The United States Department of Justice and the White House Press Office are this year’s top winners of a dubious award extended to those considered to be “responsible for some of the more egregious or ridiculous affronts to First Amendment principles.”

On Wednesday this week, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression announced that the US Justice Dept. had topped this year’s list of “Jefferson Muzzle” recipients, an award handed out every April since 1992 “as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment.”

The White House Press Office was listed in the second slot among this year’s “winners,” trailed immediately by a third-place tie between the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

It isn’t unusual for the free-speech loving organization named in honor of the third president of the US to condemn federal agencies for infringing on the constitutional rights of American citizens, but the Obama administration swept this year’s honors, undoubtedly lending further credence to allegations that the White House has ravaged First Amendment-protected freedoms by interfering and attempting to influence even the most venerable mainstream press outlets in the country.

According to the Jefferson Center, first place honors this year were awarded to the Justice Dept. due to the Obama administration’s relentless aggressive pursuit of individuals alleged to have leaked government information, while the press office’s routine shunning of journalists from official functions in exchange for regularly relying on a private White House photographer earned that department second place standing. The NSA and DHS were selected not as a result of any new infringing policies put in place by those offices, however, but rather because they went after Americans who parodied the official government seals of either department.

FULL STORY: http://rt.com/usa/jefferson-muzzle-obama-administration-708/