The Washington Post reports today that the White House is focusing its attention on media leaks:
The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI’s Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.
This is cause for alarm amongst some media folks:
Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.
“There’s a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors,” said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. “I don’t know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad.”
Byron York at NRO, responding to Keller’s comments, reminds us of the media’s selective concern on investigating leakers:
It sounds nice, but it’s a little too late for that kind of talk, isn’t it? Keller’s own newspaper led the fight for the Valerie Wilson CIA leak investigation, cheering the appointment of a special prosecutor with powers that exceeded even the old independent counsels. And what happened? That special prosecutor went to the White House and got government sources to waive confidentiality restrictions on their talks with journalists. Then he went to journalists and said, “See? I’ve got these waivers. You can testify or you can go to jail.” And then he sent one of them to jail and threatened others. And so far, at least, he hasn’t found enough evidence to charge anyone with a national-security crime.
Too late, the Times and its allies realized that a terrible precedent had been set. Now some of them try to argue that the Wilson leak was an act of retribution, while the NSA and secret prisons leaks were the work of good-government whistleblowers, so one should be vigorously prosecuted while the others are ignored. It won’t work. Leaks are leaks, and the NSA and secret prisons leaks were, by any estimation, far more damaging to national security than the Wilson leak. (In that case, the special prosecutor said in court recently that he did not intend to show that any damage occurred from the leak.)
So now there are more investigations going on. The Times and its supporters wanted this kind of thing. Now they’ve got it.
Exactly right.
Yet another example of a media double standard. Of course, media double standards at this point should be no surprise to anyone. The lefty opinion media and blogosphere are up in arms over this and the consensus among them is that this news is ‘chilling’ - of course, they were amongst those whining the loudest for an investigation into pLamegate. I guess some leaks to them are worthy of an investigation, while others are not - it all depends on what political damage can be done to the adminstration.
Captain Ed is on the same wavelength and writes a great post on the WH crackdown on leakers and the media’s reaction to it here.
Read more commentary via Glenn Reynolds, Powerline, The Jawa Report, Jeff Goldstein, Roger L. Simon, Jim at bRight and Early, Small Town Veteran, AJ Strata, Macsmind
I would liek to see some convictions on the leakers within the government AND in the media.
If you knowingly publish classified information and you know it is confidential, but was leaked to you, you are just as guilty as the leaker.
Comment by sanity @ 3/5/2006 - 9:13 pm
And should be just as dead!
Comment by forest hunter @ 3/6/2006 - 12:11 am
ST, I make a point or two over at Iowa Voice. I even say the dreaded word, “Plumbers.”
Comment by PCD @ 3/6/2006 - 8:45 am
I’ll never understand why the term “Mainstream” is applied to those jokers at the NYTwit, the Washpost, CBS, NBC, ABC and so on.
Comment by ttyler5 @ 3/6/2006 - 9:22 am
Mainstream to them is the Monopoly on the news by them.
You can only get it from them.
But new media types have now surfaced at debunking lies and inaccurate news reporting by the ‘mainstream’ media.
Media types that are much fast than the MSM.
Like the movies, the MSM are going to either have to evolve or wither away and become a shell of its former self.
Comment by sanity @ 3/6/2006 - 10:00 am
Here is the standard: If you leak something for no reason except personal destruction(Plame) then you should go to jail. If, on the other hand, your trying to shine a spotlight on people breaking the law(Abramoff,NSA spying, port deal, etc.) you should get a reward. Peace
Comment by steve @ 3/6/2006 - 10:41 am
Still stuck on stupid eh steve?
Still trying to say NSA International spying is illegal eh?
Ofuscate, omit, obscure, displace…all words that describe your posts.
Comment by sanity @ 3/6/2006 - 10:47 am
Remember with the left “the ends justify the means” it doesn’t matter if they destroy our Intelligents gathering capabilities as long as the Bush administration is made to look bad. It doesn’t matter if by publishing classified information it destroys relationships with other countries that help us gather information on our enemies. When the information leaked makes our military and the Bush administration look bad the leaker is held up as a Patriot when they should be shown as a traitor. These journalists are like sharks circling their pray all’s it takes is one to draw blood and then the feeding frenzy begins (Those grand old days of Watergate). It’s not good enough to just report a story and let the public make up its mind if you can tweak a story by adding your opinion or leave words out to sway opinion towards the journalist’s view that’s good. Because these journalist’s feel they know better than the dumb masses (The American Public) so that is there justification in the way they present a story. Morality be damned and the truth be damned as long as the outcome is what they perceived as the right outcome and that would be Liberalism over Conservatism.
Comment by Jim M @ 3/6/2006 - 10:54 am
- Maybe thats your standard but as usual has nothing to do with reality.
- The sedition/espionage laws are quite specific, and even more strictly enforced in a time of war.
- All government employees sign agreements and swear to uphold and protect National security secrets.
- A specific process is available for the expose of wrongdoing for government employees, and provides specifically for their job/personal protection as long as they go through the proper channels. every government employee is given this information and training to make sure they understand. they have no excuse if they betray those agreements and engage in espionage against the country. Contrary to some misinformation by the press and others, this agreement extends past seperation from government employment.
- When ex-governement workers engage in partisan scams, in cahoots with the left wing media (PlameGate) - or leak National war time secrets through the press (WireGate), then the Democrats behind this have simply made their desperate efforts to regain power more important than their own peoples lives. A double wrong by partisan hacks.
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 3/6/2006 - 11:26 am
So having secret prisons where people are tortured to death is moral? Your “ends justifies the means” statement is really rich comming from a supporter of a guy who invaded Iraq on lies and cherry-picked intelligence. You on the Right act holier than though, while killing innocent children with hell-fire rockets. Look in the mirror and discover the log in your own eye. Peace
Comment by steve @ 3/6/2006 - 3:53 pm
As my old friend Jim Sigler in an Alaskan Timber company once said,”We’re loggin’ now!” I think we are able to see who fell the tree. Armed with nary a single fact…….
Don’t tell anyone but I found a seekrut prison in my basement.
Here’s another seekrut.
We need to erase every Islamic radical bent on the destruction of not just America but every decent human being world wide. The day their extinction is seen on the horizon, will be in no small part due to killing EVERY brainwashed Islamic egg layer. The innocent ones I can count on one thumb. Rehabilitation in the form of their demise is the only logical and acceptable response to their insanity.
There are some Federally funded institutes that REQUIRE more than a comb over. The professors of Islamobabble should be rounded up and hung w/o pay! And w/o delay!
Comment by forest hunter @ 3/6/2006 - 6:33 pm
Sorry Severian! HANGED DAMNIT! HANGED AND HANGED SOME MORE!!!
Comment by forest hunter @ 3/7/2006 - 4:10 pm