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US Pressing Its Crackdown Against Leaks
NotSanguine writes with this quote from a NY Times article:
"The Justice Department shows no sign of rethinking its campaign to punish unauthorized disclosures to the news media, with five criminal cases so far under President Obama, compared with three under all previous presidents combined. This week, a grand jury in Virginia heard testimony in a continuing investigation of WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy group, a rare effort to prosecute those who publish secrets, rather than those who leak them. The string of cases reflects a broad belief across two administrations and in both parties in Congress that leaks have gotten out of hand, endangering intelligence agents and exposing American spying methods."
Is paid for by the public, so is owned by the public. ( well so is classified, but there is a difference )
The government works for US, remember? Or at least that is how its supposed to work.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
LOL, is this the "American Freedom" I always heard so much about as a youth growing up in Eastern Europe just after the fall of Communism?
"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency" - President Barack Obama
"endangering intelligence agents and exposing American spying methods."
I would like someone to explain to me how the Thomas Drake case involved anything remotely resembling the endangerment of intelligence agents. Furthermore, the domestic spying he exposed was illegal. Exposing that is not a crime, and nobody should be 'worried' about 'exposing' crimes. Furthermore, he did not release any classified information, nor was he even charged with doing so.
I do not understand how the Kim case, has no relationship whatsoever to intelligence agents, nor spying. It is about educated guessing about North Korea's weapons testing. One time, in a single telephone conversation, with a reporter. Where is the 'intelligence agent' here? Where is the 'spying methods'?
The Manning case has almost nothing to do with spying methods, as far as we know. Otherwise, they probably would have charged him under 18 USC 798 - they didn't. They charged him with 34 other things. 3 of those charges relate to the Icleandic banking scandal - i do not understand how that has anything to do with spying methods nor with intelligence agents. Is every state department employee now an 'intelligence agent'?
The Leibowitz case - we have no idea what the details of the case are. Even the judge doesn't know the details of the case. Leibowitz plead out because they scared him. What little we know is that he found out the FBI was engaged in illegal activity related to signals intelligence work. Two guesses as to what that is.
I will admit, the Sterling case is about intelligence agents and spying methods. It is about how the CIA accidentally screwed up and gave Iran accurate nuclear weapons information instead of inaccurate information. Let me just ask you - do you think the public is better off knowing that, or not?
The Wikileaks case - well, please let me know when there is concrete evidence that any intelligence agents have been harmed by wikileaks. Some ambassadors have been harmed - then again, ambassadors are quite often simply the biggest campaign donors to the president. That's how ambassadorships work. If those people are 'intelligence agents', well, I have to wonder about the wisdom of making campaign donors into intelligence agents. Shouldn't we be picking professionals instead?
I also haven't seen anything yet about any wikileaks cables that reveal spying information. Gun camera footage is all over youtube, should all of those youtube users now be charged under the Espionage act too?
"Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity." - Lord Acton. This is from the same guy that said, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
Government needs to be accountable.
1) the US does whatever the hell it wants. it does not ask permission and it seeks out those who disagree for intent of harm.
2) this is not a disney movie, this life we all lead. the line between good and bad guys is often non-existent. stop thinking in binary fashion. the US isn't good and it isn't evil, its JUST ANOTHER COUNTRY run by rich white men who like to keep the power base the way it is (and pretty much has been).
3) we spy. they spy. everyone spies. not only that, but countries do not respect their own people and will spy on them. kids, learn this. be watchful of EVERYTHING you say or write or photo. this is now universal since all countries have latched onto this 'we control your life, entirely' mentality.
4) power corrupts and the more you give the government, the more they'll screw you over (now or later) with it. no such thing as 'temporary powers'. don't ever fall for THAT line again, please.
