The problem is, Obama's agency says, that could make us look bad to our own people.

------------------------------------------

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/6/atf-tries-block-whistleblowing-agents-fast-and-fur/

ATF tries to block whistleblowing agent’s Fast and Furious book

1st Amendment battle over ‘gun-walking’ expose

by John Solomon
The Washington Times
Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is blocking the main whistleblower in the Fast and Furious case from publishing a book, claiming his retelling of the Mexico “gun-walking” scandal will hurt morale inside the embattled law enforcement agency, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.

ATF’s dispute with Special Agent John Dodson is setting up a First Amendment showdown that is poised to bring together liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and conservatives in Congress who have championed Mr. Dodson’s protection as a whistleblower.

Their rejection made no claims that the book would release sensitive or classified information or compromise ongoing law enforcement proceedings.

Rather, the supervisors offered a different reason for their decision. “This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [Field Division] and would have a detrimental effect on our relationships with DEA and FBI.” Hitler and Stalin had such people shot. Poor Obama hasn't quite got that much dictatorial power, at least not yet but I'm sure he plans on having before his second term is up. He'll really enjoy unlimited drone strike capability and power within this nation's borders I'm sure. --Tyr

[Kathianne]

Most transparent administration ever...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-administration-cracks-down-on-journalists-more-than-any-since-woodrow-wilson/article/2536881


Obama administration cracks down on journalists more than any since Woodrow Wilson By MICHAEL BARONE (http://washingtonexaminer.com/AUTHOR/MICHAEL-BARONE) | OCTOBER 6, 2013 AT 1:31 PM

...

The legal basis for this is the Espionage Act of 1917. As I pointed out in a Washington Examiner column (http://washingtonexaminer.com/michael-barone-more-than-all-past-presidents-obama-uses-1917-espionage-act-to-go-after-reporters/article/2530340) in May, that statute was passed during Woodrow Wilson's administation after the United States entered World War I. It is widely considered overbroad. Wilson used this statute and others to infringe more on civil liberties than any subsequent administration. Socialist party leader Eugene Debs was jailed for writings opposing the war; Wilson's Republican successor, former journalist Warren G. Harding, pardoned Debs and invited him to the White House. Now the Obama administration is using Wilson's legislation to crack down more on journalists than any other president since his Democratic predecessor of 100 years ago.

...


http://nypost.com/2013/10/06/why-reporters-fear-team-obama/


Opinion (http://nypost.com/opinion/)

Why reporters fear Team Obama (http://nypost.com/2013/10/06/why-reporters-fear-team-obama/) By Leonard Downie Jr. (http://nypost.com/author/leonard-downie-jr/)
October 6, 2013

Many reporters covering national security and government policy in Washington these days are taking precautions to keep their sources from becoming casualties in the Obama administration’s war on leaks. They and their remaining government sources often avoid phone conversations and e-mail exchanges, arranging furtive one-on-one meetings instead.


“We have to think more about when we use cellphones, when we use e-mail and when we need to meet sources in person,” said Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of the Associated Press. “We need to be more and more aware that government can track our work without talking to our reporters, without letting us know.”


These concerns, expressed by numerous journalists I interviewed, are well-founded. Relying on the 1917 Espionage Act, which was rarely invoked before President Obama took office, this administration has secretly used the phone and e-mail records of government officials and reporters to identify and prosecute government sources for national-security stories.


Just two weeks ago, the Justice Department announced that Donald Sachtleben, a former FBI bomb technician who had also worked as a contractor for the bureau, had agreed to plead guilty to “unlawfully disclosing national-defense information relating to a disrupted terrorist plot” in Yemen last year.


“Sachtleben was identified as a suspect in the case of this unauthorized disclosure” to an Associated Press reporter, according to the announcement, “only after toll records for phone numbers related to the reporter were obtained through a subpoena and compared to other evidence collected during the leak investigation.”


Times reporter Scott Shane, whose e-mail traffic with a former CIA officer was subpoenaed and seized, told me that the chilling lesson “is that seemingly innocuous e-mails not containing classified information can be construed as a crime.”


Six government employees and two contractors, including fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have been prosecuted since 2009 under the Espionage Act for providing information to reporters.


Many of the leakers could be characterized as whistleblowers rather than spies; they publicized actions for which the government should be held accountable. But the Obama administration has drawn a dubious distinction between whistleblowing that reveals bureaucratic waste or fraud, and leaks to the news media about unexamined secret government policies and activities; it punishes the latter as espionage.


After The New York Times published a 2012 story by David Sanger about covert cyberattacks by the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, federal prosecutors and the FBI questioned scores of officials throughout the government who were identified in computer analyses of phone, text and e-mail records as having contact with Sanger.

...

[jimnyc]

Most transparent administration ever...

That's what I hear over and over in my head, Obama's claims as to what his administration would be as far as transparency was concerned. I don't understand why he and his administration aren't drilled with questions over that. Does the press just block it? Why don't the republicans play on this at all? I knew the day he stated this it was going to fall flat - but I had no idea just what a load a crap it was. This is one of the LEAST transparent administrations ever, if not THE least.

[Kathianne]

That's what I hear over and over in my head, Obama's claims as to what his administration would be as far as transparency was concerned. I don't understand why he and his administration aren't drilled with questions over that. Does the press just block it? Why don't the republicans play on this at all? I knew the day he stated this it was going to fall flat - but I had no idea just what a load a crap it was. This is one of the LEAST transparent administrations ever, if not THE least.

Perhaps it's a chance for reporters to play with their own 'Deep Throats?"

[jimnyc]

Perhaps it's a chance for reporters to play with their own 'Deep Throats?"

I don't know. It just seems like certain questions are taboo. Being the president shouldn't automatically give someone a free pass on their own words and accountability. I think a portion of it is fear that one will be labeled a racist if they question the wrong things. It seems the 'crutch du jour' is playing the race card when they don't know how to answer the difficult questions or questions that will show their incompetency.

[Arbo]

They seriously are trying to block it with the 'hurt morale' crap? Wow. If they cared about the morale of those people, they wouldn't of had them running guns to start with.