The answers given by Attorney General Eric Holder during his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon certainly make it appear like his decision to recuse himself was a gutless decision, one he made because he knew when the press discovered the Associated Press had their phone records secretly seized they would be collectively outraged.

One of the assertions continually made by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney at yesterday’s press briefing regarding the AP Spying scandal was that President Obama believed in “unfettered” investigative journalism. The evidence Carney offered for this assertion was Obama’s support for a shield law that died in 2010.

A symptom of the news that the establishment media organization, the Associated Press, had their phone records targeted by the Justice Department as part of an apparent investigation into a leak has been that reporters have been more aggressive in their questioning of officials at press conferences.

Think Progress, the blog for the non-partisan Center On American Progress, has made a name for itself pretending to be a “progressive” news and analysis site despite reflexively defending the Democratic Party and being funded by an organization that refuses to disclose its donors (one hint it means “to soar” in Esperanto). But now the site has gone from being a party organ dishonestly posing as a group of principled activists into defending the most Nixonian practices of the Obama Administration.

The US Justice Department’s secret seizure of phone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press is nothing less than a continuation of attacks on freedom of the press that have been ongoing under the administration of President Barack Obama.

Carl Bernstein, famed investigative journalist who broke the story on the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and declared this is a “matter of policy.” It goes right up to the president and the people who surround him, the very officials who have waged an unprecedented war on whistleblowers and leaks.

In a small auditorium at the Newseum in Washington, DC, Brave New Films director Robert Greenwald held the premiere of his new documentary, “War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State.” It features four stories of men who are clear examples of whistleblowers that most Americans would think deserve protection when exposing government corruption, misconduct or wrongdoing, however, officials chose to protect the National Security State and retaliate each of these men for speaking out.

Sourced to current and former legal and counterterrorism officials in the United States government, the New York Times published a story on Sunday on the killing of US-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was targeted by a CIA drone without charge or trial on September 30, 2011.

Much of the material in the story from anonymous individuals could be considered sensitive or classified government information. These selective disclosures, which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) condemned in a statement, functioned as propaganda.

A classified intelligence assessment shows the United States is “the target of a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign that is threatening the country’s economic competitiveness,” according to the Washington Post.

A confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama’s national counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, who Obama nominated to head the CIA, took place yesterday and lasted for more than three hours. Senators on the Select Committee for Intelligence questioned him about targeted killings and the use of drones, the CIA’s interrogation program under President George W. Bush and national security leaks.

A recently published story from the New York Times reports a “secret legal review” has been conducted on the use of cyber warfare by the United States. It concluded President Barack Obama has “the broad power to order a preemptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad.”