5) cops, judges, politicians, lawyers; those in authority are there because they are mentally unbalanced and have this need for control. the higher the position, the more corruptable the job is and the more 'attractive' it is to such sick people. beware of those in authority and realize WHY they seeked out those kinds of jobs. avoid dealing or interacting with these people in life, they are not your friends and not worth your friendship. they'll stab you at first chance if it suits them.
none of this is taught in schools (on purpose). we intentionally lie to our kids when we raise them. then, about teen age, they see the lies we have been telling them. problem is, we have already raised generations of people on pure lies who believe in this 'two party system' and that if you have done nothing wrong, (...). we have a lot of really dumb cattle walking around as human beings with a totally false idea of how the world really works.
start with truth about what our world is like. you can't fix things if you don't even see them for how they really are.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Is there anything more obvious -- as the world's oil supplies rapidly diminish -- than the fact that our prime objective is to remove Gaddafi and install a regime that is a far more reliable servant to Western oil interests, and that protecting civilians was the justifying pretext for this war, not the purpose?
Conflict in Libya: U.S. oil companies sit on sidelines as Gaddafi maintains hold
In late February 2008, Mulva was “summoned to Sirte for a half-hour ‘browbeating’” from Gaddafi, according to a U.S. State Department cable made available by WikiLeaks. Gaddafi “threatened to dramatically reduce Libya’s oil production and/or expel ... U.S. oil and gas companies,” the cable said.
Wikileaks was the source for these articles. If all cables get leaked, it is difficult for US to pursue its interests.
And more: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
Citation needed.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm–Leach–Bliley_Act
followed by
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
(The proof is in the pudding. The biggest white collar crime in the history of the world was bought and paid for. And damn, what a return...)
The US government is about as uncorrupted as you're going to get.
Really? Then why is the US ranked 22nd, just above Uruguay, in the Corruption Perceptions Index? Why has the *perceived* corruption in the US been declining steadily since the Index was created?
Corruption has always been part of US politics, but kept in check at least for appearances' sake. But since the Iran/Contra scandal, it appears that the concern over appearances has eroded. Now you have a situation where the corrupted know that there will always be one-quarter to one-third of the US population who will oppose any criticism of the US, like this AC here, so all the kleptocrats have to do is wrap themselves in a flag and cheer "GO USA!" and they have an automatic voting block that will also faithfully defend them in public forums from Meet the Press to /b/.
Corruption is happening here because of the belief by so many that, "it can't happen here!"
I can see the fnords!
This is bi-partisan because grabbing more power for the executive branch is bi-partisan. The book "Takeover" by Charlie Savage (also of the NYT) details much about how the Bush 2 administration worked to increase executive power, but also how it has been a tradition for a century before that - and persecution of whistleblowers is an important part of it.
Two stories from "Takeover" stuck with me.
One was the story of an ethics advisor for the Justice Dept, Jesslyn Radack. When John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban", was charged with many counts that led to 20 years in jail, based almost entirely on his own statement given while duct-taped to a board, naked and blindfolded with an untreated bullet wound in his leg, Atty. Gen. Ashcroft stated publicly that while the statement was given without a lawyer present, that was fine since he did not have a lawyer at the time. Alas, Ms. Radack had already notified the FBI that Lindh's father had retained council for him and notified Justice, and that they should not interrogate him - they just did, anyway. And Radack had kept the E-mails, then sent them to a reporter. It was not in her mind at the time that this was "whistleblowing" she felt she was correcting erroneous statements; releasing the information was no crime at all, since it was unclassified. For this, she found herself:
* Fired, from the private law firm she worked for (they consulted to Justice)
* Subjected to a year-long criminal investigation, though no charges were ever filed, since she had committed no crime
* Referred to for "discipline" by the bar associations in all the states she was licensed to practice in, via a secret report that she was not allowed to see
* Placed on the "selectee" version of the no-fly list - meaning she was *always* "randomly selected" for full off-with-the-underwear search for every single flight.
Talk about a chilling effect. Thou Shalt Not Embarrass The Justice Department, even with the simple truth that it got excited and eager for a headline and made a mistake.
