By Democracy Now

http://www.democracynow.org – In its first report on press freedom in the United States, the Committee to Protect Journalists warns President Obama has ushered in a paralyzing climate of fear for both reporters and their government sources. Among the cases it details: Six government employees — plus two contractors, including Edward Snowden — have faced felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act for leaking classified information to the press, compared just three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations. The Department of Justice has also secretly subpoenaed and seized Associated Press reporter’s phone logs and emails, and New York Times reporter James Risen was ordered to testify against a former CIA officer who provided leaked information to him, or go to jail. We speak to the report’s author, Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post. He spoke with dozens of journalists who told him officials are “reluctant to discuss even unclassified information … because they fear that leak investigations and government surveillance make it more difficult for reporters to protect them as sources.”