The New York Times’ report Friday on the administration’s secret surveillance of financial transactions appears to me to have drawn more than the usual amount of blogospheric complaint. (UPDATE: Times Executive Editor Bill Keller responds to the crit…

When I’m crushed under tons of Sears Tower rubble in a fiery strike by terrorists whose intentions could not be tracked – our failure to ski the slippery slope will make my death even more ignominious than it already will be.

What will the Times say to my widow ? Blame Bush for not connecting the dots and be a rock star/hero ?

The NYT is known for “outing” security measures without regard to the safety of the country, and for the purpose of embarrassing the administration. It’s a liberal derangement sickness.

Q:—Why isn’t there a whacking great effort on the part of our security operations to head them off, feed them disinformation, and just generally knacker their efforts? Even a few well-placed “heart attacks” wouldn’t go amiss.

Q:—Is it possible that there IS such and effort, and this is a ploy timed to disrupt the money flow of terrorists? If I were Sheikh Looney-Al-Reuter-bin-Jihadi, I’d be dashing for the caves with my loot! We’ve been busted! No more dough shipments until we get some couriers!

—Using the NYT to disrupt the very forces that they suck up to would be such incredible poetic justice, the thought is almost enough to smile and imagine Karl Rove grinning to himself as the terrorist world shudders.

—Forcing Al-Qaeda into a new and untested method of shipping and handling money out in the open would be really tough on them. (Awwww.) And might lead to some great things!

Speculatively,

heldmyw

The NY Sun’s Josh Gerstein has taken the lead on the NY Times’ newest betrayal of American citizens — disclosing, contrary to a request by the Bush administration, the feds’ terrorist banking surveillance program, one described as affording the US….

We blew it with John Walker Lindh. He should have been prosecuted for treason and then properly hanged (or whatever mode of death is now used). Any attempts to prosecute and penalize for treason will doubtless involve a defense attorney using the Lindh case as a precedent.

The fact that the origional leaker gave this information to a reporter clearly shows that they wanted it diseminated, thus falling into this category…

Now, the LAT, NYT, the reporters and publishers KNEW this was classified information and published anyway, this makes them accomplices, HOWEVER, this is NOT the way to go after them….

What you do is start an investigation going after the leaker, very publicly… and serve the reporters with subpeonas demanding they cough up the leaker… if they don’t they ARE part of a criminal conspiricy to hide the facts in a felony case, and thus, like NIXON (and they’d hate that comparison) guilty of obstruction of Justice…

Make it part of the investigation for the leak, get a case WON where they are forced to give up the source, and these leaks WILL dry up.

If we’re really going to fight these guys and win, not only substantively, but in the court of public opinion, the action is going to have to come from outside the government. So, I had a crazy idea.

Can we, the citizens, sue the Times? Do we have a legitimate case that what the newspaper is doing is something akin to reckless endangerment on a mass scale? I’m dodgy on civil law, but it would seem to me that the Times set itself up almost perfectly for such a thing by saying it knows better about national security than the “experts”, at least in the SWIFT records story.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

How many read that article. More than two? Aid and comfort to their (our) Enemies. There is a civil war going on in our nation, and only one side is fighting.

Michelle’s on it. *** Bryan Preston: Whose side are they on? Like there’s any doubt? *** Laughing Wolf is livid. Captain Ed has some interesting thoughts on the matter here. *** Don’t miss Uncle Jimbo’s press briefing. *** Captain Ed:…

The leakers themselves, as well as the editors of the NY Times and the LA Times and Rissen and Licthblau must be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, if not directly under 18 USC 2381 (Treason).

It is not their place to publish classified information, especially during war time. They are neither elected, nor appointed to be arbiters of what shall remain classified and what shall not. The ability to determine and disclose what secrets are to be held lies solely with the Executive Branch, not the media.

Further, their behavior places American lives at risk, and that clearly is *NOT* “in the public interest.”

They, both Times papers, admitted that the practice was legal, hence they are not exposing any illegal activities or wrong doing by the government. Nevertheless, they chose to expose the program, undermining the United States during a time of war, and they are doing it willfully, with malice aforethought.

As Larry Kudlow put it:

The New York Times is blinded by its hatred of George W. Bush. And, because of this, these boneheads compromise the lives of all Americans.

The Gray Lady has become the Queen of Saboteurs.

[at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/2006/06/the_queen_of_saboteurs_larry_k.html]

We have been talking about prosecuting the editors and publishers of the NY Times and the LA Times, as well as the reporters, under the Espionage Act of 1917 (18 USC 793, 794).

The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Charles T. Schenk for violating the Espionage Act in WWI for distributing pamphlets to draftees urging them to refuse to serve. The words that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used is instructive and covers this situation as well.

