I can’t put it better than Stephen Spruiell at NRO’s Media Blog, so I’m just going to quote and highlight a few key passages, then maybe add some brief closing thoughts:
The duo of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen have published the details of yet another classified national-security program. This time, they exposed the workings of a database of financial records that the administration has used to track al Qaeda’s banking transactions:
The Bush administration has made no secret of its campaign to disrupt terrorist financing, and President Bush, Treasury officials and others have spoken publicly about those efforts. Administration officials, however, asked The New York Times not to publish this article, saying that disclosure of the Swift program could jeopardize its effectiveness. They also enlisted several current and former officials, both Democrat and Republican, to vouch for its value.
Bill Keller, the newspaper’s executive editor, said: “We have listened closely to the administration’s arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration’s extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.”
According to the NYT’s own reporting, the program is legal. The program is helping us catch terrorists. The administration has briefed the appropriate members of Congress. The program has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse. And yet, with nothing more than a vague appeal to the “public interest” (which apparently is not outweighed in this case by the public’s interest in apprehending terrorists), the NYT disregards all that and publishes intimate, classified details about the program. Keller and his team really do believe they are above the law. When it comes to national security, it isn’t the government that should decide when secrecy is essential to a program’s effectiveness. It is the New York Times.
National security be damned. There are Pulitzers to be won.
I wonder if the crew at “Townhouse” is busy cobbling together a new civil liberties OUTRAGE narrative in order to distract us from the real violation of trust here—namely, that leakers within our intelligence agencies are jeopardizing national security, and that both the leakers and those publishing the leaks (whose aim, clearly, is to gin up whatever outrage they can with the hope of undermining this Administration’s tactics for conducting a war they don’t believe truly exists), are doing so with impunity. After all, Townhouse has, evidently, secured the services of maverick “conservative-civil libertarian” Glenn Greenwald.
That aside, though, what is most ironic about these leak stories is that dubious decision-making by today’s “adversarial” media will doubtless create a climate in which it is far more likely that future administrations will take extraordinary measures to keep information secret. All because some in the press have forgotten that with access and freedom comes great responsibility. That the NYT is willing to trade that responsibility for a “scoop” it pretends is in the “public interest” is, frankly, embarrassing—and one of the reasons Americans are increasingly unhappy with the mainstream press.
And in the long-run, we could find ourselves less informed because of it. Which is a net negative for a truly free society.
(h/t Allah)
****
update: Bryan Preston, Ankle Biting Pundits, and Patterico weigh in, as does Michelle Malkin, who notes that the LA Times has picked up the story, too.
See also, Macsmind (with thanks to Sara).
Did you read the Times article? One of the guys they pinched with this program was Hambali, the brains behind the Bali bombing.
and yet, Valerie Plame’s leaker has not yet been hanged then quartered.
BECAUSE OF THE NEOCON NARRATIVE!!
Even if the law is the first amendment?
We used to shoot people like that. Seriously, treason was a death sentance. Deliberately publishing classified information during wartime, how else can it be described?
Actus,
Since you know dick about classified anything, shut the fuck up.
How’s that for free speech?
These guys should be jailed. End of discussion.
I agree Mr. Taylor. I think it’s past time some necks were stretched in the interest of national security.
TW:A longer size
I don’t know how else it can be described Mr. Taylor, but you’re going to hear some serious spinning starting…1 post back.
Vintage Actus.
Actus has trouble with me posting the names of Andrew Haggerty and Mary Donnelly of Broome Community College—whose information is publicly available—but he has no trouble with the NYT publishing classified information that, though it knows it to be legal,will nevertheless undermine the program and jeopardize national security. All because he has done the calculations and doesn’t fear being blown up in a terrorist attack.
Curious. You’d almost think he has no intellectual center and is simply interested in being contrarian. But that can’t be true, can it?
“he has no intellectual center”
Oh, he does. You wrote about it the other day:
“Because there’s like, an entire universe of stuff happening inside that nougat, man…â€Â
It’s not a functioning intellectual center, but still….
tw much – There’s not much there.
