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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration. The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad. Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press."...

“With all due respect, Senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss [this issue],” Holder replied during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing when Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., asked if the executive branch was conducting surveillance that would give “unique leverage” over lawmakers. Kirk replied that “the correct answer would be no, we stayed within our lane, and we did not spy on Members of Congress.” Holder assured Kirk that “there is no intention to do anything of that nature — that is, to spy on Members of Congress or to spy on the Supreme Court.”

The 14th century philosopher William of Occam gained fame for what became known as “Occam’s Razor,” an axiom often stated as, “The simplest explanation is usually the best.” The original Latin—“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate” —adds some nuance. This translates roughly as “One ought not posit multiple variables unnecessarily.” Therein lies the explanation for Attorney General Eric Holder’s scandals, “Fast and Furious”, seizing the Associated Press phone records of editors and reporters, and the assertion that Fox News reporter, Jim Rosen, was a criminal “co-conspirator” in the leak of information from a State Department employee. Holder is no stranger...

Goodlatte and Sensenbrenner asked attorney general to explain May 15 statements to committee on reporter probes; what they got today was "insulting."Leading Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee received an “insulting” response from the Justice Department in response to their inquiry about whether Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself before their panel last month. Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) asked Holder last Wednesday to explain the investigation of reporters in light of testimony he delivered at a May 15 oversight hearing. In response to a question from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) about using the...

(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday pushed backed against Republican accusations that Attorney General Eric Holder lied during a congressional appearance last month about his involvement in leak investigations that involved reporters. Republican lawmakers have called Holder's credibility into question by alleging that he failed to tell the truth in testimony to the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee about the Justice Department's secret seizures of journalist records.Holder told the committee on May 15 that he was not involved in the potential prosecution of a reporter under the 1917 Espionage Act. Reports later surfaced that he had signed off on...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Gwen Ifill, the attorney general has tried to get on top of that this week, describing his -- friends describing a creeping sense of remorse over that targeting of James Rosen. He's met with several journalist organizations over the week on a kind of background basis, which has caused a lot of consternation with some. Is he going to have to go? GWEN IFILL: Well you know how, when it's about journalism, how kind of navel-gazy we get. STEPHANOPOULOS: Right, the public doesn't seem to care about this. IFILL: We care terribly, so it has to be important. But...

Brokaw believes Team Obama may be executing a Beltway "two-step," where named administration officials stand by their man on the record, while deputies telegraph the White House's true sentiments on background. In this case, the Times reports that West Wing insiders are trying to nudge Holder toward the door, his central crime being political maladriotness. Their "apoplexy" over the Attorney General isn't on the merits of his terrible decisions and obvious dishonesty, mind you. They're cool with his behavior -- from pressing for Bush-era recriminations, to backing New York City trials for Al Qaeda leaders, to presiding over and misleading...

In their letter, Mr. Goodlatte and Mr. Sensenbrenner asked Mr. Cole to document what day Mr. Holder had recused himself from the investigation; to explain how Mr. Cole learned of the recusal; to say whether Mr. Holder had specifically told Mr. Cole of his intent to recuse himself from the inquiry; and to say whether the recusal was made in writing or memorialized in any manner.

Eric Holder to media: I get it By: Dylan Byers May 30, 2013 08:29 PM EDT Attorney General Eric Holder expressed concern on Thursday about how the Department of Justice has handled recent media investigations at an off-the-record meeting with leading representatives of the press, according to those who were present. At the session, Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole expressed a willingness to revise the guidelines for such investigations, journalists present at the get-together told POLITICO. But Holder stopped short of offering any concrete changes to the guidelines. Instead, the Attorney General sought to assure the journalists that...

Sean Higgins thinks this Washington Post " report " on Eric Holder's widely-boycotted confab with journalists is "beyond parody." Yeah, pretty much: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. pledged Thursday to take concrete steps to address concerns that the Justice Department has overreached in its leak investigations and said officials would seek procedural and possibly legislative changes to protect journalists’ First Amendment rights. Holder’s commitment came at a private meeting with news executives after criticism that the Justice Department had infringed on the news media in several high-profile leak investigations. Participants said he told them officials would revise guidelines...

