posted May 26, 2006 10:53 AM              

"Any one who is willing to give up their freedom in the name of security deserves neither."

The war on free press
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist May 24, 2006

JOURNALISTS. Get the rack ready! Our attorney general is coming for us, snarling like a guard dog at Abu Ghraib.

On Sunday, Alberto Gonzales told ABC's ``This Week" that he would consider prosecuting reporters who get their hands on classified information and break news about President Bush's terrorist surveillance program. ``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, adding at one point, ``We have an obligation to enforce those laws."
Asked more specifically if The New York Times should be prosecuted for its initial story on government surveillance without warrants, Gonzales said, ``We are engaged now in an investigation about what would be the appropriate course of action."

It is almost funny to see Gonzales scour the statutes to harass journalists. This is the same administration that cannot spell the word law if you spot it the ``l" and the ``a." It has already set the presidential record in claiming the authority to circumvent the law in more than 750 cases.

Gonzales has been a prime cowboy in circling the wagons against the law. He issued the infamous ``torture memo" that advised President Bush to throw the Geneva Convention into the trash can for detainees in the war on terror.

Because the war ``is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war," Gonzales reasoned to Bush, ``in my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, script (i.e. advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms and scientific instruments."

We saw where Gonzales's desire to deny a detainee a trip to the commissary to get a candy bar and some gym clothes got us eventually: Abu Ghraib, the symbol of America's abuse of global statutes.

Gonzales was a prime force in other matters to seal off the Bush White House from accountability when he was White House counsel. He helped the administration block and drag its feet on the release of presidential papers from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and the papers of John Roberts as he was being considered for the Supreme Court. Gonzales helped to withhold or delay highly classified documents from the president's own 9/11 Commission and from the Government Accountability Office concerning the energy task force of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Bruce Craig, executive director of the National Coalition for History, called the Bush roadblocks on presidential papers ``a disaster for history." Gonzales remains in the lead of this disastrous presidency. A few weeks before it was revealed that the administration's phone-record collecting was domestic as well as international, Gonzales was asked at a House hearing if he thought the administration could monitor domestic calls without warrants. His answer was, ``I wouldn't rule it out."

Now, we have the FBI trying to get the papers of the late columnist Jack Anderson. We already knew what low regard Bush had for the press before he got into the Oval Office. On the 2000 presidential campaign, he told Cheney, ``There's Adam Clymer -- major-league [expletive] from The New York Times." Cheney responded, ``Oh yeah, he is, big time."

Six years later, Gonzales's comment, combined with the past, make you wonder when we are going to hear about a Nixonian enemies list. In Richard Nixon's administration, Watergate masterminds actually thought about killing Anderson with LSD, and Attorney General John Mitchell threatened Katharine Graham, the late Washington Post publisher, by saying she would have her breast caught in a wringer.

We have not heard of anything that incredible yet. But there is nothing to suggest that this administration is going to do anything else but sink deeper into secrecy. On Monday, Bush tried to plug the leaks in his plunging popularity over Iraq by saying ``Freedom is moving, but it's in incremental steps."

It is impossible to take Bush seriously on that concept when, at home, he is attempting to circumvent Congress and prosecuting one of the most important institutions for free speech. Gonzales told ABC, ``I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to promote and respect, the right of the press." The actions of Gonzales show how little the Bush administration promotes the rights of the press. With every pronouncement, freedom is disappearing, in incremental steps.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com

posted May 26, 2006 01:20 PM            

No get out of jail free cards.

No reporter, indeed no "person" has the right to reveal top secret programs to anyone and I mean anyone who does not have the proper security clearance to receive it.

Imagine how this leftist cabal of traitors in the press would have revealed the plans of the Normandy Invasion to the Germans in WWII.

Freedom of the Press, Freedom of the Press they would have howled as they were led off in handcuffs....as they would have been.

Put them in jail and bring them into court once a month until they tell the Justice Department who in the government violated the security laws of the United States and placed Americans at risk by giving terrorists classified information about secret programs used by American Intelligence Services to identify, locate and thwart terrorists bent on attacking the United States.

posted May 26, 2006 05:29 PM            

The US government cannot practice prior restraint against the press and prevent them from printing or broadcasting a story. But they sure as hell can prosecute them when they reveal classified information in news stories or by any other method.

Now is the time to fire a shot across the bow of the traitorous press. They are not exempt from the laws of the United States and their rights do not extend to either treason or breaching the security laws of the United States.

