CBS political correspondent Jan Crawford led off her news report Thursday on the Obama administration's roundly criticized assaults on press freedom by calling it the "first time ever a presidential administration is treating news reporting like a crime and a reporter like a criminal suspect."
The latest controversy surrounds the government's investigation of Fox News correspondent James Rosen, who reported in 2009 that North Korea would respond to sanctions with more nuclear tests. The FBI launched an investigation to uncover who leaked the confidential information Rosen used and quickly focused on the journalist. In a Justice Department affidavit, he was labeled a possible criminal co-conspirator.
His moves in and out of the State Department were monitored, as were his emails and phone records, and his parents' phone records were seized by the Department of Justice.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Crawford no one could claim with a straight face that Rosen's story threatened the country's national security.
"Something like that which intimidates both the reporter involved, who has been designated a defendant or potential defendant, and anybody who would talk to him makes it a whole lot easier in the future for the government to control the narrative," he said.
The Department of Justice has also been criticized for seizing two months of Associated Press journalists' phone records, leading some to say the administration is trying to control every story.