Dana Milbank explains why the conjoined twin scandals, the subpoenaing of AP reporters’ phone records and the arrest of James Milbank for espionage, matter:
But here’s why you should care — and why this case, along with the administration’s broad snooping into Associated Press phone records, is more serious than the other supposed Obama administration scandals regarding Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service. The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of.
To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public — deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based. Guns? Privacy? Due process? Equal protection? If you can’t speak out, you can’t defend those rights, either.
Beyond that, the administration’s actions shatter the president’s credibility and discourage allies who would otherwise defend the administration against bogus accusations such as those involving the Benghazi “talking points.†If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions — well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?
We only have the Administration’s word for the underlying offense in either one of these cases. For all we know the real offense may be lèse-majesté. And the harm has already been done. To the extent that real reporting on the federal government has been done in the past in the future reporters who think about reporting on the federal government will be looking over their shoulders.
George Santayana once defined a fanatic as someone who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his goal. By that definition although I’m ardent about freedom of the press I’m no fanatic. I know what my goals are: honest government in the context of maximizing individual freedom. What are the Administration’s goals in these two cases? Are they to make us more secure or them?
Now it’s being reported that the DOJ seized the phone records of the parents of an FNC reporter.
Yeah, that doesn’t smack of intimidation or a fishing expedition at all.
Dana Milbank is beginning to sound like a “Tea Party” activist or libertarian. Now that he is being impacted, these other rights suddenly are important. Also, I find his invoking Richard Nixon to be amusing. I would not be surprised if he next becomes a “Fox News Contributor”.
The next question should be: If they are willing to violate this fundamental right, what else are they willing to violate?
Contrary to “conventional wisdom”, there is no “honor among thieves”, or more simply, there is no honor among the dishonorable.
Ain’t it funny how life works.
Chuck Todd asked the question this morning, (paraphrasing): Does anybody doubt what candidate Obama would have said about making a criminal case against a reporter during the Bush administration? Senator Obama? Constitutional Law Professor Obama?
I find what Holder did here to be outrageous; even if legal, he’s broken a trust with the media that will be difficult, if not impossible to restore. Chilling effects. Self-censorship. Fear.
Self-censorship.
Given all the crack investigative journalism they DID NOT do during Obama’s first term, how will we be able to tell if they’re self-censoring? The press is reaping what they’ve sown, so fuck ’em. I hope the Obama Administration uses a drone to blow up Milbank and his family in their house some day soon. It’s no less than what they deserve, and they’ve been cheering the Administration along this path the whole time under the assumption that they’d only do it to us evil conservative types. Tio Hell with the press.
It’s amusing to see the press having such an apoplectic reaction to having their 1st Amendment rights leaned on by none other than “their guy.”
While I do agree with them that the Obama administration is pressing the envelop, if not bending the Constitutional curve, I view Benghazi and the IRS issues with similar dismay, over the distortions of power, and suppression of information, that seem to be at the core of the Obama presidency. It’s a package deal of multiple grivances oozing from Obama’s team, going back to the partisan, strong-armed passage of the ACA, the corrupted F & F debacle, onward to all the ‘scandals’ errupting today.
@PD- To follow up on Volokh, if what he says is correct, then it is not true that all reporting could get people in jail. Rosen, per Volokh went looking for people to give him this info. This is different than the Woodward case or the typical whistleblower. In Rosen’s case, he called and asked people to give him information he knew was not supposed to be released. Not much different than asking you to steal corporate information or credit card numbers.
I trust you also read Greenwald. He disagrees and thinks it was not illegal.
Steve
I don’t read Greenwald, I think he’s a paranoid nut, but these events are forcing me to reconsider things.
One of my problems with Volokh’s analysis is that there is a fundamental ambiguity behind the government’s claim that the reporter was “soliciting the leak of classified documents.” Does that mean the reporter identified and impressed the leaker to obtain documents known to be classified? Or does it mean the reporter was asking questions for inside information that happened to be classified? The affidavit for warrant makes a big deal about how the leaks were carried out through secret codes and subterfuge that implies knowledge of wrongdoing, but that still doesn’t distinguish between everyday leaks that you don’t want associated with yourself and a covert espionage operation.
I think this summary of the Bush-era U.S. v. Rosen case is more informative of the potential problems with any criminal case. The judge refused to dismiss the case at the outset, but only with the caveat that the government would be required to prove that the solicitation and distribution of classified information was in “bad faith, i.e. with reason to believe the disclosure could harm the United States or aid a foreign government.†The government dropped the case after the ruling because the intent requirement was too high. Its only a trial judge decision, so it lacks precedent, but it does predict that First Amendment restrictions are going to play a part.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/218521/print
Thanks PD. Have you seen anything comparing this to the Judith Miller case?
Steve
steve, nope. I suspect the problem for Miller was that she was subpoenaed by a grand jury, and I don’t think the Privacy Protection Act protects against that.