Government transparency may have ranked high on the list of campaign promises made by Barack Obama — but years later, it seems the government could be more repressive than ever before.
Just ask this New York Times journalist.
Times reporter James Risen went off on the Obama administration’s press freedom record in a Twitter rant late Tuesday.
It all started with a link to this District Sentinel article about Attorney General Eric Holder defending the Obama administration’s record on whistleblower retaliation, which Risen annotated with a simple, ”WTF?”
Risen then went on an epic rant about the government, calling out Holder by name many times and saying that, “The Obama Administration is the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation,” and “Eric Holder leaves behind a wrecked First Amendment.”
Risen ended his broadside with a promise to continue fighting on behalf of his son and “press freedom” throughout the United States.
Risen knows a thing or two about the government’s stance on leaks and whistleblowers.
For the past seven years, he’s been embroiled in a legal battle over whether the Justice Department could compel him to reveal the identities of his confidential government sources.
Risen fought all the way to the Supreme Court and lost before Holder said he’d back off and not force Risen to out his sources.
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Follow Zach Noble (@thezachnoble) on Twitter