WASHINGTON, August 15 (RIA Novosti) - Journalists in the United States are now seeking the same counsel as prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay under the Obama administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers and investigative journalists, Ahmed Ghappour, lawyer and associate of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told RIA Novosti Thursday.
“I get calls from journalists that want me to represent them because I represented Guantanamo prisoners. So that’s perspective,” said Ghappour at a press briefing in response to a question from RIA Novosti.
Ghappour expressed concerns that Obama administration's crackdown on press freedoms resembles more of an authoritarian state than the democratic state the US is reputed to be.
“One thing they can argue is in the name of national security you can do X, Y, or Z. You can censor speech by classifying certain information,” the lawyer said.
Ghappour noted that the number of classified documents has risen exponentially since the 9/11 attacks.
“It’s actually turned into something where information that is embarrassing to the government becomes classified,” he said.
As a result, the government has been more dogged in pursuing whistleblowers, intimidating members of the press and even monitoring journalists emails, cell phones and even credit records, according to the lawyer.
The Obama administration has prosecuted an unprecedented number of whistleblowers for supposedly revealing national security secrets. However, many freedom of speech advocates claim that the US government is more concerned about being embarrassed than securing state secrets.
Ghappour previously represented Guantanamo detainees in habeas corpus cases and later became the lead counsel in the first criminal case the challenge bulk metadata collection by the NSA after the Edward Snowden revelations.
