I don’t want to blame the victim, but it’s pretty clear that James Rosen, the Fox News reporter under investigation by the Justice Department for his role in publishing classified data, is a bumbling fool. Not only did he communicate with his source in a way that was almost guaranteed to get both caught, but he announced to the world that the US had a source in the North Korean government for no good reason.
And, no Sharyl Attkinson, the Obama Administration is not hacking your computer because you’re investigating Fast and Furious, Solyndra or whatever other scandal CPAC will give you an award for. Take it to the Geek Squad.
I don’t have any deep issue with the concept of shield laws, but if we are going to have them I want to be damn sure that they cover non-traditional news organizations. Bill Keller might not like Julian Assange’s body odor, and there are a lot of dirty hippie bloggers whose kids don’t attend Sidwell Friends, but if they’re not covered by the same shield law as Rosen and Attkinson because they’re not members of the club, I’m not supporting them.
(h/t to reader J for the Attkinson link.)
Baud
That’s why you’ll never get shield law.
someguy
Rosen should be in jail as a consequence of working for that transnational criminal conspiracy known as Fox News.
raven
Cokie Roberts was having a fucking fit about this with Mornin Joe.
Baud
@raven:
Not surprising. Those are her people.
Joey Maloney
Meanwhile the Obama Death List grows… Florida man with connection to Tsarnaev killed by FBI
Professor
So what if the leak to James Rosen had got a USA asset killed or into trouble?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I won’t support a shield law, and it’s because of situations like this. What got leaked in this case had nothing to do with government corruption or inefficiency. It put someone’s life at risk and compromised security with no benefit.
Leaking classified information is breaking the law. If someone feels that leaking it is important, than they will need to deal with the consequences. If we as a society feel that keeping information classified is wrong, then we need to change the laws. But if we are going to keep anything classified, then someone will have to justify why it is being released.
And running to the press should not be a cover.
jayackroyd
As Mr Mix says, it’s not a Fourth Estate if the other three get to decided who belongs to it.
beltane
@Joey Maloney: Well, I feel better now knowing that Dana Rohrbacker is going to lead a delegation of clowns to Russia to get to the bottom of this.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
It’s one thing to leak information that exposes a crime. It quite another to leak information pertaining to classified information that isn’t related to “wrong-doing” (is that a thing?)
It’s like reporters think they’re Florida and classified information is a Cuban refugee. Just because the classified information landed with a reporter doesn’t mean that the government has to acknowledge the dry foot. You can’t leak classified information unless there is serious fucking around attached to it. If we have assets and operations in North Korea or Yemen you can’t expose it just because someone leaked that information to you.
sparrow
@Joey Maloney: For those too lay to read (Looking at you, Joey), the FBI agent was attacked by the guy first during an interview. He then got shot. This is not exactly what you are implying, but you knew that. Stupid git.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jayackroyd: By that standard, it has never existed. The press has almost always relied on the Supreme Court to defend its right to snoop and report.
MomSense
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
The State Dept. “leaker” has a Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld connection and he went straight to Fox News. I wonder if it has occurred to his defenders that his motivations were political.
sparrow
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m sorry, but I think the people who take the risk are the spies. If you don’t give the press some immunity, they will just NEVER challenge corruption. They’re chicken-shit as it is. I think, sadly, the preferable risk of collateral damage is the occaisonal leaked info that has no purpose, not a totally powerless press.
rikyrah
Atkinson’s lying because her ass should be fired just like that lying clown at ABC.
Roger Moore
@beltane:
Why? Is he going to be detained there indefinitely?
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Of course it has. They’re defending him because of his politics, not in spite of them.
beltane
@Roger Moore: One can only hope. In any case, travelling to Russia is the first step towards being detained there indefinitely so it is a start.
weaselone
@sparrow:
The press should have some protection. The leaker should not. If a government official leaks information to the press that exposes an agent and possibly leads to deaths, they should be treated just as if they had leaked that information directly to a foreign government.
