Crimes of the Times
Posted on May 14, 2006
Hugh Hewitt writes in World Magazine
Presidents are not above the law, and the legal travails of Presidents Clinton and Nixon prove that on a bipartisan basis.
But are newspapers elevated above the ordinary duties of a citizen or corporation in the United States?
In an extraordinary series of statements, New York Times editor Bill Keller is implicitly making a public case for such an exalted position. Mr. Keller has repeatedly defended his paper’s decision to publish late last year articles on the highly secret National Security Agency program to intercept communications from al-Qaeda abroad to its agents/contacts in the United States. The Bush administration urged the paper not to publish the leaked material, arguing that to do so would alert terrorists to the program’s existence. The paper delayed but ultimately published the story.
Now legal scholars and commentators are asking if the Times violated U.S. espionage laws. Gabriel Schoenfeld in Commentary and Scott Johnson for The Weekly Standard have both shown that publication of such hyper-sensitive secrets is a crime. Mr. Schoenfeld has put the question squarely: “The laws governing what the Times has done are perfectly clear; will they be enforced?”
Hugh asks, “Might major media aid terrorists without suffering legal repercussions?” Lets all hope not.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, News, War On Terror
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5 Responses to “Crimes of the Times”
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Syndicate Me
“Hugh asks, “Might major media aid terrorists without suffering legal repercussions?” Lets all hope not.”
Of course they can. Any one of us can. You can write cryptography code. Terrorists then get halped by it. And you should not suffer repercussions for that.
“And you should not suffer repercussions for that.”
If your intent is to aid them, you should and will suffer repercussions.
Oh, I get it, you are giving us an example of that “liberalese” mentioned above.
“If your intent is to aid them, you should and will suffer repercussions.”
Exactly. Newspapers don’t print stories with the intent of helping people that want to blow up western reporters.
Leaking classified information is a crime, and its outcome could very well help the enemy. Anyone that does this knows that this is a possible consequence, and take that risk. That is irresponsible, and they should be held accountable for it. And who are you to judge their intent? No better than I. The intent doesn’t matter. If you jump in a car drunk, you know the possible consequences, it doesn’t matter if you intended to kill that kid crossing the street or not. The same applies to a greater degree when dealing with national security.
“Leaking classified information is a crime,”
Printing it might not be.
“And who are you to judge their intent? No better than I.”
That assumes that you’re as dumb as me.
“The intent doesn’t matter.”
You’ll find that before the law, in these sorts of cases, it does.