Rep. Peter King: Prosecute Reporters For Publishing Leaked Classified Information

[rightwinger]

Classified information is still classified information

If a reporter knowingly publishes this information he is just as guilty as the person who originally leaked it

Would that include a British reporter writing about an American story?

If so, what would he be guilty of?

I think the poster is talking about what he should be guilty of.

If a British reporter is publishing American secrets, can he be prosecuted in this country?

I think so

 

[Katzndogz]

IF the Constitution endangers national security - fuck the Constitution.

Like Bush reportedly said: It's just a GD piece of paper.

So it's justification in your lib/slant mind must be to do the wrong thing, especially against the constitution......

Well if Bush supposedly did it why can't Obama do and and take it to another level.

After all, he was able to spend more in less time than anyone President in our history. Why not make the spying every other president did look tame in comparison?

Bush never said that. Have you ever tried to research it? I did. It came from a liberal website called Capitol Hill Blue. There are thousands of references and links all ending up right back at Capitol Hill Blue.

It's a liberal lie that everyone now thinks is true because he has gone through the liberal echo chamber. They say it over and over to one another. Because liberals said it so many times, they heard it many times. Therefore it must be true.

Except it's not.

 

[PratchettFan]

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said on CNN's "AC 360" Tuesday night that reporters should be prosecuted for publishing stories with leaked classified information.

Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of the NSA's phone record collecting practices last week, expressed his disbelief at King's remarks on Twitter.

It is not illegal to publish classified information in the United States, and no reporter has ever been prosecuted for doing so. But an affidavit to obtain a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen's email account, surfaced by the Washington Post last month, invoked the possibility that he could be criminally liable for soliciting state secrets from a government source.

It is not illegal to publish classified information in the United States, and no reporter has ever been prosecuted for doing so. But an affidavit to obtain a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen's email account, surfaced by the Washington Post last month, invoked the possibility that he could be criminally liable for soliciting state secrets from a government source.

More: Rep. Peter King: Reporters Should Be Prosecuted For Publishing Leaked Classified Information (VIDEO) - By Braden Goyette

I'm not a Peter King fan, but does he have a point?

Yes, he has a point. It is just that he is wrong.

 

[PratchettFan]

I'm not a Peter King fan, but does he have a point?

No, you actually are a Peter King fan, because he's a Totalitarian, just like every Communist and Fascist that you religiously support and believe will do no wrong. You don't' trust the people, and you don't desire the Rule of Law.


It's not LEFT vs RIGHT, It's Liberty vs Depostism, You're a Despot.

I completely agree this is not a left vs right issue. However, this is also not a liberty vs despotism issue. The is a balancing act between what is legal and what is illegal. Anyone who thinks the NSA, FBI, CIA, DOJ, DOD or any number of other government organizations have not been spying on us for at least the last 70 years has been fooling themselves. Of course they have and they will continue to do so. It doesn't matter who is in the white house.

 

[OriginalShroom]

IF the Constitution endangers national security - fuck the Constitution.

Like Bush reportedly said: It's just a GD piece of paper.

Why do you keep spreading lies?

factcheck.org : Bush: The Constitution a ?Goddamned Piece of Paper??

FULL ANSWER


The report that Bush "screamed" those words at Republican congressional leaders in November 2005 is unsubstantiated, to put it charitably.

We judge that the odds that the report is accurate hover near zero. It comes from Capitol Hill Blue, a Web site that has a history of relying on phony sources, retracting stories and apologizing to its readers.

Update, Feb. 21, 2011: The author of the Capitol Hill Blue story has now withdrawn it. Doug Thompson messaged us to say:



Doug Thompson: This is to let you know that the piece on Bush and the Constitution has been changed and reads:

"This article was based on sources that we thought, at the time, were reliable. We have since discovered reasons to doubt their veracity. For that reason, this article has been removed from our database."

I no longer stand behind that article or its conclusions and have said so in answers to several recent queries. In addition, I have asked that it be removed from a documentary film.


Thompson elaborated on what led him to retract his story in an item posted on his website Jan. 1, 2011. He also noted that an earlier article, in which he had referred to Bush as a "madman," has been removed from the site entirely.

The Quote



The report was posted on Dec. 5, 2005. According to author, Doug Thompson, unnamed Republican leaders complained to Bush during a White House meeting about "onerous" portions of the USA Patriot Act, prompting the following:


Capitol Hill Blue: “I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

The Evidence

There’s no record of Bush ever using these words in public and no other news organization has reported him using them privately. Thompson based his report on three sources whom he didn’t name. He gave the date of the quote as "last month," which would put it sometime in November 2005.

