I’m sure (well, not really) that it’s just a coincidence that as the FISA/telecom immunity debate comes to a head, the journalist who helped bring Bush and Cheney’s illegal domestic spy program to light has just been subpoenaed.
Jon Perr has a most excellent write-up about it:
That cheering sound you may have heard this morning was conservatives’ applauding the news that New York Times reporter James Risen has been subpoenaed in an effort to force him to reveal his confidential sources. But while Republican rage may be temporarily muted over the inquiry into Risen’s 2006 book, many on the right won’t be satisfied until Risen goes to jail for his cardinal offense, revealing President Bush’s illegal domestic surveillance program.
The subpoena James Risen received from a federal grand jury last week did not concern his 2005 reporting on the NSA domestic spying program. Instead, the Justice Department wants Risen to divulge his sources for a chapter on Iran’s nuclear program in his 2006 book, State of War. In it, Risen describes CIAs unsuccessful efforts during the Clinton and Bush administrations to infiltrate the Iranian nuclear program. … (do read on)
Lest anyone be confused, this is quite the opposite situation from when former NYT pseudo-reporter/White House shill, Judy Miller, was subpoenaed and went to jail for failing to reveal her sources in the CIA leak case. In her case she was refusing to name White House officials who were involved in government wrongdoing in which she had a role. In James Risen’s case, he exposed government wrongdoing that had been shrouded in secrecy, which is quite simply the most meritorious and patriotic deed a journalist can do, and is exactly why the fourth estate deserves to have a federal shield law to prevent government retaliation for exposing their crimes.
Filed Under: Attack the Media, FISA, Freedom of Information, Intelligence Gathering, Investigations, Journalism, Justice Department, NSA Wiretapping
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And we’re back! :)
FRIST ? Sieg Heil, cheneyBushco !
‘We gotta stamp out Truth-Tellers or are hole system of guvmint will collapse’, sayeth The Dummy.
Americans better wise up.
This subpoena is another step down the road toward a police state.
Let’s hope that he stands firm in protecting the right of the people to be informed. And let’s hope that all of us stand behind him.
The next ten months are, in my estimation, the most dangerous of this administration. We cannot be complacent. We cannot be distracted by the elections. We cannot breathe any sighs of relief that Bush and his minions will soon be gone, because they won’t be gone soon enough. They have only these next months to operate with surety. These men and women have been conspiring to do what they do for 30 years, and this is their last, best opportunity. They will push.
We’ve stood by and watched in fear and loathing for too long. Next year might be too late. It is not a pleasant task; i’ll be the first to admit that…and i say this as a person who has actually had to dispatch a cornered, rabid skunk. But it is a necessary task.
No, i don’t know what we should do exactly. Only that it is high time that we all do what’s right in whatever we can do it.
Strange times folks, strange times indeed…
jackpine at 5
Agree completely about the next 10 months, for this reason in addition: what shrubco does will set precedents, which I don’t trust the next president to undo.
I know some people that will actually cheer this development. I never could understand that. They see a person like Judy Miller as heroic but a reporter like Risen as a traitor. The people that cheer Risen’s subpoena are not Americans that believe in Democracy. They are fascists that want to protect their dictator.
Someone better start digging the hole, someone else better start carving the epitaph, I’ll get some lime to throw on the carcass of American democracy because it is ready for a decent burial.
-GSD
gsd - you’re giving up?
that doesn’t sound like you…
Grand Jury? Of course! The grand jury is the path of last resort for neocon inquisitions fishing expeditions. No legal representation, no congressmen at risk of public exposure. The assassin’s back door entrance curiously left unlocked.
GSD @ 9:
Were McCain/Lieberman to win, it wouldn’t get a decent burial, the carcass would be set on fire and dragged behind an up-armored Humvee on a nationwide tour to promote the Patriot Act, and the new ‘National Reverence for Bush’ day.
I wish reality was such that Risen could say:
“I’ll honour my subpoena when Cheney and Rove honour theirs.”
Seig Hile - Bushka!
In the spirit of BlogRolling Amnest Day, I humbly and respectfully (groveling really) request the honor of being added to your BlogRoll.
Naturally, I have added you to mine as well.
Regards,
Carol
My View of “IT”
http://carolsplaceforpeace.blogspot.com
Another reason why everbody better vote in this upcoming election, and make their vote count.
This is counter to the First Amendment. It is counter to the letter and the spirit of the law. It is counter to common sense.
Naturally this administration is doing it.
James Risen should take his subpoena and ask Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten? what they did with their subpoena’s they received from The Senate Judiciary Committee. Where ever they squirreled theirs away (Dick Cheney’s office that “caught fire”?), I suggest Mr. Risen should just add his to theirs! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?
I’d like to hear what Senator Leahy and other members of the Committee have to say about this.
