Anti-Populist Coward Jeff Sessions Threatens the First Amendment

When you take a look at which issues Jeff Sessions gets most passionate about (asset forfeiture, drug war foolishness, cracking down on media), there’s one thing that ties it all together. He has a very deep-seated and visceral disdain for the American public. He’s your typical cowardly prosecutor looking to make a name for himself by picking on the weak and dispossessed, while never targeting elite criminals. One thing you’ll always notice about Sessions is how much of a thug he is. He’d never dare take on a bank executive or powerful politician, but prefers to marshals resources toward the most anti-populist crusades possible. His latest move to target freedom of the press is no exception.

Today’s announcement from the Department of Justice regarding a crackdown on leaks has two main components. The first is somewhat understandable, but the second is not.

Let’s review what’s happening courtesy of The Hill:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday announced a government-wide crackdown on leakers, which will include a review of the Justice Department’s policies on subpoenas for media outlets that publish sensitive information.

At a press conference with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Sessions announced that the Justice Department, FBI and government intelligence agencies will begin directing resources into the investigations of government leaks and would prioritize prosecuting those that pass sensitive information along to the press.

The national security division of the Justice Department will prioritize cases involving unauthorized disclosures, Sessions said, and the departments “will not hesitate to bring lawful and appropriate criminal charges against those who abuse the public trust.”

Sessions said his Justice Department has already tripled the number of active leak investigations over the previous administration and that the FBI would create a new counterintelligence unit to manage the cases.

In addition, Sessions said that after meeting with the FBI and intelligence investigators, the Justice Department would review its policies affecting media subpoenas.

“We respect the important role the press plays and we’ll give them respect, but it’s not unlimited,” Sessions said. “They cannot place lives at risk with impunity. We must balance the press’s role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in the intelligence community, the Armed Forces and all law-abiding Americans.”

President Trump has been pushing Sessions to be more aggressive in prosecuting illegal government leaks, which have bedeviled the administration from the start.

The first part is understandable considering there is clearly an effort on behalf of bureaucrats in government and the members of the intelligence community to frame Donald Trump as a puppet of Vladimir Putin not by offering evidence, but by whispering anonymously in the ears of gullible or agenda driven corporate media hacks, who then publish the chatter without skepticism since it fits a narrative.

This certainly appears to be a problem and is unquestionably shady in my opinion. If there’s concrete proof that Trump is a traitor go ahead and release the documents, don’t just spread innuendo in order to advance a narrative and impeach the guy. The reason no documents proving Trump-Russia collusion to hack the DNC or John Podesta have emerged is probably because they don’t exist. Seymour Hersh seems to have hit the nail on the head of what’s going on in a must listen to recent audio recording.

In contrast, the second part about the media is extremely dangerous and vile. I certainly cannot be accused of supporting the disingenuous nonsense spewed by corporate media 24/7. Not only have I constantly railed against their shady, narrative-driven propaganda, but I was also a direct victim of their smear tactics (see: Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of “Russian Propaganda” Websites).

As much as anyone, I get how dishonest and propagandistic the corporate media is, but I’m completely against the government targeting genuine whistleblower information published by the press that exposes criminality or unconstitutional conduct committed by people within our government. We have an absolute right to know this stuff, and the government should never be able to hide this stuff under the guise of “national security.” Indeed, if it weren’t for Wikileaks publishing material ranging from Bradley Manning’s Iraq war crime info, to the DNC rigging the Democratic primary, we as a society would be much more in the dark about everything around us. We would be much more malleable to corporate media’s propaganda if not for the publication of all that information. We must be willing to take the good with the bad. Yes, the crap typically published by the corporate media is terrible, but there are other voices out there like mine and so many others willing to call it out. We are winning.

Moreover, don’t think for a second that this will be used mainly against the corporate media outlets you despise. The primary target will be Wikileaks, as Trump’s CIA director made abundantly clear earlier this year. Recall the following excerpts from the post, The American Empire Under Donald Trump Has Become Increasingly Desperate, Dangerous & Insecure (the words below are from CIA head Pompeo):

It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence—the GRU—had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.

Assange is a narcissist who has created nothing of value. He relies on the dirty work of others to make himself famous. He is a fraud—a coward hiding behind a screen.

Third, we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.

Trust me when I tell you that this push by Sessions is mostly about Wikileaks and other alternative media, not The Washington Post or The New York Times. As bad as those papers have become, they do not threaten the real power structure in America. In fact, they function primarily as public relations firms for billionaires, Wall Street and the military-industrial-intelligence complex. If we permit the government to start cracking down on media, it will end with the shutting down or demonization of alternative sites like this one, not billionaire owned propaganda outlets. Don’t fall for Jeff Sessions’ nonsense just because you despise corporate media, that’s not what this is really about.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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