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?"

Comments

Congress shall make no law...

[Ckwop]

Slimey bastards! I wonder what the fallen in the September 11th terrorist outrages would make of this. The US government has repeatedly used their memory to justify secrecy right across government. It is now trying to use their memory to to silence people who whistle-blow on their deepest darkest secrets. Well fuck them!

Quite frankly, I couldn't give the faintest whiff of shit what the Attorney General has to say about the issue. The Constitution trumps everything, the Attorney General include, and it states in no uncertain terms which the rights of citizens of the United States retain for themselves:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I don't see any exception for the state to keep secrets from the electorate. Bring the prosecutions and watch them fall one by one.

Simon

Re:Congress shall make no law...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyways, this creates a very unstable situation, since the Administration can leak (I mean, "selectively declassify") information any old time they feel like it in order to make political points.

Actually, as the head of the Executive Branch, the President is allowed to declassify just about anything he wants at any given time. The key is that it's usually a bad idea a) if American lives are on the line, or b) the operation/investigation is ongoing.

As someone who has had their life threatened by individuals in the US due to the incompetence of Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) - who does *not* have the legal authority to declassify - I don't think the Democrats have room to talk.

Re:Congress shall make no law...

[jusdisgi]

Wow. So many facts, and so little thought put into what they might mean.

First, your terrorism timeline is a lot of evidence that makes absolutely no point whatsoever. You appear to be trying to convince me that 9/11 wasn't the only terrorist attack ever. At least that's what I gather from "One event? I really don't know why you guys keep repeating this." But see, I never suggested that it was the only terrorist attack...in fact, the rest of my argument rather relies on the fact that terrorism has been and will be around for a long time. I said "the administration is using one event to justify..." and this is true. The administration used the single attack on 9/11 for its drum-beating and propagandizing. They didn't use "a decade-long string of terrorism" to woo the American people for their oil war, they used "9/11."

Before I continue, you do recognize that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, right? If in doubt, check with people for the new american century, a Dick Cheney think-tank. They had that war planned out at least as early as 1996, and you can download the pdf's that explain it in detail. In one place it even notes that it would require a "Pearl Harbor-esque" event to get public support for such a strategy. Well, looks like they got it.

What civil liberties have we lost? Did I miss something? The only civil liberty I've ever seen chipped away at in this country is the right to bear arms.

Yes, you missed something; do I have to repeat myself? The sentence after the one you quote listed several civil liberties (but certainly not a complete list) that have been lost under the administration since 9/11. Not that I'm the definitive source....why don't you go pick up a copy of the actual PATRIOT act and take a look for yourself? It's not really much other than a collection of new procedures for going past the bounds of what was previously acceptable law-enforcement.

No, my library records won't be searched. You think that Bush is sitting up at night thumbing through everyones personal records don't you?

Obviously Bush has lackeys for this. They're called cops. But now they can access library records without warrants. They couldn't do that before. This is what's called "loss of civil liberties." And I've got no idea what makes you so sure yours will be exempted.

[Call detail records] won't be analyzed by any human unless you happen to talk to a suspected terrorist.

Again, where are you getting this information? You work at the NSA? We have only very shaky promises from the administration that this is even limited to terrorism investigation. Hell, a couple weeks ago they were saying no data was collected at all on domestic calls. Furthermore, what difference does it make whether a human is doing the analyzing, versus a computer? I guess then it's OK to have a robot break into my house when I'm not there and take photos of everything inside? And if it finds something "flagged" as a likely terrorism indicator, then call the humans to have a look? I simply can't wrap my head around what here makes you think any of this is OK.

[Detention without attorney] happens during war. See WW2 for a recent example. We don't need to let non-citizens see lawyers.

First, we are not currently at war. Second, some of the people we have detained were American citizens.

I see, you would rather more Americans die than we torture known terrorists.