The NYT thinks that because Tom Clancy described a hypothetical, that it’s an open secret.
Everyone involved with the NYT’s stories should be held criminaly liable under the Nation Security , and Espionage Acts. I was a noone in the MC, but if I had shared some of the information I knew, information that was only classified “confidential” my ass would have been Dishonorably discharged, and I would have spent time in the brigg.
These F-ers get Pulitzers.
CHARGE THEM! let them get their awards, but make them pay for it.
So, Actus, let’s say some intrepid reporter at the Times got information from someone on Eisenhower’s staff in May, 1944, detailing the plans for Operation Overlord. Now, a lot of mothers’ sons were going to wash up dead on the beaches of Normandy, and the reporter sees that as justification for publishing the info–the public, after all, has “a right to know” and besides, the first amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.
What I’m wondering, my dear Retarded Telephone Pole, is whether you’d defend the Times if they had blabbed to the world about D-Day. Hm?
Like most conservitives, I have decidedly mixed feelings about Pres. Bushs’ policys. But I’m becoming increasingly alarmed about his oath to protect us from enemys both foreign and domestic. If he doesn’t start taking a stronger stand against the assholes deliberatly undermining the policies of this elected government, with regards to this war, all I admire about him will come to nought.
Sean,
You’re wasting your time.
Actus doesn’t have the knowledge base to analyze the scenario you just described.
Sphinctus is simply proving the Central Conceit of the Moonbat Universe: civil rights are more valuable in posse than in esse.
Of course, these leaks obligate the titty-babies on the Left to abandon their fantasy that we are living in a fascist state since, if we were, the publishers, editors, and reporters of the New York Times would be in an undisclosed location right now with jumper cable clamps digging into their personal terminals.
Yeah, I’m curious, actus: Why do you comment here? In the many months you’ve been around I can’t recall you making one, single, honest-to-goodness argument. Your last comment is typical. Rather than address Spruiell’s point about the Times’s unaccountability, you seize on his awkward choice of words and pick the nit. And the thing is, you know goddamned well that he didn’t mean they were acting illegally by publishing this; if he did, he’d have attacked them directly on that point, wouldn’t he?
I remember how Jeff posted something last month about Iran getting the bomb and speculating that they might use it to intimidate other countries in the Middle East into doing their bidding. To which your brilliant reply was something along the lines of, “I thought they were going to nuke Israel the minute they had the chance. That’s the neocon party line, isn’t it?” Which is really the perfect actus comment: A fundamentalist dictatorship is on the verge of getting atomic weapons, and your contribution to the debate on how to deal with them is to point out a split on the right about whether Iran’s goal is genocide or “merely” nuclear blackmail.
So really, why do you comment here? Do you just enjoy annoying people? Or is it some strange urge to make them even less sympathetic to your side’s arguments than they already are?
Lee,
The proper date for an indictment on a Section 798 Espionage charge would be either November 5th or November 6th. Earlier would just be doing what the Times wants. Keller in felony orange would be a welcome sight but timing is everything.
actus
Alledgedly you are a law
stupidstudent. So, square YOUR interpretation of the First Amendment (anything goes) with this:As a criminal defense attorney you are barred BY LAW by sharing with your client any information you obtain through discoverty that identifies where a witness or victim lives, works, date-o-birth, phone # etc.
Also… try going to a newspaper and sharing information YOU obtained via lawyer/client priviledge.
good lord, are you on…like Animal House .. your 7th year of law school?
This story makes my blood boil. I asked just how irresponsible a media outlet has to get before they are shut down? Black Five is suggesting a class action suit against the NYT and Risen and Lichtlbau. This rogue CIA leaker CABAL has got to be stopped and the NYT needs their day in the block as well. First Amendment won’t do them any good when the terrorists blow up all of Manhattan. The first to be frog marched should be Sixties leftover Sulzie.
Let’s take the Wayback machine to an alternate Spring 1944:
Leopold and truthout.cum were all over this shit a month ago. Did y’all miss it?
