The Associated Press
We know about "warrantless wiretapping" because of James Risen's reporting.
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Posted 42 weeks 4 hours ago
Will a New York Times reporter go to jail over his spying stories?
James Risen was one-half the New York Times reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the existence of the "warrantless wiretapping" program. Now a grand jury has subpoenaed him, seeking the confidential sources that were the basis of his reporting on that story and others in his book, "State of War." Risen has said he will protect his sources -- and he might go to jail to do so.
Why is the government going after Risen's sources now? What does this action mean for wartime reporting?
Thoughts
Nothing deep, just a question about "Joel's" article
Submitted on February 2nd, 2008 by MonkeyBrad[examples]...Abu Ghraib, [other examples] -- it is, in every case, the by-product of two forces: government whistleblowers and reporters willing to expose it.
Now hold on. When did Abu Ghraib become something uncovered by journalists? I'm pretty sure it was after the military had begun a criminal investigation (in 2003) of the lowlife perps who make up the military's version of every big organization's infamous 10%. It didn't make the news until 2004. That doesn't sound like traditional whistleblowing to me.
Espionage Act and abuse of power
Submitted on February 2nd, 2008 by BenThere might not be too much daylight between us on this issue, Robb. Although I question the Times's judgment, I'm not keen on the feds indicting journalists. I selected the Gabe Schoenfeld piece because it is by far the most aggressive case for resurrecting the Espionage Act in the 21st century. The argument needs to be acknowledged and confronted. On his blog, by the way, Schoenfeld expresses a certain satisfaction that the Justice Department is beginning to probe the Times's reporting.
I don't share Schoenfeld's zeal. The history of the Espionage Act is a history of abuse of federal power. The line on the Bush administration is that it is one of the most repressive in history, that dissent is out of the question with this president. This is simply nonsense and it betrays a gross ignorance of history. If the worst the ACLU's lawyers can point to is the existence of so-called free speech zones at Bush events, or preventing Cat Stevens from entering the country, then their memories are either too selective or too short. Nobody -- and I mean nobody -- has been arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to 10 years in prison by this administration for distributing the Bill of Rights or urging people to resist deployment to the front (the best analogy I can muster since there is no draft).
A few years ago, an anonymous Press-Enterprise editorialist asked who is the Charles Schenck in the War on Terrorism? Anyone who doesn't know who Schenck was and what his case means has some reading and pondering to do. But the short answer is there is no Schenck in this war. And I don't see the Bush Justice Department making James Risen into one.
State worship, espionage, and treason
Submitted on February 2nd, 2008 by Monkey RobbL...the Times has accomplished the same end while at the same time congratulating itself for bravely defending the First Amendment and thereby protecting us--from, presumably, ourselves.
The conflation of the state and the citizenry by Commentary tells you all you need to know about their perspective. The Times was not protecting the citizenry from themselves. Rather, it was making the "governed" aware of the actions of the "government." Since all authority of the state is supposed to be derived from our consent, we have a right to know what they are doing with that authority - particularly when they are using it to violate our other constitutional and natural rights.