This is not just a passing thought; this is the latest brainchild of the saboteurs in the Democrat leadership of the US House of Representatives. In fact they have crafted a bill to do just that, entitled "The Free Flow of Information Act." And this bill has just passed the House and been sent on to the US Senate.
Revealing secret government financial tracking mechanisms to our enemy? Or the details of other classified surveillance programs? No problem. Warning suspected terror subjects about a pending raid by the feds--after being tipped off by someone inside the investigation? Child's Play: it's journalistic privilege! (And obviously the public--who in many cases elected the leakers in the first place--have no right to know who tipped the journalist off.)
Or let's go a step further: let's say a member of the United States Senate (or the US Congress, or perhaps the CIA or State Department...)--who is privy to highly classified information but sworn to secrecy under penalty of imprisonment--wants to get some damaging secret information out, simply to embarrass the Administration--or to sabotage the US War effort; something that will actually cost real American lives--as certainly as a Cold War outing of a double agent. The Democrats' new bill would protect them too. But more importantly (to the sponsors), it would protect not just the reporter; it would also shield the official(s)--and their staffers--who leaked the information in the first place. Names like Rockefeller, Schumer, Kerry, and Clinton come immediately to mind...
The Democrat Party and its friends in the CIA and State department--which have for several years now been overtly and covertly sabotaging the US War effort--suddenly are feeling the need to be protected from the E-vil Bush Justice Department. The audacity of Bushitler: so megalonamical that he's determined to stop wartime leaks. The gall...
In all seriousness, what better way to cover up its own treasonous behavior than by crafting a bill that protects the reporters who they leaked to. Because the alternative is: what if the very Senators and Congressmen which severely compromised our security by outing secrets they took an oath to protect--were to become known in an election year? And what if they were among the Senior Leadership in the Democrat party? Perhaps even a current or past Presidential candidate? That just wouldn't do.
This friends is the party which our asleep in the wheel electorate placed into power last year. These are the Bolshevik Vampires who now threaten to destroy everything good about America. This is the party that invented scandal. The party of Tammany Hall; of LBJ and dead voters voting alphabetically. The party of Joe Kennedy cutting deals with the Mob to ensure West Virginia and Chicago go to his son. The party of attempting to steal an election in Florida by suppressing Military votes there. The party of the Clinton Machine and George Soros. Whitewater. Stolen FBI files and shredded files at the Rose Law Firm. Travelgate. Juanita Broderick. Vince Foster. Trashing interns. Lying under oath to Grand Juries. Trashing the White House. Pilfering silverware from Air Force one. Contributions from Red China. Norman Hsu... And the beat goes on.
This, friends is the party that is the alpha and omega of scorched earth. This is the modern day political equivalent General Sherman marching to the sea--burning everything in his wake, allowing his troops to rape and pillage and kill. This is a party willing to Dresden fire bomb its own country in a figurative sense--if it means more power for them. Welcome to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and the 2007 Democrat Party...
If you think this carte blanche to leak whatever secrets it pleases is some sort of nightmare, think again. It is all too real. It just passed the House, for God's sake. And if the Senate does not kill this bill, the House may just have the votes to override President Bush's almost certain veto.
This is serious, sports fans. This law, if enacted, would allow almost anyone in the federal government complete immunity for revealing classified information critical to US National Security in a time of War--as long as they reveal it to a member of the MSM. Information that could cost lives. Maybe many lives. Or a even a city. Or start a nuclear war. This bill would make journalists permanently above the law.
I know it seems like everyday there is something coming out of this Congress which is even more outrageous than the day before. But that is exactly what is happening. I have never seen anything like it, and I am no spring chicken.
Is there any sanity left in my country?
Seth Leibsohn and Andy McCarthy have written an excellent column on this abomination, which is a must read. But here are a few key grafs:
... They have disclosed, published, and broadcast to the world national security secrets from NSA surveillance programs to Treasury Department funds-tracking programs and they have outed allies who helped us hold high-value terrorist detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.Our only hope is the Senate. We quite simply must get enough votes to sustain a fillibuster. And that, friends, is going to be completely up to us.
For this behavior has a single member of the press been investigated, much less prosecuted? No. Instead, they have given themselves Pulitzer Prizes. And this week, the House of Representatives has approved legislation that would give them something even more valuable: a new privilege, to be recognized in federal law, allowing them not to testify against those who have broken the law by giving them classified national-security intelligence. With this privilege, the media, unlike the rest of us, can now skirt a core obligation of citizenship: the duty to provide testimony when they witness crimes. Indeed, even if they aid and abet certain crimes, our lawmakers would provide them cover.
... The media may not like this, and the politicians and public officials who leak to them surely don’t like it, but unauthorized disclosures of information in government files is a crime. Government officials with security clearances take a solemn oath to keep classified information confidential. Leaking it is not only dishonorable; it is a crime. Moreover, even when information in government files is not classified, officials can be prosecuted — and jailed for up to ten years — under a federal statute that bars the theft of public money, property and records (Section 641 of Title 18, U.S. Code).
That is, a reporter who receives such a leak witnesses a crime every bit as serious — and sometimes more serious — than the journalist who happens to be in the bank when it is robbed. Government officials who leak information can severely compromise our national security, as we have seen only too frequently in recent years. People can die as a result of such leaks. It makes no sense to make them even more difficult than they already are to investigate.
... The First Amendment is not a license to violate the law. The prosecution of a journalist would be a very momentous step, one that should be approached with the greatest of caution. But questioning journalists about which government officials are leaking information that can so badly damage national security should be a no-brainer — especially during wartime and under circumstances where the enemy has already accomplished one devastating strike against the homeland and desperately seeks a reprise. It is simply mind-boggling that Congress would take what is very likely criminal behavior and turn it into immunized behavior — encouraging more top-secret disclosures and putting all of us at greater risk.
It's our country--at the moment anyway. We can either let it disintegrate completely, or we can fight with all our hearts to save it. What say you?
2 comments:
CORRECTION:
those who spill national security secrets which aid the enemy are WHISTLEBLOWERS to be protected.
those who tell the truth about serial-raping perjuring presidents - or lying ex-ambassadors to Ghana with wives who are traitorous CIA agents - are leakers.
When Libby does hard time, then we'll talk about journalists.
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