Posted on 05/27/2013 3:27:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
There is one problem with the entirely justified if self-interested media squawking about the Justice Department snooping into the phone records of multiple Associated Press reporters and Fox News's James Rosen.
The problem is that what the AP reporters and Rosen did arguably violates the letter of the law.
The search warrant in the Rosen case cites Section 793(d) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code.
Section 793(d) says that a person lawfully in possession of information that the government has classified as secret who turns it over to someone not lawfully entitled to posses it has committed a crime. That might cover Rosen's source.
Section 793(g) is a conspiracy count that says that anyone who conspires to help the source do that has committed the same crime. That would be the reporter.
It sounds like this law criminalizes a lot of journalism. You might wonder how such a law ever got passed and why, for the last 90 years, it has very seldom produced prosecutions and investigations of journalists.
The answer: This is the Espionage Act of 1917, passed two months after the United States entered World War I. In his 1998 book "Secrecy," the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan tells the story of how it came into being.
Congress was responding to incidents of German espionage before the declaration of war. In July 1916, German agents blew up the Black Tom munitions dump in New York Harbor. The explosion was loud enough to be heard in Connecticut and Maryland.
The Espionage Act was passed with bipartisan support in a Democratic Congress and strongly supported by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson wanted even more. "Authority to exercise censorship over the press," he wrote a senator, "is absolutely necessary." He got that authority in May 1918 when Congress passed the Sedition Act, criminalizing, among other things, "abusive language" about the government.
Wilson's Justice Department successfully prosecuted Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate who received 900,000 votes for president in 1912, for making statements opposing the war.
The Wilson administration barred socialist newspapers from the mails, jailed a filmmaker for making a movie about the Revolutionary War (don't rile our British allies) and prosecuted a minister who claimed Jesus was a pacifist.
German language books were removed from libraries, German language newspapers forced out of business, and one state banned speaking German outdoors.
It was an ugly period in our history. It's also a reminder that big government liberals can be as much inclined to suppress civil liberties as small government conservatives -- or more so.
Fortunately things changed after Wilson left office. A Republican Congress allowed the Sedition Act to expire in 1921.
Debs, who received 915,000 votes for president in 1920 while in Atlanta federal prison, was pardoned by Republican President Warren Harding (a former journalist) and invited to the White House.
The Espionage Act of 1917 remained on the books and was amended to cover news media. But it was used sparingly.
Franklin Roosevelt, who served in the Wilson administration, didn't use it in World War II. When his attorney general urged him to prosecute the Chicago Tribune for a story three days before Pearl Harbor detailing military plans for a possible world war, he brushed the recommendation aside.
That despite the fact that New Deal Democrats were as paranoid about the Republican and isolationist Tribune as conservatives have been in recent times about The New York Times.
Roosevelt did order the internment of West Coast Japanese-Americans in 1942. But an act apologizing for that and providing restitution was passed with bipartisan majorities and signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988.
Presidents and attorney generals of both parties have been reluctant to use the Espionage Act when secret information has been leaked to the press because they have recognized that it is overbroad.
They have understood, as Moynihan argues in "Secrecy," that government classifies far too many things as secrets, even as it has often failed to protect information that truly needs to stay secret.
Barack Obama and his Justice Department seem to be of a different mind. They have used the Espionage Act of 1917 six times to bring cases against government officials for leaks to the media -- twice as many as all their predecessors combined.
"Gradually, over time," Moynihan writes, "American government became careful about liberties." Now, suddenly, it seems to be moving in the other direction.
Government license to terrorize citizens.
Has the 1917 law been tried in court? Perhaps it is time to do that.
They wanted him, they got him.
Good for them, as I hope they get him with both barrels.
Wilson was arguably the most “progressive” president we’ve ever had.
Nuthin but scum.
Ah, another wonderful legacy of that great “Progressive” Woodrow Wilson. The more I learn of that man the more I loathe everything about him.
It isn’t that Obama doesn’t like leaks.
It’s just that he likes to be in charge of what gets leaked.
He doesn’t mind leaking about Seals and getting them killed.
The Espionage Act of 1917 blatantly violates the Constitution.....not that you’ll ever find a sitting
judge that would admit that fact.
I wonder if it’s ever been tested in court. The article says that Obama has used it against journalists six times - twice as many times as all his predecessors (since 1917!). That would probably mean that there probably haven’t been any cases involving it in recent times.
I suspect there may be one now, and this is probably one reason Obama is trying so hard to take over the DC district court.
I'm not saying that this administration is right in pressing this issue with the media or that the previous administration was right in NOT pressing this issue with the media. Only that this is much more than a matter of who we like or dislike politically.
Does this mean when the next Republican president takes office in 2017 that he can use this law to crush the Leftist “Lamestream” Media?
A sword cuts both ways...
Sorry, I’m not that good with words, so it took me quite a while to come up with my #11 and I didn’t see your replies until after I hit ‘post’
Sorry people, but I do have a problem with government workers leaking classified data or anything to the media. It has crippled Republicans much more than it has hurt Democrats, and I’d like to see a few of those jerks thrown the slammer. It was also the rationalization that Boyce used in handing over documents to the Soviets in the Falcon and the Snowman (although that type of spying is still prohibited, and he did go to jail for a few years). If a person CANNOT play by the rules, jail him.
The DOJ search warrant in the Rosen case cites Section 793(d) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code...... a person lawfully in possession of secret govt-classified info who turns it over to someone not lawfully entitled to posses it has committed a crime (The source).....anyone who conspires to help the source do that has committed the same crime (The journo).
So why the brouhaha? B/c the Obummber crew has NEVER, EVER exhibited a modicum of interest in defending US ntl security from foreign domination ---- nor has it exhibited a concern for the life and liberties of Americans.
On the contrary----via "immigration reform" Ohaha is forcing on Americans entire primitive populations of creepy savages emanating from antediluvean Third World countries.
EXAMPLE Even after the Kenyan butcher hacked a Brit soldier to death, and defiantly gave an interview with blood-soaked hands, Ohaha sap-happily gave Kenya $50 million.
Another billion dollar tax waste for stupid futile nation-building ---- to subsidize living standards for the Kenya hellhole (no water, electricity, adequate shelter and food there).
But forget these "amenities" --- your tax dollars will build "madrassas" to train more of these jihadis zealots to butcher innocent people.
He was a Pinko through and through. And the Woodrow Wilson Center follows that same tact.
‘The article says that Obama has used it against journalists six times’.......
Probably a good time to get the law repealed and off the books. Ah, but then Odumbo would have to sign that. Oh well, another wasted opportunity.
If we are going to be governed by war time rules in effect in 1917, then let us also check out the scope of government at that time and eliminate all federal agencies not in existence then. Talk about a “leaner, meaner” government!
Yep, nobama leaks to the enemies of our country.
So Daniel Ellsberg is a felon?
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