JPL
What a bumbler. The reuter’s article was hilarious on how not to obtain classified information but msm won’t report on that. If in order to gather information, I have no problem with the search warrant being issued. I do feel uncomfortable that the reporter wasn’t notified. Of course, Fox news would have fought it in court but so be it.
sparrow
@weaselone: That I agree with.
eric
@sparrow: the easy answer is that there are no absolutes, not the first amendment, not the second amendment, yet when the ox getting gore is premised on the promises of a particular right it becomes absolute because people so fear the slippery slope. Why? because real moral judgments, by real people, in real time, require people to make decisions on imperfect knowledge informed by their own biases. Now that the MSM sees one of its own attacked, the first amendment, as an abstract, is the greatest good and must be defended from the invasion of human judgments. We can, and should, strive to make distinctions as to when some rights trump other rights and in so doing we may be wrong this time or later. But, it is no judgment at all to reify a rule or a principle to immunize it from competition with all other rights in every instance for all time.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@sparrow: My point is that it’s not up to the person leaking the information, nor the press, to decide if the leak was justified. It might be decided in the court of public opinion, which we delegate to a jury, but we don’t just let it go just because it made it to a reporter.
I’m not saying there aren’t times when it shouldn’t happen. Just don’t expect to be free because the NYT printed it.
celticdragonchick
@Joey Maloney:
Funny how that assaulting an FBI agent tends to get you killed.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
It is just frustrating to hear supposed liberal “journalists” seemingly incapable of differentiating between leaking and whistleblowing generally and in this case failing to investigate the background of the leaker which I think is relevant. And what happened to the asset in North Korea? And isn’t it actually in our interest to gain intelligence about North Korea and their nuclear and missile programs?
eric
@MomSense: it is just like going to an NRA meeting, only different right.
Joey Maloney
@sparrow: Sure, that’s the official story. But you know what other suspicious death the FBI was present at? That’s right, David Koresh. Oh, sure, they say they were provoked, but you know as well as I do they were acting on orders, orders from Captain Super Muslim XXX (in his guise as mild-mannered President No Drama Obama). In Koresh’s case, he was the last living witness to a certain birth in a Kenyan hospital. This guy, on the other hand – and you won’t know this because you don’t have access to my sources – was present at Benghazi. That’s right, Benghazi. And there he noticed a certain tall, dusky, jug-eared terrorist administering the final double-tap to our ambassador.
Wake up, sheeple!
PS, I am not a crank.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@weaselone: Agree. What gets interesting is the line between the press’s protection and the government’s right to go after the leaker.
Gin & Tonic
@Joey Maloney: Ideas, newsletter, &c.
mattminus
Its cute that a reporter thinks that the government needs to hack your PC, in manner that you malware bytes will detect no less, in order to get at your email. Is she that narcissistic and stupid, or has she figured out that the accusation alone is worth a few years on the wing nut lecture circuit?
Suffern ACE
The grey area case is the one regarding that NSA or CIA information system that was not working. On the one hand, I can see how that falls well within ‘whistleblowing’ and the public should know if it the government spends money on things that don’t pan out. On the other hand, knowing that an intelligence gathering system isn’t working is the type of thing that foreign governments would like to know too.
I doubt the shield law is going to extend to bloggers. Although I don’t know who gets to determine who is the press or not. I don’t think the first amendment allows for the Press Permit Issuing Agency.
Higgs Boson's Mate
If Rosen had been a blogger Fox News would be clamoring for him to be charged with treason.
Gin & Tonic
@mattminus: And the activity began in *February of 2011*. Do you need two f’ing years to figure out what’s going on, or to wipe the machine or buy a new one? That’s a seven-layer cake of stupid right there.
MomSense
@weaselone:
I agree that the leaker should be investigated and prosecuted. This was not a whistleblower. This was someone who released highly classified information about a serious national security issue with zero regard for the human being whose life was on the line to give us the information. Given the background of the leaker in question, I am suspicious that the motivations were partisan and political. It is not easy to gather intelligence in North Korea. They likely conducted an underground nuclear test recently so this isn’t a case of our government inflating the security threat just to keep secrets.
I also think that journalists absolutely have a responsibility to discern the difference between a leak and whistleblowing. I think they have a responsibility to vet their sources and they have a responsibility not to be complicit in a crime with serious national security implications. And here’s the thing I think that if journalists fail to do this than they further jeopardize whistleblowers.
MomSense
@eric:
I have no clue what an NRA meeting has to do with this. Please explain.
Patrick
@MomSense:
And that’s the crux of it – Any rational person knows that FoxNews is the propaganda outlet for the GOP. It is impossible to take this seriously, especially knowing that FoxNews is foreign owned and this leak would harm the United States.
Bobby Thomson
@Joey Maloney: well that killed it. But yeah, the snark impaired gits are out in force this morning.
eric
@MomSense: there the second amendment is absolute; here the first amendment is absolute and anyone that disagrees fails to understand how important this particular right is to the preservation of democracy.
