Espionage Act

Leak investigations and surveillance in post-9/11 America

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists. A CPJ special report by Leonard Downie Jr. with reporting by Sara Rafsky

CPJ is disturbed by the pattern of actions by the Obama administration that have chilled the flow of information on issues of great public interest, including matters of national security. The administration's war on leaks to the press through the use of secret subpoenas against news organizations, its assertion through prosecution that leaking classified documents to the press is espionage or aiding the enemy, and its increased limitations on access to information that is in the public interest -- all thwart a free and open discussion necessary to a democracy.

Upcoming report looks at leak investigations and surveillance

New York, September 30, 2013-- The Committee to Protect Journalists will release its first comprehensive report on press freedom conditions in the United States. Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor and now the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is the author. The report will be released at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on October 10.

New York, August 21, 2013--The 35-year prison sentence handed down today to Army Pfc. Bradley Manning on charges of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the website WikiLeaks could chill the work of journalists covering national security issues.

New York, July 30, 2013--Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, whose leak of classified documents to the website WikiLeaks sparked a military court-martial that raised alarms about the chilling effect on the press, was convicted today on six counts of violating the Espionage Act, along with theft and other charges, but was acquitted of the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, according to news reports. The case has become emblematic of U.S. authorities' aggressive crackdown on leaks of secret information.