Reporters fight back in Obama's war on leaks

As U.S. presidential administrations become increasingly secretive with what they deem classified information, reporters are fighting back, says Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post and the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Beginning with the passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11, reporters have found it challenging to cover national security as government officials become subject to increasingly intrusive digital surveillance, Downie writes.

In defense, many reporters are taking extreme precautions – arranging one-on-one, in-person interviews or working through intermediaries – to keep their government sources "from becoming casualties in the Obama administration's war on leaks."