Posted on 04/29/2006 10:14:41 AM PDT by 68skylark
Earlier administrations have fired and prosecuted government officials who provided classified information to the press. They have also tried to force reporters to identify their sources.
But the Bush administration is exploring a more radical measure to protect information it says is vital to national security: the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espionage laws.
Such an approach would signal a thorough revision of the informal rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the press and the government for many decades. Leaking in Washington is commonplace and typically entails tolerable risks for government officials and, at worst, the possibility of subpoenas to journalists seeking the identities of sources.
But the Bush administration is putting pressure on the press as never before, and it is operating in a judicial climate that seems increasingly receptive to constraints on journalists.
In the last year alone, a reporter for The New York Times was jailed for refusing to testify about a confidential source; her source, a White House aide, was prosecuted on charges that he lied about his contacts with reporters; a C.I.A. analyst was dismissed for unauthorized contacts with reporters; and a raft of subpoenas to reporters were largely upheld by the courts.
It is not easy to gauge whether the administration will move beyond these efforts to criminal prosecutions of reporters. In public statements and court papers, administration officials have said the law allows such prosecutions and that they will use their prosecutorial discretion in this area judiciously. But there is no indication that a decision to begin such a prosecution has been made. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Friday.
Because such prosecutions of reporters are unknown, they are widely thought inconceivable. But legal experts say that existing laws may well allow holding the press....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You asked for this , buddy, in the nonsensical Plame "outing" and you praised to the skies the guy that did this, Patrick Fitzgerald. Now live with it.
It was the NY tomes idea wasn't it? Get those leakers of Plame's secret identity
They should be prosecuted and executed for treason... that is the only message that should be sent.... What is this crap the NY Slimes is trying to justify treason?
"The press can and should be held to account for publishing military secrets in wartime," Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote in Commentary magazine last month.
This is one more example of the outrageous conservative bias at the Times -- the author is (not so subtly) saying that only conservatives care about military secrets in wartime. It's obviously a dirty trick, to make the left look weak on national security, and even unpatriotic. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Yes, but that was a "bad" leak (supposedly by a republican), the CIA prison and NSA leaks were "good" leaks (by democrats). standard double standard by the left in this country. I hope they all go to jail!
So, everyone is held to follow the law except for those American citizens known as journalists?
True, they defend trasonist acts and sympathize with the terrorists and extremists that would harm their very children...Maybe when the editors kids are being dismembered in their school yard by a terror group he can write about how George W. Bush allowed it to happen...
These fools are a joke...they just don't get it...
Perhaps if the MSM hadn't been so irresponsible printing classified material under the guise of "whistle blowing", the government wouldn't have the need to pursue the issue.
The MSM are reminiscent of children pushing the envelope just to see how far they can go to get what they want.
j
Or democrats (but wait a minute -- aren't they one and the same)?
Bwahahaha.....I think this is funny. The Slimes decides it is a good idea to break the law and publish a story and then they don't like the results when they are punished. Too bad, so sad.
The media and teachers, two of the most important professions with the least accountability. (My wife is a teacher, I'm not bashing teachers, I'm bashing the union that protects crappy teachers).
my thought exactly !
bttt
Too many leaks will sink a ship of state.
Joe took the Islamicists' side,
When he said that the President lied.
Since the Times spread Joe's tale,
Please put them in jail
And, certainly, Joe should be fried
It is laughable the way that the NYT has the blinders on. It was the Risen article, and not the reaction by the government, that signalled a thorough revision of the informal rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the press and the government for many decades.
Divulging classified information about NSA interception of enemy communications in yet another attempt by the New York Times to damage the war effort and help America's enemies is a step that previously would have been unthinkable. But America's enemies have so thoroughly infiltrated the nation's newsrooms that they evidently believe that anything goes.
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