The US attorney general, Eric Holder, on Thursday pushed back against the notion that the Obama administration has been uncommonly aggressive in targeting reporters who print leaked government secrets, vowing that his Justice Department "will not prosecute any reporter for doing his or her job".
However, Holder said the Justice Department would continue to prosecute government officials suspected of leaking information.
"The department's goal in investigating leak cases is to identify and prosecute government officials who jeopardize national security by violating their oaths, not to target members of the press or discourage them from carrying out their vital work," Holder said, in testimony before the Senate appropriations subcommittee.
Holder spoke a day after the Guardian disclosed a top-secret court order requiring a division of Verizon to turn over millions of phone records. The court order was supposed to have been classified until 2038.
The White House is attempting to puncture the growing perception of hostility toward the media. Last week, Holder began to conduct off-the-record briefings with media organizations on leak investigations. Many major news organizations have refused to participate.
On Thursday, Holder said he had launched a review of guidelines for investigations that involve reporters. "The department has not prosecuted, and as long as I'm attorney general, will not prosecute any reporter for doing his or her job," Holder said. "With these guiding principles in mind, we are updating our internal guidelines to ensure that in every case the department's actions are clear and consistent with our most sacred values."
The Obama administration has far outstripped any of its predecessors in prosecuting whistleblowers and in expanding the scope of leak investigations to include journalists and their daily communications. The White House has used the Espionage Act of 1917 six times to prosecute leak sources. In 2010, apparently for the first time ever, the administration named a journalist in court documents as a probable "co-conspirator" in the release of government secrets. Last month, the justice department informed the Associated Press that it had seized records for more than 20 AP phone lines, a swoop the AP president called "a massive and unprecedented intrusion".
"We must be … vigilant in our defense of the sacred rights and freedoms we are equally obligated to protect, including the freedom of the press," Holder told Congress.
Holder's rhetoric echoed remarks by President Obama in a speech on counter-terrorism last month.
"A free press is also essential for our democracy," Obama said. "I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable."
