And in other news...
The president has forgotten that the Supreme Court has already ruled on something. Big suprise.
But seriously, they are actually considering prosecuting journalists for leaking information in an atmosphere where the primary leaks that people are talking about are ones that reveal that the administration is violating basic Constitutional Law? Do they even give a fuck how this looks?
In essence, this would be like four year old me getting caught taking a cookie from the counter. One of my parents would come in, notice this, and yell at me. My response would be to claim that they were violating my privacy, and having a right to privacy, I would have to call child protective services on them if there were a similar offense.
The difference, of course, is that everyone is fucking taking Bush at face value here. We'll hear people going on the talking head shows talking about national security, blah blah, espionage act, blabber, blabber. And what you will only hear in one sentence, is that Bush is doing this because leakers have shown him to have violated the US fucking Constitution. This is a tactic used by the President to insulate himelf from the consequences of his actions, but everyone pretends like his abstract general arguments are to be taken at face value.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court has already decided whether or not the press is allowed to say what it wants. They can prosecute all the reporters that they want, but from the smoke and ashes, the fact is that the Constitution and case law protects political speech to an insane degree (to the point that politicians are allowed to essentially lie in campaign commercials), and there is nothing that they can really do.
God I hope so.
But seriously, they are actually considering prosecuting journalists for leaking information in an atmosphere where the primary leaks that people are talking about are ones that reveal that the administration is violating basic Constitutional Law? Do they even give a fuck how this looks?
In essence, this would be like four year old me getting caught taking a cookie from the counter. One of my parents would come in, notice this, and yell at me. My response would be to claim that they were violating my privacy, and having a right to privacy, I would have to call child protective services on them if there were a similar offense.
The difference, of course, is that everyone is fucking taking Bush at face value here. We'll hear people going on the talking head shows talking about national security, blah blah, espionage act, blabber, blabber. And what you will only hear in one sentence, is that Bush is doing this because leakers have shown him to have violated the US fucking Constitution. This is a tactic used by the President to insulate himelf from the consequences of his actions, but everyone pretends like his abstract general arguments are to be taken at face value.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court has already decided whether or not the press is allowed to say what it wants. They can prosecute all the reporters that they want, but from the smoke and ashes, the fact is that the Constitution and case law protects political speech to an insane degree (to the point that politicians are allowed to essentially lie in campaign commercials), and there is nothing that they can really do.
God I hope so.
posted by Valatan @ 8:35 AM
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