When Miers and Bolton show up to testify (Ha!!) and try to “take the 5th” (if it still exists???), then Risen should follow suit. Maybe when they tell the truth about the attorney firings etc., then he can tell the truth about his sources. “Mutt and Jeff told me. Hey! That’s what they SAID their names were! Okay. Minnie and Mickey. Or was it Ollie and Stan? Would you believe Harold Bissenette and Larson E. Whipsnade?!”
I think that’s what this country and the whole world needs right about now. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth… about 9/11, the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, how it is private corporations were allowed to take over our elections and become “secret”, the firing of the U.S. attorneys, the destruction of the CIA torture tapes and on and on and on and on. Sodium pentothal all around!!!!!!!! “Lights!! Cameras!!!! Action!!! YouTube!!!!
Jackpine at 5 is totally correct. This whole election hoo-hah is nothing more than a classic, “Don’t pay any attention to that man behind the screen!!! I (Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney) am the great and powerful Oz!!!” Don’t kid yourself that the “establishment” doesn’t have a horse in every race. Do you honestly think it will matter one f’ing iota which of them wins? More war, more killing, more of the economy getting raped. More of our Constitution being shredded.
Forgive me for saying the “P” word, but I honestly believe our support for Ron Paul as the ONLY candidate who has faithfully supported the Constitution his entire adult life, will prove him to be the one public figure who can lead us out of this darkness. Or perhaps we can lead him (that’s actually more his style):
http://www.ronpaulforpresident.....obyRonPaul
He may very well win the Maine caucuses this weekend in spite of Romney sending his 5 sons to attend. If Paul wins and the media AGAIN shuts him out of the news cycle, that should be enough evidence to convince those of you who are faithful C&L readers that there is a REASON he is being shut out of the MSM. He’s NOT one of their horses. He’s OURS.
Mukasey is no better than Gonzales. Wasting money on this while dragging his feet on the attorney firings, the illegal authorization of torture, and the unconstitutional wiretapping questions he should be investigating.
And yet we dismiss candidates like Kucinich and Gravel who actually stood up to those bastards.
Great going, America.
Crawl back onto your couches and your barcaloungers and pretend none of this is happening.
This is why we need a federal shield law. Except for Bush and a few senators I thought it had wide support in Congress so why didn’t they get off their butts and do something before it was too late? This is another attack on the Constitution of the United States.
diamondmc @ 15:
There must be some mechanism when the Democrats win the WH whereby this grand jury investigation can be halted. New president and new AG refuse to pursue it on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment?
I was being hopeful and lazy wishing we could ride out the last year of bush43’s imperial reign. I’m beginning (Duh-Oh!!) to realize how foolish I was to think that.
Maybe a quick board wiping Revolution is what is really needed.
naschkatze @ 21:
I think we all hope that is what happens.
Why is it that congress does not pursue existing travesty’s and bring them to proper conclusion? Think of the attorney general scandal, WMD, Plamegate, FISA spying, signing statements unbid and improper contracting, oil profits, and on and on. Where is the congressional outrage and investigation?
Bush and his toadies may well be on the way out and none too soon, however they have infested the government at all levels with like minded people who will do all in their power to keep this type of prosecution, and intimidation of the press as standard operating procedure for as long as they remain in their posts.
I am convinced the most daunting task facing the next president will be to weed out these neo-con bastards and replace them with people who believe that the constitution is something more than old parchment with ink spilled all over it.
I regret to say that I am none too optomistic about such an outcome.
Joe O. @ 8:
VietVet8666 @ 4:
Both of you are right. And, we all know what was done to John Edwards, the ONLY candidate w/straight position on FISA, that it is WRONG for our govt to SPY on US citizens
As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded.
“A government’s greatest enemy is not a country outside its borders, but the citizens within”
Thomas Jefferson
Please read whole and save, pass on, this excellent Guardian article by Naomi Wolf
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all
Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian
………..
STEP 8. Control the press
Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he
threatened “critical infrastructure” when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration.
Other reporters and writers have been punished in other ways. Joseph C Wilson accused Bush, in a New York Times op-ed, of leading the country to war on the basis of a false charge that Saddam Hussein had acquired yellowcake uranium in Niger. His wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA spy - a form of retaliation that ended her career.
Prosecution and job loss are nothing, though, compared with how the US is treating journalists seeking to cover the conflict in Iraq in an unbiased way. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented multiple accounts of the US military in Iraq firing upon or threatening to fire upon unembedded (meaning independent) reporters and camera operators from organisations ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC. While westerners may question the accounts by al-Jazeera, they should pay attention to the accounts of reporters such as the BBC’s Kate Adie. In some cases
reporters have been wounded or killed, including ITN’s Terry Lloyd in 2003. Both CBS and the Associated Press in Iraq had staff members seized by the US military and taken to violent prisons; the news organisations were unable to see the evidence against their staffers.
