Gonzales Says Publishing Leaks Is A Crime 889
loqi writes "The NY Times is reporting on a statement from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declaring that journalists may be prosecuted by the federal government for publishing classified information. On the 1st amendment ramifications: "'But 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,' he said. 'And so those two principles have to be accommodated.'" So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?"
First Amendment Vs "Some Statutes" (Score:5, Insightful)
What I can't quote are "some statutes" that Mr. Gonzales is referring to. And, frankly, I don't give a damn what they say. There's nothing that could convince me to give up or sacrifice any part of the First Amendment.
I believe my government has a duty to protect the information that is important or sensitive. If the government fails to do adequately protect this information then it should not be illegal for an instution of the press to point it out. If by doing so they print the classified information then so be it. The people have a right to know the shortcomings of their government whether they be scandal or lack of security.
I fear that if they make this illegal, it will also be illegal to point out inadequacies of the government &, before we know it, the press will be unable to criticize the government. Releasing information of sensitivity is a form of criticism and should be treated as such.
Suspicious (Score:5, Insightful)
Not surprising from W's rubber stamp (Score:1, Insightful)
It is when you are tested the most that you need to stick most by your principals. America is a democracy and come November we can all then start bitching about our new Democrat overlords which I for one am going to welcome.
The best thing about the American government is that it DOES correct itself. It may take time, but Americans do change for the better. Germany survived Hitler, we shall survive this...
Expecting the neo-con mod down in 3..2..1
This guy needs to get his head on straight (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is this: the government is obviously having trouble trusting its people. It's that simple. If information leaks, go after the leaker. Once the information is out, it's out. Going after journalists is not exactly going to engender good will from the media. This has always been one of my biggest criticisms of the Republican party, that they can't handle the media at all.
This is not too different from how the Air Force and the Marine Corps handled the media in Iraq. The Air Force treated the media like a bunch of little kids and they they were not exactly portrayed in the best light. On the other hand, the Marines involved the media people reporting on them to the point of having them out in the field with real units. Result: the media with the Marines were much more open to the requests of the Marine leaders as to what could/could not be published and they painted the Marines in a much more positive light. Why? Becuase they felt like part of the team.
What Gonzales is doing is basically alienating the channel by which many many Americans receives their "information" every day. This is not exactly intelligent. I don't mean to say that the Republicans should kowtow to the media and or the Democrats (otherwise we would go from a 1.5 party system to a 0 party system), just that they need to not be stupid.
Re:Chilling effects! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it not okay to prosecute Journalists but okay to prosecute lobbyists?
No, I'm not for prosecuting journalists, but the 1st amendment gives us all freedom of speech and freedom of the press - narrowing down who gets freedom of the press - in this case journalists - only serves to defeat the amendment. I'm tired of seeing the press get a free ticket because they are "real professionals" and people like bloggers get written off, as if the founding fathers intended the right to apply to only those who attended journalism school.
And what are lobbyists doing with state secrets anyhow? Shouldn't the people who gave them this info, who swore an oath to the government, and signed confidentiality agreements be the ones prosecuted?
I'm noticing a trend (Score:4, Insightful)
The US federal government is becoming too powerful, and it needs to stop.
I'm not sure who added the final blurb, "So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?", but that entirely reminded me recently of another "trump" made recently. "The decision means that federal anti-drug laws trump state laws that allow the use of medical marijuana, said CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Ten states have such laws."
I'm dead serious here. If the federal government keeps on their power trip fascism journey, well, they will be in for a rude awakening. This kind of government is one that will either start a civil war or a revolt by the people. I'm dead serious.
Once people's standard of living here goes down a few notches, which is already happening with the skyrocketing cost of housing. But as soon as people get to a point where they cannot afford the basics anymore, or when something like Social Security goes bust, we will loose faith in the government, and that will be it.
So, you feds, watch your step.
Re:Gonzo needs to go back to law school. (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are just the ones I can think of before I've had my full cup of coffee.
So, the idea that freedom of speech is some absolute right just isn't true, and has never really been. The question isn't "can the government restrict freedom of speech in certain cases?" but "is this one of those cases?"
So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait--it's only okay for them to publish classified information if it embarrasses the (admittedly bloodly stupid) government, or needs to be released. Good thing we have honest, upstanding, selfless journalists to handle those decisions, then.
Good thinking, Slashdot.
Have we considered, perhaps, taking a more nuanced position?
Fair is fair (Score:3, Insightful)
Any takers?
{crickets}
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyways, this creates a very unstable situation, since the Administration can leak [newsmax.com] (I mean, "selectively declassify") information any old time they feel like it in order to make political points.
What's weird is that all the best information we have about what's being done in our name with our tax money is due to leaks. It doesn't feel like democracy to me.
Re:How is this a first amendment issue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the army. And at this point, we should be finding out exactly where they stand.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Terrorism is an inconsiquential threat.
2) Every law passed since 9/11 is part of a grab for power.
3) Profit.
Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand what the otherside is doing "but what if the gov't names granny apple as a terrorist when she really is a sweet old lady who gives people apples...who can help her if we cant talk about it." Well this is where the gov't is wrong and the journalist should be allowed.
