FBI Agents Can Pose as Journalists, Inspector General Says

FBI agents may impersonate journalists while conducting undercover investigations, and an agent who posed as an editor with the Associated Press during a 2007 investigation did not violate agency policies, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General found in a report released Thursday. 

The conclusion sparked consternation across social media by journalists, civil rights groups and some legal experts, who have argued that the practice – by its very existence – threatens to heighten public mistrust of reporters, damage journalists' credibility and have a chilling effect on sources and whistleblowers who may fear that their contacts in the media are actually undercover agents.

FBI Director James Comey has previously called the practice "lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate:" 

"That technique was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and FBI guidelines at the time," he wrote in a New York Times op-ed in November 2014. "Every undercover operation involves 'deception,' which has long been a critical tool in fighting crime. The FBI’s use of such techniques is subject to close oversight, both internally and by the courts that review our work." 

DYI Comments:  What total B.S.  F.B.I. Director Comey it is NEVER appropriate to masquerade as journalists; Congress through legislation needs to FORBID this activity. Allowing this to become a standard operating procedure is the basis of a SECRET POLICE! The freedom of the press must be allowed to flourish especially investigative journalism that pressures for honest government and exposes criminal politicians.  The F.B.I. and other law enforcement have many other techniques for crime fighting forgoing posing as journalists will not harm their investigative productivity.

This is a 1st Amendment Right and is clearly under assault.  This is why many in government want to regulate the internet as a means of suppressing free speech and the press.  Today the mainstream press has been completely co-opted by their global masters promoting propaganda benefiting big government and big business.     The maintenance of freedom is through eternal vigilance.  By protecting journalism AND allowing it to flourish through multiple means[radio, TV, internet, printed newspapers, magazines etc.] their vigilance rooting out craft and corruption especially in government will benefit us all.  

DYI

Washington Post Makes History: First Paper to Call for Prosecution of its own Source(After Accepting Pulitzer) 

THREE OF THE four media outlets that received and published large numbers of secret NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden — The Guardian, the New York Times, and The Intercept –– have called for the U.S. government to allow the NSA whistleblower to return to the U.S. with no charges. That’s the normal course for a news organization, which owes its sources duties of protection, and which — by virtue of accepting the source’s materials and then publishing them — implicitly declares the source’s information to be in the public interest. 

But not the Washington Post. In the face of a growing ACLU and Amnesty-led campaign to secure a pardon for Snowden, timed to this weekend’s release of the Oliver Stone biopic “Snowden,” the Post editorial page today not only argued in opposition to a pardon, but explicitly demanded that Snowden — the paper’s own source — stand trial on espionage charges or, as a “second-best solution,” accept “a measure of criminal responsibility for his excesses and the U.S. government offers a measure of leniency.”

 But what makes today’s Washington Post editorial so remarkable, such a tour de force, is that the editors are literally calling for the criminal prosecution of one of the most important sources in their own newspaper’s history. 

Having basked in the glory of awards and accolades, and benefited from untold millions of clicks, the editorial page editors of the Post now want to see the source who enabled all of that be put in an American cage and branded a felon.  

That is warped beyond anything that can be described.

DYI:  So typical of the mainstream press who now have been co-opted by big government and big business.  When the history of the Washington Post is written this will be cited as the tipping point for the paper's demise.  Only 6% to 10% of the populous believe what the mainstream press reports with CNN being the poster child of deception and out right false reporting.

DYI