Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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How do you get Snowden, Manning and the Washington Navy Yard spree shooter in the same category? By treating leaks to the press and a sawed-off shotgun as the same thing: all “weapons.” It’s a peculiar stance for a TV news magazine that prides itself on its tradition of investigative reporting to take—that getting information out to the public is a form of violence.
It’s also odd for journalists to describe Manning, because she was convicted under the Espionage Act, as a “convicted spy.” The law forbids giving “an unauthorized person…any classified information,” language that was not meant to give the United States an Official Secrets Act, but which has been treated as such by the Obama administration. Regardless of whether this is legal or constitutional, the Act doesn’t change the meaning of the word “spy”; presumably when 60 Minutes reporters get classified information from government officials, they don’t say to their sources, “Thanks for spying for us.”
In a CYA moment, Pelley acknowledges that “some believe that Snowden and Manning were right to expose what they saw as government abuses like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program.” But a sentence later, he’s again referring to the whistleblowers—along with the mass shooter—as “dangerous hands,” a line that provides the title for the segment.
60 Minutes Stands With Secret Keepers Against Those Who Expose Them
And it's so transparent.
It’s also odd for journalists to describe Manning, because she was convicted under the Espionage Act, as a “convicted spy.” The law forbids giving “an unauthorized person…any classified information,” language that was not meant to give the United States an Official Secrets Act, but which has been treated as such by the Obama administration. Regardless of whether this is legal or constitutional, the Act doesn’t change the meaning of the word “spy”; presumably when 60 Minutes reporters get classified information from government officials, they don’t say to their sources, “Thanks for spying for us.”
In a CYA moment, Pelley acknowledges that “some believe that Snowden and Manning were right to expose what they saw as government abuses like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program.” But a sentence later, he’s again referring to the whistleblowers—along with the mass shooter—as “dangerous hands,” a line that provides the title for the segment.
60 Minutes Stands With Secret Keepers Against Those Who Expose Them
And it's so transparent.