We get in trouble when we speak of absolutes, and there are people on one side of the fence who say 100% 1st amendment right trumps. and people on the other side of the fence who say 100% National Security trumps. They are both wrong - it needs to be a depends. The journalist needs to use common sense, and the courts can prevail. If the journalist was doing something in the best act for our nation then kudos for him/her...if the jurnalist was only thinking about the Pulitzer Prize - well depending on the damage he/she may have caused they may be rightfully getting it post humously.
classified crime (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to "hide" behind the First......be prepared to use the Second. That is why it was put there.
Those who would hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those that did not.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is a pretty big if. Given the track record of the current set of assholes holding power in Washington it is more likely that any intelligence gathered would have been squandered, September 11th still would have happened, the administration would have classified all the intelligence and internal communications surrounding September 11th, then when someone leaked how badly the U.S. Intelligence Agencies/Executive administration botched the job they would have prosecuted the leaker(s) and any journalist with the audacity to print the truth.
The Bush admin should just cut to the chase and implement Sharia.
what's good for the goose (Score:3, Insightful)
We're talking about an administration that doesn't give a damn about the principles this country was founded upon, and believes that any and all rights should be suspended for the War on Terror. This is just a case of a gander having its goose cooked.
This administration in particular is a big fan of "when in doubt, redact it out" to avoid publicized miscues, or (more importantly) their own contempt for the Constitution and the People's rights. That's capitalized on purpose, mind you.
This isn't a "hey Geraldo's publishing troop movements!".
This is "hey, concerned patriots are telling everyone about our thought police! Punish anyone who gives him a voice!"
Transparency and freedom of the press are critically important for a democratic has already betrayed democratic ideals and have lost any credibility as leaders.
Re:So from your post can I assume (Score:3, Insightful)
If a reporter finds out about something, it wasn't much of a secret, or going to be a secret much longer any way. It's often the case that US citiznes do not actually know what is going on until a report broadcasts the "secret".
You'll find me a little more agreeable the day FOI requests aren't denied by default, then fought to the death, and finally touted as the government cooperating with the people once someone actually wrestles a piece of public information from this Neo-Christo fascist country of ours.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, just exactly how am I supposed to figure out if I like a particular "secret, activity, or program" if I'm not allowed to even know such secret, activity, or program exists?
Or, are you saying that if I don't like it when such secrets are kept in the first place, I should vote into power a set of representatives which support "no secrets" priorities?
Perhaps, if it's important enough to myself and a large enough number of my fellow supporters, I should propose a Constitutional Amendment? Maybe something that would prohibit Congress from making a law that prevents the Press from publishing as it sees fit?
Is that what you're proposing? Because I seem to remember something like that hapening in the past somewhere...
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:2, Insightful)
Obtaining classified information on our intelligence practices and reporting them to the public has always been a crime. There is no freedom of speech issue here. News sources are not permitted to identify rape victims or undercover police officers either. Does national security take a back seat to those?
Re:So from your post can I assume (Score:3, Insightful)
The government will always state that anything they don't want the public to know about is a national security risk in some form or another. This danger becomes even more severe as we enter into this new type of "War on Terror" where the proponents of such war would like to have the public believing that there are hobgoblins hiding in every shadow. If they can convince the public that everything is a threat, then everything becomes an issue of national security. And once everything becomes an issue of national security, and is classified accordingly, then there is no reason to worry about those pesky journalists.
I have mentioned this in previous discussions, and I will bring it up again. I am not comfortable with one branch of government having the sole power to determine what the public is and is not allowed to see. This is the situation we are beginning to fall into. We have been here before, with Nixon using the national security argument in an effort to protect his activities.
There isn't an independent clearing house for verifying whether something is national security or not, and since I don't trust giving the power to decide this to a single branch of government, I would rather error on the side of caution and support the Constitutional protection of a free press. Without this protection, only a fool would trust the government.
Show me one example where the press has even tried to publish troop locations or a LEGAL military strategy. Of course, some people could argue that exposing the secret prison facilities is just such a case, while I disagree with the legality of the issue. However, we wouldn't even have the ability to argue whether the government's actions are legal or illegal if it were not for the media forcing the issue into the public discussion.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Them : Remember September 11th. Loads of people died.. DIED!
You : Remember September 11th. The people who DIED would be ashamed of this.
Whenever somebody pulls that "people died on 9/11, new world, blah blah" card, I like to make the point that it's a slap in the face to anybody in uniform to use the deaths of a few thousand to justify taking away the rights that many millions have sworn to protect and gave their lives for over the past 230 years.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising from W's rubber stamp (Score:5, Insightful)
The right comparison is the other genocidal dickhead. The Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli one. Just ask any Russian speaker for a comparison of Bushisms with koba's pearls of wisdom. There is a clear one-to-one match there as well as a one-to-one match with Koba's vindictiveness, paranoia and simulated stupidity.
This is also the scarier comparison. 'cause for all of his efforts Hitler never reached a fraction of Stalin's body count.
Military is supposed to "Defend the Constitution" (Score:3, Insightful)
-- ac at work
Re:Gonzo needs to go back to law school. (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom of speech means you are free to believe in ideas and that those ideas can freely flow through society unimpeded by the government.
It does NOT mean you can yell fire in a crowded room. IT DOES mean you can believe the government is a piece of shit and express that idea.
Re:Gonzo needs to go back to law school. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. Supreme Court is clear on this. Hopefully we all understand the reasons why.