Bobby Thomson
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: not if he had been Drudge
MomSense
@eric:
The first amendment has never been absolute.
eric
@MomSense: it is to the NYT
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Gin & Tonic:
She needs the money so that she can help Princess Roukia Sawadaogo get her late father’s $15,000,000 out of a bank in Burkina Faso.
piratedan
just another fine distinction that is apparently lost on the apparatchik crowd…..
whistleblower – you killed your wife and buried her in the backyard
leaker – you’re cheating on your wife and if she finds out, she (and/or her family and friends) may kill you and bury you in the back yard
one is a crime and the other concerns sensitive information that you would just as soon not have publicized that could have serious repercussions.
strandedvandal
@Joey Maloney: You are trying too hard.
catclub
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Of course, the best way to get all the brightest North Korean Generals and technicians killed is to tell the North Koreans we have assets in their government … when we don’t. Not very nice, though.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@MomSense: I think that’s what the NRA comment means: A group that takes their particular amendment to be absolute.
The only absolute I have is: All member variables must be private.
piratedan
@Patrick: as far as Faux is concerned, they don’t care if it hurts the country, their country has been lost, there’s a N*clang! in the White House and anything that hurts the current administration is not a bridge too far for them. Else we wouldn’t have seen them turn their back on their own policies for the last six years when they’re backed by the current inhabitant of the Oval Office chair. They’re already at WAR to take back their country or so their daily news bumpers tell me.
catclub
@MomSense: I disagree with this:
“I also think that journalists absolutely have a responsibility to discern the difference between a leak and whistleblowing. I think they have a responsibility to vet their sources and they have a responsibility not to be complicit in a crime with serious national security implications. And here’s the thing I think that if journalists fail to do this than they further jeopardize whistleblowers.”
It makes it sound like journalists are federal employees with some responsibility to the nation. What if it was a journalist for The London Times, or Le Monde or Al Jazeera? Would they first have to decide what the responsible thing is before deciding if their scoop is newsworthy?
Joey Maloney
@strandedvandal: I had to crank it up; subtlety is apparently lost on some people.
Ruckus
@Joey Maloney:
PS. I beg to differ.
Lurking Canadian
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): protected, surely.
Frankensteinbeck
@MomSense:
No right has ever been absolute. Sooner or later, they interfere with the rights of others. I’ll admit, it’s hard to think of how your right to vote could interfere with others, but there’s probably a way. Free speech, religion, even jury trial can be used to hurt others and have limits.
gene108
How’s that USA PATRIOT Acts I & II working out for you now, you Bush @ Co. lackeys in the media?
Hahahahahahahahaha….bitches……..hahahahahahaha…..
weaselone
@Suffern ACE:
Shield laws probably should extend to bloggers if we go with the founders intent. Much of the press during the time of the revolution was a few people with access to a printing press publishing what amounted to a pamphlet for local consumption. Blogs seem to resemble this for more closely than the infotainment industry that currently passes itself off as the Press.
maya
Shouldn’t one of the Koch Bros, in conjugation with Liz Cheney, be forming a Scooter Libby Society & PAC by now?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@catclub: That’s the tension, isn’t it?
To me, though, it makes them sound like citizens. The press has a job, and a certain amount of power and responsibility. Imagine if the Boston bombers had called the newspaper at 8 in the morning and told them what was going to happen, and the newspaper decided that they would print it the next day because they had already printed today’s paper rather than calling the police. That would be irresponsible.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Lurking Canadian: Nope. If a derived class needs a variable, it can use an accessor function, even if the the function is only available to derived classes.
flukebucket
Well, I see where Chuck Todd thinks Obama wants to criminalize journalism. If that is the case there is no chance of Todd ever getting arrested because he damn sure doesn’t practice journalism.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@flukebucket: the thought of a couple of conventional wisdom recyclers like Cokie Roberts and Chuck Todd worried about “sources” (people in this town are saying…) and “leaks” (someone told me at dinner the other night…) is pretty fucking comical
Frankensteinbeck
@flukebucket:
I believe that this is the part where, like the GOP, the national press reminds 73% of America that they’re WATB with no grasp of reality, scale, or what’s important.
MaximusNYC
“I don’t want to blame the victim, but it’s pretty clear that James Rosen, the Fox News reporter under investigation by the Justice Department for his role in publishing classified data, is a bumbling fool.”
