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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (132247)	5/8/2004 6:00:37 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

On what basis, because I posted a publicly available document here on this thread? Then yes... technically speaking I could be prosecuted.. You don't have to publish anything; the statute says "possess". You have a copy, at a minimum, of information that is harmful to the US. Remember no exceptions and we go by the "rule of law" in this country. But it's far worse than that under your understanding of the law. You appear to accept what is on line as the Taguba Report and it's classification. Because it's been disclosed by the press does not mean it's been declassified. Unless you can come up with a memo officially declassifying the Taguba report, your machine is now classified Secret/Noforn. Congratulations! If you were a responsible law and order kind of guy, you would call the FBI and turn yourself in. Alternately, if anyone believes your interpretation of the law, it is their duty to turn you in. [And in all likelihood they would have to turn themselves in]. More than likely though you will self-exempt yourself and everyone else won't want to be a "snitch". You could be responsible and obtain some DoD approved software that would wipe your hard drive clean and you could return your PC to an unclassified state. From there you could reformat your hard drive and start over. Or, if you preferred you could disassemble your hard drive and drop the magnetic media in a vat of acid. That's acceptable. No doubt you'll exempt yourself from that as well. Basically, the law is a "catch all".. For instance, I'm J6P walking down the street and I happen to find a bag of trash stashed down in a culvert... I open up the bag and discover a bunch of classified documents (not understanding that was apparently a "dead drop" awaiting a pickup by a foreign agent). And that is what they originally thought. Times change and interpretations change. Your first amendment right to free speech takes precedent, unless you waive it. Twenty or so years ago you could collect a bunch of paper and put a classified cover on it [no paragraph markings required] that's no longer allowed. Same with the SOB who released this report, compromising the integrity of the investigation, and severely damaging national security efforts with regard to maintaining peace and stability in Iraq. I might agree with that statement. I would at least agree that whoever had that report and released it to someone that was not authorized to receive it is subject to prosecution. Though if the "unknown person" in question released it to his uncleared brother-in-law, who then released it to msn or CBS. You could nail that "unknown person", but you couldn't nail the brother-in-law. That's the way it works. I think it highly unlikely that if the government were to determine the identity of the individual they would prosecute. He/she would certainly lose their clearance, and probably their job, but I don't think they would be prosecuted. Clearly their defense would be that the items were classified because they were illegal acts and the government is prohibited from using classification to conceal illegal activities. The government does have a counter argument [and I think a reasonable one], but in the end the judgement would be determined by a jury of 12 uncleared schmucks and I don't believe the government would trust that jury to make the "right" determination and set precedent. They could take their chances on winning in appeal, but there's no guarantee on how that would end up. jttmab