Silenced: Jailed US Journalist Can’t Discuss NSA Spying

(Before It's News)

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A federal court in Texas has effectively denied an imprisoned reporter and his attorneys’ right to freedom of speech with a so-called gag order — preventing him from discussing US surveillance efforts. The order is only the latest action that the Justice Department has taken against reporter Barrett Brown.

Brown has been in jail since last year on charges of threatening a federal agent and disseminating stolen information. His major crime, according to prosecutors, seems to have been posting a hyperlink to a cache of emails leaked to the media by the hacker group Anonymous in a chat room. The information he was accused of stealing was already freely circulating on the web.

Federal prosecutors are trying to “criminalize the routine journalistic practice of linking to documents publicly available on the internet, which would seem to be protected by the First Amendment to the US constitution under current doctrine, Geoffrey King of the Committee to Protect Journalists told The Guardian.

King is accusing the government of trying to stop reporters from posting links to documents or other information that might make the government or politicians look bad.

Revisit the counsel of great men and learn how to reclaim the quality of government we once enjoyed.

Source: http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/09/17/silenced-jailed-us-journalist-cant-discuss-nsa-spying/