Thompson told us he once removed the story from his Web site when others raised doubts and no other news organization came up with a similar story. But he said he later reinstated it and currently believes it to be true. "I wrote the story and I stand by it," Thompson said in a telephone interview.

Thompson told us he based the story on e-mail messages from three persons he knows, all of whom claim to have been present at a White House meeting and to have heard Bush make the statement. He said he finds their account credible: "Sometimes I just have to go with my gut, and my gut tells me he did say this."

The Unreliable Gut



Thompson’s "gut" has proven to be a unreliable guide in the past, however. He has admitted quoting trusted sources in the past who later turned out to be frauds — twice.
◾In 2003 Thompson confessed that he had been "conned big time" by a source who claimed to be a former CIA contract consultant named Terrance J. Wilkinson. Thompson quoted this "source" as claiming to be present at two White House meetings in which Bush ignored intelligence officials’ doubts about reports of Iraq seeking uranium. Thompson said he had been relying on the same man for two decades and had "no doubt" about his credibility, only to discover that "someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme." He erased a number of stories from the site that had been based on information from "Wilkinson" and deleted anonymous quotes given to him by "Wilkinson" from other stories.


Thompson said then: "It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information. The next one who does had better be prepared to produce a birth certificate, a driver’s license and his grandmother’s maiden name."
◾That was two years before the "piece of paper" quote attributed to three unnamed sources. But, far from demanding solid proof, Thompson continued to quote at least one more phony source until 2006, when a blogger started to question the existence of "George Harleigh." Thompson had for years quoted this supposed former Nixon and Bush appointee. But when no records of such a man could be found, Thompson admitted he had never even met him:

Doug Thompson (July 26, 2006): We would get quotes via email on current topics. He claimed to be a retired political science professor from Southern Illinois University and an appointee of both the Nixon and Bush administration. I was told he had been checked out. But he wasn’t who he said he was and we used his phony name in stories.

This time Thompson says he revised or deleted 83 stories that had relied on information from "Harleigh" or quoted him.

In his defense, Thompson says: "[The] 83 articles that we revised or removed represent less than 1 percent of the total production of this Web site over the past 13 years. While errors must never be condoned, a 99+ percent of accuracy is a percentage I can live with. "

But we also note that Thompson described his own reporting habits this way:


Doug Thompson (July 26, 2006): I started taking more chances with stories, jumping on ones with sketchy sources, always trying to outdo the last "big" story. I had people willing to help me and they would send me info that I used often on their word alone.

. . . I wrote stories based on emails from sources I never met. I would meet self-proclaimed "important people" in out-of-the way bars, taking what they told me at face value. Washington is a breeding ground for phonies and wannabes. Too often I printed what they told me because I was so full of myself that I was sure it was true and did not require further verification.

By Thompson’s own account, these were the habits still in place when he reported the "piece of paper" quote in 2005.

We also note that Thompson expresses extreme personal hostility toward Bush, calling him in one recent article a "madman," a "despot," and "a man without honor, a leader without conscience and a human being without a shred of decency or humanity."

Update, Feb. 21, 2011: Thompson states that he has now removed that piece from his website.

Thompson is a former Republican congressional aide and political consultant. He was manager of the National Association of Realtors political action committee for several years, ending in 1992. But his experience as a journalist prior to launching Capitol Hill Blue was limited to working as a local reporter at the Roanoke Times and a columnist at The Telegraph (Alton, Ill.), ending in 1981. He currently lives and works from his home near the town of Floyd in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, nearly 290 miles away from the White House.

 

[bendog]

Classified information is still classified information

If a reporter knowingly publishes this information he is just as guilty as the person who originally leaked it

Nah. An govt employee may have to sign a nondisclosure agreement that provides criminal prosecution for leaking stuff. But anyone has a constitutional right to speech, even the employee, but he agreed to limitations in exchange for something he wanted - a job. Any right can be waived. The press never made such an agreement.

This blew up on Holder, and it'll blow up on the admin if they try it again. As for King, I have no idea why he keeps getting elected, but my own state has some loons too.

 

[Oddball]

The point of allowing the government to classify material is to keep it secret from the general public. The justification is national security.

If you don't believe that the government should be able to keep anything secret for the sake of national security, then you don't believe the government should have the right to punish anyone who reveals secrets.

On the other hand if you believe that the government should have the right to classify material for national security purposes,

then logically you should support the right of the government to punish anyone who reveals classified material.

I'm not sure how calling yourself a journalist somehow lets you escape from the above logic.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The point of allowing the government to classify material is to keep it secret from the general public. The justification is national security.