A Boils down to "you can't knowingly tell falsehoods for the purpouse of causing harm to others". Hopefully we all understand why here, too.
This it not entirely correct. You can say something that creates a "hostile work environment" for others, what you can't do is maintain a hostile work environment by allowing others (or, I suppose, doing so yourself) to say things which create a hostile work environment. It's not the speech itself which is prohibited, but rather the circumstances of the speech.
You can, but:
In short, you need to be civil when you do so.
Not politically correct, just civil.
Re:no press super-citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they are. They are specifically cited as a special protected group in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution [cornell.edu]. Congress is specifically prevented from making any law abridging the freedom of the press.
Re:Not surprising from W's rubber stamp (Score:1, Insightful)
Millions of people died in the process of germany surviving hitler...
'twould be better if you americans would eject bush, rather than wait for him to go away...
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:3, Insightful)
How on earth are we supposed to know if we do or don't like an activity that is secret?
It is a crime for intelligence agents to release classified information, but it is absolutely necesarry for the preservation of our freedoms that the press be allowed to report those broken secrets once broken. This provides a human check on the power of secret organizations: if someone within the organization is sufficiently outraged that they're willing to risk inprisonment, then secrets can be made public so that, as you say, the voters can elect new representatives, but if there is no such process, then we have no ability to punish our leaders for abuse of the power of secrecy.
not so subtle difference in wording (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, so what the Attorney General is saying here is that a well-established and extremely core right to freedom of the press that is clearly enumerated in the First Amendment can be trumped by a non-existant so-called "right" for the government to prosecute criminals that people may only WANT to see?
I'm sorry, I thought I was living in a country based on laws, the rule of law, and upon a foundation of the constitution of our nation which all federal government officers and military personal have sworn to uphold. NOT a place where one man's personal interpretations of the feelings of the population somehow create new "rights" that somehow are rights fot he federal government. There are no federal government rights in the constitution, there are rights fo PEOPLE, there are LIMITATIONS for government.
Mayve when the people, through their elected representatives, actually push through amendments that clearly revoke freedom of the press and also push forward with clarity the "right" for the federal government to prosecute crimes at any cost to liberty than Gonzalez might be in the right on this one, but until then he's talking about something even he admits is at best only something people "would like to have" - as in not the law currently.
I, for one, am sick of the Bush administration and its lawyers trampling rights and rewriting laws baased on fast and loose or extremely technical interpretations of laws that are essentially legal loopholes. What they are doing is making a mockery of the law. They are searching statutes for minute differences in wordings that can be exploited to permit or disallow whatever is politically advantageous for them. And most of these interpretations seem to fly in the face of the spirit of the laws they are citing. If congress had truly intended these laws to be interpreted as is being done then they would have clearly enumerated these gotchas, not secretly imbedded them in tricky wording waiting for some clever lawyer to discover congress' "true intention" of the law that somehow went unnoticed for years. The Loophole Legality policy of the Bush admin has been used to justify everything from torture, to renditions, to suspension of haebois corpus to restrictions on speech at just about every level (I don't care how the law is interpretted, our founders never intended freedom of speech to be satisified by locking all dissenting protestors in a big cage far away from the politicians ala the RNC & DNC 'freedom of speech areas'). This has to stop. The SCOTUS needs to wake up and start telling the Attorney General that him, his crony interpreters, and his policies can go take a flying leap as THEY and not him are the interpretters of the consititution and the rights granted therein. As in the actual rights granted and the laws that pertain to them, not phantom rights that people would supposedly like to see but aren't actually in law.
What's the difference? (Score:2, Insightful)
If they DO have enough probably cause to monitor them, why would it be difficult to get court approval?
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
People seem to act as if terrorists didn't exist before 9/11.
Lets face it, having freedom in society inherently increases the risk of living in that society. The freedom one enjoys also makes things easier for those who wish to cause them harm.
It all comes to how one rates their freedom with safety. Some agree with the president (and the previous one) and his administration, that safety is more important than freedom. Others, myself included, argue that freedom is more important than safety.
Whats more amazing though is that while there is talk of trying to stop terrorists, the actions are completely bogus. Since the Oklahoma City bombing, its has become no harder to rent a U-Haul. In many states all you need to purchase dynamite is permission from the fire dept. You can buy fertilizer by the ton even if you don't own a farm. The average Walmart sells everything needed to build a bomb.
Lets also remember that our military and government officials know that there is no way at all to stop a determined attack. This is the country that invented and perfected guerilla warefare. The Amry Special Forces goes to other countries to teach the locals how to conduct guerilla warfare. We know better than anybody else that you can't really stop it.
Israel has some of the best security forces on the planet. They have road blocks and check points all over the place. Even they can not stop attacks within their borders.
So, the only option left is to suck it up, learn to defend your self, accept that we live in a dangerous world, and THINK. The world is a lot less dangerous than it used to be. We aren't under the constant threat of global annihilation like we used to be. Crime is down, living standards are up. Lets all work to keep things improving and to help other to improve their lives as well.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only inconsiquential if nobody you cared about died, or your political ideology allows you to overlook their deaths in an effort to bash the current administration.
There are plenty of things to be critical of with the Bush administration without trivilizing the loss of life in the US and overseas due to terrorism.
