Brass Ones.

When the administration in charge classifies anything it doesn't like and leaks classified information to discredit political enemies?

You're goddamn right, that's their job.

 

While I posted earlier that this particularly program might not actually be a prime example of the Bush Administration's shredding of the Constitution, the fact remains they have crossed the line inappropriately so many other times that I'm at the stage now where I trust the judgment of my fellow journalists over at the New York Times more than I trust the claims of John Snow and the rest of the Bush lackeys.

Something about chickens coming home to roost.

 

You don't have to be an expert. Any fucking idiot, in or out of the government or in or out of terrorist groups, KNOWS the U.S. government tracks this stuff. It's neither a stunning news revelation, nor a vital national security secret. Guess what? They tap phones and e-mail, too.

 

And guess what -- they need to follow existing law when they do it or it's illegal, and the law is vast and easy to follow.

 

Somebody seems to think it's the government's job to decide what gets printed and what doesn't.
That's prior restraint and it's why we have a First Amendment in the first place, going back to Milton's Aeropagetica and the Zenger case. Of course, if history starts for you in 1981, or even on 9/11, that kind of stuff doesn't matter.
And, yes, it is occasionally the press's job to print classified information because the government can't be trusted far enough to classify only that which is legitimately kept secret -- cf The Pentagon Papers -- and this bunch has such vast contempt for self-government and the legitimate checks and balances of our government that it gets the benefit of no doubts on this point.
And Snow is a paid lackey. O'Neill wasn't.

 

I was going to say, Ellsburg is a great case study right about now.

 

I thought this thread was about Mark Richt.

 

I deal with an offshoot of this question with our reporters from time to time. I was asked just today whether we should print something that we knew to be the case but that had later been redacted (from an arrest report). Yes, absolutely.

The Times is under no obligation not to print classified material that happens to fall into its hands. That's why things are classified. If classified material is leaked, obtained, whatever, it's fair game. Classified is a message to the people who hold the information, not to those who don't.

We're going to be at "war" with terror for a good long time. This war cannot be used as an excuse to suspend the First Amendment. This is not World War II. This is not the Civil War. This is a campaign against an unorganized network of people, whose numbers we are completely unaware of. We say this war is to protect our freedoms and rights, but what the hell good does that do us if we have to give up our freedoms and rights to do it? There's always going to be some threat to our country, whether it's Redcoats or Germans or Arabs or Martians. The responsibility of the press is to keep us informed of what our government is and is not doing to protect us from those threats.

Dear Christ, was the Washington Post wrong to go snooping around in its investigation of Watergate? Should it have shown more respect for the office of the presidency? What the hell, people? Is this really the way we want to go?

 

Now the editors of the National Review say the White House should yank the Times' credentials....

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDVhYWQzMmQ3YWRlNzFkYjRmZmY4ZTQzZmUwZjJhZjI=

I would love to know what William F. Buckley thinks of that idea....or what the NR would think if President Hillary Clinton did the same thing to Fox News because of repeated leaks?

 

Every damn day, every damn day, you say to yourself, Alright, this is the bottom of the damn barrel here. They can't sink any lower. They can't fuck up any worse. They can't dick us over any more than they already have.

And every damn time, Fredo and his merry band of crooks prove us wrong.

Good Christ. Bank records, phone records, emails. Trying to dictate what is or isn't printed in a newspaper. Tracking journalists' phone records in order to identify leaks.

Maybe I missed it, because, honestly, I just couldn't bring myself to watch, but didn't Fredo swear when he took office that he would uphold the Constitution of the United States of America? Did they skip that part in his ceremony?

 

All administrations since 1792 have had a way of trying to make the Constitution work for them instead of the opposite, but none have flaunted it so blatantly as this cabal.