The Bush and Obama Administrations were extraordinarily aggressive in expanding US espionage action domestically. Obama was infamously aggressive in targeting the press. The notion that they'd do all of that and not begin tracking journalists in a comprehensive fashion was an improbable scenario. The first leaks by Snowden should have prompted the press to assume it. It's why so many of the major media outlets have gone to increased lengths to establish more robust communication approaches for secrecy of contact. Surely they all knew the surveillence systems had been dramatically broadened and that they'd be a key observation point for domestic intel, leaks, sources. The only thing different since the Nixon era (it really goes even further back), is the scale and efficiency at which they can do the tracking through automation; nothing ever changed about the targeting.
Is there evidence this specific tracking started under a previous administration?
Or must we first ensure that we deflect blame from the current administration, notably characterised by ongoing violent rhetoric about journalists, including a surprising effort to ignore the government sanctioned murder of a journalist by an "ally".
It's more like ensuring that we don't assume that things come into existence as soon as we personally become aware of them, then that we don't assign them completely to the current person who, since we personally dislike him, caused us to pay attention in the first place.
The US government has been caught spying on and manipulating journalists since the G.W. Bush administration, and Obama was particularly energetic.
It’s not the same but comes to mind in the discussion: “embedded reporters”.
They have been around a long time, arguably including World War Two, but were taken to some pretty extreme levels in the ‘03 Gulf War.
The cosy relationship is corrupting and completely unhelpful, with state control and propaganda pushed by supposedly independent journalists who are contracted to say-no-evil.
You are correct about that case, but others are well-documented, specifically regarding the AP and James Rosen:
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post stated: "The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of. To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public — deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based."
Yes, this actually surprised me, but I guess some people really don't mind (or just didn't think about) having to testify before Congress in order to justify their actions.
I'm not surprised to see somebody here protesting their lack of surprise. Hacker news is not a thriller. If the sensation of surprise is what you seek, then go watch a shitty horror movie with jump scares.
