posted March 06, 2006 03:42 PM            

As part of the war on terror, he's declared a war on reporters. According to the Washington Post, the Bush White House has dusted off an old 1917 law to haul into court any journalist who publishes a story based on classified information received through a leak.

They're doing so, says the Post, because they're upset at media reports on the network of secret CIA prisons and on Bush's warrantless phone taps. Bush says printing stories about the NSA's spy program was "a shameless act."

The White House declaring war on journalists? How Nixonian! How ironic! How hypocritical! How dangerous!

Isn't it ironic? Bush resurrects a 1917 law to go after journalists. Yet he said he couldn't obey a 1978 law requiring a court order before tapping our phones because it was "an old law."

Isn't it hypocritical? Somebody in the White House leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, yet Bush did nothing about it. Dick Cheney told Scooter Libby to leak classified information in order to help build the case for war in Iraq, and Bush did nothing about it. Yet now he wants to punish reporters who report on the leaks.

And isn't it dangerous - when the White House tries to silence the free press, our watchdog. They're just ****** because they got caught breaking the law.

Bush has it backwards. Media reports about secret prisons are not "shameless acts." The secret prisons themselves are shameless acts.

Stories about NSA spying are not shameless act. Spying on Americans is a shamless act.

If anybody deserves to be thrown in prison, it's not journalists who expose government wrong-doing - it's Bush and Cheney, the wrong-doers themselves.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060306/cm_huffpost/016860&printer=1;_ylt=AhM2CnvKlwR_vlFbYhnIX1Ae6sgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

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posted March 06, 2006 03:50 PM            

By Dan Eggen
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

Dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed in recent weeks by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic-surveillance program, according to law-enforcement and intelligence officials.

Taken together, some media watchers, lawyers and editors say, the incidents represent the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation and have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.

Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers also are considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.

In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles already have contacted Sacramento Bee reporters about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, Calif., according to the newspaper.

"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a statement. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."

President Bush has called the NSA leak "a shameful act" that was "helping the enemy," and said in December that he hoped the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the disclosure.

"We need to protect the right to free speech and the First Amendment, and the president is doing that," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. "But at the same time, we do need to protect classified information which helps fight the war on terror."

Disclosing classified information without authorization has long been against the law, yet such leaks are one of the realities of life in Washington, accounting for much of the back-channel conversation that goes on daily among journalists, policy intellectuals, and current and former government officials.

Presidents also have long complained about leaks. Richard Nixon's infamous "plumbers" originally were set up to plug them, and he tried, but failed, to prevent publication of a classified history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers. Ronald Reagan exclaimed at one point that he was "up to my keister" in leaks.

Bush administration officials, who complain that reports about detainee abuse, clandestine surveillance and other topics have endangered the nation during a time of war, have taken a more aggressive approach than other recent administrations, including a clear willingness to take on journalists more directly, if necessary.

"Almost every administration has ... come in saying they want an open administration, and then getting bad press and fuming about leaks," said David Greenberg, a Rutgers University journalism professor and author of "Nixon's Shadow." "But it's a pretty fair statement to say you haven't seen this kind of crackdown on leaks since the Nixon administration."

But David Rivkin, who was a senior lawyer in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said the leaking is "out of control," especially given the threat posed by terrorist groups.

"We're at the end of this paradigm where we had this sort of gentlemen's agreement where you had leaks and journalists were allowed to protect the leakers," Rivkin said. "Everyone is playing Russian roulette now."

At Langley, the CIA's security office has been conducting numerous interviews and polygraph examinations of employees in an effort to discover whether any of them have had unauthorized contact with journalists.

CIA Director Porter Goss has spoken about the issue at an "all hands" meeting of employees and sent a cable to the field aimed at discouraging media contacts and reminding employees of the penalties for disclosing classified information, according to intelligence sources and people in touch with agency officials.

"It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand-jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information," Goss told a Senate committee.

The Justice Department also argued in a court filing last month that reporters can be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving and publishing classified information. The brief was filed in support of a case against two pro-Israel lobbyists, the first nongovernment officials to be prosecuted for receiving and distributing classified information.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last month that he is considering legislation that would criminalize the leaking of a wider range of classified information than what is now covered by law. The measure would be similar to earlier legislation that was vetoed by President Clinton in 2000 and opposed in 2002 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

But the vice chairman of the committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., complained in a letter to the national intelligence director last month that "damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of the intelligence agencies."

As evidence, Rockefeller noted the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters. A grand-jury investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald resulted last year in the jailing of Judith Miller, then a reporter at The New York Times, for refusing to testify, and in criminal charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. In court papers, Libby has said his "superiors" authorized him to disclose a classified government report.

The New York Times, which first disclosed the NSA program in December, and The Washington Post, which reported on secret CIA prisons in November, said investigators have not contacted reporters or editors about those articles.

Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Post, said that there has long been a "natural and healthy tension between government and the media" on national-security issues, but that he is "concerned" about comments by Goss and others that appear to reflect a more aggressive stance by the government.

