Assocaited press et liberté de presse: et s'il n'y avait pas de scandale?

Papier intéressant de Walter Pincus dans le Washington Post d'hier. Le gouvernement américain prétendait que la sécurité nationale était en jeu lorsqu'on a tenté d'expliquer pourquoi on avait fouillé dans les relevés d'appels de l'agence de presse. Selon Pincus, la sécurité nationale était vraiment menacée, mais tous les intervenants dans cette histoire aurait quelque chose à se reprocher. L'Article le plus intéressant et le plus nuancé à ce jour sur cette question.

 "It was inevitable that the leak to the AP would generate an FBI probe. Given past leak investigations in the Bush and Obama administrations, journalists at the AP and elsewhere know they could face scrutiny. Like it or not, they are part of a crime. The leaker or leakers had taken an oath under the threat of prosecution to protect the information. The current probe, after almost a year of exhausting other avenues, followed Justice Department guidelines and issued grand jury subpoenas for AP phone records. Did they overreach? There were five reporters and one editor listed on the initial story working out of different AP offices.

Should the AP have been told in advance so it could try to quash the subpoenas? It could delay the inquiry possibly for years if the AP went to court.

 Having found my phone records caught up in criminal and civil case probes, such actions from government officials should not be a surprise.

 But how many times can the media claim such an action is “chilling sources?” That was a claim during the Valerie Plame case under the Bush administration and repeatedly invoked as the Obama Justice Department has pursued leakers.

 The risk of breaking the law apparently didn’t chill those who leaked the information to the AP. That’s what should be considered chilling.

 The reality is that this is not a whistleblowing case. There are no heroes here, and the press in this instance was not protecting individuals trying to expose government malfeasance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fine-print-the-press-and-national-security/2013/05/20/04553d22-be3b-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_print.html