Has the New York Times Violated the Espionage Act?

Commentary Magazine ^ | March 2006 | Gabriel Schoenfeld

[Anti-Bubba182]

“Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts.” Thus ran the headline of a front-page news story whose repercussions have roiled American politics ever since its publication last December 16 in the New York Times. The article, signed by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, was adapted from Risen’s then-forthcoming book, State of War.1 In it, the Times reported that shortly after September 11, 2001, President Bush had “authorized the National Security Agency [NSA] to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States . . . without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.”

Not since Richard Nixon’s misuse of the CIA and the IRS in Watergate, perhaps not since Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, have civil libertarians so hugely cried alarm at a supposed law-breaking action of government. People for the American Way, the Left-liberal interest group, has called the NSA wiretapping “arguably the most egregious undermining of our civil liberties in a generation.” The American Civil Liberties Union has blasted Bush for “violat[ing] our Constitution and our fundamental freedoms.”........"

[Fruitbat]

You'd swear that the NYT was run by muslims.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[kellynch]

Not according to Clinton judicial appointees anyway.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

On reflection, I'm bookmarking this puppy.

Very interesting info about not only the flip flop of the NYT, but about the Chicago Tribune:

One of the most pertinent precedents is a newspaper story that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on June 7, 1942, immediately following the American victory in the battle of Midway in World War II. In a front-page article under the headline, “Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea,” the Tribune disclosed that the strength and disposition of the Japanese fleet had been “well known in American naval circles several days before the battle began.” The paper then presented an exact description of the imperial armada, complete with the names of specific Japanese ships and the larger assemblies of vessels to which they were deployed. All of this information was attributed to “reliable sources in . . . naval intelligence.”

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the Tribune article was that the United States had broken Japanese naval codes and was reading the enemy’s encrypted communications. Indeed, cracking JN-25, as it was called, had been one of the major Allied triumphs of the Pacific war, laying bare the operational plans of the Japanese Navy almost in real time and bearing fruit not only at Midway—a great turning point of the war—but in immediately previous confrontations, and promising significant advantages in the terrible struggles that still lay ahead. Its exposure, a devastating breach of security, thus threatened to extend the war indefinitely and cost the lives of thousands of American servicemen.

I really was under the illusion that FDR had the lid on pretty tight. After all, he was able to keep the lid on the fact that the German U-boats sank 500 merchant vessels off the American coast in the first six months of the war, without losing a single U-boat!

[Grampa Dave]

Since they started pushing the communist victory in the Nam war, they have been on a lying and traitor binge.

[Grampa Dave]

The ACLU aka the American Communist Lawyers's Union should have been declared an enemy of America decades ago and banned.

[Grampa Dave]

Those of us on ASA Vet's MI list, know what would happen to us if we did something similiar to this.

Hopefully, this will be the beginning of the end of this bs which started back in Carter's years, when the Compost and NY Slimes were outing active CIA agents while they were in country. The nation just smiled as these men and women and their families were placed in real danger. Their contacts in those countries probably suffered terrible deaths after being exposed.

Amazing how the left wing mediots who hate America were so upset when a non agent, Plame, was supposedly outed by our side. (The reality was the outing was due to her husband and herself.). Now they aren't concerned about real outings and endangerment.

[ASA Vet]

Plame, was supposedly outed by our side.

How can one who was never "in" be outed?

[Grampa Dave]

"Plame, was supposedly outed by our side."

'How can one who was never "in" be outed?'

She could only be outed in the perverted/drugged out minds of the lunatic lefties who controll the MSM and the rat politicians. Which is why I used the the adverb, "Supposedly".

[beyond the sea]

The NYT was lying and covering for Stalin before that.

[Grampa Dave]

The NYSlimes lied about the Russian Revolution and glorified the communist thugs/mass killers.

[BIGLOOK]

Valerie Plame affair.....
It seemed to be common knowledge in Foggy Bottom that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
Joe was a Clinton appointee for Ambassador. Valerie Wilson is his wife.
Bob Novak wrote that Joe's wife worked for the CIA.
Undercover agents are not known to be working for the CIA.....they are working for somebody else.
Valerie wasn't an undercover agent since it was known she worked for the CIA.

This all depends on what the meaning of 'undercover' is (Clintonese, if you please).

[ASA Vet]

Also she was an analyst not an "agent."

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting a short and exact summary of the Plame fiasco for the rats:

"It seemed to be common knowledge in Foggy Bottom that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

Joe was a Clinton appointee for Ambassador. Valerie Plame Wilson is his wife.

Bob Novak wrote that Joe's wife worked for the CIA.

Undercover agents are not known to be working for the CIA.....they are working for somebody else.

Valerie wasn't an undercover agent since it was known she worked for the CIA.

This all depends on what the meaning of 'undercover' is (Clintonese, if you please)."

[pissant]

Answer: yes. And they are treasonous as well. Lynch pinchie.

[Alberta's Child]

Do a search on a Supreme Court case called United States v. Truong, in which the court determined that under certain circumstances it was acceptable for wiretap surveillance to be conducted without a warrant. The content of the decision is not important (and may be irrelevant, since the Federal laws on this subject have changed somewhat since this decision was handed down in 1980). What is important is that you have the public record of a U.S. Supreme Court case -- in which the person who was the subject of the "warrantless" surveillance is identified by name -- that clearly demonstrates the use of such surveillance by the Federal government.

The public records related to the case of Columbus truck driver Iyman Faris -- who pleaded guilty last year to a number of charges related to a conspiracy to blow up bridges in New York City -- also clearly indicate that the U.S. Justice Department obtained much of the evidence against him in "unconventional" manners.

What the New York Times basically did was print an article about something that may not have been commonly known among the general public, but certainly was not "classified" in any way.

This is basically the equivalent of me warning you about a speed trap that the police have set up on a road somewhere.

[Cboldt]

To begin with, there can be little argument over whether, in the case of the Times, national-defense material was disclosed in an unauthorized way. The Times's own reporting makes this plain; the original December 16 article explicitly discusses the highly secret nature of the material, as well as the Times's own hesitations in publishing it. A year before the story actually made its way into print, the paper (by its own account) told the White House what it had uncovered, was warned about the sensitivity of the material, and was asked not to publish it. According to Bill Keller, the Times's executive editor, the administration "argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country's security." Whether because of this warning or for other reasons, the Times withheld publication of the story for a year.

I still don't see the damage. The surveillance in question can be done under a secret warrant (FISA court order), or without a secret warrant (uder an order signed by the Atty General, without reference to and concurrance of a FISA or other court). The fact that the surveillance could be done with a secret warrant means that it can be done - it was already known that the surveillance could be undertaken.

The fact that this same sort of surveillance is done without a warrant discloses exactly waht, that would benefit an entity who aims to avoid detection?

No technical capability is disclosed, as was in the Jap fleet disclosure by the Chicago Trib in WWII, and by the KH-1 satellite picture filched by Morison. All the NYT has done with the so-called "NSA spying program" story is disclose what amounts to a "legal policy."

[neverdem]

bfl

[aculeus]

BTTT

[Czar]

I'll be surprised if the NYT suffers real punishment for any violation of the Espionage Act. They have always been handled with kid gloves by our hack politicians who continue to live in constant fear of the power of the MSM.