Operation Mockingbird gives the FBI the green light to go ahead and impersonate journalists in an attempt to gather evidence in undercover operations. While this could seem minor, it's just another shove down the slippery slope to a totalitarian state and another nail in the coffin of due process.

This is obviously going to cause trust issues with people that were once willing to talk to the media, mainstream or alternative, something the Department of Justice itself points out in its review of Operation Mockingbird. What a subtle way to discourage whistleblowers from telling the truth about any issue that implicates the government or law enforcement.

This all stems from 2007 when a member of the FBI impersonated an AP journalist. A Seattle student sent out a series of bomb threats by email but the police couldn't trace the threats back to him as he was using proxy servers so local law enforcement requested help from the FBI.