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Friday questioned whether the Justice Department lied on its warrant to secretly obtain a Fox News reporter’s email and phone records. Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Chairman, is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself in testimony to Congress about the DOJ’s investigation of a leak of classified information to Fox reporter James Rosen. The DOJ has said that Holder’s testimony was “accurate and consistent with the facts” in the case and that the DOJ never sought to press charges against Rosen in its prosecution of the alleged leaker, Stephen Kim. Goodlatte...

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder pledged to protect the first amendment rights of the media at a closed door, off-the-record meeting. The meeting took place with the media after it was revealed that the DOJ subpoenaed thousands of pages of AP reporter's phone records and obtained a secret warrant for FNC's James Rosen's (and his parents) phone records, emails and tracked his movement. Holder "pledged Thursday to take concrete steps to address concerns that the Justice Department has overreached in its leak investigations and said officials would seek procedural and possibly legislative changes to protect journalists’ First Amendment rights."

President Barack Obama has been mocked for learning about untoward conduct in his administration from the press. But he's on the ball compared with his attorney general, who wouldn't know about his own poor judgment without reading about it in the papers. Let's hope he has a Google alert set for "Eric Holder." The website The Daily Beast interviewed the attorney general and Justice Department officials for a piece about how the AG is holding up in the firestorm over two controversial Justice Department leak investigations, one into The Associated Press, the other into Fox News reporter James Rosen. The...

First, the recent news... "Report: Holder Went Judge Shopping To Obtain Fox News Subpoenaby Larry O'Connor28 May 2013, 9:11 AM PDT The new documents show that two judges separately declared that the Justice Department was required to notify Rosen of the search warrant, even if the notification came after a delay. Otherwise: “The subscriber therefore will never know, by being provided a copy of the warrant, for example, that the government secured a warrant and searched the contents of her e-mail account,” Judge John M. Facciola wrote in an opinion rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument. Machen appealed that decision, and...

[Click Link for Video] It's very simple: In his warrant application, Holder claimed to be interested in investigating James Rosen as a coconspirator in an espionage case. In addition, he claimed Rosen was a "flight risk," which would justify even closer monitoring. Now he says he never had any intention of prosecuting Rosen. In other words: He now says he lied when he told the judge these things, in order to secure his license to snoop on Rosen. Well, which is it? If he never had any intention of prosecuting Rosen, the warrant application is a fraud on the court....

The Justice Department should not be chasing national security reporters. But those reporters have a responsibility, too. As Eric Holder wrings his hands in remorse over his feverish pursuit of Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, it’s worth noting that, when it comes to national security leaks, some things are secret—and should be kept that way—for a reason. In Rosen’s case, the alarm bells went off not because he reported that North Korea was about to conduct a nuclear-weapons test but because he reported that the CIA learned of this fact from a source inside North Korea. In other...

The Associated Press scandal just keeps getting worse, and we haven't even started yet. AP CEO Gary Pruitt informed staffers Wednesday that the Department of Justice monitored, not one, not twenty, but "thousands and thousands" of phone calls made by reporters and editors. Associated Press president and chief executive Gary Pruitt told staff at a Wednesday town hall meeting that the phone records obtained by the government included "thousands and thousands" of calls in and out of the news organization, according to a staffer who attended. Pruitt said Wednesday that the Obama administration acted as "judge, jury and executioner" in...

Attorney General Eric Holder has been under intense fire lately, having to answer for his involvement in several scandals, including two separate media cases with the Associated Press and a Fox News reporter. But now a new report paints him as deeply convicted — even sorry — over at least one of them. Although Holder had recused himself of the case where phone records of several Associates Press editors and reporters were obtained, he personally signed off on the search warrant that allowed emails from Fox News’ James Rosen to be released. Rosen was not made aware of the warrant...

President Barack Obama has been mocked for learning about untoward conduct in his administration from the press. But he’s on the ball compared with his attorney general, who wouldn’t know about his own poor judgment without reading about it in the papers. Let’s hope he has a Google alert set for “Eric Holder.” The website the Daily Beast interviewed the attorney general and Justice Department officials for a piece about how the AG is holding up in the firestorm over two controversial Justice Department leak investigations, one into the Associated Press, the other into Fox News reporter James Rosen. The...

CNN contributor Ryan Lizza digs into the timeline of the Justice Department's investigation of James Rosen. For more CNN videos, visit our site at http://www.cnn.com/video/