Oh and I’d like to pile on actus’ dumbfuckedness while the gettin’s good too. I fuckin’ marvel actus. I really do. I get a thousand-yard-Greyhound-bus-station-glazed-over-stare working ever time I try to imagine where you might possibly be coming from. First amendment….that was weak.
We keep hearing that the GWOT can’t be won by military action alone. Yet the NYTs seems to make every attempt it can to undermine the intelligence portion as well.
So what is the NYTs editorial position in the WoT? I think it’s in the public interest to know what they wouldn’t try to undermine.
ps. Is the first amendment a law?
You know how we bombed the al-Jazeera building during the Iraq war? If this keeps up, the NYT building will be an equally valid target.
Hint: his real name is Mr. Mxyzptlk.
– Unfortunately actus, espionage (divulging of critical national secrets) is not protected by thr 1st, anymore than killing you’re elderly next door neighbor by popping up in her bedroom window suddenly, so she can see you face while you sing “Volare’” in her face at the top of your lungs.
– This shit has got too stop. When the hell is DoJ going to grow a pair?
Actually, they care more about the civil liberties of terrorists than they do their fellow citizens. They even provide free Korans. Free Bibles and Torahs, not so much. I guess that separation of church and state does not apply to mosques.
Let’s not forget actus’ desire to film the caskets of American soldiers, and presumably the funerals too. Bonus points if the soldiers were tortured until they were unrecognizable.
He’s not annoying. He is disgusting.
Sara—
Do you have that blackfive link? I’d like to add it as an update.
What?
Maybe the question I should be asking is, “Jeff, why do you let him comment here?”
I am so sorry. Until I read your message, I didn’t realize I typed Black Five. It was Macsmind and I meant to say MacRanger.
Probably why you couldn’t find the link, but here is the right one, just in case.
http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2006/06/ny-times-leaks-again-risen-and.html
Michelle Malin is calling for a letter writing campaign against the NYT.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005427.htm
What is particularly galling about the NYT repeatedly divulging national security secrets is the fact that they’d be the first to demand impeachment hearings on the basis of negligence for Bush, Cheney et al if there ever were a 9/11 follow-up attack on American soil.
So, on the one hand they’ll impugn every effort made by the administration to protect the country from terrorism, belittle our military, reveal secret tactical procedures at every opportunity, despite reasoned requests that they respect our intelligence efforts, and then on the other hand they’d quickly lambaste this administration for not keeping the nation safe if an terror event actually occurred.
These people (and acthole) sicken me and don’t deserve the blanket of security that our intelligence agencies and military risk their lives providing.
Here, Allah, the second time that oxygen-thief mentioned it. And keep up the good work at Hot Air, if that’s the Allah I’m thinking of. If not, uhhh, spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, I swear she said she was sixt–I mean eighteen. Doh!
BTW, I just want to apologize to the PW community for going ballistic on him. But not to actus; Fuck you, play in traffic.
Oh, I know, wishbone. After all, who do you think originated the whole “Retarded Telephone Pole” thing?
actus, you make Odub look intellectually gifted when you make willfully ignorant statements like that one.
Seriously, your schtick is getting tiresome. If you’re going to troll here at least have the decency to entertain us, like the cretins who stumble over here from Atrios or Greenwald or FDL.
You have a first amendment right to publish what you did. Is that contrary? You were most certainly not being above the law—you were right along with it.
And the Times didn’t sign on to the onlineblogtegrity john either. Not that that has anything to do with the first amendment and being above the law.
And what would have happened to the person that passed the info on after you?
It doesn’t seem like people are clear that times is not above the law here, that the times can do what they did.
Suppose I did. I would be in trouble. Criminally? I don’t know. Would the newspaper be in trouble for printing it? Thats the situation we have here.
So, the D-Day hypothetical, Actus? How about that?
Sean M, you have my undying respect for taking actus’ soul by the ears and staring into the depths and naming it oh-so-well. BTW, did you check the bottom of that thread (a classic, btw)?
The thread ends on 0700 3/31 but the last eight comments are left by CKDexter. The very last one was almost two weeks later, on 4-11. I do not know what that means, but it probably is not good.
I don’t know what first amendment law was like back then. It probably would be worse today if the times had done that back then. But I don’t think they would..