This statement assumes at least two facts not in evidence. First, it assumes that everyone we've tortured is a "known terrorist." Certainly you can't prove that, and in fact I think it would be a lot easier to prove the opposite claim. But the other, dumber assumption is that torture saves American lives. I double-dog-dare you to show even one instance where this was the case. John McCain (my favorite Republican) triple-dog-dares you. And finally, let me say that yes, even if it could be shown that we

Gonzo needs to go back to law school.

[DougLorenz]

Gonzo claims in the article that:

"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, according to the U.S. Attorney General, the first amendment is a great right, but it can't be allowed when it gets in the way of law enforcement. I wonder if he feels the same things about other Constitutional amendments which restrict law enforcement, like the fourth and fifth amendments. I'm sure that the people who wrote those Constitutional Amendments didn't really mean for them to limit the power of government (BTW, that's sarcasm...)

Of course, we really have to consider that the federal government should only be going after criminal activity when such criminal activity is actually present. Something cannot be a crime when the law which makes it a crime is not constitutional.

There is a reason why we have made freedom of the press a nearly absolute right. Throughout history we have seen that hiding the activities of government creates corruption, and even when the media is biased, we need them to be able to get the issues out to the public so that they can be discussed.

It is also interesting to see the philosophy involved in Gonzo's "Pass the Buck" stragegy. He wants to claim that it isn't the Bush administration that is going after the reporters, it's actually Congress that passed the laws which REQUIRE the Bush administration to go after the press.

"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."

I guess that what really bothers me is that good Republicans who should really know better, individuals who have long complained about the growing powers of the federal government, should be more concerned about this. They need to come to their senses and realize that Bush is not helping the ideologies that make the Republican Party, and they need to abandon him.

Nixon was run out of office not by Democrats, and not even by the Washington Post reporters. He was run out of office by fellow Republicans who came to him and told him that he had become an embarrassment, and it was time for him to resign. Modern day Republican leaders have to do the same thing and rid us of our modern day Nixon.

What if the white house does the leaking?

[MECC]

Is it illegal then? Even if its just to get back at political rivals? Even if the white house says "go ahead and leak to the press"? That's not illegal, but non-white house leaks are? Can you spell "corruption"?

I knew you could...

Re:Military is supposed to "Defend the Constitutio

[Just Another Perl Ha]

That's funny.... it looks like they removed a word from that oath since I took it back in 1985. The phrase

"and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me..."

...used to read...

"and that I will obey the lawful orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me..."

Now... I wonder who took that word out of there, hmmmm?

Re:Uh.

[dhasenan]

As long as you have the myth that anyone can be well off if they work hard enough, Americans will keep sucking it up. Once poverty is a source of guilt, you can control the poor; and if you're the rich, you can increase the poverty gap as much as you like.

Re:Chilling effects!

[AhtirTano]

No, I'm not for prosecuting journalists, but the 1st amendment gives us all freedom of speech and freedom of the press - narrowing down who gets freedom of the press - in this case journalists - only serves to defeat the amendment. I'm tired of seeing the press get a free ticket because they are "real professionals" and people like bloggers get written off, as if the founding fathers intended the right to apply to only those who attended journalism school.

I think this is a result of the language changing a bit since 1776. The phrase "the press" used as reference to journalists dates back to roughly 1910-20. The earliest recording of this use in the OED is 1926, but it is safe to bet the phrase was in use 10 years previous (though it's impossible to be sure).

The OED gives the meaning of "freedom of the press" as

free use of the printing-press; the right to print and publish anything without submitting it to previous official censorship;

They provide a few sentences written around the time of the Constitution to support this interpretation. This definition should cover bloggers, pamphleteers--anyone who publishes information. You can bet the founding fathers would not have censored someone who handwrote their newspaper, despite the lack of a printing-press in the process.

But because of the way English is used nowadays, politicians are getting away with claiming the constitution references professional journalism, and few are aware that this is a shift in meaning. The cynical side of me wants to say that professional journalists won't cry foul, because it helps limit their competition; but I'm not sure I'm jaded enough to really believe that yet.