“When a nation is at war many thing which might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its efforts that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and no court could regard them as protected by any Constitutional right.” Schenk v. US, 249 US 47, 52 (1919)

The Court recognized that during wartime, war permits greater restrictions on the freedom of speech than during peace time.

The Espionage Act was passed to prevent harm to the United States during WWI by those whose activities which were imimical to our successfully fighting the war. Holmes noted freedom of speech is not unlimited, shouting “fire” in a theater being behavior that is unprotected by the First Amendment.

The key, Holmes noted, is:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

In other words, were the actions of the NY and LA Times such that they created a clear and present danger to the effective prosecution of the war? Did this disclosure (as well as the “busting” of the NSA foreign intercept program also disclosed by the NY Times in December 2005) interfere with the war effort?

A reasonable person would agree that disclosure of such information would indeed cause the enemy to change his behavior to evade interception, and that it was imimical to our successful prosecution of the war.

A reasonable person would agree that until the disclosure of using the NSA to intercept communication and SWIFT to track money used by Al Qaeda, our enemy would be blissfully unaware that we are successfully using these means to obtain information about his activities.

In fact, Kudlow notes that the SWIFT program had successes:

In one instance, the SWIFT program was used to capture a top Al Qaeda operative, Riduan Isamuddin, in Thailand in 2003.

A reasonable person would, therefore, agree that the “clear and present danger” test of Holmes was met when the NY and LA Times published their stories, despite bi-partisan request that they refrain as a matter of national security.

The editors and publishers of the NY Times and LA Times, as well as the authors, should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, as well as the actual leakers, in my opinion. The MSM must learn that the consequences of violating this US law extends to them, individually, and that they are not immune from the personal consequences if they do.

God help them if the programs they have “busted” by illegally exposing them, cause any Americans to lose their lives. Because if that happens, then they have committed a greater crime against America: Treason.

The punishment for treason is the death penalty.

It is hard to imagine such intelligent and civilized internecine feuds going on at KOS.

There is a line that must be drawn, one that our enemies cannot cross without suffering the consequences of their actions. That goes for actions domestically as well as overseas….

Actually I don’t believe prosecuting the media will get them to straighten up. I just think it will take the worst offenders off the streets and scare the rest. I’m fine with the press being a little scared if it makes them shut up about vital anti-terror programs that work and are legal. The status quo of letting them walk sure isn’t working.

The highest priority has to be getting the leakers themselves–we agree on that–but I think sqeezing the reporters may be a good way to get at them. I’m not sure that there is another way, since I don’t trust much of the DC bureaucracy to clean up after themselves, I don’t trust the pols in either party to make them do it, and I don’t trust outside federal prosecutors to have their heads screwed on straight enough to do it either (thank you, Patrick Fitzgerald!) if they’re assigned the task. Which leaves us with forming a small team to hunt these leaks down by going directly to the few people who actually know who the leakers are–the reporters.

So it’s sort of like busting a drug ring–go after the guys at the edge and turn them to get the kingpin.

But hey, who are you gonna listen to–your friendly Hot Air colleague or Hugh Hewitt?

By protecting the identities of the leakers, the reporters are harboring criminals. That’s a crime, is it not?

I don’t know offhand. If I had to guess, I’d guess that “harboring” for purposes of federal criminal law requires some sort of physical accommodation. In any case, I’m not defending journalists from having to reveal sources when called as a witness in some leak prosecution or from being jailed for contempt if they refuse. I’m defending them (grudgingly) from being prosecuted independently for publishing the leaked information.

I think we’re going in circles at this point. You believe prosecuting the media will get them to straighten up and fly right while restoring confidence in the administration; I believe it’ll make things worse on both counts. Assuming I’m right, prosecuting them might still be worth it if the damage prevented by stopping the leaks is greater than the damage that would be caused by the political fallout from the prosecutions (i.e., the Dems taking back Congress). Lots of X factors there. I’m not sure where it leaves us.

I’ll conclude simply by noting that con law professor Hugh Hewitt agrees with me about not prosecuting reporters. Which, er, probably means I’m wrong.

There is a strong current within the bureuacratic ‘professionals’ inside the Executive Branch agencies that appear to feel that their loyalties are not to the country or to the elected / appointed officials above them – but to their party and ideology first.

They hide behind the mask of being an anonymous source – and try to influence events and perceptions based on their actions. When exposed, as Mary McCarthy was when she was dismissed from her CIA position, they cry ‘whistleblower’ and paint their actions as being for the ‘common good’.

It’s a mistake to make this a 1st Amendment / Freedom of the Press issue. We need to address the culture and actions of diliberate leaks by professionals, and then go after those in the press who print these releases of classified information for doing just that. We didn’t elect, or have our elected officials appoint Keller, Lichtbrau, and Rosen to define what’s classified or not.

*Yeah, revenge isn’t the right word. This ain’t revenge, but that is how the saying goes. Freakin’ metaphores…