For a person who doesn’t want to blame the victim, you’re doing a good job of blaming the victim.
I like the Balloon Juice community a lot, but it’s disappointing to see so many here rationalizing prosecution of journalists because it’s Obama’s DOJ doing the prosecuting and Fox News doing the journalism.
Dudes: I voted for him twice, but Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than ANY PREVIOUS PRESIDENT. That’s just wrong. Not sure why it’s so hard for some to just say so.
Joey Maloney
@MaximusNYC: Wait, Rosen’s being prosecuted? When did that happen?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MaximusNYC: Dude, explain to me how James Rosen is a “whistleblower”.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@MaximusNYC:
I would be the first to criticize the Obama administration if the Fox news reporter was being hounded for exposing administration misfeasance.The reporter exposed the fact that we have an intelligence asset in a hostile government just to get a scoop. No noble purpose was served there.
Patrick
@MaximusNYC:
FoxNews is not doing journalism. Even if they were (which they are not), how reliable do you think journalism from the GOP propaganda outlet would be? Everything they do is based on an agenda. Thus, not journalism.
Frankensteinbeck
@MaximusNYC:
The whole point of this post is that ‘whistleblower’ is being used to describe people like Rosen who are not noble journalists exposing government wrongdoing, but trolls or even partisan hacks releasing random government secrets because they can.
catclub
slightly OT: I read an article that the way to defuse someone who holds very strong opinions is to ask for details. Keep asking them what exactly they know of the details.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-20/how-to-humble-a-wing-nut.html
Patrick
@flukebucket:
How the hell do you criminalize something that is non-existent? Heck, ever since the run-up to the Iraq war, journalism has been gone from our country. Maybe Chuck Todd and his cohorts should take a look in the mirror before throwing rocks at others for why journalism is in such poor shape in our country and has been for years.
gene108
@MaximusNYC:
For me it’s a “chickens coming home to roost” situation with the MSM. The media fosters a level of paranoia in this country and did a piss poor job of checking up on anything Bush & Co. did post-9/11/01.
They’ve helped create the security state mentality we’re in now, by hyping up every hysterical talking point on the Right, from the underwear bomber to Benghazi, so any politician today does not want to be accused of being “soft on terror”, even though the chances of someone in the U.S. dying from a terrorist attack are less than dying on their daily commute to work.
They’ve ignored really pressing stories of the human suffering the Great Recession has caused otherwise middle-class people, while fawning over the rich and powerful. The media can dramatically influence public perception and they’ve chosen to ignore what’s affecting most Americans.
I do not wish them well.
This is their “chickens coming home to roost” that they’ve been sowing for the past 10+ years.
If they want changes to this crack down, they need to dial back the paranoia factor and start reporting about how rare terrorism is, so politicians don’t have to live in fear of breaches to the security state.
EDIT: With regards to the actual government whistle blowers, Obama does need to chill the fuck out on grinding them under the DoJ’s heel.
catclub
@maya: Kevin Durant donated a million dollars to tornado relief.
The Koch Industries have huge presence in Oklahoma. How much are the Koch’s giving? My guess is zero.
catclub
@flukebucket: I larfed.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Rosen’s source is a “whistleblower” in the same sense that the Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is a “social welfare organization”.
flukebucket
@Patrick:
My feelings exactly. I have gotten so disillusioned with the press that I don’t think I can ever have any respect for them again and I question sometimes if I ever should have had respect for them. “Journalism” has been so disgusting for so long now I don’t know how main stream media will ever win back the trust of any thinking person.
The Other Bob
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Amen. A journalist should not be shielded when what was printed had nothing to do with whistleblowing. They endangered the lives of CIA operative in Korea. Rosen isn’t the target of the warrant that when after the leaker, but I am not sure he shouldn’t be. What he and Fox News printed is borderline treason in my mind.
MomSense
@catclub:
How did you feel about Judith Miller? I think she had a responsibility to better vet both the sources and the information. There were disastrous consequences. Was she played? Was she complicit?
@MaximusNYC:
Please explain how Rosen and Stephen Jin-Woo Kim were whistleblowers. And again, I think if we call all journalists and all leaks whistleblowing it makes it much more difficult to defend whistleblowers. If the public conflate them it will be very difficult to defend whistleblowers.
