Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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
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.
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.
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.
Slashdot, where you get modded down as redundant for stating an opposing viewpoint... Independent thought anyone?
What I can't quote are "some statutes" that Mr. Gonzales is referring to. And, frankly, I don't give a damn what they say. There's nothing that could convince me to give up or sacrifice any part of the First Amendment.
I believe my government has a duty to protect the information that is important or sensitive. If the government fails to do adequately protect this information then it should not be illegal for an instution of the press to point it out. If by doing so they print the classified information then so be it. The people have a right to know the shortcomings of their government whether they be scandal or lack of security.
I fear that if they make this illegal, it will also be illegal to point out inadequacies of the government &, before we know it, the press will be unable to criticize the government. Releasing information of sensitivity is a form of criticism and should be treated as such.
My work here is dung.
"...journalists may be persecuted by the federal government for publishing classified information".
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
When the federal government invokes the "national security" card over and over again as it has in recent months and years, it is no longer national security that's at issue but abuse of power and the covering up of mistakes.
--Udo.
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 US federal government is becoming too powerful, and it needs to stop.
I'm not sure who added the final blurb, "So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?", but that entirely reminded me recently of another "trump" made recently. "The decision means that federal anti-drug laws trump state laws that allow the use of medical marijuana, said CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Ten states have such laws."
I'm dead serious here. If the federal government keeps on their power trip fascism journey, well, they will be in for a rude awakening. This kind of government is one that will either start a civil war or a revolt by the people. I'm dead serious.
Once people's standard of living here goes down a few notches, which is already happening with the skyrocketing cost of housing. But as soon as people get to a point where they cannot afford the basics anymore, or when something like Social Security goes bust, we will loose faith in the government, and that will be it.
So, you feds, watch your step.
Wait--it's only okay for them to publish classified information if it embarrasses the (admittedly bloodly stupid) government, or needs to be released. Good thing we have honest, upstanding, selfless journalists to handle those decisions, then.
Good thinking, Slashdot.
Have we considered, perhaps, taking a more nuanced position?
~Idarubicin
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...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
The bit where it says "unless Gonzales says so" at the end. Granted its written in Crayon, but it is a sacred document so you have to follow it to the letter.
I have to side with "it depends" group. If someone is publishing the nuclear launch codes, the names of our spy agents (or any other covert team, like Navy seals and their accomplishments), plans for a strategic strike, etc (basically something that can cost people their lives if the news got out) then I am for - yea your ass is going to jail for being a dick. This includes things like "we are investigating a known terrorist, and since you just published his face in the paper he went so far underground he won't even be able to find his asshole to wipe it after he takes a dump"...
I understand what the otherside is doing "but what if the gov't names granny apple as a terrorist when she really is a sweet old lady who gives people apples...who can help her if we cant talk about it." Well this is where the gov't is wrong and the journalist should be allowed.
We get in trouble when we speak of absolutes, and there are people on one side of the fence who say 100% 1st amendment right trumps. and people on the other side of the fence who say 100% National Security trumps. They are both wrong - it needs to be a depends. The journalist needs to use common sense, and the courts can prevail. If the journalist was doing something in the best act for our nation then kudos for him/her...if the jurnalist was only thinking about the Pulitzer Prize - well depending on the damage he/she may have caused they may be rightfully getting it post humously.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Seems currently in the USA the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but not freedom after speech...
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
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!
The government will always state that anything they don't want the public to know about is a national security risk in some form or another. This danger becomes even more severe as we enter into this new type of "War on Terror" where the proponents of such war would like to have the public believing that there are hobgoblins hiding in every shadow. If they can convince the public that everything is a threat, then everything becomes an issue of national security. And once everything becomes an issue of national security, and is classified accordingly, then there is no reason to worry about those pesky journalists.
I have mentioned this in previous discussions, and I will bring it up again. I am not comfortable with one branch of government having the sole power to determine what the public is and is not allowed to see. This is the situation we are beginning to fall into. We have been here before, with Nixon using the national security argument in an effort to protect his activities.
There isn't an independent clearing house for verifying whether something is national security or not, and since I don't trust giving the power to decide this to a single branch of government, I would rather error on the side of caution and support the Constitutional protection of a free press. Without this protection, only a fool would trust the government.
Show me one example where the press has even tried to publish troop locations or a LEGAL military strategy. Of course, some people could argue that exposing the secret prison facilities is just such a case, while I disagree with the legality of the issue. However, we wouldn't even have the ability to argue whether the government's actions are legal or illegal if it were not for the media forcing the issue into the public discussion.
Slashdot, where you get modded down as redundant for stating an opposing viewpoint... Independent thought anyone?
The right comparison is the other genocidal dickhead. The Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli one. Just ask any Russian speaker for a comparison of Bushisms with koba's pearls of wisdom. There is a clear one-to-one match there as well as a one-to-one match with Koba's vindictiveness, paranoia and simulated stupidity.
This is also the scarier comparison. 'cause for all of his efforts Hitler never reached a fraction of Stalin's body count.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
-- ac at work
Actually, they are. They are specifically cited as a special protected group in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Congress is specifically prevented from making any law abridging the freedom of the press.
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.
"I believe the relevant expression is: The constitution is not a suicide pact."
"Let's think about this for a moment - a group of farmers, lawyers, and businessmen sign their names to an open declaration of treason against the Crown, which controls the largest empire and the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and whose punishment for treason is generally death, and it's *NOT* a suicide pact?! I just love that one. Had the revolution turned out the way that any logically thinking person would have expected (it certainly hadn't completely succeeded just yet - see: War of 1812), every man whose name appeared on that Constitution would have been executed to serve as an example of what happens to traitors. These men put liberty far above their personal safety in the face of nearly certain death - but hey, it's not a suicide pact or anything." - NJ_Gent (2004)
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Tell that to England (IRA bombings) or Israel, which seem to function just fine.
