May 21 2006
Final Warning Shot To The News Media?
I am guessing that the administration is sending a signal to the news media with these comments:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security.
The nation’s top law enforcer also said the government will not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation, but officials would not do so routinely and randomly.
“There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility,” Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions. “We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected.”
Wonder if the media is going to head the warning or jump into jail? My other guess is they are not bright enough to see the warning signs. There is a way out of this – but it requires assisting the government in stopping the leaks of national security details to our enemies through our press. The test is simple: are you part of the problem or part of the solution? In this case ‘the problem’ is also criminal. This final statement should be paid attention to:
He also denied that authorities would randomly check journalists’ records on domestic-to-domestic phone calls in an effort to find journalists’ confidential sources.
“We don’t engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order,” Gonzales said, under a “probable cause” legal standard.
Get a clue media. There is a very high probability that the investigators have warrants in hand. Leaking secrets is very serious, and few judges will find a grey area to resist full investigation and prosecution. Fitzgerald set the bar so darn low in his investigation the media is now completely exposed.
AJ,
I do not agree this is necessarily a shot across the bow. I think it is a preview of the upcoming show. I believe this administration and the DOJ has made up its mind to prosecute those that trade in our secrests for political and financial gain.
I believe democrats and their aides in the senate (Rocky and others), the house, the CIA (McCarthy – whom I believe is singing like a canary), former CIA (VIPS – can you hear my now Larry?), and reporters and EDITORS from NY Slimes, WAPO, Newsweak, Time, Boston Globe, LA Times and more will be arrested or indicted in the near future.
With the conspiracy that has been mushrooming by these rogue traitors to bring down a sitting administration for political gain going on for five years now, my gut tells me the administration and DOJ know the stakes are too high not to do anything.
Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al know what these rogues have been trying to do, and they know the consequences of inaction on their part at this time. These rogues have been trying to have Bush, Cheney, Rove and of Libby tarnished forvever by their lies and manipulation.
People (cia rogues, MSM and deomocrats) never thought Bush would order the release of the captured Iraqi documents for the world to see and translate via the net, well he did. There is no doubt this POTUS has the guts to round up this cockroaches.
I say, grab your bag of popcorn, put the children to bed and cuddle up with your honey because it is going to be an adults only show anytime.
I like most have no problem with exposure of things like $800 hammers, but when you cross over to national security issues, that is about the time I may have found a reasonable object to use that hammer on.
Dr Sanity has a nice perspective on this
Chuckling
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/05/assymetrical-intelligence-gathering.html
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE ME DECIDING YOUR FATE?…
If you’ve been waiting for the Left gets its comeuppance, these two bits should interest you.
1) Final Warning Shot To The News Media?: Get a clue media. There is a very high probability that the investigators have warrants in hand. Leaking secrets ….
Doubt they’ll listen. Too arrogant. If there is an indictment, they’ll drag out Floyd Abrams, the so-called First Amendment expert, to fight the case.
The media should go back and re-read the Pentagon Papers case. The Supreme Court had two finding in that case.
First, the government had no power of any kind to stop publication of any information the papers decided to publish. (Upheld the First Amendment in its purest form.)
Second, (this is the one the media forgets), the Court held that government could bring charges against reporters and their employers for printing secret information. (Upheld the power of the Executive and the Congress to pass laws to protect us.)
Talk about a balancing act.
Patch
The first said they could not exercise prior restraint, it still allowed them to be liable if they decided to print it after the fact
Scenario:
Government brings charges
Reporter clams up
Reporter goes to jail for contempt
Mexican standoff
Crosspatch I concur, and may be unnecessary, the warranted tap gave you the leaker, that is your target. The press is only an enabler the leaker is a clearly defined lawbreaker.
On furthur consideration the only reason for your senario is that you are trying to persuade them to reveal info/sourcing. If you have the tap, the audio, video and photographic evidence and bunches of supporting documentation. Then the reporter can take the fifth, it won’t matter the mass of evidence will convince the jury.
The case law has lots of restrictions on free speech.
The old saw of yelling fire in a crowded theater
Hate speech
Transmission of child pornography
Out of all this I am sure court rulings and legislation will occur, probably with a high threshold to be crossed, but it is something whose time has come and needs to be resolved.
But the point is that the journalist won’t be jailed. The reporter was simply reporting what they were being told. I think a lot depends on the circumstances. If a leaker comes to a reporter out of the blue and drops information in their lap, the leaker gets prosecuted. Now if a reporter decides to go digging and pries the information out of someone or uses extortion (political or otherwise) to get it, the reporter can probably be facing an espionage charge. Reporting classified information that is leaked is one thing, actively engaging in the uncovering of secret information is espionage.