BTW, if a journalist just reports information without vetting both the source and the quality of the information the result will not always be edification of the public. Bogus wars and other actions could be the result. When Valerie Plame was outed all of her sources were lost. It becomes much easier for neo cons to drum up support for attacking Iran under the pretense of nuclear capabilities if we don’t have accurate information to counter those claims.
celticdragonchick
@Joey Maloney:
I am aware of all internet traditions.
/snarc/
When “sheeple” and “I am not a crank” are literally side by side in the same statement…you pretty much defeat whatever the hell you were trying to say in the first place.
rikyrah
@flukebucket:
TELL IT
MomSense
@The Other Bob:
Ironically the person in North Korea who was outed was an actual whistleblower but it seems that proving ones progressive bonafides requires a blind government always bad and journalists always good analysis–which is just stupid and dangerous.
ericblair
@catclub:
This is a moral responsibility that goes above legal responsibilities. You (usually) don’t have any legal responsibility to save a person drowning in front of you, either. If you’re going to propagate leaked information that will likely get people killed just to score political points or advance your career, there is blood is on your hands as far as I’m concerned.
celticdragonchick
@Joey Maloney:
And yes, you really are going a bit over the top with the routine.
Suffern ACE
If there was a leak I wouldn’t mind being investigated were the photos that the New York Post obtained last month that they placed on the cover of their paper of someone who they decided was the Boston Marathon Bomber who was just some randomn Joe. The implication was that they recieved that information from those nebulous “sources ‘close’ to the investigation”. I am going to guess that photo was one of many that was being processed, and that someone in either the FBI or NYPD leaked those photos out to a reporter buddy. But the press should not be shielded from that kind of malpractice either.
Higgs Boson's Mate
The administration’s obvious animus towards journalists is unconscionable. If it wasn’t for the courageous journos we might have become embroiled in a war in Iraq based on false evidence.
Suffern ACE
@MaximusNYC: >>like the Balloon Juice community a lot, but it’s disappointing to see so many here rationalizing prosecution of journalists <<
Was Rosen actually prosecuted? Is it now the position that crimes should no longer be investigated? Or do we imagine that only the clearly guilty should be questioned by investigators.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And while I’m frustrated by the liberal and MSM obsession with comparing the AP and Fox cases to the Pentagon Papers (we need some kind of Godwin rule for Nixon comparisons), I’m not at all comfortable with what the DOJ is doing. IANAL but I think the gov’t should approach cases like this, involving journalists, with a great deal of restraint. That said, all the high dudgeon of utterly useless people like Cokie Roberts and Chuck Todd, and mostly useless people like Jake Tapper, would be less obnoxious to me if they had (as others have said) shown the aggressiveness they show in defending incompetents like James Rosen when addressing the Iraq war and the spin they bought in to all through the Bush administration, or if they showed some anger at Republicans for cynically exploiting their lofty First Amendment absolutism with everyone from Judith Miller to Russert and Cooper (?) in the Plame case to Jonathan Karl. IT’s not really a Constitutional matter (yet, and I don’t think Chaffetz and Issa will succeed in making it one), but if sources and confidentiality are so sacred, they should be clamoring for Karl to reveal his sources, if not to be fired for such abject incompetence and dishonesty.
MomSense
@gene108:
Imagine if Judy Miller had actually done her job and investigated the veracity of the leaks she published? Or what about all the other claims the Bush administration made running up to the Iraq war. Should those sources and information have been vetted to discern whether or not it was accurate or whether the media were being manipulated by the sources?
srv
@catclub: Koch’s gave $1M, heard it announced on KFOR
Joey Maloney
@celticdragonchick: Your criticism is noted, and I take it seriously, given your own history of hilarious over-the-top trolling here.
Wait, you were serious?
Joey Maloney
@MomSense:
For Judy Miller, “doing her job” meant specifically not investigating the veracity of those leaks. Her job was Puke Funnel.
someguy
@MaximusNYC:
Dudes: I voted for him twice, but Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than ANY PREVIOUS PRESIDENT. That’s just wrong. Not sure why it’s so hard for some to just say so.
Sure, prosecuting the NSA leakers for what they leaked about warrantless wiretapping was probably a little much. What they did was an unalloyed good, and they along with the NY Times were among the few taking a hard line against the Bush Administration circa 2004. On the other other hand, they did break some pretty serious laws, and in these more recent cases, for the most part, the prosecutions are completely justified. They call them “laws” because they are the law and you don’t break them lightly. It’s great that the leakers give us some transparency into the government but if they’re breaking the law to do so, then they and their fellow conspirators need to go to jail. If you don’t like the laws, win an election and get the laws changed.