In fact, England seemed to chug right along during WW2, when they were getting bombed to pieces. The difference is, the government back then told people to keep going despite the bombings, instead of trying to frighten the populace in order to grab (more) control.
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
The constitution is not a suicide pact.
Cowards who value their lives more than their freedoms are the fundamental building blocks -- the foundation -- upon which every house of tyrants is built. If you are seriously arguing that the rights of the people to be secure in the persons or to have the actions of their government made accountable and open to them are less important than their so-called safety, then you are a morally treasonous coward. You are the brick and mortar of a police state, and I grieve that my country has made so many of you.
Or, as Patrick Henry -- one the men instrumental in both the revolution and in pushing for the adoption of the Bill of Rights specifically to limit the power of the federal goverment -- said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Where do you go? You stay RIGHT THERE, and FIGHT for your freedom, dammit!!!
The US is quickly falling into a totalitarian state because of ONE REASON: The populace allows it. The PEOPLE are letting the government get away with this! YOU are letting the government get away with this!
Gonzales supports torturing prisoners to get information. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and others selected Bush as their champion to invade Iraq and sieze control of the middle-east almost two years before he was nominated for the presidency. Oh, and let's not forget the US government deporting Canadian citizens to other countries where they'll be tortured, as happened with Maher Arar.
Then consider how the government treats its own people: Spying on them illegally, trashing the first ammendment, and imprisoning them.
Why are you letting these people walk through the streets freely? Why are you letting them run your lives? Why are YOU PERSONALLY not standing up against them, and fighting for everything that they're destroying, after two and a quarter centuries?
Quit complaining. Fight for your lauded rights. Fight with words and law and accountability, or later on you'll be fighting with knives and guns and molotov cocktails.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
here on Earth emotions trump logic. Terrorism, by its definition is fear. Fear of random, horrifying, deadly violence against your family and friends and countrymen.
But terrorism only works when you let yourself be afraid. We don't have to be afraid. The government and the media are both very interested in having us be afraid. The government wants it because that fear can be translated into reasons for expansions of power, which eventually reward the corporations who pay the lobbyists that compensate the politicians. The media wants it because that fear translates into more advertising dollars during the airtime that panders to fear.
But you don't have to accept either group's assertion that you should be afraid. You should think carefully and act rationally and live your life deliberately aligned with your principles. Being afraid of the vague threat of terrorism doesn't do that. It directly and completely prevents that.
people react with emotion. The[y] feel fear. They also feel an incredibly strong, compelling emotion for justice and to make things right. I do not mock this, I salute it.
You're conflating a bunch of things together as if they were the same thing. They're not. Having a healthy understanding of risk means avoiding dangerous situations based on a reasonable fear of harm. Being paralyzed by fear to the point that you're willing to sacrifice your freedoms to feel a little security is pure insanity. Wanting to find and punish those who have harmed us is a healthy desire for justice. Wanting to keep anyone who might harm us locked away without any charge or even a promise of a trial runs afoul of so many principles Americans should hold dear (prior restraint, innocent until proven guilty, due process, etc.) that the fear has again caused people to set aside their core principles.
Pure insanity. There is no reason to be so afraid. There is good reason to want to correct what has gone wrong. There is good reason to want to make sure that the police can do their jobs. There is no reason to believe that the police couldn't do their job with the laws before 9/11.
You are a slave to the fear you have been told to feel and I pity you. As long as you are afraid, you will never be free.
Regards,
Ross
While I believe the actions going after the "whistleblowers" in this case may be quite overzealous. They did release classified information, and that has always been wrong. Whether or not that information should be classified is debatable, and whether or not the government should be collecting it is also debatable. But anyone charged can have that debate during their trial.
That debate is pointless if the law explicitly states that state secrets trump press freedom in all cases. The Chilling Effect is already present and all that is left is for the brave to sacrifice themselves needlessly. I believe that the balance of power should always be in the favor of the people and not in favor of the appointed guardians of the people.
If the Rosenbergs had given the details on the bomb to a newspaper to be printed, instead of handing it over to the Soviets, do you think they should have been protected just because a newspaper has a right to publish under the first amendment?
No, in that case the secret of the state was a particular weapons technology. That we had such a device was already public knowledge. The people in fact had a right to know that we had the bomb once it was used. The implementation details of how to make such a weapon however did not need to be as it was not a significant threat to the liberty of the people to be deprived of such knowledge. No political party or movement could be persecuted or intimidated and democracy is not threatened by nuclear weapon implementation details.
That's an essential difference between these two example. However, a program that spies on the activity of Americans that was kept secret from the people is another thing because it is ripe for abuse. In this case, the state secret is that it is acting in a manner that is arguably counter to the interests of the people. That sort of secret should never be kept.
Given the actions of the current administration against peace groups and the historical precident of what happened to civil rights leaders during the 1960s, I cannot trust the government not to ever use this power against its own citizens for "ends justify the means" purposes.
To let the executive branch should have the power to simply quash all public debate on its actions by slapping a security clearance on its programs is extremely dangerous. It's a Soviet-like power grab. To say that the people do not have a right to know (and thus be able to protest) some of the actions of their government is to forfit all your power over government in these areas. Any place in government where the people do not have control is a crack in the levee and will widen over time as our current adminstration is making more and more clear each day.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").