By DANA LIEBELSON
Though rare, U.S. presidents have attempted to use the World War I-era Espionage Act to silence Americans from leaking information to the media for decades. It is a charge that is as controversial, as it is grave. This is the law the Nixon administration infamously invoked when attempting to bar the media from continuing to publish the classified Pentagon Papers—the second largest leak of classified information to the press in the U.S., after Wikileaks. Nixon of course, was unsuccessful, and his shattered reputation never recovered.
But guess what? The Nixon Administration is small potatoes compared to the present. When it comes to wielding the “incomprehensible” Espionage Act to stop disclosures of classified information, one presidential administration has the rest beat by a mile: The Obama Administration. This Administration far outnumbers every previous one in prosecuting leaks of classified information to the media. The Department of Justice under Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder has used it more than all prior administrations combined. Post continues on The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog