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Originally Posted by stevo
But I could make the arguement that in the midst of a war, passing on classified information with the intention of getting that information published in the public domain, is a threat to national security. In the middle of a war, letting everyone, including our enemies know our tactics and methods that are being used to find them can be very dangerous. So if you want to look at it as just for fighting terrorism, well it still is, in a less direct, but just as important sort of way.
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stevo, isn't it interesting that, your description of <b>"in the midst of a war.....getting that information published in the public domain"</b> seems exactly what the CIA requested that the DOJ investigate, after Valerie Plame's CIA employment was published by Robert Novak and other journalists?
Special Counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald in investigating the Plame leak, seems to be using these guidelines to obtain information about reporters:
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http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/do...t50.html#50.10
§50.10 Policy with regard to the issuance of subpoenas to members of the news media, subpoenas for telephone toll rec&chyph;ords of members of the news media, and the interrogation, indictment, or arrest of, members of the news media.
Because freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news, the prosecutorial power of the government should not be used in such a way that it impairs a reporter's responsibility to cover as broadly as possible controversial public issues. This policy statement is thus intended to provide protection for the news media from forms of compulsory process, whether civil or criminal, which might impair the news gathering function. In balancing the concern that the Department of Justice has for the work of the news media and the Department's obligation to the fair administration of justice, the following guidelines shall be adhered to by all members of the Department in all cases:.....
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.....whereas....in the OP of this thread, the DOJ is using "National Security Letters" and other "controversial" methods in it's investigation of reporters' publication of leaks involving secret CIA prisons in foreign locations.....
Doesn't it seem that, where an investigation of leaks of classified CIA information that centers around members of the executive branch is concerned, traditional guidelines and maximum deference for the constitutional rights of those under investigation, is the DOJ standard,
but in the investigation emphasized in the OP article, a much more intrusive, more intimidating, and much more difficult to monitor (by an impartial judge or other neutral oversight) investigative method and standard is being practiced by the DOJ?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
In Leak Case, Reporters Lack Shield For Sources
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 29, 2004; Page A01
......Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court in Washington cited Branzburg in ordering Cooper and Miller to testify.
After Branzburg, the Justice Department promised, in effect, not to abuse its power to subpoena reporters. Department guidelines instruct federal prosecutors to seek only the minimum of reporters' testimony essential to resolve a case, when all other alternatives have been exhausted.
<b>But, as Hogan noted in his rulings, those guidelines are voluntary and do not give reporters a right to sue if they think the department has violated them. Hogan added that he believed that Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in charge of the Justice Department's investigation, had acted in accordance with the guidelines anyway.</b>
In a brief for Cooper and Miller filed with the D.C. Circuit, attorney Floyd Abrams argues that Hogan misinterpreted Branzburg, because one of the five justices in the majority, Lewis F. Powell Jr., wrote a concurring opinion that seemed to say courts should weigh claims of a reporter's privilege on a case-by-case basis.
But Fitzgerald counters in his brief that Powell meant only to emphasize that reporters could be protected from bad-faith prosecution, of which there is no evidence here.
Abrams notes that much has changed since Branzburg. First, the court seemed to base its decision in part on the fact that only 17 states had shield laws at the time.
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stevo, do you agree that, as far as we can determine from the OP articles and the AP reporting that I later posted, that, unlike in the Plame investigation, where, in the effort to obtain information about a CIA leak from reporters, Judge Hogan determined that Patrick Fitzgerald, <b>"had acted in accordance with the guidelines anyway."</b>, the DOJ is showing a much more intrusive hand in the way it is investigating what reporters knew and did with information about the CIA "secret prisons" leaking?
Doesn't it seem, that in, as you described it, "in the midst of a war", that when it comes to investigating reporters, not all CIA leaks are investigated with the same aggressiveness or deference or "within the guidelines"? I don't think that it will take an extra two years for the DOJ to get the information that it is seeking from reporters that it did in the Plame investigation, because of Fitzgerald's acting in <a href="http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/documents/cfr/title28/part50.html#50.10">"accordance with the guidelines"</a>, do you?
05-17-2006, 08:01 AM