Plus I don’t think that many mother’s sons would wash up dead. If the general staff lost the secrecy on normandy, I don’t think they’d still carry out the same plan.
Defend it? probably not. Say it was above the law? Perhaps. Those were more collectivist times.
You’ll be happy to know that a “complaint” was filed against me re: the Online Integrity Pledge and “Thersites,” actus, and I was cleared of all “charges.”
But then, what I posted wasn’t classified information; in fact, I merely repeated what a few commenters made available in one of my threads.
Publishing classified information supplied by a leaker that you know to be classified (but legal) that could jeopardize national security? Well, yes, that’s you being “contrary.” And showing that your understanding of the first amendment is dubious.
Yes. In brief, the Amendment is part of the Constitution, and the Constitution is the highest law of the land.
But what Actus, Lberals, and the buffons at the Times fail to realize, is that just because something is legal, that doesn’t make it right. Their failure to realize this, and include it in their worldview, is a symptom of a wider disorder of modern Liberalism, to wit their rampant immaturity. Think about it, what is the automatic response of a teenager to being caught in an offense? “It’s not illegal; I didn’t hurt anybody; it’s no big deal; I wanted to.”
These writers at the Times, and Liberals in general, are the first to rail at the actions of a CEO who moves jobs overseas as being unpatriotic, but see no hypocrisy in committing and supporting acts far more heinous and injurious to our country.
Well, Jeff, he did say that he “probably” wouldn’t defend the Times had they hypothetically spilled the beans on D-Day, so I guess he deserves a medal or something.
via the Times…
Well I certainly remember the government all most imediately after 9-11 announcing top priority number one was analyzing and freezing funds the financial networks of the crazies…additionally enlisting other countries to open the books…
So that this is something the Admin announced they would do and DID the only NEWS in this story is methods—so basically the NYT’s provides a valuable service to the Jihadist…they print the jihadist training manual on how supersede US efforts to thwart them.
Nice. /sarcasm off
There’s opposition, then there’s enemy.
The Democrat Party, and their fading enablers, have been beyond opposition since the first few weeks after the Taliban were ejected from Afghanistan.
Matter of fact, they chucked “loyal” so far back down the road it’s not even given lip service in most circles anymore.
Look, moonbats: The vast bulk of Americans aren’t politically active, are victims of our terrible public education system, and do vote (when they bother) for or against candidates based mainly on narrow self interest. But that same vast bulk won’t vote for losers – especially when said losers are blatantly more than willing to sacrifice as many citizens’ lives and as much national honor as it takes to satisfy their own political ambitions.
We are stinking rich as a nation. We used to be able to afford hacks in large numbers. Hell, we even elected one to preside over the end of history from the Oval Office. No more.
We must begin prosecuting, and convicting, the enemy within CIA/State and our fourth estate/fifth column, and sentencing the guilty to the maximum punishment under the law.
they print the jihadist training manual
TS … I posted this over at JOM earlier and now it has gotten buried. Since I’m guilty too.
Is our own careless rhetoric helping the Extremist cause? And it isn’t about being p.c. it is about certain regularly used terminology that is inadvertently encouraging the extremists.
My letter to the Times:
You disgusting, despicable, self-absorbed little pricks. I wouldn’t piss on any of you if you were on fire. I hope that when the 7th-century animals pull off the next attack that’s successful because of the effective, legal programs you assholes have exposed and rendered useless, the NYT building is the first place hit. Ann Coulter was right, McVeigh should have parked his truck in front of the Times building.
PIGS. FUCKING TREASONOUS PIGS.
Do you guys think I put too fine a point on it?
It’s time to play………
GUESS THE ACTUS!!!!!
Is he a……..
1) A lawyer who is doing pro-bono work after having just graduated law school, and gets bored doing meaningless paralegal paper pushing, thus has time to play devils advocate with the fate of humanity?
2) A disgruntled law professor who has a student explain to him how to post on a comment section so that he can challenge his intellectual capabilities?