My Mexican standoff scenario was supposing that the reporter had obvious sources that aren’t known to the government. Reporter is ordered to identify sources of illegally divulged information, refuses, and is sent to jail for contempt as we saw with one Ms. Miller.
Failure to fully prosecute these leaks will demonstrate this administration’s inability to prevail over the left’s shadow government, and set an awful precedent for future adminstrations to overcome.
Crosspatch
but as my followup post pointed out, compelling evidence makes the cooperation of the press person moot.
What we have here is going to result after all the dust settles to balance absence of malice , right to know and necessity to not know. A very tricky pandora’s box dicotomy.
But the get out of jail free card, government won’t prosecute due to potential revelation of sources and methods condundrum needs to be responsibility and positively dealt with. However I realize this will take the wisdom of Solomon and compromise.
It is not as simplistic as exposing something about the Mafia, and just letting Guido take care of the loose lips reporter. This is a true issue that needs to be evaluated.
I was pointing out that it will be the leaker that goes to jail, not the journalist in that case. If someone calls up a journalist and spills the beans on a project, there are two possible outcomes. If the government knows who the leaker is, they bust the leaker. If they don’t, they can attempt to compell the journalist to expose the leaker. In neither case does the journalist go to jail for reporting secrets, the journalist only goes to jail for contempt if they refuse to release sources.
I think a lot depends on how the journalist got the information. First of all, a journalist is not in a position to know how damaging a piece of information is. What might seem like a fairly benign fact might be the peice that the enemy needs to see the larger picture which is why secrets need to be kept secret. A journalist might also not be informed about the level of classification of a particular fact. They might not be aware that there might be only one way we could have possibly discovered a particular fact so that exposing the fact also exposes the method of it’s collection and thereby denies us the use of that collection method forever.
Let me give a silly example. Lets say you are trying to hide the existance of a McDonald’s sign. How much of it can be exposed before someone has a good chance of realizing what it is? Probably not much. So while someone might have a photograph of only the lower left hand corner of “the big picture”, it might make it obvious what the rest of the picture is.
Point being, we need to work both angles. We need to seriously crack down on this culture of leakage and at the same time we need a press that acts in a responsible manner when it comes to protecting the methods we use to keep people from getting killed by terrorists. I still have trouble understanding this mindset in the journalism trade where it seems to be acceptable to risk the lives of citizens in order to get a story out that is politically damaging to the administration. Apparently, working for Al Qaeda is a trendy occupation in liberal circles these days.
On a seperate issue thread, where do we stand
I know this is not related but follow my logic here.
The MSM from their sources and methods develop stories.
For the most part the alternative media and the blogosphere are not originators of stories but the commentators and disecters of those stories.
This is a natural division of things since the likelyhood of individual or collectlive bloggers to source stories is a reach.
I think all that visit this blog give much thanks to AJ for his thoughtful , consise and convincing logic. But we also realize that AJ is limited to public domain available intel that at best has so many pitholes where you have to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
The reason we are here , is because quite frankly he does it well and our hats are off to him and he deserves all our thanks. I like his dedication and his lack of agenda. Hell if I somehow had the chance I would love to take this guy out for Prime Rib at a little place I know that does it so well. But somehow I believe that would be such a shallow thanks to what I wish I could express.
Heck I don’t even know it AJ likes prime rib or is a veggitarian..I just respect him. If you knew me personally, you would know that is a very small community.
So AJ let me say , I know it’s a little late after yer anniversary..but thanks man..and keep it up. Bravo Zulu and kudos to you. Also you deserve all the praise. Ok buds quit blushing!
Merlin,
I adore a good Prime Rib!
Hint, hint, nudge, nudge…
AJStrata
Hey, I saw this story mentioned on Power Line.
Some of the steel from the World Trade Center is being salvaged and used in the construction of the USS New York, a US Navy warship.
AJ
Name the time when your available , I’ve got the place.
But you have to realize I am still trying to convince this other dude about 60 miles from me to come over there for their appetizer of gator tail. That dude is Michael Yon and don’t worry about me I like the feminin type would like to have a chance to meet yer better half. Open offer let me know.
Sorry I had to say that in the last post , god demospeak got a hold of me for a moment!
Doing the traditional polish salute.
If you don’t know what it is, don’t ask or get a seach engine!
Duh!
Hmmmmmmmmmmm AJ and Michael Yon in the same place at one time. what a concept. I would love to watch that interaction. Hmmmmmmm now who would I have to invite to make the conversation really interesting omg wheels within wheels. The synergy would be……..ah to select a word “good”.
Oh well we can dream.
It ain’t been outlawed yet..or didn’t I get the memo?
The Coming Storm – Rep. William Jefferson…
How about this. Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, has got his ass in a sling for sure. He can deny all the wants (Democratic trait of sorts), but it’s on film at eleven. As Perry Mason used to say, “Case closed, Della, get the car!”…