Re: The New York Times at War With America

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:37:44 GMT, Rumpelstiltskin
<PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006 07:16:14 -0400, Thumper <jaylsmith@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:33:36 -0700, El Castor
<anyonethere@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Jean Smith <gotermite@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

El Castor wrote:
Fred Ghadry <falko282@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Earl wrote:

So we are not permitted to stop a paper from publishing secrets
ahead of time, and no president has ever had the nerve to bring
them to court for espionage/intelligence disclosure violations
after the secrets are published..

What strikes me most about these cases is how little secrecy seems to
mean. F'rinstance, if in fact the Chicago Tribune revealed publicly that
we had broken Japanese codes at Midway, how did their reporters find
that out? Seems to me that should have been a closely held secret within
the government, and in fact the reading I've done seems to bear out that
code-breaking success in WW2 was known to only very, very few trusted
top officers. The "secrets" that the NYT has revealed don't seem to have
been all that secret, or else their reporters have access or clearance
for the government's most "secret" operations. Perhaps the operation
wasn't "secret", but the government would have preferred that its
existence not be advertised widely.

Secrets like this one are known to a lot of people. All it takes is
one self righteous jackass with a political axe to grind, and it get's
leaked. At the very least, the reporters should be hauled before a
grand jury and compelled to reveal their sources, or be locked up, but
if we don't have the guts to prosecute the leaker, it's hard to
understand how we could ever bring ourselves to go after the
co-conspirators at the Times.

Like they say,"The Truth will out."
http://www.bartleby.com/59/3/truthwillout.html

In this case it is the efforts of the administration to turn us
into an Orwellian dictatorship, where the decider decides what
laws to obey today. In this case we are just asked to trust
employees to not abuse the data that they collect, as usual.
And as usual, they collect everyone's in the hope of finding
that special someone. They'd close Osama's bank account. Wouldn't they?

It's good to hear of progress for the folks in Guantanamo.
We can't abide the efforts to undo America.

It's legal, congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle were
briefed, and the existence of the program was classified. People like
you are selling this country down the drain and amply deserve to be
eye witnesses at the next terrorist attack. Too bad you couldn't have
been on hand to watch those poor wretches jump hand in hand from the
WTC. Perhaps the sight might have brought you to your senses, but I
doubt it. And I repeat, it's legal, congressional leaders on both
sides of the aisle were briefed, and the existence of the program was
classified. The very definition of espionage.


No one knows if it's legal. it is still in question.




What's not in question is that the Bush administration will
always try to bypass court or congressional restraints on its
own power in any way it thinks it might be able to get away
with it or at least fake its way through, using the letter of the
law especially when some reading of the letter can be
trumped up to provide some ridiculously nitpicky legal cover
that blatantly violates the spirit of the law.

It's like when they mislead the public: they do it even
when it's not necessary, just to stay in practice, and they
don't even seem to care how it looks to any sensible
person. In fact, I get the feeling that the weaselier an
argument is, the more they see that weaseliness as a
sign of the strength of their position.

Their position, overall, is to assert the primacy of the executive
powers. So they have to assert this in every case, whether or
not it is actually important to do so. Raising the power of the
executive over that of the Congress and the courts, is, of course
just what our Constitution was crafted to avoid, since too much
power to the executive smacks too closely of the divine right
of kings. Often, it seems, Congress lets them get by with this.
Now, faced with the Supreme Court ruling on military tribunals,
they are going to work on Congress to go along with their view.

The notion of an unending "war on terror" has been used over and
over as an excuse for not asking Congress "to advise and consent"
before taking measures that are at the very least debatably
constitutional. Asserting that the U.S. is engaged in such a war
has been quite a brilliant ploy and one that many in this group seem
to accept as unquestionable.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The New York Times at War With America
    ... Seems to me that should have been a closely held secret within ... Raising the power of the ... Often, it seems, Congress lets them get by with this. ... "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: The New York Times at War With America
    ... Seems to me that should have been a closely held secret within ... Raising the power of the ... Often, it seems, Congress lets them get by with this. ... "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Supreme Court Ignors DC v Heller
    ... give the Court grounds to remove its stay of its Order. ... if Congress did not have power to make legislation ... and I doubt the US Supreme ... Court would have anything to say about Congress setting ...
    (talk.politics.guns)
  • Re: The New York Times at War With America
    ... them to court for espionage/intelligence disclosure violations ... Seems to me that should have been a closely held secret within ... Raising the power of the ... Often, it seems, Congress lets them get by with this. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Congresss Power To Compel
    ... Congress's Power To Compel ... help from the Justice Department to enforce contempt citations against ... Such a strategy leaves Congress beholden to hostile executive branch ... And a Supreme Court majority would find it hard to object in the face ...
    (sci.military.naval)