The New U.S. Bill of Rights (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeat after me: I'm a Moonbat I'm a Moonbat I'm a Moonbat.
You're a dumbfuck, you're a dumbfuck, you're a dumbfuck. I really believe that.
If you really believe that, let's see you put your money where your mouth is. Go vacation on Iraq or Iran. Where would you like your head shipped?
Vacationing in Iran as an American right now is very safe. Far safer than many non-muslim third world destinations. And vacationing in Iraq was just fine too, before we started a war of choice there on fabricated evidence, toppled the only stable secular government in the region and stuck around with no exit plan. Naturally, this gave rise to a guerrilla insurgency, which is now quite dangerous. But it's not "terrorism" so much as a "resistance" and it has nothing to do with any of the massive domestic policy changes that have stripped our rights in the name of stopping "terrorism" which is, as the GP noted, an inconsequential threat. How many people have died on US soil since 9/11 in terrorist attacks? How many in places where we weren't fighting a war? How many died yesterday in car accidents?
difference with china (Score:3, Insightful)
removing freedoms one by one in small steps (throwing in a bunch of fear, usually from terrorists) is quite effective, as shown here.
big brother theories like 1984 or even more modern culture ones like deus ex makes me feel strange. things that seemed almost impossible and funny then are slowly coming to the country near you. or your country. not that many are noticing.
Clarify something for me. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) It was right under Bush and Clinton both.
2) It was right under Bush and not right under Clinton.
3) It was not right under Bush and right under Clinton.
4) It was not right under Bush and Clinton both.
If you're saying anything but 1 or 4, you're a flaming hypocrite. If you're saying 1, then you're consisent but wrong.
If, instead, you're trying to undermine opposition for the position that the Bush administration is wrong for doing it by pointing out that Clinton did it too, then you're in for a rude surprise -- that doesn't work. That just makes us angry at Mr. Triangulation too. Believe it or not, a lot of people actually stand on loyalty to principles instead of loyalty to party or persons.
Also, while it's considered irresponsible for journalists to identify rape victims and out undercover cops, unless there's a court order to the contrary, there's no standing law to that effect that I'm aware of. I doubt it would hold up in federal court if there was one.
State secrets is another matter entirely, but I think there should be considerable leeway for when the state's secret is that it's violating the laws and the freedoms of its citizens. You CAN'T let it be any other way or else you truly have an unaccountable government which is the opposite of what a democracy is supposed to be. National security should not trump the human rights of its citizens.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:3, Insightful)
Statistically you are much less likely to be murdered than you are to die in a car accident. Does that mean we shouldn't put murders in jail, or allocate resources to capture them? Your politics are clouding your judgement.
Not at all. I think the real point is that we shouldn't start wiping out our civil liberties and decreasing the checks on our government in pursuit of that goal.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorism is an inconsequential threat when you actually bother to run the numbers. And find that you are a FAR more likely killed by an inattentive or incompetent driver while you're crossing the street, (or any number of other mundane things that we have no "war on $x" to justify abusing our rights.) than you are to be killed by "the terrorists".
cya,
john
Re:Plamegate; in my world (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Bush & Co. tried playing by Democrats rules and didn't do all that well. Good thing I wasn't President though, you really wouldn't have liked my solution to Idiot Joe "My wife is a secret agent!" Wilson and his traitorous bitch wife.
So, back to the topic at hand, since you weren't/aren't president, what does Novak and his source get? Medal of Freedom? Pound-me-in-the-ass prison?
Sounds like you have a pretty strong double-standard going.
Regardless of what tawdry spin you want to put on this, the fact is that Novak reported classified information that was leaked to him by the White House. You cannot legally differentiate between the leakers you favor and the leakers you don't favor.
A Man for All Seasons (Score:3, Insightful)
This reminds me of the following exchange of Sir Thomas More from "A Man For All Seasons" set in the time of King Henry VIII.
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
The inward looking secretive nature of this administration pre-dates 9/11. I recall a complaint from a Republican congressman from the summer of 2001 that this administration was the slowest at responding to information since he took office in the 1960's. Most enquiries went unanswered.
Re:Clarify something for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Let's think about this for a moment - a group of farmers, lawyers, and businessmen sign their names to an open declaration of treason against the Crown, which controls the largest empire and the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and whose punishment for treason is generally death, and it's *NOT* a suicide pact?! I just love that one. Had the revolution turned out the way that any logically thinking person would have expected (it certainly hadn't completely succeeded just yet - see: War of 1812), every man whose name appeared on that Constitution would have been executed to serve as an example of what happens to traitors. These men put liberty far above their personal safety in the face of nearly certain death - but hey, it's not a suicide pact or anything." - NJ_Gent (2004)
These laws would not have saved anyone! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What is "inconsequential"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell that to England (IRA bombings) or Israel, which seem to function just fine.
In fact, England seemed to chug right along during WW2, when they were getting bombed to pieces. The difference is, the government back then told people to keep going despite the bombings, instead of trying to frighten the populace in order to grab (more) control.
Re:Suspicious (Score:4, Insightful)
I find this especially bad from an administration who first came to power talking about "bringing accountability back to the White House".
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're only partially correct. We have freedom "from" religion in the sense that no one can force us to participate in a given religion (except for Tom Cruise, he can force you into Scientology). But you do not have freedom "from" religion in the sense that you don't have to hear other people talking about their religion. Otherwise, you'd be stepping on their freedom of speech.
Rights vs. Powers (Score:3, Insightful)
A right is something a person has. A power is something to goverment can do. The Constitution outlines how rights are a check on powers.
The fact that the Attorney General of the US can even talk about the trade off of the first amendment rights against the right of the federal government shows how deeply he, and the President he works for, misunderstand the basic tenents of a constitutional republic.
Not quite... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, Echelon has existed for a quite a while. I remember original references back to Harvester. (Much more than just Bush and Clinton.)
Furthermore, Eschelon and others listened to international calls...not internal US call.
And I can't see how reporting classified information is a crime. If it was, whomever published about Valerie Plame would be in jail (They're not) and I wouldn't know about Eschelon and others.
Nope...this admistration is just a little bit different.
Give me liberty or give me death. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cowards who value their lives more than their freedoms are the fundamental building blocks -- the foundation -- upon which every house of tyrants is built. If you are seriously arguing that the rights of the people to be secure in the persons or to have the actions of their government made accountable and open to them are less important than their so-called safety, then you are a morally treasonous coward. You are the brick and mortar of a police state, and I grieve that my country has made so many of you.
Or, as Patrick Henry -- one the men instrumental in both the revolution and in pushing for the adoption of the Bill of Rights specifically to limit the power of the federal goverment -- said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:4, Insightful)
And so did Reagan and Carter. Whats your point?
Both the Democrats and the Republicans have been making things worse. Both by provoking situations that cause terrorism and by trying to push it under the carpet.
It doesn't help much when you try to push the blame on one group when BOTH of them are responsible.
Thats like getting busted for weed and giving the excuse that everyone else was smoking crack.
Clinton didn't do anything when Janet Reno decided to send tanks into a religous compound (I'm assuming thats what you meant in your reference to Clinton's actions). That doesn't have any bearing on the current administration squashing our rights.
Or are you trying to say that its ok if this president tries to squash our freedom because the last one was doing it too?
Why make the argument parisan, when both parties are guilty?
Re:Depends (Score:2, Insightful)
When the final push comes to the final shove one is left with the choice of saying either National Security trumps the Constitution or the Constitution trumps National Security.
If National Security trumps the Constitution, then the final push will leave you with security for a nation which no longer exists. Your national security will be securing a Constitution which you have chosen to throw overboard.
If the Constitution trumps National Security, then the final push has your Nation survive, but it must rely on something other than national security to be secure, because you've tossed national security overboard.
Can a nation survive without national security? Maybe. Is there anything beyond national security which can keep a nation secure, or does every nation which has no national security immediately dissolve?
Can a nation survive without a Constitution? No. And that's a by definition, absolute kind of no.
We'd all like to believe that we're nowhere near that final push portion of the game, that we still have the luxury of making choices other than the final one. If we've built our laws and selected our leaders correctly, then it will be a "depends". In other words, it needs to be a depends if we're going to claim to have built our laws and selected our leaders correctly.
But it does strike me how often we've heard our leaders speaking in just such absolutes, even if they seem to just be speaking poetically. Words like "New World Order", and "This war may last indefinitely...", and "you're either with us or you're against us".
Should we really be translating these as "the old laws no longer apply" and "we may not be around to see what comes next" and "we're already making our final push, and we intend to defeat any counter shove."
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Clarify something for me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anarchy, no. Democracy, yes. Democracy requires that citizens be informed of the actions of their government and that their government does not have undue powers to force its will upon the people.
A spying program specifically meant to correlate leaders of factions and to find links between people is very, very useful in suppressing opposition and protest groups. You just attack the most connected nodes. Keeping the public in the dark about it only makes it more sinister since the people cannot vote against a program that they may find morally repellent if they do not know it exists. This is explicitly anti-democratic.
At what point do we curb liberty to save our own lives?
Not here. Not anywhere close to here. What is the point in having our lives if they are not worth living? A government with these powers could easily crush dissent and make the lives of unhappy citizens short, nasty, and brutish. I personally do not believe in the Confuscian ideal of the harmonious people all of one mind and character. That sort of public contentment is a chimera and a civilizational dead-end.
It is one thing to limit our "liberty" to directly harm one another for safety such as by having laws against murder and rape. It is another thing to demand that we be kept in the dark about what our government is doing, be spied upon daily for whatever the government deems is dangerous activities, and to be prosecuted for telling others secrets our government does not want the citizens to know. If that's your sort of thing, I'd look into Mandarin classes because there's a whole tradition of thought that finds that sort of thing necessary across the Pacific. That's not the American way, though.
We are not a situation of being under foreign rule right now.
Why does it have to be foreign to be bad? Is it not worse to have your fellow citizens give away your country to oppression? Just ask an Iraqi Kurd sometime what it's like. Ask a woman in Saudi Arabia. Ask a political dissident in North Korea what the labor camps are like. Ask a former slum-dweller from Zimbabwe what Operation Clean Up Trash was like.
We are under a situation of rule from a President who has quietly, repeatedly asserted the position that the White House and the military are above rule of law. Read about signing statements. Read about White House memos on torture, prisoner rights, and domestic surveillance. Just go down the list of the Bill or Rights and Google "Bush [Xth] Amendment." (You can skip 2nd & 3rd, though.) Read about "unlawful combatants" and "enemy combatants" and Jose Padilla.
Are we truly safe in a government where the executive branch asserts that the law gives them the privilege to break the law? This is what your trading liberty for security has bought you. When will Bush go "far enough" in your mind?
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really believe that? The way I see it, the freer a people the easier it is for them to defend themselves. The freedom one enjoys in a free society is a protection against the evils of dictatorship. Giving up your freedom might protect you against external threats, but makes internal threats much more grave. History shows that people have more to fear from their own governments than from others.
The point is that freedom and safety are not opposed at all! Concentrating power only makes it easier to abuse, and therefore makes everyone less safe.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are the US people stupid or what? Always seeing things as if it's "Pro-Wrestling".
Currently things are getting to be US Gov vs the US citizens. Forget the Republican vs Democrat crap.
You guys are getting screwed by the theatre and you're complaining about the characters in the play.
Doh.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:4, Insightful)
They do. Everything released in the press so far has been about programs that may violate the law directly or simply threaten the basis of our system of government. Nothing released has even come close to threatening national security in a tangible way.
Let me let you in on a big non-secret: the Al Qaeda assume that they will be tortured if captured, and spied on. And they aren't going to trust a "leak" one way or another. Both legitamite and illegitamite methods of interrogation are known and well documented, you could release the torturer's handbook and it wouldn't effect any interrogation outcome. People will be broken when they are broken, a story in the NY times that tells people that when their heads are shoved under water that the interrogator probably isn't actually trying to kill them isn't going to change anything in the person's mind. We must know what is being done to people in our names, for us, and using the fruits of our labors. Anyone who chooses not to find out what is being done and at least apply their moral judgement is simply a coward.
Our soldiers die for nothing if we do not preserve Liberty at home.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that if we had these programs in place before 9/11, the 9/11 dead wouldn't be dead right now, I expect they'd be all for them.
Interesting assertion you make here without any evidence. In what way does leaking confidential information have anything to do with the 9/11 attacks? Were the attacks planned using information leaked to the press? What the fuck are you talking about?
Worse, given the fact that the white house had actually been briefed concerning a likely terrorist attack, complete with 9/11 as the date, and took no action, what makes you think any of the programs the government has enacted since would have made a difference? If they couldn't be bothered to beef up airport security or keep closer tabs on flights diverging from their IFR flight plans in the face of a report suggesting terrorists might use planes, then what were they going to do with the PATRIOT act provision for searching library records, or with illegal NSA wiretaps?
The government keeps things secret for the protection of Americans, and the people who leak those secrets therefore place all Americans into harm's way.
Right. Because we've never found out 30 years later that "classified" government programs and information were used improperly. Because J. Edgar Hoover's cardfiles on thousands of civilians chosen for political reasons were "for the protection of Americans." Same with Nixon's blacklist. This is bullshit. If men were angels, there'd be no need for government, and if men were ruled by angels, there'd be no need for controls on government. They aren't.
Keep in mind that requiring people not to leak secrets does in no way infringe on the First Amendment. No one is having their freedom of speech taken away.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you were an expert in constitutional law. Oh, wait, you aren't. I wonder what mental gymnastics you went through to come to this conclusion. Because the idea that a journalist cannot write about the government's activities simply because they haven't been officially acknowledged is rather incompatible with the idea of a free press. Note that there is a huge difference between not being able to print any leaked information and being responsible for information you publish that might actually hurt people. Journalists already take seriously the publication of troop movements, sensitive covert op data, secret identities, etc. That's not what we're talking about.
However, just like yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater, there can be consequences to what you say.
Yes, and there are consequences. But that's different. A journalist cannot write and say that a secret team will be operating on a certain street in Baghdad tomorrow. That endangers people, similarly to yelling fire in a theater. This is already covered by known and accepted law and case law. Printing information about a secret, illegal government program to spy on American citizens is not such a situation. Gonzales is now saying that anything the government wants secret is exempt from the first amendment. This is a long, long way away from the existing case law on the subject.
Just like you're not allowed to explain how to make bombs online, you're not allowed to leak secrets that can place America at risk.
Well, this last sentence really proves you're a dumbass. First, it is completely legal to explain how to make bombs online. Or in print; there's a page at the back of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears that apologizes for including enough information for a knowledgable, well-funded person to make an atomic bomb, but notes that all the information was found and can be found in a public library. A friend of mine got busted in middle school selling floppy discs of "Jolly Roger's Cookbook" with hundreds of explosive recipes...the school called the ATF, but they just laughed at them and told them their hands were tied by the first amendment. So that half of the sentence is simply false. The other h
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me another instance where you consider it justifiable to let 2400 of our soldiers die to keep 6 people from dying over the course of 5 years.
Show me another case where you think it's reasonable to collect and data mine the calling patterns of every American citizen (minus Qwest subscribers) to prevent 6 deaths.
Despite the triteness of the old Jefferson quote about trading liberty for security, it plays so well here it's hard to avoid. Because no matter what he said, every society makes that tradeoff. Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus, and FDR had some serious executive power plays as well. But those were instances with huge consequences for our country. 6 deaths isn't that kind of consequence.