3) A 37 year old ombudsman for a meaningless publication in a podunk town where he is the only person on the entire floor of the building who knows what a blog is, thus allowing him to get paid to surf the internet posing as a psuedo-enlightened liberal?
4) Glenn Greenwald? That would be funny, wouldn’t it.
5) A member of the townhall mailing list?
6) Just some annoying troll who thrives on being contradictory like a 15 year old boy surfing porn for the first time?
Click all that apply…..
TW: Little……man, I tell you Jeff, this anti-spam feature is omnipotent or something…
It’s time to blindfold Risen and Lichtblau, put them up against the wall, and give them their nine grams.
That, or “embed” them among their friends at Camp X-Ray.
Together with no-knock searches of the NY Times offices, and every reporter’s home.
Illegal, you say?
Well. Their position is that there are no longer any rules, and the law is no obstacle to “the public interest”, as any particular unelected individual or organization chooses to define it, even if national security depends on it, and even (especially?) if lives are at stake.
If those are the new rules, let’s see whether they really want to play the game.
Why were you so easy on them?
Be sure to let us know how that works out.
We should either enforce the Espionage Act, or else play by Risen and Lichtblau’s set of rules (i.e. they simply vanish without a trace, “in the public interest”)
Be sure to let us know how that works out
I feel sorry for the post office with the NRA’s letter campaign dumping over 100,000 letters on the UN and now Malkin calling for the same thing against the Times.
In brief, the Amendment is part of the Constitution, and the Constitution is the highest law of the land.
yeah yeah yeah, gahrie. I’m not afraid to look stupid.
I eagerly await Andrew Sullivan’s blog entry equating that to the Mohammed cartoons…
Hmmmm.
I think it’s more than past time to identify the leakers and then execute them.
There is no bounty on mollusks but the daily limit might be a little bit prohibitive for a full days work.
Hint: his real name is Mr. Mxyzptlk.
You mean, if all this time all we had to do was say his name three times backwards, then….
The left attempts to play the constitution card.Very funny. So now the 1st is an absolute right. What about the 2nd?
Who is being injured by the gathering of the information?
Interesting. Are these documents available anywhere?
The case to follow on that is the AIPAC lobbyists, Rosen and Weissman. Have you heard of it? But then again maybe I’m missing some 200 year old intent.
In the washington post story they also printed that at first htey were being very indiscriminate wiht the data they collected, and ended having too much. So they began to limit the collection. Thats interesting.
Wait, who’s cutting the road through the law?
Why would anyone do meaningless pro-bono work? Now bar study—there’s your mind numbing work.
We’re making a fundamental mistake.
We’re evaluating Keller and Pinchy as if they were morally serious adults who had the best interest of the country in mind.
But they’re simply 60’s throw back news whores who get off sticking it to the man.
If you’re emailing the NYT, I don’t know if I’d spend a lot of time on the body of the text because it’s unlikely they’ll be reading them through. I’d put something real punchy on the subject line, though.
And I’d encourage the Whitehouse and DOJ to prosecute them.
Oh, and I’d start ignoring actus, which is really what he deserves.
tw: FinCEN
Do you think they were lying when they said that was a mistake?
Screw civil liberties. I want some pie, NOW. Served by a dancing ‘dillo.
Wanna bet?
Don’t bother arguing with Acthole. Teaching a pig to sing, etc. In the years he’s been commenting almost daily at Patterico’s, I can recall a grand total of one comment he’s made that was worth reading – namely, pointing out that “you don’t need papers for voting” can either mean “you don’t need papers in order to vote” (as Patterico and other conservatives assumed it did), or “you don’t need voting papers in order to do something else” (as she probably did intend, the context being a discussion over who can volunteer for her campaign). Acthole was right on that one, I think, but that’s a horrendous signal-to-noise ratio nevertheless.
Hint: his real name is Mr. Mxyzptlk.
Kltpzyxm!
Kltpzyxm!
KLTPZYXM, dammit!
I thought that Allah posed some interesting questions, Actus.
Why don’t you answer them?
Of course Pinch and Bill don’t have the country’s best interest in mind. Their interest is making money, not protecting the nation.