Just so that this isn't seen as partisan, the other story is about a democrat: Harry Truman. (Who also felt the whole Korean War(!) was strictly an executive branch decision, no congressional authorization needed ... take THAT, Libya protestors!) A major avoidance of government transparency is enabled by the "state secrets" privilege, in which the government can tell a court, "dismiss this lawsuit; to argue it, we'd have to reveal State Secrets". It's been used to shut down every lawsuit about torture and unlawful detention that came after 9/11. But there's no such privilege in the Constitution. It comes from a Supreme Court decision, "US vs. Reynolds", where the survivors of 3 civilian scientists killed in a B-29 bomber crash in Georgia, 1948, while doing missile research. The government argued that the judge had to dismiss the suit without even seeing the crash report himself, lest "secret electronics" be revealed, and it was upheld - then used about 60 times since. In 2000, the daughter of one of the victims found the crash report, declassified, on the Internet. It contained NOTHING about secret electronics - it contained proof that there had been negligent maintenance of the bomber, and negligent lack of training for the civilians on how to escape the aircraft. The government had used the claim to avoid embarrassment, not to mention losing a lawsuit.
As Charlie Savage summed it up, "The central case on which the State Secrets Privilege rests, then, was a fraud. The Truman administration had lied to the courts and gotten away with it."
So that's why you need whistleblowers. And that's why governments persecute them as ruthlessly as possible; it's about executive power, the effort to restore America to the status of having a King who is above the law - partly by exempting the executive from laws that the rest of us must obey, partly by ensuring that most of their lawbreaking is never revealed in the first place, so they don't have to fight for that exemption very often.
LOL, so instead, you're going to vote for the party that's actively fighting against your well being?
Did he say he was going to vote Republican? No.
There are other candidates, you know.
But the fact that most voters don't recognize third party candidates as legitimate is because the press won't. And the attitude that voting for such a candidate is "throwing your vote away" is the main reason we're stuck with this Coke vs. Pepsi two party system when what we really need right now is a drink of water.
I can see the fnords!
Name your country and if it's anywhere in Europe, I can guarantee you we can dig up more corruption than in the US.
"A major avoidance of government transparency is enabled by the "state secrets" privilege, in which the government can tell a court, 'dismiss this lawsuit; to argue it, we'd have to reveal State Secrets'. "
However, just about a month or so ago, a Federal judge ruled that the government cannot do that. They can take measures to ensure that the public cannot see those 'secrets' in the course of a trial, but the government cannot withhold that information from the judge or jury.
Unfortunately, I do not have a citation for that decision. Maybe some person out there who is reading this has one.'
That was exciting to hear and I rushed to Google. I tried [ "state secrets privilege" ruling against ] as my search phrase.
Got nuthin' but the recent (May 2011) ruling that was still in favour of the SSP - but "narrowed" the grounds for using it. The one before that was the 9th circuit, Sept 2010, that the EFF described as
"Unfortunately, abdicating its responsibility is just what the Court did. It ordered summary dismissal of the complaint without allowing any discovery, or presentation of the public evidence or even a plan by the plaintiffs to litigate the case while respecting the necessary secrecy, something that has been regularly done in cases involving national security. "
so, I believe you're mis-remembering. Alas.
That's one example. So, you're saying because we're not the least corrupt government in the world, that we can't be about as uncorrupted as they get? I'm sorry, but that's just not a valid counter point, and the ad hominem doesn't help your case.
There are some corruption problems in the US, but to paint the government as being extremely corrupt is just plain ignorant. If you don't believe me, just look at Italy, they've got severe corruption problems.
Don't you think there should be some legal way to bind politicians to, at least, attempting to achieve what they claim they will. Or, at very least, not doing the opposite.
Here, in the UK, the conservatives got in (in a way) saying they would ring fence spending on the NHS (national health service) and are now going about trying to privatise it.
Why should they be able to deceive the public with impunity?