Nobody said there was "no threat." We just said it was inconsequential. 6 deaths over 5 years in a country of 260M is inconsequential.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:3, Insightful)
3 Imply that safety (temporary security) trumps the constitution, despite what Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and Adams all warned us of
4 Abuse the Executive Order power (which itself should be ruled unconstitutional. LEGISLATORS create laws, EXECUTIVE enforces laws, at least, last time I checked the Constitution that's what it stated very clearly)
5 Blame everything blocking your dictatorship on ter'rists, pedophiles, and crack dealers
6. Award any contracts resulting from steps 2-6 to companies in which you or your major campaign contributors hold a stake in
7. PROFIT
Trumping Free Speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you are saying is, we have to wait until the terrorist kill a significant amount of people before we should spend money to fight them.
No. What I'm saying is that the threat to our citizens, our national security, and our way of life posed by terrorists is not in any way, shape, or form large enough to justify the wholesale destruction of our civil liberties. The administration has used one event to justify unbelievable changes to what ordinary, law-abiding citizens can expect with respect to their privacy and freedom. Now you can expect that your library records will be searched, your phone-calling patterns analyzed, and your email read. Meanwhile we're detaining people without letting them see lawyers. We're torturing. The justice department denies every single freedom of information act request they receive, out of hand, and make requesters challenge them in court if they want anything. None of these things were true before 9/11. Each one of these things is more significant than the number of lives we've lost to terrorism.
So how many innocent people have to die before the US government can spend money to stop these nutjobs without our domestic socialists crying about malaria in Africa?
You seem to look at this as some sort of retail anti-terrorism purchase. Let me clue you into something; we spend money and lives to attempt to "stop these nutjobs." Last I checked the number was somewhere around 2400 lives, if you only count Americans. If you count innocent Iraqi civilians, the number is far in excess of the 9/11 death toll. If you count the Iraqi soldiers we killed (note, they did not have anything to do with terrorism) it climbs staggeringly high. If you are going to act like it's the lives you care about, your argument falls to pieces simply because the administration has dramatically increased the lives lost, not reduced them. And that ignores the fact that deaths and injuries from terrorist attacks have been steadily rising since the Iraq war started. 9/11 was a spike in a flat line of terrorism. Our response to 9/11 has made that flat line into a steadily rising hill.
Here is a news flash, the American government and the American people owe no debt to Africa, nor do they have to spend money to fight a disease there while disregarding their own personal security.
We'll suspend indefinitely the discussion of whether the US owes a debt to Africa (How much is the economic output from those slaves worth? What about their descendents who helped fight all our wars since the Civil, and continue to help generate our economy, without, on average, taking hardly any of it for themselves?). Let's just examine the general idea you're going for here. That idea is that we don't have to give other countries aid. That's more or less true...we have no legal responsibility to help poorer countries. It's not a principle of the constitution or anything. But I'll put it to you like this: if we were to spend the money that we have spent in the Iraq war on targeted humanitarian aid, what would be the relative effect on terrorism?
To get more specific...say we went on a global "Marshall Plan" and invested in building the economic prosperity of all the Arab nations. Wipe out poverty there and make everyone wealthy enough to drive an American/German/Japanese car and listen to American rock music on their Chinese stereos. Think there'd still be a lot of suicide bombers out there? Radical militant Islam, and radical militant religion in general, requires poverty to be effective on a wide scale. In fact, stable democratic government can be said to require economic prosperity. And on the other side of the equation, various economists have looked at the expenditures of the Marshall Plan (for those who don't know, this was Truman's aid package to rebuild Europe (including Germany) and Japan after WWII) and invariably they conclude that the return on investment to America was more than worth it. This would be similar. If we wipe out Arab poverty,
Re:Where do you go when freedom loses (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is quickly falling into a totalitarian state because of ONE REASON: The populace allows it. The PEOPLE are letting the government get away with this! YOU are letting the government get away with this!
Gonzales supports torturing prisoners to get information. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and others selected Bush as their champion to invade Iraq and sieze control of the middle-east almost two years before he was nominated for the presidency [pnac.org]. Oh, and let's not forget the US government deporting Canadian citizens to other countries where they'll be tortured, as happened with Maher Arar.
Then consider how the government treats its own people: Spying on them illegally, trashing the first ammendment, and imprisoning them.
Why are you letting these people walk through the streets freely? Why are you letting them run your lives? Why are YOU PERSONALLY not standing up against them, and fighting for everything that they're destroying, after two and a quarter centuries?
Quit complaining. Fight for your lauded rights. Fight with words and law and accountability, or later on you'll be fighting with knives and guns and molotov cocktails.
A quick summary for the lazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
"When our guys do it - good.
When you guys do it - bad."
Re:What is "inconsequential"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they? I guess it depends on the definition of 'fine'. England is passing laws that'll soon have Orwell popping vertically from the soil. They're well on the way to replacing eternal vigilance with eternal surveillance. I don't know enough about Israel but it doesn't appear "a place I want to live". It's the only country that for me consistently conjures the mental image of a uniformed official brandishing an MP5. Though I agree completely with your last paragraph, it illustrates a more civilized response to the real threat of terror.
Re:no press super-citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed his point entirely. No one is arguing that congress is prohibited from making laws abridging the freedom of the press, but rather that "the press" is not defined as "people who graduated from the Columbia school of Journalism." A blog is protected the same way the New York Times is.