If you don't believe that the government should be able to keep anything secret for the sake of national security, then you don't believe the government should have the right to punish anyone who reveals secrets.

On the other hand if you believe that the government should have the right to classify material for national security purposes,

then logically you should support the right of the government to punish anyone who reveals classified material.

I'm not sure how calling yourself a journalist somehow lets you escape from the above logic.

If you believe that the media has the right to publish classified material then you have to believe that the government does not the right to enforceable laws protecting classified information.

It can't be both; they are mutually exclusive.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Who would argue that if in 1944, a reporter obtained the classified (of course) detailed plans for the D-Day invasion, from someone inside the military with access, and then published them, that he would be immune from any sort of prosecution?

If you do believe that, why?

 

[PratchettFan]

The point of allowing the government to classify material is to keep it secret from the general public. The justification is national security.

If you don't believe that the government should be able to keep anything secret for the sake of national security, then you don't believe the government should have the right to punish anyone who reveals secrets.

On the other hand if you believe that the government should have the right to classify material for national security purposes,

then logically you should support the right of the government to punish anyone who reveals classified material.

I'm not sure how calling yourself a journalist somehow lets you escape from the above logic.

If you believe that the media has the right to publish classified material then you have to believe that the government does not the right to enforceable laws protecting classified information.

It can't be both; they are mutually exclusive.

Ok. Then the government does not have the right to enforable laws protecting classified information.

 

[Oddball]

If you believe that the media has the right to publish classified material then you have to believe that the government does not the right to enforceable laws protecting classified information.

Which "enforceable laws" have been broken here, tovarch?

Oh yeah, no laws were broken.

It can't be both; they are mutually exclusive.

Right....Hence your entire missive is the most circular of circular reasoning.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Classified information is still classified information

If a reporter knowingly publishes this information he is just as guilty as the person who originally leaked it

We'll let a Jury decide that.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Who would argue that if in 1944, a reporter obtained the classified (of course) detailed plans for the D-Day invasion, from someone inside the military with access, and then published them, that he would be immune from any sort of prosecution?

If you do believe that, why?

Because a Jury would obviously convict him of Treason.

 

[Indofred]

Who would argue that if in 1944, a reporter obtained the classified (of course) detailed plans for the D-Day invasion, from someone inside the military with access, and then published them, that he would be immune from any sort of prosecution?

If you do believe that, why?

What a silly post.
One is battle tactics in a war whist the other is exposing a crime.
If you want to argue it's legal; you have to ignore the laws of several Countries and the EU.

 

[Lakhota]

Senators Who Opposed Background Checks Fine With NSA Spying

 

[dblack]

I'm not a Peter King fan, but does he have a point?

No, you actually are a Peter King fan, because he's a Totalitarian, just like every Communist and Fascist that you religiously support and believe will do no wrong. You don't' trust the people, and you don't desire the Rule of Law.


It's not LEFT vs RIGHT, It's Liberty vs Depostism, You're a Despot.

Let me assure you I'm not a Peter King fan. He's a rabid Muslim-bashing defend-Israel-at-any-cost warmongering wingnut.

I most certainly desire the "Rule of Law" - just not your wingnut version of it.

I'm no more a "Despot" than you are a "Lunatic"...

Well, no, you're not personally a 'despot' as you don't have any power yourself. But you seem very jazzed about promoting authoritarian government.

I think that's what I find most promising about the Snowden leaks. They're really separating the libertarians from the authoritarians. And you're proving yourself every bit an authoritarian. Not really sure how you can walk away from that one.

 

[dblack]

Who would argue that if in 1944, a reporter obtained the classified (of course) detailed plans for the D-Day invasion, from someone inside the military with access, and then published them, that he would be immune from any sort of prosecution?

If you do believe that, why?

This is always the fallback, once you've been show to be promoting corrupt government, the excuse is "WE'RE AT WAR!!!"

Well, No. We're not.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Who would argue that if in 1944, a reporter obtained the classified (of course) detailed plans for the D-Day invasion, from someone inside the military with access, and then published them, that he would be immune from any sort of prosecution?

If you do believe that, why?

This is always the fallback, once you've been show to be promoting corrupt government, the excuse is "WE'RE AT WAR!!!"

Well, No. We're not.

Actually we are but what's the difference? And what's your answer?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Peter King needs to fuck himself

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[NYcarbineer]

Who would argue that if in 1944, a reporter obtained the classified (of course) detailed plans for the D-Day invasion, from someone inside the military with access, and then published them, that he would be immune from any sort of prosecution?

If you do believe that, why?

Because a Jury would obviously convict him of Treason.

If the Courts have upheld the right to publish classified information as a 1st amendment right,

how could that be?