The Gray Lady Toys With Treason

Law of Loud said:

Well, not if you stick your head in the sand.

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Feel free to offer any evidence available

No, they could get in a lot of trouble for it. However, there is a certain courage needed to let the public know that the government is intentionally defying the constitution. Or we could just live in ignorance, and watch as the bill of rights is whittled away.

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It's not courage, it's called politics.
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As for your little challenge, I don't intend to derail this thread onto that tangent.

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I'm not surprised

Voegelin said:

"Can be considered" by whom? The Grand Jury didn't charge anyone for blowing Plame's cover. Fitzgerald specificially said the indictment did not address that issue. MoveOn.org and George Soros may consider Plame to have been an agent under the act but nobody else did or does.

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The investigation by Fitzgerald is still ongoing if I recall correctly.

The public should know if government is breaking the law. If I'm a criminal and break into somebody's house to steal his tv, and while I'm at it I notice several children bound and gagged and child inappropriate contentography everywhere... it'd be my responsiblity as a person to rescue them if I could or at least to make certain that the cops were there ASAP.

Sure, I could get in trouble for breaking in, but it's worth it to protect those children.

Law of Loud said:

The investigation by Fitzgerald is still ongoing if I recall correctly.

The public should know if government is breaking the law. If I'm a criminal and break into somebody's house to steal his tv, and while I'm at it I notice several children bound and gagged and child inappropriate contentography everywhere... it'd be my responsiblity as a person to rescue them if I could or at least to make certain that the cops were there ASAP.

Sure, I could get in trouble for breaking in, but it's worth it to protect those children.

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According to the Joint Resolution passed by Congress:

IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

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And since the warrantless searches have precedent, the president would appear to be well within his rights to use such searches. While the legality of those searches may be in dispute by the president's opponents, it has not been proven that the warrantless searches are indeed illegal. The Nw York Times is not the proper venue for making that determination. The leak was obviously politically motivated.


And by the way, your hypothetical doesn't fit the situation

MachZer0 said:

The difference is ppartisanship. If you can prove two things, I'll grant you your point. First, that Plame was a covert agent, and second that her identity was intentionally revealed as a payback. Have at it.

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Actually, the difference is ethics.

Voegelin said:

This is why the left is losing election after election. The logic makes no sense and the defense of what everyone knows hurts national security scares people.

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The warrantless wiretapping authorized by the adminstration doesn't provide national security. Getting a warrant and conducting a legitimate wiretap provides ample means to combat terrorism.

Why 9/11 was allowed to happen wasn't about not having the power to get more information. The government, in fact, had the information it needed to prevent the attack. What was lacking, was the infrastructure and methodologies to share and act on the information the had.

Defending criminal action done by the government scares people, too - although obviously different people.

whatbogsends said:

Actually, the difference is ethics.

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Or the lack of ethics by the Democrats' politicizing the Plame case and the wiretap case to suit their own anti-Bush agenda rather than showing a willingness to defend the country.

Plame and wiretap are NOT the same thing. Leaking Plame didn't expose unconstitutional actions by the government. Leaking the illegal wiretapping program did.

Law of Loud said:

Plame and wiretap are NOT the same thing. Leaking Plame didn't expose unconstitutional actions by the government. Leaking the illegal wiretapping program did.

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The Plame leak was a nonissue while the wiretap leak is a crime that weakened our ability to defend ourselves.

MachZer0 said:

The Plame leak was a nonissue while the wiretap leak is a crime that weakened our ability to defend ourselves.

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Funny how it's "government is the problem" conservatives who see no issues with the government stepping outside of its Constitutional bounds.

Voegelin said:

The New York Post
December 27, 2005

Has The New York Times declared itself to be on the front line in the war against the War on Terror?

The self-styled paper of record seems to be trying to reclaim the loyalty of those radical lefties who ludicrously accused it of uncritically reporting on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the paper has done more than merely try to embarrass the Bush administration these last few months.

It has published classified information . . .

