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Gonzales Says Publishing Leaks Is A Crime
loqi writes "The NY Times is reporting on a statement from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declaring that journalists may be prosecuted by the federal government for publishing classified information. On the 1st amendment ramifications: "'But it can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity,' he said. 'And so those two principles have to be accommodated.'" So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?"
Now I've gotten my joke in, for those too lazy to install the firefox bugmenot extension here's the article text:
Gonzales Says Prosecutions of Journalists Are Possible
The government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday.
"There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Mr. Gonzales said on the ABC News program "This Week."
"That's a policy judgment by the Congress in passing that kind of legislation," he continued. "We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected."
Asked whether he was open to the possibility that The New York Times should be prosecuted for its disclosures in December concerning a National Security Agency surveillance program, Mr. Gonzales said his department was trying to determine "the appropriate course of action in that particular case."
"I'm not going to talk about it specifically," he said. "We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity."
Though he did not name the statutes that might allow such prosecutions, Mr. Gonzales was apparently referring to espionage laws that in some circumstances forbid the possession and publication of information concerning the national defense, government codes and "communications intelligence activities."
Those laws are the basis of a pending case against two lobbyists, but they have never been used to prosecute journalists.
Some legal scholars say that even if the plain language of the laws could be read to reach journalists, the laws were never intended to apply to the press. In any event, these scholars say, prosecuting reporters under the laws might violate the First Amendment.
Mr. Gonzales said that the administration promoted and respected the right of the press that is protected under the First Amendment.
"But it can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity," he said. "And so those two principles have to be accommodated."
Mr. Gonzales sidestepped a question concerning whether the administration had been reviewing reporters' telephone records in an effort to identify their confidential sources.
"To the extent that we engage in electronic surveillance or surveillance of content, as the president says, we don't engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order," he said. "And obviously if, in fact, there is a basis under the Constitution to go to a federal judge and satisfy the constitutional standards of probable cause and we get a court order, that will be pursued."
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Here is the link to the leaked AT&T Court documents that were released on Wired this morning:
p df
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/att_klein_wired.
The Introduction to the Court Opinion on the New York Times Co. v. United States Case (the Pentagon Papers case) opens with:
There are some other choice tidbits in there... such as (emphasis added):
Hmm....
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
There is nothing to stop a newspaper from reporting a rape victim. The rape shield laws apply to court documents.
w ww.rcfp.org/news/2003/0926crowvl.html+newspaper+un dercover+officer&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3
See the following link about undercover officers, as it was all i could find:
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:aMy58CMCA8AJ:
I don't mean to brag about my country (although I enjoy it, it's such a rare occorance ;), but freedom is something we do really well. Infact of the four parts of the swedish constitution, the Freedom of the Press Act is the oldest one, dating back to 1766 (the three other parts are The Act of Succession, The Fundamental Law of Freedom of Expression and The Instrument of Government). That act also includes whats known as "Offentlighetsprincipen", roughly translated as "The Publicity Principle", stating that all government documents (with certain exceptions, such as documents that would endanger national security and documents relating to matters under investigation, although no document may be withheld more than X number of years (I believe X=70, but I'm not sure)) should be readily available to the entire public. Basically, it's the same as The Freedom of Information Act. But Offentlighetsprincipen was included into the constitution in 1766! 1766! The US got it's in 1966, 200 years later.
I realise that I sound like a ridiculous patriot here, and I don't mean to offend anybody. It's just that while My Country might be lacking in many areas where other nations excel, there is one thing nobody can beat us in: Freedom, Civil Liberties, and a the most solid defence against a corrupt government in history.
The full saying is "the pen is mightier than the sword under a benevolent master". Choose your own opinion about whether or not the second part of that applies right now
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
Bzzzt, thank you for playing.
The president has the authority to start the process to declassify things wherever he wants, like, actually, anyone who has access to classified material. If you know it exists, you can ask the right people to review the classification. He does not, however, have the authority to just say things outloud and magically declassify them.
Classification is a law, an ability granted under the law to the government. It's not something the president just invented. It is a legal process that the executive branch does, to classify and declassify information. This legal process is an external law, imposed by the legislative branch. (Because, duh, no one could be subject to criminal penalties for leaking otherwise.)
If anyone who is allowed to handle classifed information (That is, anyone who has signed the document they have to sign to do that.) leaks information that has not been though the procress and offically declassified, they are a criminal, as they have broken that law. Doesn't matter if they are the president, doesn't matter if they are the guy in charge of stamping 'Declassified' on the document and are five seconds away from doing so. The law requires the process, and the fact that the process is controlled by the executive branch doesn't mean people in the executive branch can ignore said process.(1)
Our president, of course, is rather confused about whether or not he has to follow laws passed by other branches of the government, but that's really hilarious when that logic tries to apply to classified data, as the concept of data being classified is, in fact, a concept that was invented by said laws.
This is all an aside to the question at hand here, which is whether or not someone who hasn't signed a documenting saying they won't leak classified info who receives and passes on said info can be punished, aka, an Official Secrets Acts. The US has not only never had one of those, there have been serious constitutional questions raised about such a thing in the past, back when we had a constitution.
1) OTOH, the president could probably alter the process to make it where he can get things declassified in minutes, by putting in people who would rubber-stamp his requests, or via all sorts of ways...but he didn't do that, so the issue is moot.
On the third hand, of course, the executive branch could just refuse to classify anything.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Well, I've never heard of a government being overthrown via a written document.
Magna Carta.
And why did King John sign the Magna Carta, again? Oh that's right, because if he didn't, all the nobles of England were threatening a civil war. So what was your point again?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
All the statistics showed that excluding 9/11, the various power grabs were followed by more people being killed by terrorists. So they stopped putting out the annual report...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
When confronted with the falsity of your statements, you resort to pedantry. You backed up your pedantry by citing the wrong law. The one you should have cited is here. Had you looked at the right law, you'd see that this law defers to Executive Order 12356 as to what is classified information. And Executive Order 12356 discusses declassification authority and states that material can be declassified by the person who classified it, or "the originator's successor; a supervisory official of either; or officials delegated such authority in writing." You think that the President might fall under the umbrella of "a supervisory official" of every single person in the Executive Branch? I do. So, no, the President doesn't have to put anything in writing or issue an executive order to declassify classified material. He can just do it.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
We have a radically different view here in Sweden on welfare, and we pay for it. I'm fine with paying higher taxes, as long as the government will take care of me,and my fellow citizens, when we need it. It's called a social contract. That makes us no less free (it's not communism), and alot more safe. I can understand the economic argument for lowering taxes, but what I don't get is how having a strong welfare state makes the government bad.
If you are a software developer and you want to live in Sweden, you want to apply for a software developer job in Ireland, get a work visa, establish residency (3-5 years), then move to Sweden for a year under a simple EU visa. During that year in Sweden, learn the language (if you haven't already), get a job (do not expect to find lots of jobs for software developers), and then apply for permanent residency (2-4 more years).
Ireland is currently the gateway into the EU for software developers as your job description results in an expedited work visa application, which is an effective pathway to EU residency. Once you have EU residency, you have a great deal of freedom to move around from there.
Regards,
Ross