Joel
@sparrow: I’m with you. The leaker should get full imprisonment under espionage act. Rosen should just get a giant egg on his face (and lose his job, if Fox News were a credible organization).
MomSense
@sparrow:
“…the preferable risk of collateral damage is the occaisonal leaked info that has no purpose…
Sometimes the purpose of leaking information to an unskilled or friendly journalist is to create conditions that would allow the government to do things to seize more power. Sometimes the purpose could be to inflict harm on an administration to help the opponent or opposition party in an election. I don’t think we should assume that leaks will serve no purpose. Leaks are not always for the public good–hence the responsibility of the journalist to vet the source and the information and to determine if it is in the public interest to make it public.
Joe Buck
Rosen is a fool, but the FBI agent’s affidavit used to get the warrant is terrifying. It’s a justification for putting almost any real journalist in jail.
As Orwell said, journalism is printing something that someone does not want to see printed, all else is stenography.
Joe Buck
Also, the shield laws currently under discussion say that there is no shield if national security is involved. Recall that Nixon tried to block Watergate investigations by invoking national security, and that millions of documents are classified, not because their release would harm the United States, but that they would be embarrassing.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
Play to their paranoia.
Actually makes some sense.
Stalin did Hitler a favor by killing his best generals prior to the Wehrmacht rolling into the USSR in 1941.
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense:
Journalists should be skeptical enough not to allow themselves to be played.
Then again, we’re dealing with Faux. They are not journalists there, they are propagandists.
JR in WV
@Joey Maloney:
I suspect putting “PS, I am not a crank.” is pretty much proof that you are, in fact, a major crank of ignorance!
As if we needed proof in addition to the stupid in your remarks above the PS.
burnspbesq
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Pretty much. That said, 18 U.S.C. 793(c), which in effect criminalizes the receipt of classified national defense information, is a blunt instrument that should be used with care.
I think DOJ has struck the right balance in this case. They used Rosen’s apparent 793(c) violation to get the search warrant, but so far have declined to prosecute him.
Anybodybuther2016
How the hell is this guy a victim?
burnspbesq
@Joey Maloney:
Nor are you much of a parodist.
someguy
@burnspbesq: They seized the records of a bunch of Fox execs while they were at it too. Which sounds bad but when you consider Fox’s own wiretapping scandal, it really isn’t so much. I’m sure the seizure is the kind of thing that Fox is perfectly alright with. Or if they aren’t fine with it, it’s sort of hard for them to contest it, in light of their own actions.
burnspbesq
@MaximusNYC:
And what of the President’s Constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed? If you don’t like Section 793(c), your beef is with Congress and your remedy is to get it repealed.
Anybodybuther2016
How the is this guy a victim?
Phil Perspective
@rikyrah: I wish people would remember that she’s a GOP plant/moll just like Jon Karl is.
Phil Perspective
@Joe Buck: Bingo!!
burnspbesq
@someguy:
Which makes sense, if you indulge the fantasy that Fox News is engaged in journalism. In a real journalistic enterprise, an editor would want to know the identity (or at least the position) of the source of a potentially explosive story, in order to get a comfort level that the story was accurate before running it.
Another Halocene Human
@sparrow: Well a) cops lie.
b) both mma fighters, eh? But we can’t talk about the link between Traumatic Brain Injuries and violence. Must be, ah, video games. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Another Halocene Human
@sparrow: Do you think the civil courts could provide sufficient “discipline” upon reporters by allowing outed spy’s families to sue them and their employers for wrongful deaths or any other torts stemming from the outing of covert operatives?
Another Halocene Human
@Suffern ACE: That’s been the argument with private security as well, as if the black hats don’t fucking know when your security measures don’t work.
Don’t confuse the need of bureaucrats to defend their asses by hiding behind the skirts of national security with the natural ebb and flow of secrets, disinfos, surveillance, and decoys.
Pope Bandar bin Turtle
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I, on the other hand, prefer my member to be public. (That’s led to a number of amazingly embarrassing arrests, unfortunately.)
Maude
@Pope Bandar bin Turtle:
You can run for NYC mayor now.
TenguPhule
@Joey Maloney:
Is that what they call it thse days?
Kinky.
SiubhanDuinne
@MaximusNYC:
Whut?