They’ve got two reporters that want to print a story, and they are going to print it somewhere even if Keller and Pinch don’t give them the column space. The NYTs stock is in the tank, so a big story might help them. Why in the world would anyone assume the NYTs interest is the same as national interest?
They are a for-profit, investor funded organization. They aren’t elected and they don’t sit in front of a Senate confirmation panel to get their jobs. They are selling our national security.
Du, Actus? Bist Du ein Nahr? Oder?
I did. I mentioned that I was adding the idea that its wrong to consider hte NYtimes above the law. People here seem to think prosecutions are warranted. I think they’re wrong. Allah thinks this is obvious. But its not to some commenters here.
That’s not the question to which I was referring.
And we had alternate plans they were far easier and safer, we just went through the hell that was Normandy looking for French sympathy fucks.
Just when you think the telephone pole can’t get any stupider.
Most of the NYT circulation is consists of college students whose profs insist that they subscribe.
The answer to the other questions is substantially the same.
Explains why their advertisemets are directed to the college audience.
I’d say the more interesting hypo is what the warbloggers of 1944 would say if the NYtimes published that teh landing would be at Calais.
I have broken the code – Actus is none of the above; he is definitely Karl Rove, planting stupid comments to enrage the conservatives and rile up the base in time for the elections.
Duh.
I could respect the argument that events in the world have made it a regrettable necessity to adopt measures that in aggregate are turning the country into a surveillance-society dystopia. I would not agree–I grew up among small-government conservatives–but I could acknowledge it as a rational stance. It is more difficult to accept the glee expressed by many here at our slide into authoritarianism. Time, I think, to re-read Hoffer’s prescient The True Believer.
All of your posts are substantially the same, actus, that was allah’s question: why bother?
What if the NY Times were to help on the propoganda front instead of hinder it is an interesting hypothetical, that is the precisely the problem you dunderhead. (I hereby declare a new contest to come up with more creative nicknames for actus, we might as well get some use out of him.)
the sphinctus is primarily an orifice designed the spew shit.
The Times (both of ‘em) cannot be prevented from publishing classified info that comes into their hands. That would be censorship.
But they can be prosecuted for espionage after they print it. And the leaker(s) can be prosecuted too.
Maybe if Mr. Nifong isn’t busy?…
I’ve signed for clearances. I hold them. Signing the paperwork commits you. It is then a crime to reveal what you know about classified material to anyone not cleared at that level or higher and/or who does not have a need to know whether or not the information is directly available to you. Whether it’s some mook like me or a congressman or senator, you can be prosecuted if you do. That goes for after you give up your clearance too.
So…a crime was committed here. Prosecutions are warranted here just as they were in the prior revelations about classified initiatives in the WoT the NYT was involved in. The NYT reporters are obligated to reveal their sources in a legal initiative’s discovery phase that requires the information. The press has no constitutional right to withold information about a crime. They can go to jail until they reveal the information. That’s been established many times. Confidentiality of sources is a press tradition and not protected by law.
While the NYT is not criminally liable for printing classified information that comes to them from some guy over the phone, the reporters may be criminally liable under various espionage laws if it can be established that they proactively sought out information that they knew was classified. I’d be a tough case for the prosecuter to win though. It’d be tried and lost in the court of public opinion where the narrative is controlled by the defendent’s side anyway.
Charlie – I tried it too. Yet another time DC lets us down.
You all should thank your lucky stars Actus takes the time to engage you here. Otherwise, this would be a uniformly boring public circle jerk. By the way, don’t you think it’s rude to constantly insult him. I mean really, one would think you all are intolerant of differences of opinion.
Several commenters have assumed that the New York Times did not break the law by publishing this classified information, and/or that any such violation of the law is overridden by the First Amendment. Neither of these propositions is true. Here is a link to an essay by Scott Johnson of Powerline in the Weekly Standard that shows why the publication of the NSA Intercept program was a violation of law that was not protected by the First Amendment. The same is true of the current disclosure.
You all should thank your lucky stars Actus takes the time to engage you here.
Yes, David – we are blessed, truly, truly blessed.
You’re kidding, right?