In Sacramento, the Bee newspaper reported last month that FBI agents had contacted two of its reporters and, along with a federal prosecutor, had "questioned" a third reporter about articles last July detailing the contents of sealed court documents about five terrorism suspects. A Bee article on the contacts did not address whether the reporters supplied the agents with any information or whether they were subject to subpoenas.

Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez said last week he could not comment, based on the advice of newspaper attorneys. Representatives of the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, which is conducting the inquiry, also declined to comment.

In prosecuting a former Defense Department analyst and two pro-Israel lobbyists for allegedly spreading sensitive national-security information about U.S. policy in the Middle East, the Bush administration is making use of a statute whose origins lie in the first anxious days of World War I.

The Espionage Act makes it a crime for a government official with access to "national defense information" to communicate it intentionally to any unauthorized person. A 1950 amendment aimed at Soviet spying broadened the law, forbidding an unauthorized recipient of the information to pass it on, or even to keep it himself.

The Justice Department said "there plainly is no exemption" for the media, but added: A "prosecution under the espionage laws of an actual member of the press for publishing classified information leaked to it by a government source would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly; indeed, the fact that there has never been such a prosecution speaks for itself."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002846981_leaks06.html
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posted March 06, 2006 04:21 PM              

I truly feel sorry for you Americans!

The most liberal nation is becoming non-liberal!

posted March 06, 2006 05:42 PM              

Yes, AG...

Check out the link.....while humorous...it's the frightening truth!!!!!

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0603/mark-fiore.php

posted March 06, 2006 06:08 PM            

It is a violation of the Espionage Act to pass on classified information to those without the security clearance to receive it. It's also a violation of their security clearance and agreement which they signed.

So, Bill Press, Bill Moyers are wrong which is default mode for members of the leftist press. The government is entirely right and entirely within the government's right to go after anyone who reveals classified information.

All the treasonous members of the press who have tipped off enemies of the United States about what we know about them and how we target them need to spend some time at Club Fed.

Not only that, but those who are leaking the information need a good long prison sentence.

The government is not using prior restraint to prohibit the press from printing anything. However when they actually do print or otherwise disclose classified information, they are violating the security laws of the US and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

posted March 06, 2006 08:40 PM              

quote:

---

It is a violation of the Espionage Act to pass on classified information to those without the security clearance to receive it. It's also a violation of their security clearance and agreement which they signed.

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quote:

---

All the treasonous members of the press who have tipped off enemies of the United States about what we know about them and how we target them need to spend some time at Club Fed.

---

If your concern is that the press is passing classified information to our enemies, my question is who gave it to the press in the first place? I think maybe they should be your real target.

So, what do you think, Jwhop? Should we put those nosy reporters in one of Bush's secret prisons? Wouldn't that be amusingly ironic!

posted March 06, 2006 08:53 PM              

does this mean..the government..no longer works..

Has it become too corrupt?

it's been this way since the beginning..

10 20 30 thousand years we've been doing this?
since our last fall..we don't want to fall do we?

we need an awakening of Spirit Love..to Over soul to God..

posted March 06, 2006 09:03 PM              

I have always taught my daughter's to respect all as equal's..are any of you parents?..Would you teach your children that it is okay to disrespect the President of the United States of America?
would you allow your children to disrespect your parents? Do you allow them to disrespect YOU?

posted March 06, 2006 10:11 PM            

quote:

---

If your concern is that the press is passing classified information to our enemies, my question is who gave it to the press in the first place? I think maybe they should be your real target.

---

Exactly TINK, who leaked classified information to the press? The press who then printed the information or otherwise spread it.

The purpose of a grand jury is to get the facts of alleged illegal activity. I did say reporters should be given a chance to identify the leaker of classified information to them.

I see no reason Leavenworth wouldn't be a suitable Federal vacation site for both the leaker and the reporter...along with any editor who knew and permitted the classified information to be printed or passed on.

This is not the leaking of embarrassing information about the government or about people in the government. This is a direct attempt to thwart the monitoring and detection of plans of terrorists and their connections.

This is a serious jail time offense against the security interests of the United States. Further, Bush warned the NY Times the information was classified...and indeed it was classified. Perhaps the most highly classified program in the United States. Now, gone up in smoke because of a government leaker and the NY Times.

So, I'll shed no tears if or when they all get frog marched into a grand jury room or before a Federal Judge.

posted March 06, 2006 10:50 PM              

BUSH DECLARES WAR ON FREEDOM OF PRESS
March 6, 2006 07:44 AM.

By Doug Thompson

Using many of the questionable surveillance and monitoring techniques
that brought both questions and criticism to his administration, President
George W. Bush has launched a war against reporters who write stories
unfavorable to his actions and is planning to prosecute journalists
to make examples of them in his "war on terrorism."

Bush recently directed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to use
"whatever means at
your disposal" to wiretap, follow, harass and investigate
journalists who have published stories about the administration's
illegal use of warrantless wiretaps, use of faulty intelligence and
anything else he deems "detrimental to the war on terror."