Over time in closing societies, real news is supplanted by fake news and false documents. Pinochet showed Chilean citizens falsified documents to back up his claim that terrorists had been about to attack the nation. The yellowcake charge, too, was based on forged papers.
You won’t have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth.
In a fascist system, it’s not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can’t tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.
billw, stop and think about this for a long long moment.
first of all, the distinction that you draw between miller and risen is not at all compelling. it’s not that miller’s role in the leak case differs from the government’s maintenance of secrecy; the admin’s secrecy dominated in both cases, and both reporters played some role in exposing information.
to tighten up the argument, it’s important to emphasize the fact that the purpose of the first amendment’s protection of the freedom of the press is NOT about protecting sources. instead, it’s fundamental purpose is about keeping an objective distance between the government and the press so that the latter does not serve as the former’s mouthpiece. why is this important? because democracy needs the fourth estate to expose abuses of the power the people entrust them with.
when applied to the two cases of miller and risen, you can now see how stating this principle so boldly makes a HUGE difference: whereas risen was working to EXPOSE abuses of governmental power, miller was working to HIDE them.
which is why a federal shield law could actually work against the fundamental purpose of the free press. consider what such a shield law would have meant in miller’s case!! rove would have been thrilled for miller to have been protected in her keeping her sourceS to herself!! in fact, they were all banking on reporters’ relying on that protection, and on the courts’ providing it, when they used her and others to leak the offensive information.
we all need to be very very careful about this clamor for a federal shield act, as it does NOT get at the roots of why the free press is important.
This reporter is an American patriot. He reported a crime and needs to be rewarded.
I sometimes think that the hiring of William Kristol was an idiotic attempt to placate the right wing in this country. Well, I think this subpoena shows that attempt has failed miserably. Kristol said that the NYTimes committed treason over this FISA story, the NYTimes hired him, and now one of their reporters is, essentially, being accused of that and may go to jail for it.
Boy, that worked out well, didn’t it? Compromise and reaching out to the right wing ended up blowing up in your face, again.
I look forward to hearing Bill Kristol weigh in on this subpeona.
she was refusing to name White House officials who were involved in government wrongdoing
he exposed government wrongdoing that had been shrouded in secrecy, which is quite simply the most meritorious and patriotic deed a journalist can do
Exactly!
So many people don’t (or won’t) understand the difference.
Why are they still punishing the good guys?
IMPEACH!
Wire tapping sounds like something Heckyl and Jekyl do in tie and tails with white gloves.
Doesn’t not only the First Amendment but the Whistle-blower laws protect this reporter and his sources?
He sounds more in line with such protections than Judith Miller, who only acted as a lackey for the powerful.
And speaking of whistle blowers, considering the Hillary bite marks, when Monica Lewinskied Bill did he whistle?
CalGeorge @ 19:
Who’s we?
Don’t blame America, when you’re struggling for daiily sustenance that tends to absorb all your attention.
Maybe booshco wasn’t as incompetant as we thought.
Anyone organizing a defense fund for Mr. Risen? Or are defense funds only for rethuglican’s like Libby?
Gee, is there any possibility that Mr. Risen’s source is unknown and simply goes by the name of “Deepthroat2″? That might be a deja vu experience.
this is what you get when you elect a fucking delusional bastard to office.
he and cheney have set themselves up as cocksucking fascist dictators
who can commit crimes at will and declare anyone who exposes them
as enemy combattants.
IMPEACH BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE………which it probably is !
Allegations US Atty involved with this subpoena has engaged in prosecutorial misconduct: Details.
I hope that, unlike the cowards like Miers and Bolten, Risen will march up to the court house, take the seat, stare down that grand jury and refuse to divulge his sources. Maybe he can take a copy of the Bill of Rights with him to refresh their collective memories. Then the grand jury can get on with their REAL job and force the “sources” to take the oath and answer the questions on their own. Until then this is a farce.
Che’s Lounge @ 39:
Good point: The Grand Jury can say, “The higher national interest was served by disclosing the evidence; and this prevented the nation from going into Iran on an illegal pretext.” Grand Juries are nto required to rubber stamp political “payback”. Rather, if there is evidence that you know of supporting this assertion, the grand jury may be interested in hearing it.
Anonymous @ 38:
Thank you. The referred material is super. I hope others will read it, instead of (or, in addition to) coultergeist-hot-for-clinton saga. Edwards is the only guy who could address/understood these abuses. the remaining duo: forget it ..
Risen: “My source? Why Scooter Libby, of course.”
CappuccettoRosso @ 41:
You’re welcome. Glad it was of interest.
Just ignore the subpeona! Rove and Harriet Meyers did!
Time for the public and bloggers to expand the public inquiry, and support the NYT. They’re under siege by alleged dome