Re:Terrorism is an inconsequential threat (Score:5, Insightful)
But terrorism only works when you let yourself be afraid. We don't have to be afraid. The government and the media are both very interested in having us be afraid. The government wants it because that fear can be translated into reasons for expansions of power, which eventually reward the corporations who pay the lobbyists that compensate the politicians. The media wants it because that fear translates into more advertising dollars during the airtime that panders to fear.
But you don't have to accept either group's assertion that you should be afraid. You should think carefully and act rationally and live your life deliberately aligned with your principles. Being afraid of the vague threat of terrorism doesn't do that. It directly and completely prevents that.
people react with emotion. The[y] feel fear. They also feel an incredibly strong, compelling emotion for justice and to make things right. I do not mock this, I salute it.
You're conflating a bunch of things together as if they were the same thing. They're not. Having a healthy understanding of risk means avoiding dangerous situations based on a reasonable fear of harm. Being paralyzed by fear to the point that you're willing to sacrifice your freedoms to feel a little security is pure insanity. Wanting to find and punish those who have harmed us is a healthy desire for justice. Wanting to keep anyone who might harm us locked away without any charge or even a promise of a trial runs afoul of so many principles Americans should hold dear (prior restraint, innocent until proven guilty, due process, etc.) that the fear has again caused people to set aside their core principles.
Pure insanity. There is no reason to be so afraid. There is good reason to want to correct what has gone wrong. There is good reason to want to make sure that the police can do their jobs. There is no reason to believe that the police couldn't do their job with the laws before 9/11.
You are a slave to the fear you have been told to feel and I pity you. As long as you are afraid, you will never be free.
Regards,
Ross
This is a crack in the levee. (Score:4, Insightful)
That debate is pointless if the law explicitly states that state secrets trump press freedom in all cases. The Chilling Effect is already present and all that is left is for the brave to sacrifice themselves needlessly. I believe that the balance of power should always be in the favor of the people and not in favor of the appointed guardians of the people.
If the Rosenbergs had given the details on the bomb to a newspaper to be printed, instead of handing it over to the Soviets, do you think they should have been protected just because a newspaper has a right to publish under the first amendment?
No, in that case the secret of the state was a particular weapons technology. That we had such a device was already public knowledge. The people in fact had a right to know that we had the bomb once it was used. The implementation details of how to make such a weapon however did not need to be as it was not a significant threat to the liberty of the people to be deprived of such knowledge. No political party or movement could be persecuted or intimidated and democracy is not threatened by nuclear weapon implementation details.
That's an essential difference between these two example. However, a program that spies on the activity of Americans that was kept secret from the people is another thing because it is ripe for abuse. In this case, the state secret is that it is acting in a manner that is arguably counter to the interests of the people. That sort of secret should never be kept.
Given the actions of the current administration against peace groups [msn.com] and the historical precident of what happened to civil rights leaders [icdc.com] during the 1960s, I cannot trust the government not to ever use this power against its own citizens for "ends justify the means" purposes.
To let the executive branch should have the power to simply quash all public debate on its actions by slapping a security clearance on its programs is extremely dangerous. It's a Soviet-like power grab. To say that the people do not have a right to know (and thus be able to protest) some of the actions of their government is to forfit all your power over government in these areas. Any place in government where the people do not have control is a crack in the levee and will widen over time as our current adminstration is making more and more clear each day.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:4, Insightful)
The President certainly has the *authority* to declassify whatever the hell he wants. The question is only on what procedures he needs to follow when doing so. A full reading of EO 12356 seems to indicate it's more complex than just "saying it's declassified" but I'm no lawyer so I'm not about to give any definitive answer. I strongly suspect it depends on the source of the original classification as manditory review (sec 3.4) may apply also.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:2, Insightful)
Right.
China has a bad reputation when it comes to civil liberties and suppressing dissent, yet they don't appear to have a significant terrorist problem. Should we emulate them?
Re:And a complex legal issue is again subjected to (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:1, Insightful)
Who's the world's richest man right now? Richer than Bill Gates? Why, I do believe that would be the Ikea founder. A Swede, in fact.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:2, Insightful)
I know nothing about Swedish government, but speaking of government in general, no matter how high the stack of papers on the bureaucrat's desk, beneath it lies a gun. Eventually, What happens after I continually refuse to pay this mandatory charity? Do men with guns come knocking at my door? Because if that's what happens, I'm going to have to call you on this notion of being "no less free". I might even say that to the extent you must finance someone else's existence, you are their slave.
If you believe that men are born indebted to each other, then by all means act accordingly, give three quarters of your income to charity if it pleases you. If, however, you feel the need to impose this 'responsibility' on others with guns, then what is it you really believe?
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:1, Insightful)
These aren't exactly totalitarian societies. If you cannot reconcile yourself to your community, then isn't the burden of responsibility on you to leave?
If you are born in a place that lets you leave, well... why stay?
There are trade offs to every situation. If you want to keep living somewhere, then you must agree to the social contracts in that place. If you cannot accept it, then you should leave.
Your forefathers did so before arriving to whatever unknown shores where you were born; if you cannot accept your community, it may well be best for you to follow in the footsteps of your ancestors and find greener pastures elsewhere.
Re:Congress shall make no law... (Score:5, Insightful)