Reporters for The New York Times, which along with Capitol Hill
Blue revealed use of the National Security Agency to monitor
phone calls and emails of Americans, say FBI agents have
interviewed them and criminal prosecutors at the Justice
Department admit they are laying "the groundwork for a
grand jury that could lead to criminal charges,"

CIA Director Porter Goss told Congress recently that
"it is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a
grand jury investigation with reporters present being
asked to reveal who is leaking this information. I
believe the safety of this nation and the people of
this country deserve nothing less."

As part of the investigation, the Justice Department,
Department of Homeland Security and the National
Security Agency are wiretapping reporters' phones,
following journalists on a daily basis, searching their
homes and offices under a USA Patriot Act provision
that allows "secret and undisclosed searches" and
pouring over financial and travel records of hundreds
of Washington-based reporters.

Spokesmen for the Justice Department and

Department of Homeland Security admit there

are "ongoing investigations" regarding publication
of stories "involving threats to national security"
but will not reveal what those investigations include.

In addition to using the USA Patriot Act to pry into
the lives of journalists, the Justice Department has
also dusted off a pre-World War I law to prosecute
people who receive classified information, although
the law was aimed at military personnel not civilians

This is the first administration
that I can remember,
including Nixon's, that said we need to think about
a law that would put journalists who print national
security things up in front of grand juries and put
them in jail if they don't
reveal their sources," says David Gergen, who
served as President Regan's director
of
communication and also worked in
the Nixon and Ford
White Houses.

Political scientist George Harleigh,
who worked
in the Nixon administration,
says such use of federal
law enforcement
authority was illegal when Nixon
tried
it and still so today.

"We're talking about a basic violation of the
Constitutional guarantee of a free press as well as a violation of the
rights of privacy of American citizens," Harleigh says. "I had hoped
we would have learned our
lessons from the Nixon era.
Sadly, it appears we have not."

In recent weeks, the FBI has issued hundreds of
"National Security Letters," directing employers, banks, credit card
companies, libraries and other entities to turn over records on reporters.
Under the USA Patriot Act, those who must turn over the records are
also prohibited from revealing
they have done so to the subject of the federal probes.

The significance of this cannot be overstated,"
says prominent New York litigator Glenn Greenwald. "In essence,
while the President sits in the White House undisturbed after proudly
announcing that he has been breaking the law and will continue to
do so, his slavish political appointees at the Justice Department are using the
mammoth law enforcement powers of the federal government to
find and criminally prosecute those who brought this illegal
conduct to light.

"This flamboyant use of the forces of criminal
prosecution to threaten whistle-blowers and intimidate journalists
are nothing more than the naked tactics of street thugs and
authoritarian juntas."

Just how widespread, and uncontrolled, this latest
government assault has become hit close to home last week
when one of the FBI's National
Security Letters arrived at the company that hosts the servers for this web site,
Capitol Hill Blue.

The letter demanded traffic data, payment records
and other information about
the web site along with information on me, the publisher..

Now that's a problem. I own the company that hosts
Capitol Hill Blue. So, in effect, the feds want me to turn over
information on myself and not tell myself that I'm doing it. You'd
think they'd know better.

I turned the letter over to my
lawyer and told him to send
the following message to the feds:

fu*k you. Strong letter to follow.

posted March 06, 2006 11:13 PM            

quote:

---

Bush recently directed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to use "whatever
means at your disposal" to wiretap, follow, harass and investigate journalists who have published stories about the administration's illegal use of warrantless wiretaps, use of faulty intelligence and anything else he deems "detrimental to the war on terror."

---

Don't you think this is over gilding the Lilly Rainbow, even for the lying Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue?

I don't recall Bush making any such announcement or Gonzales either...wiretap, follow, harass and investigate journalists.

Fact is Rainbow, the so called domestic spying wasn't domestic spying at all. It was international to the US or visa versa. And it wasn't spying on granny talking to her grandkids, it was monitoring telephone numbers of known or suspected terrorists abroad or here in the US..or those who were talking to terrorists.

Nevertheless, drag those reporters in front of a grand jury and let them either reveal who leaked classified information to them or else sit their sorry @sses in a jail cell until they're ready to talk.

Further, there was and is nothing illegal about monitoring terrorists or enemies of the US in time of war. The President has the constitutional authority, the statutory authority and the judicary has already ruled the President has the inherent authority to do so.

posted March 06, 2006 11:25 PM            

quote:

---

I have always taught my daughter's to respect all as equal's..are any of you parents?..Would you teach your children that it is okay to disrespect the President of the United States of America?
would you allow your children to disrespect your parents? Do you allow them to disrespect YOU?

sarcasm and humor, I love them..but when is it over the line?

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posted March 06, 2006 11:42 PM              

everyOne is always looking for a scapegoat..
someone to blame..

posted March 07, 2006 12:33 AM              

...but then I suppose that
Hitler got a lot of respect
from his people too...
(I mean, after all....it was
his due.. since it's not nice
to disrespect your
leader)

posted March 07, 2006 12:39 AM              

I guess I could just shut
my mouth, and pray for
dubya...begging GOD to
please give him an
epiphany, before we all
sink deeper and deeper into
his dictatorial grasp!!!!!!

posted March 07, 2006 02:50 AM            

quote:

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the lying Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue

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