Was Clinton lying when Wesley Clark had the Chinese Embassy bombed by “mistake”.
The First Amendment doesn’t protect all types of speech.
It does not protect those who share or those who would induce those who share secret information. In other words their “speech” to each other on this secret subject is prohibited.
Quite clearly that type of speech can be prosecuted and the sentence can be severe.
David,
I find it odd and a little perverse that you would take such interest in a boring public circle jerk.
Admit it, you dig it. Are you a voyeur?
I have no idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. Lying about these things isn’t a partisan thing.
I think the Administration should declare war on the New York Times.
Of course, its crimes must be prosecuted, but they will be able to drag that out forever.
Until then:
No more credentials for any federal news events.
Executive order that any official who has contact with the them in any capacity is subject to immediate dismissal (and anyone unhappy or unable to comply with the policy is welcome to tender their resignation).
Full IRS audit (ala Clinton) of everybody from Sulzberger to the night janitors.
If we keep Risen and Lichtblau in front of a grand jury 18 hours/day for the next couple years (and God help them if they aren’t forthcoming or 100% consistent and accurate in their answers about every phone call and meeting they’ve participated in since 9/11), maybe they’ll be too busy pass secret information to the enemy.
While we were picking my son Matt the Marine up from Parris Island, after he got his Globe and Anchor, one of the things I noticed was the the Drill Instructors, with their Smokey the Bear hats, never ever walked anywhere. HE pointed out that they have to be in absolutely tip-top physical condition. Then he said, “One of the things I heard about their (the DIs) training is that they stand in front of a tree and yell at the top of their lung at it, for as long as the can.”
Maybe we should treat slapping assholus around with a Clue-By-Four as an equivelent sort of training, but you’re using a telephone pole, instead.
actus, you suck cock.
Goldstein, make sure you keep that thing away from him, I heard he uses his teeth.
At the risk of sounding like a pale imitation of the Monty Python Argument sketch, most of what actus posts are not opinions. Contrarian, yes, snarky, sometimes, but true opinions? Not often.
I’m not sure that I see any glee here; if you mean that we accept the fact that a program such as this is a necessity in order to roll up terror operatives and networks despite the level of surveillance involved – then guilty, I guess.
Personally I’m not all that thrilled that the government is actively scrutinizing banking records, but what’s the alternative? Cross our fingers and hope these guys don’t get lucky again?
I, for one, would be happy if they simply refraind from helping the other side.
TW: “Red”. Diaper.
For Actus and those who have forgotten about Article 3 Section 3 of the Constitution in their eagerness to invoke the First Amendment:
Now if publishing secret espionage programs against Enemies of the USA who are currently at war with the USA doesn’t meet the standards of treason, then nothing does.
If actus posted a different opinion, with, y’know, supporting arguments and that type of stuff, I don’t think anybody here would have a problem with it. We might argue with him, but we certainly wouldn’t be calling him things like “the retarded telephone pole.” The problem is that actus’s comments are just hit and run snark with, as someone put it, “no intellectual center”. If he does have an intellectual center, he keeps it very well hidden.
Of course, it seems that that kind of commentary is endemic to the blogosphere, especially on the left (but not unknown on the right, either).
Quite a bit does. The standard you just published requires adherence to the enemy—ie, the intent to to help them, to be on their side. That’s not how the NYT is operating.
I’m inclined to look at it from a “treasonous is as treasonous does” point of view. At what point does hindering the US constitute giving “aid” to the enemy?
– According to the Left we should never actually “engage” the Insurgents because of the danger of innocent lives being lost in the cross-fire. “Collateral damage”, one of their favorite accusations to hurl at our troops. But.
– Its ok if the NY Trash publishes National secrets. To bad if America’s war interests get caught in the cross-fire, its in the “publics interests” to know, over and above the fact that it most definately aids the enemy. “Collateral Damage” again. But its anti-American, so it’s ok.
– Will there ever come a time when the fucking retard Liberals ever make any consistant sense?
Once they’re all behind bars, it won’t matter.
But that’s not the point of view the constituion, and our law, takes. Its not just conduct, but state of mind too.