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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (153486)	1/3/2006 3:24:35 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793559

Betsy's Page - Clarice Feldman, a D.C. attorney, explains why whoever leaked the NSA surveillance story should not be regarded as a "whistleblower." 5 U.S.C. 1213 sets up the procedures by which federal whistleblowers are to proceed. Complaints are to be filed with the Office of Special Counsel. If they are found to be of merit and they involve “foreign intelligence or counterintelligence information” and disclosure of information described in the complaint is “prohibited by law or by Executive order, the Special Counsel shall transmit such information to the National Security Advisor, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives, and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.” These are very people, as it happens, that the President did fully inform of the program. There is simply no provision in the Act for calling New York Times reporters in lieu of the Office of Special Counsel. That doesn’t mean we will be spared this ridiculous claim. But it does mean that it is an idiotic argument. If it weren’t, every intelligence officer could by that means decide our national security policy and its legality. Better they should spend their time doing their actual jobs, at which they haven’t actually been meriting much praise of late. Only slightly more risible is the claim that this case establishes yet again the need for a federal law granting journalists testimonial privileges. And yet that argument is being forwarded with a straight face: Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, expressed outrage at the Justice Department investigation into who leaked classified information to The New York Times about the Bush administration’s controversial domestic spying program, saying it is even more serious than the Valerie Plame probe. “This is much more of a classic whistleblower than the Plame case was and that is why the stakes are much higher,” Dalglish said. “The public needed to know about it and that is a classic reason why reporters need to protect their sources and it is even more reason why there is a need to have a federal shield law.” Dalglish believes that the seriousness of this case could drive regular citizens to speak out against such investigations and push more for a federal source protection bill to be passed by Congress. “Hopefully the public will begin to understand,” she said. I have no idea in what precinct of Planet Zongo the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is located, but Ms. Dalglish, this is the worst possible case for protecting sources. Those sources, dear lady, just violated federal laws designed to protect national security in the middle of a war started on our own soil. And the reporters who abetted that disgusting act are not worthy of our sympathy. I heard the whistleblower defense several times on the talk shows over the weekend. Once again, their spin is faulty when confronted with the actual law." betsyspage.blogspot.com