ACLU Forum in Pasadena to Discuss ‘Press Freedom Under Attack’

Amid heated rhetoric about the press, an escalation of federal investigations into leaks and the threatened end of net neutrality casting a shadow over an increasingly digital news media, Pasadenans are being invited to take part in a conversation about the state of the fourth estate in America.

The ACLU Pasadena-Foothills chapter and the L.A. Progressive publication are teaming up to host the discussion, meant to be a check-up on the proverbial canary in the coal mine of democracy.

The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Friends Meeting House, 520 E. Orange Grove Blvd.

“The ACLU’s mission in life is to protect the Bill of Rights,” said Dick Price, one of the organizers. Price is Co-Publisher of the LA Progressive and is Secretary of the Pasadena -Foothills Chapter of the ACLU Southern California. “And the First Amendment is all about the freedom of the press, freedom of expression… and so it’s a natural thing for the ACLU to stand up and defend.”

To that and, the group has assembled a group of panelists to lead the discussion.

“So we’ve gathered Steven Rohde, who’s a longtime, high-level constitutional civil rights attorney and a leader of the ACLU on the volunteer side who is going to bring the legal aspects of the First Amendment to the floor,” Price said. “And then Sonali Kolhatkar who is a well-known radio and television host who can bring the perspective of working journalists. We might actually add a second working journalist.”

“My boss, the publisher at LA Progressive, is going to be bringing the issue of net neutrality,” he added.

For David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition based in San Rafael, there’s no question that the press is facing serious threats to its liberty from the government.

“The most ominous one, that we’ve only really seen the tip of the iceberg so far on, is the Justice Department’s escalation of investigations into leaks to journalists,” he said. “We know from about a month ago, a report from the New York Times indicated that the Justice Department had collected a New York Times reporter’s email and telephone call information. And what’s unclear is… how the Justice Department went about collecting those records, whether they did it by subpoena or by national security letter, but it seems apparent that the Justice Department is not following its own internal guidelines with respect to subpoenaing a news media.”

Snyder referred to New York Times Reporter Ali Watkins, who reportedly had her noted seized by federal investigators looking into alleged leaks by then-top aide on the Senate Inelligence Committee James Wolfe. She had been involved in a relationship with Wolfe, who is awaiting trial on three charges of making false statements to investigators, including Watkins.

And Snyder says it’s not just one political party or the other that poses a threat to press freedom. While President Trump has made regular accusations of “fake news” when he disapproves of media coverage, Snyder says the troubling trend was also going on during the Obama administration.

Associated Press’ phone records were seized by the Department of Justice in 2013 in what AP CEO Gary Pruitt described as “a massive and unprecedented intrusion.”

“The AP was a substantial overreach, at least in so far as the AP didn’t even have notice that the government was collecting this information, and so it didn’t have any opportunity to go into court and contest it,” according to Snyder. “As a result [of] the outcry from that, the Justice Department substantially revamped its internal guidelines for subpoenaing reporters.”

But he added it appears, as in the case of the New York Times reporter’s records, that the DOJ may not be following its own rules.

“And we know from what Jeff Sessions said, I think at a press conference toward the end of last year, that the Justice Department has, I think, tripled the number of leak investigations that were going on when Obama left office,” Snyder said. “So they’re doing this on a broad scale, and in coming months and years I think it’s likely we will learn that the phone records of many reporters, phone and email records, are being collected without those reporters’ knowledge, without their ability to contest it. And so that’s a substantial direct attack, I believe, on the ability of reporters to do their jobs. And I think it is likely being conducted in a way that makes it difficult for journalists to even know that the government’s collecting their information, much less contest that collection and make arguments in court about why the First Amendment should protect them from having their phone records collected.”

The idea that the government may be listening in on news gathering, “puts a chill across not just the reporters’ ability to do their jobs, but the ability and willingness of sources and whistleblowers to come forward and provide that information.”

“The press is the only profession that is specifically called out in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment protects not just free speech, the right to assemble, but it specifically calls out the free press,” Snyder said. “So written into our Constitution is the idea that the fourth estate, as it’s sometimes called, has a key function, and that is to help expose corruption and wrongdoing in government so that the people can understand where their government is running afoul of the law or of the goals to which the people believe the government should be focused on.”

Mike Alexander, president of the 2009 “Tea Party” movement-inspired TEAPAC Pasadena organization, also sees threats to the First Amendment.

“Free speech itself is under systematic attack from both left and supposedly right. And this free speech is first and foremost under attack in the institutions of government, especially the public schools and the universities, which are characterized by one, broad ideology: leftist, liberal, statist and so forth,” according to Alexander. “The current concern about First Amendment rights of the press is, of course, a fairly recent origin, but we should bear in mind that the press, if it is under attack right now from the Trump administration, was previously under attack by the Obama Administration.”

Alexander says some of the complaints of attacks on press freedoms are not legitimate.

“And what is presented as a press freedom being under attack is very often nothing of the sort,” Alexander said. “They’re mostly talking about what Trump is saying and Trump merely disagrees with them. And in the process, characterizes their behavior as improper, as fake, as false, and identifies them for being part and parcel of the propagandists.”

“So for the most part, I believe Trump is fighting back. Now, that doesn’t mean that we are not to be concerned when government does something officially, but mostly, this is a sob sister act on the part of a media that has registered over 90 percent Democrat.”

Alexander said the media has issues of its own.

“They have yet to go down the street and asked them a single question about any of the things that are going on targeting Trump, targeting his election, targeting his transition team, targeting his administration, even now. Now these people profess to be journalists, and the minimum qualification for being a journalist — besides a modest grasp of the English language — is curiosity, and these people are the least seriocurious people I think I’ve ever encountered.”

Despite his criticisms, Alexander said appreciated the role of the press in the U.S.

“I am an unrestricted supporter of the fourth estate. We need good press people,” he said.

Price said the audience will be invited to participate in the forum, titled: “Press Freedom Under Attack.” In every one of our forums, at least the last half hour is open to questions,” he said.

The forum is open to the public. For more, click here.