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/60379.htm

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" The Post then ran through a series of unsteady owners: Peter S. Kalikow, a real estate magnate who went bankrupt; Steven Hoffenberg, a financier who pled guilty to securities fraud; and, for two weeks in March 1993, Abe Hirschfeld, a true eccentric who made his fortune building parking garages. The Post was repurchased in 1993 by Murdoch's News Corporation; Murdoch, after receiving his American citizenship (in 1985), was no longer subject to any restriction upon his ownership of U.S. media.

.......... the Post has been run at a significant loss, perhaps as much as $40 million a year ago, but continues to be supported by Rupert Murdoch, whose son Lachlan is the executive editor, possibly to keep a conservative-leaning major newspaper in the City.

..........In addition, according to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, the New York Post was rated the least credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible)."http./en.wikipedia.org-New York Post

MachZer0 said:

The Plame leak was a nonissue while the wiretap leak is a crime that weakened our ability to defend ourselves.

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I'm sorry but as a "good" conservative I don't see the difference between the two. There should have been NO leaks, zip, zero, nada, none! Any leaks need to be invesitagted and the perps prosecuted, although I doubt if it would rise to the level of treason.

I'm actually hard pressed to decide which of these two is the more egregious although I tend toward the wiretapping if it occurred on domestic as oppossed to international communications.

But then I'm concerned with the Valerie Plame incident since there was the potential for serious harm either to Ms Plame or other CIA operatives

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahah ha ha ahh haha ha...HA! "I'm so happy that I can't stop crying..." from a song Sting did.

The spins are just too grand!!!! A newspaper reports the Bush admin breaking the law and people are calling the Times a lawbreaker!! It's just too much and folks...if this stuff did not involve soooooooo much death and destruction I could truly laugh...but for now...its all I can do to hold on to any shred of sanity left.

MachZer0 said:

America needs to reinstitute death by firing squad for traitors. One or two executions would send the message that America is no longer soft on treason

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But then we'd have to hold mid-term presidential elections, and that would be a major pain

Voegelin said:

No spin. Fact. The publisher of the New York Times, its staff and liberals in general do not get to break the law because they think they are justified in doing so. Doesn't matter how noble a cause liberals believe they are engaged. The majority of Americans and the law says they operate under the same rules as everyone else.

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What law did they break? Oh yeah...that whole Freedom of Press thing.

Voegelin said:

No spin. Fact. The publisher of the New York Times, its staff and liberals in general do not get to break the law because they think they are justified in doing so. Doesn't matter how noble a cause liberals believe they are engaged. The majority of Americans and the law says they operate under the same rules as everyone else.

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Too bad the Bush Administration doesn't.

Law of Loud said:

Too bad the Bush Administration doesn't.

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QFT.


P.S. The post is about as reputable as the National Enquirer - and about 1 step up from weekly world news. If you live in New York, you know it's a 1-folder, cheap, sensationalist, unreliable. The Daily News is of a similar sort (though where the Post always favors conservatives the Daily News leans slightly to the right - it favors sensationalism over all else).

Voegelin said:

No spin. Fact. The publisher of the New York Times, its staff and liberals in general do not get to break the law because they think they are justified in doing so. Doesn't matter how noble a cause liberals believe they are engaged. The majority of Americans and the law says they operate under the same rules as everyone else.

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You are missing the forest for the trees. The administration knew about this leak A YEAR AGO and tried to suppress the NY Times with the 2004 elections looming.

A YEAR AGO, and yet there was no attempt by the administration to find the "leakers". But now that it shows up in print and is hurting the administration politically, all of a sudden it is a "national security" issue that requires an immediate investigation.

If the leak to the NY Times was a national security issue, then it was that A YEAR AGO, and yet the administration did nothing about it. If the president knows about a national security violation during a time of war and does nothing about it, then he is aiding and abetting those who would commit treason.

The evidence shows that the administration only cares about "leaks" when they have POLITICAL repercussions. National security has very little to do with it.

Voegelin said:

No spin. Fact. The publisher of the New York Times, its staff and liberals in general do not get to break the law because they think they are justified in doing so. Doesn't matter how noble a cause liberals believe they are engaged. The majority of Americans and the law says they operate under the same rules as everyone else.

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So, you’re saying that the justice department should be bringing charges against Bob Novack?



I’m not sure news agencies are legally bound to keep national secrets.


It's certainly not the standard that is usually applied.