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Lawmaker Reintroduces WikiLeaks Prosecution Bill
angry tapir writes "New legislation in the US Congress targets WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for espionage prosecution. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, introduced the Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination, or SHIELD, Act (read the bill here [PDF]). The bill would clarify US law by saying it is an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the US military or intelligence community."
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed, and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.
More to the point, he had his sentence commuted because Bush thought 30 months for endangering the life of a intelligence operative was excessive:
From the wikipedia article you cite:
"After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions.[17] That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation."
He was still punished, but whether a fine and probation is enough is questionable...
Anonymous seems to have stumbled upon a much bigger problem. Read Glen Greenwald's piece on the collaboration between DoJ, BoA and rogue 'security' companies. Greenwald was to be personally targeted, and now he's taking names:
It's his most powerful piece to date.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
...and I thought SHIELD was the organisation with Samuel L. Jackson in it?
You're off by 90 degrees.
David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD
Keep in mind that we don't even know that Bradley Manning was the one who leaked the information. The only "evidence" anybody knows about is simply an accusation by someone else... someone who happens to have been convicted before of hacking into computers...
The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 3.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Except it's already been done, and relatively recently: telcom companies were given retroactive immunity for participation in the Bush warantless wiretapping program.
Make no mistake: despite what politicians of both sides of the aisle say, no Republican, and far too few Democrats, really know or agree with what's actually in the Constitution.
Libby was convicted on counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, not actually outing Plame.
In 2005, during the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, King said the crosshairs ought to be set on the news media, which weren't tough enough on her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, rather than Karl Rove. King also suggested that the media "be shot" for pursuing the story and identifying White House aide Karl Rove as the alledged leaker.[6]
Fandroids hate facts.
The US informers involved with "that company" where left in Iraq. Many where systematically 'lost' in the fog of war, like they where on some list.
The movie Fair Game hints at the details http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0977855/
As for US law, this will be very chilling on the press. From the 1920's and 30's books on US ww1 code breaking to the Pentagon papers, NSA books ect. US law has been clear about the freedom to publish. What has been published is mostly collected from the press, been cleared or hints at deep crime, useless hardware/software, limited hangout efforts, pure propaganda or PR.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Lets make sure it's retroactive so Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney can go to jail for espionage as well! After all they did compromise the identity of a secret agent of the CIA.
Classified documents become declassified once they're in the wild.>
By common sense, yes, by law, no. The executive order handling classified information (currently #13526) explicitly states "Classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar information." in part 1, section 1.1c.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Libby did not endanger the life of an intelligence operative. He didn't even reveal the name of an intelligence operative. All he did was recount a telephone conversation under oath differently than the other party to that conversation did. I do not understand how his lawyer failed to present reasonable doubt that the reporter (who was the other party to the conversation) remembered correctly, or that Libby legitimately remembered the conversation as he recounted it. That being said, when the prosecutor questioned Libby, the prosecutor already knew that Richard Armitage was the person who had revealed Valerie Plame's name (Richard Armitage was, at the time he revealed her name, trying to undermine the Bush case for war with Iraq--whether that played any role in him revealing her name is unknown, but doubtful).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Plame's name was dropped in front of Richard Armitage and others, under ambiguous circumstances. Libby and close associates of his were in the center of these "accidents". When the prosecutors tracked down the leaks to a specific timeline, and questioned Libby about key related conversations, from the investigator's POV, Libby appeared to fabricate an alibi from whole cloth.
So the circumstances strongly suggested that this "mistaken" recollection was not innocent.
And the jury all agreed. I would note that multiple jurors stated they believed Libby was a "Fall Guy".
There are two kinds of Fall Guy. There is the complete innocent who is framed on purpose or through bad luck, which is vastly more common in fiction than real life. And there is the very guilty Fall Guy, who is left holding the bag while more morally culpable individuals escape justice.
It is unambiguous the jurors were thinking of the second kind, which, if taken at face value, implies they believed there must have been a criminal conspiracy within the highest levels of government.
He was 'lying' in that his account of a certain set of dates recalled from memory differed slightly from someone else's recall of a certain set of dates, also from memory. Moreover, the judge threw out the expert witness that Libby wanted to use who would point out that memory is quite fallible.
Why is any of that relevant. Richard Armitage was someone who had clearance to know who Valerie Plame was and what she did. I find it hard to believe that he did not already know who she was and her relationship to Joe Wilson. However, that is beside the point. The prosecutor was commissioned to investigate who had revealed Valerie Plame's name to Richard Novak. He very quickly discovered that it was Richard Armitage. Why was the prosecutor still investigating when he knew who had revealed the name? And it was someone who would have had no part in "revenge" against Joe Wilson. There is no evidence that Libby ever revealed Valerie Plame's name to anyone who was not cleared to know it.
The prosecutor in this case was on a witch hunt and he was unwilling to end his investigation without charging someone with something...even though the "crime" he was investigating was not a crime (revealing Valerie Plame's name was not a violation of the law as it is written, which is why he did not charge Richard Armitage).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison