What Journalists Are Saying

Dissenting voices are always silenced during wartime. In the case of Sarah Olson, the U.S. Army has gone a step further, and is trying to use the press as a tool of its prosecution of a soldier who is exercising his right to speak out against, and refuse to serve in, an unjust and illegal occupation. We must speak out against this and any other effort to interfere with the independence of journalists and the right to dissent.

— Anthony Arnove,
author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal

The military's bullying of independent journalist Sarah Olson threatens the free speech rights of every American. Journalists and citizens alike need to fight back, defend the rights of the press and stop blatant attempts to gut the First Amendment.

—David Barsamian,
Director, Alternative Radio

A government that has already seriously undermined constitutional rights should not be allowed to strike yet another blow against freedom by compelling journalists to testify, surely for the purpose of intimidating the press. Those who value the principles we profess should strenuously oppose these efforts.

—Noam Chomsky,
professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

By informing the public about an important dissenting voice, Sarah Olson was fulfilling one of the noblest functions of independent journalism. By seeking to compel Olson to collaborate in a military
prosecution of her source, the U.S. Army is carrying on one of the least noble traditions of government: the chilling of freedom of the press. I call on the Pentagon to drop its subpoena of Sarah Olson and any other journalists in this case.

—Jeff Cohen,
author, columnist, founder of FAIR

From an administration that uses the word "freedom" repeatedly in every communiqué, press release and presidential speech, the subpoena of Sarah Olson is nothing short of Orwellian hypocrisy. Questioning her freedom to keep her notes and recollections to herself abridges not only her First Admendment freedom as a journalist, but in the end it threatens all our freedoms. If we're to justify a war on people who "hate us for our freedoms," we should do everything in our power to protect and not reduce those freedoms.

—Mark Dowie,
environmental journalist; former editor/publisher, Mother Jones magazine

If there's one lesson to be learned from the U.S. military misadventure in Iraq, it's that a strong, independent and critical press is essential for a functioning democracy. Journalists who report inconvenient truths should be celebrated, not subpoenaed and intimidated.

—Diane Farsetta,
Senior Researcher, Center for Media and Democracy

Whatever your political opinion or view of the war in Iraq, you as an American should be worried when the government tries to turn an independent news reporter into a government agent. That is what is happening in the case of Sarah Olson and it's why she needs our support.

—Mark Hertsgaard,
author and journalist

The case involving journalists who have been covering the case of U.S. v. Watada is crucial. The independent journalists being pressured to testify in a court martial deserve our support as they resist the concentrated power of the military and allied political forces that want to suppress an honest debate about war and peace, one of the central issues of our time.

— Robert Jensen,
associate professor, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin

Shield laws protecting journalists' sources developed out of the need to reinforce the role of the independent press, as a codified recognition of First Amendment free press rights. Efforts by the Bush Administration instead to manipulate first the civilian and now the military courts and use reporters as tools for prosecutors must be challenged and stopped. Our society is weakened and cheapened by these attempts to chill news sources and hence the power of what is rightly referred to as the Fourth Estate.

—Peter Laufer,
author and journalist

As a reporter and documentary producer for close to 40 years, I am outraged that the U.S. government thinks it can compel a journalist to participate in their persecution of an anti-war resister like Ehren Watada. We must all support journalists who seek to expose subjugated stories and who seek to maintain the integrity of their craft which includes remaining free of government and mass-media prejudice and values.

—Claude Marks,
Director, Freedom Archives

What the government is doing with Sarah Olson is an outrage, and demonstrates a profound contempt for the role of a free press in a self-governing society.

—Robert W. McChesney,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Founder, Free Press

This is simply not a case of national security, nor is the public safety at risk. This is a case of prosecuting an officer's political speech as reported in multiple news outlets. The Army should not establish the dangerous precedent of conscripting the civilian press into participating in this kind of court-martial.

—Monika Bauerlein, Clara Jeffery and Jay Harris,
editors and publisher, Mother Jones magazine

Journalists need to recognize that Sarah Olson's struggle represents a defining moment for our craft. If journalists can be forced by prosecutors to help build cases against our sources, then those sources will be understandably shy about cooperating with reporters. The chill will be real, and potentially devastating, for our craft. I cannot emphasize how important it is that journalists stand with Sarah Olson in her challenge to prosecutorial excess.

—John Nichols,
political writer, The Nation magazine

We are blessed in our nation to have a democratic government with one set of responsibilities, and a free press with another, both of them serving the public interest. When the government coerces the press to do the government's work, the system breaks down. I urge all who care about the public interest to protest these subpoenas, and I am glad to join in doing so.