An indictment by a federal grand jury followed by arrest, prosecution and conviction in a federal court should proceed immediately and then prison.

Exactly what would happen you to or to me or to any other citizen...and should.

posted May 26, 2006 07:23 PM              

If you had said anything different I would have gone into shock.

Do you want a dictatorship in the U.S.,Jwhop? Because most of the time it sounds like you do from the things that you say. Don't you think that the American public has a right to know that the government is listening into the phone calls of American citizens?

If a government is allowed to do anything they wish without anyone questioning it or even if it is against the Constitution that would be a dicatorship.

posted May 26, 2006 07:47 PM            

quote:

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What law are you citing that says rendition or sending terrorists to foreign prisions is illegal under US law?

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You're not serious here, are you? You seem to be having some serious issues lately.

First, the minor detail is that I didn't say it was illegal to send a prisoner to a foreign prison.

Second, why would you keep a secret prison? The obvious answers are that you'd be able to secretly detain certain people (which could be used later as a political ploy), and the other reason is so that you may treat the prisoner inhumanely and outside of the standards of American or international law.

quote:

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The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html

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posted May 26, 2006 08:36 PM            

You said

quote:

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Jwhop, there's quite a bit of difference between revealing plans for invasion, and revealing secret prisons that operate outside of the law. We are a country based on honor, integrity, humanity, and lawfulness.

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Don't you even read what you're typing?

I asked you to cite US law which says rendition is illegal or shipping terrorists to foreign prisons is illegal.

Mirandee, you're close to losing your grip on reality...if you haven't already done so.

posted May 26, 2006 10:22 PM            

"We are a country based on honor, integrity, humanity, and lawfulness. The creation of secret prisons which may allow torture or worse without any legal supervision circumvents everything we stand for as a nation."

We're not talking about rendition or shipping terrorists to foreign prisons being illegal. Only you could get that from what I said.

What is illegal is operating a prison outside of the supervision of the law. That is the illegal and immoral part.

posted May 26, 2006 11:49 PM            

Definitions too!

Has it ever occurred to you that which is "outside the law" is therefore "unlawful".

That which is "unlawful" IS "illegal"

That which is "outside the law" IS illegal.

You made 2 references to illegality.

1. rendition/secret prisons being "outside the law".

2. stating the US is based on "lawfulness" and contrasting that with rendition/secret prisons...which you had already declared to be "outside the law"

Now, you go further and state:

quote:

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What is illegal is operating a prison outside of the supervision of the law. That is the illegal and immoral part.

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But, in the same post, you said:

quote:

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We're not talking about rendition or shipping terrorists to foreign prisons being illegal. Only you could get that from what I said.

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You sound very confused acoustic

And, you're still ducking, bobbing, weaving and evading the question.

Now, you've restated your premise the US is engaged in illegal activity.

Cite the US law being violated by the United States government by rendition and secret prisons for foreign terrorists who are not within the jurisdiction of United States Courts.

Double talk/kiddie talk doesn't work with me acoustic

posted May 27, 2006 04:52 AM            

Rendition has nothing to do with this. How many times do we have to go over this? It's not me who's having trouble with words. Here's the definition of 'rendition'

2 : extradition of a fugitive who has fled to another state

We are not talking about rendition. Rendition is obviously legal. Secret prisons without lawful supervision are illegal. They are not the same thing by any definition. If you think otherwise, state your case.

quote:

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Cite the US law being violated by the United States government by rendition and secret prisons for foreign terrorists who are not within the jurisdiction of United States Courts.

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You're doing it again... asking me to try to make your point. If you have a point you better get to making it.

I see you're equally as dismissive as Bush about McCain's amendment to this years Defense Appropriations Act. Not to mention the Convention Against Torture the U.S. helped push through the U.N., and for which we are a standing monitor.

posted May 27, 2006 11:19 AM            

Rendition...as it's used by the United States...and as it's understood by the press and by the people of the United States IS the removal of terrorists and suspected terrorists to prisons in other countries.

Now, like the arrested development psychological 5 year old, you are whining, screeching, moaning and stamping your little feet claiming illegality by the United States..supposedly because the US is operating prisons outside the United States and therefore outside the jurisdiction of United States courts.

But, like a 5 year old kiddie, you continue to evade, to duck, to bob and to weave every time I ask you to cite the United States law the United States is violating.

Do you want me to find some 2 and 3 letter words to spell it out so you can understand the question?