Dalglish: Justice Dept. Probe of 'NYT' Shows Need for Shield Law (Journalists worried?)

Editor and Publisher ^ | 12/30/05 | Joe Strupp

[geezerwheezer]

When I was a youngin', (many, many years ago) my Mama would tell me that she was going to kill me so dead that they would have to bury me twice. That is when I knew I had stepped over the line, and I would just say "yes m'am" and hide from her until she "cooled" down. I was seventeen before I realized they couldn't bury you twice, but I sure as heck wasn't gonna tell that to Mama!! :0 )

[Baby Driver]

...And *that's* a lawyers question if i ever heard one.

The thing is..the answer that you think you know,
may be changing under your feet.

[Grut]

Let me see if I have this right: publish articles about a legal, top secret intelligence gathering operation and the person who leaked it is a "whistleblower?" Wow

Almost. You have the right to publish secrets but the guy with authorized access to the secrets who revealed them to you is in a world o' hurt if they catch him (and if he isn't Sandy Burger).

While some on this thread may fulminate in a suspiciously troll-like manner, that's the precedent that was set in Ellsberg.

[LiteKeeper]

You have the right to publish secrets

Where does that authorization come from? Almost like being an accessory to a crime to publish Top Secret information, isn't it?

[HawaiianGecko]

 

"Where does that authorization come from?"

Bill of Rights first amemdment.

"Almost like being an accessory to a crime to publish Top Secret information, isn't it?"

As weird as it sounds, there is no law against publishing secrets, telling secrets or yelling secrets. If you think about it, it makes sense.  If you waive your 1st amendment rights (on a given subject) then you can be considered a candidate for knowledge of government secrets if you have a need to know and after an FBI background check shows you aren't a felon, related to Stalin or hang out with Rob Reiner.

Now, after legally swearing that you will not disclose this information, you are subject to all manners of legal hell if you do blab. But under no circumstances does the obligation of the person leaking, transfer to the newspaper printing it.

In other words, you cannot hold the NYTimes responsible for breaching a contract that someone else made.

Writer Tom Clancy has disseminated more 'secret' information than anyone on the planet, but he wrote about things that in his opinion were both theoretically possible and logically probable. He didn't disclose secrets, even though much of what he wrote about was secret, because he didn't learn it from an appropriate government official in the know. He learned it from his imagination.

[Dustbunny]

This is not a whistleblower case it is a case of TREASON.

[kindred]

["The public needed to know about it and that is a classic reason why reporters need to protect their sources and it is even more reason why there is a need to have a federal shield law."]

A typical liberal left biased reporter demanding that their sources be protected so that they can spew and spin propaganda and lies and slander those of the opposite political party without having to worry that they will be subject to the laws protecting innocent people from the slander and lies of the amoral left.
It would be a disaster to the justice system to allow journalists to report whatever they deem to. Who do they think they are!

[okie01]

The push for a shield law, however you feel about the merits, is doomed to failre, becuase if one does favor it..you then have to immediately deal with the next question.."What's the definition of a reporter?" Would Matt Drudge qualify? How about someone who just blogs?.

The MSM contemplates their very own "quagmire"...

Whatchawannabet the MSM's definition of "reporter" is going to correspond -- with surprising precision and rather obvious exclusions -- to the so-called "legacy media".

And, as you observe, that definition will be intellectually impossible to defend. Not that they won't try...

[LiteKeeper]

Having spent 29 years in government service(US Army) I find it hard to believe there is no law prohibiting the publication of Top Secret information...particularly information that impacts directly on National Security.

[Grut]

Having spent 29 years in government service(US Army) I find it hard to believe there is no law prohibiting the publication of Top Secret information...particularly information that impacts directly on National Security.

LOL, after 29 years in government service you should be able to believe anything!

[McGavin999]

There must NEVER be a shield law. As it is journalists are considered untouchable and the result has been an endangered America. These are foolish people and their actions should have consequences just like all other actions.

Journalists are not "special", they are ordinary people who make a living by writing.

[McGavin999]

When they jail the "journalists" I don't want them put into some nice little white collar type jail. I think they should be tossed into federal prison until they decide to reveal who betrayed their country by spilling state secrets.

[HawaiianGecko]

 

Well, after a bit of reading of U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37, Paragraph 793 ... You are correct.

e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,

(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or

(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

That sure does sound illegal to me. But it does make me scratch my head about why I had to sign a document every October swearing I wouldn't reveal the secrets I knew and worked with daily while I was working with Top Secret/Restricted Data.

 

[LiteKeeper]

yuppers

[LiteKeeper]

Funny, the only thing that separates Freedom of the Press from Freedom of Religion is a semi-colon. Why is the Press getting a pass, and Religion is not?

[Grut]

That sure does sound illegal to me. But it does make me scratch my head about why I had to sign a document every October swearing I wouldn't reveal the secrets I knew and worked with daily while I was working with Top Secret/Restricted Data.

Oh, well, as to the signing, the bureaucracy does love its little Dramas.

More seriously, I have a lot of trouble squaring the law you cite with Ellsberg; maybe the law postdates it? Given the plain sense of the law, it looks like not charging the NYT with its violation would be a pretty serious dereliction of duty.

[HawaiianGecko]

 

"I have a lot of trouble squaring the law you cite with Ellsberg"

Yeah, I do too.  It seems this law could have and should have been enforced thousands of times in the last few years alone. I still think there is something that I'm missing here like intent. There must be some kind of peccadillo buried amidst this verbiage that I'm missing or the AG would be all over the Times for this already.

Guess I'll learn something in the next few months.

[Grut]

It looks like the part of the law you cited was added in 1950, so Ellsberg must have found it invalid for some reason; probably because, in the context of the Media, it's a 'merely' statutory restriction on a Constitutional Right.

At least, that's my best guess.