— Geneva Overholser,
Curtis B. Hurley Chair of Public Affairs Reporting, Missouri School of Journalism, Washington Bureau

The ability to snatch reporters' notebooks, to haul the press before star chambers, military inquisitions and grand juries, to use the force of prison to pry information from a journalist is a death sentence for the free press. No source will talk to us if Big Brother can put us on the rack and whip the source names and info from us.

—Greg Palast,
author, Armed Madhouse

An independent and critical press is one of the mainstays of democracy. The military has no right to force civilian journalists to perform as cogs in the Pentagon's prosecutorial process. Civilian journalists are neither army conscripts nor Pentagon employees. They are not an extension of the military's criminal investigative system, and are under no obligation to surrender their independence as established by the First Amendment.

— Michael Parenti,
Ph.D., author and social commentator

Sarah Olson's principled stand is a crucial one at a time when the mainstream press is bargaining away, in bigger and bigger chunks, the privacy of reporters' notebooks, confidential conversations, e-mails, etc. ad infinitum. Her professional product has been published and is available to the government. As she says, reporters betray their role as fact-seekers for the public if they are forced — through threat of imprisonment — to become agents of a particular government's agenda."

—Sydney Schanberg,
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Freedom of the press is under attack when a journalist can be harassed and forced to testifty against the source of a story. Isn't that obvious? Isn't it a no-brainer? Of course — except to those who claim to be promoting Iraqi freedom at the expense of our own.

—Danny Schechter,
Editor, Mediachannel.org

The first and primary responsibility of journalists in the United States is to the truth. Journalists should not feel inhibited in that pursuit, no matter how sensitive the subject. The public interest is of foremost importance to getting at the truth.

— Dr. Nancy Snow,
Author and Communications Professor California State University, Fullerton

There is no freedom more important in the United States than the guarantees of the First Amendment. Journalists must be independent of government power in order to fulfill their responsibilities. The Pentagon's effort to compel journalists to participate in prosecution is an assault on the First Amendment. The independence of the press is at stake.

—Norman Solomon,
Author and syndicated columnist

Journalists and citizens alike must stand against government attempts to squelch independent, free reporting and free speech. Our most basic American freedoms are being trampled by our own government and we must defend the press.

—John Stauber,
Author and Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy

There is a double outrage here: first, that freedom of the press is being curtailed by the very government practices it is reporting on; second, that the long arm of the military is reaching out to threaten a civilian with prison. I support Sara Olson's freedom to report without fear of losing her own freedom.

—Gloria Steinem

On behalf of the Society of Professional Journalists, one of the nation's oldest and largest journalism-advocacy organizations, I urge U.S. Army officials to drop their insistence that journalists testify in the court-martial of Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada at Fort Lewis, Wash. It is highly objectionable that any journalist be forced to become an agent of Army prosecutors. Even more repugnant is compelling a journalist to aid prosecutors who are challenging a military officer's right to free speech.

—Christine Tatum,
President, Society of Professional Journalists
Joel Campbell,
Chairman, SPJ's National Freedom of Information Committee

The idea that the army wants to compel Sarah Olson, Greg Kakesako, Dahr Jamail and Sari Gelzer to testify against Lt. Watada is frightening. It's hard not to see this as an effort to keep the journalists, who didn't go to the Judith Miller School of Stenography, scared and silent. Considering that independent media was right about the invasion of Iraq when the pentagon was so very wrong, we should see any attempt at intimidation as a threat to us all. I proudly stand with them.

— Dave Zirin,
The Nation magazine

I would like to protest the army's attempt to force journalists to testify in the trial of an army officer who opposes the war in Iraq and refuses to join in the military occupation of that country. If we are to consider ourselves a democracy, we must have journalists who are not beholden to the government and the military, who call the shots as they see them, without being pressured — under threat of contempt of court — to testify in an important trial. There is an important principle at stake — the existence of an independent press, free of governmental intimidation.

— Howard Zinn,
historian, playwright and social activist

The National Press Club vehemently opposes any effort to subpoena reporters over their work. Subpoenaing reporters in an effort to make the prosecution's case — particularly when the charge involves free speech issues — is abhorrent and grossly perverts the foundation of press freedom this nation is built on.

—Jerry Zremski,
president, National Press Club

Military Shouldn't Force Press to Testify Against Political Speech

• Journalists should report news, not be forced to participate in government prosecutions — especially prosecutions seeking to criminalize political speech.
• Subpoenaing journalists to participate in government prosecutions erodes the necessary separation between press and state and threatens to turn journalists into an investigative tool for the government.
• Hauling journalists in front of a military court to testify against their sources imposes a chilling effect on reporters willing to write tough stories, and silences dissenting and minority voices.
• Debate is the lifeblood of democracy and the free exchange of information and ideas is in the public’s best interest. Press freedom and free speech are the heart of our democracy, and the foundation of our Constitution.