Attorney Gen.: Reporters Can Be Prosecuted

good! what kind of country would we be if were allowed to know what the secretive all knowing, loving government was doing...a giant, secret government is key to having freedom...we can trust them.

the founders said to watch government like a hawk because it always becomes big and corrupt...but with the new freedom we have, that's not necessary.

[align=left]Attorney Gen.: Reporters Can Be Prosecuted [/align]
AP | May 22 2006
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security.

The nation's top law enforcer also said the government will not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation, but officials would not do so routinely and randomly.
"There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions. "We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected."
In recent months, journalists have been called into court to testify as part of investigations into leaks, including the unauthorized disclosure of a CIA operative's name as well as the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said she presumed that Gonzales was referring to the 1917 Espionage Act, which she said has never been interpreted to prosecute journalists who were providing information to the public.
"I can't imagine a bigger chill on free speech and the public's right to know what it's government is up to â?? both hallmarks of a democracy â?? than prosecuting reporters," Dalglish said.
Gonzales said he would not comment specifically on whether The New York Times should be prosecuted for disclosing the NSA program last year based on classified information.
He also denied that authorities would randomly check journalists' records on domestic-to-domestic phone calls in an effort to find journalists' confidential sources.
"We don't engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order," Gonzales said, under a "probable cause" legal standard.
But he added that the First Amendment right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to national security. If the government's probe into the NSA leak turns up criminal activity, prosecutors have an "obligation to enforce the law."
"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," Gonzales told ABC's "This Week."

Gonzales: An Obligation to Prosecute Journos

Kurt Nimmo | May 23 2006

If AG Gonzales was indeed serious about prosecuting journalists and others for â??publishing classified information,â?� he would go after people in the Bush administration, haul them before grand juries, build cases, file charges, and throw them in the hoosegow. â??We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected,â?� said the AG.

For instance, Dick Cheney.

In 2003, as the invasion of Iraq was underway, Cheney authorized Scooter Libby â??to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administrationâ??s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records,â?� reports Murray Waas for the National Journal. â??According to sources with firsthand knowledge, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate], to defend the administrationâ??s use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war,â?� in other words go after U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had revealed to the world the Bush administrationâ??s claim that Saddam was buying uranium in Niger was horse puckey. In Bushzarro world, it is perfectly legitimate to release classified information if it discredits (or endangers, as in the case of Valerie Plame Wilson) the opposition or those in the media documenting the criminal behavior of the neocons.

â??I canâ??t imagine a bigger chill on free speech and the publicâ??s right to know what itâ??s government is up toâ??both hallmarks of a democracyâ??than prosecuting reporters,â?� Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Yahoo News. Of course, the neocons have a visceral dislike for the so-called â??hallmarks of a democracyâ?� (we should be talking about the hallmarks of a constitutionally limited republic, but never mind). As fascist Straussians, firm believers in totalitarian government at home and destruction of societies abroad, the neocons are quite naturally opposed to the â??publicâ??s right to know.â?� Our Straussian rulers are fond of Platoâ??s ideal of the Republicâ??no relation to the republic espoused by John Locke and other classic liberalsâ??ruled by â??wiseâ?� philosopher kings while the great unwashed masses suffer Platoâ??s Allegory of the Cave (in the current context, we are distracted by idiot tube shadows cast on cave walls). For the Straussians, the â??publicâ??s right to knowâ?� is anathema, as it and the First Amendment (and indeed the entire Bill of Rights) undermine the rule of the philosopher kings and the â??gentlemenâ?� who run the global gulag and profit handsomely in the process.

According to Gonzales, as summarized by Yahoo News, â??the First Amendment right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to national security,â?� that is to say when it comes to keeping secret the neocon criminal conspiracy. â??It canâ??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,â?� Gonzales told ABC. Americans should realize they are in trouble when an apologist and facilitator of torture claims to speak for them. Of course, the vast majority of American could not care less. One does not need the Bill of Rights to watch Taylor Hicks and the contestants on American Idol.

Gonzales and the Bush neocons have adapted an archaic law in their zeal to pull tighter the veil of secrecy over their criminal activitiesâ??the 1917 Espionage Act, a law passed shortly after the United States entered World War One making it a crime for a person to convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its declared enemies. Woodrow Wilson insisted the bill be passed and enforced as a way to deal with dissent against the war and the Supreme Court upheld the law to be constitutional (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes joined the Court majority in upholding the conviction of Charles Schenck, a socialist who made the mistake of distributing an antiwar pamphlet against the Conscription Act, or rather the Involuntary Servitude or Bullet Stopper Act).

Not surprisingly, the neocons are anxious to dust off this archaic law and use it against political enemies, beginning with the corporate media, or elements within the corporate media a bit too zealous in their rush to publish articles revealing the criminal behavior of the Bushites, not so much as a duty to inform the public but rather as a way to sell newspapers and make happy advertisers. In essence, Gonzales is telegraphing a message to the corporate media as it on occasion wanders off the straight and narrowâ??journalists, if they wish to make the note on their condos and BMWs, need to take care who they call and what they submit to editors and publishers. Journos need to take note of Judith Miller, who was jailed for contempt of court by refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a leak naming Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent. Even faithful Bush shills can be prosecuted and thrown the wolves.

i hate that gonzales mofo...