Walter Pincus re: AP-The reality is that this is not a whistleblowing case-There are no heroes here

[kpete]

Fine Print: The press and national security
Walter Pincus



............................

Having found my phone records caught up in criminal and civil case probes, such actions from government officials should not be a surprise.

But how many times can the media claim such an action is “chilling sources?” That was a claim during the Valerie Plame case under the Bush administration and repeatedly invoked as the Obama Justice Department has pursued leakers.

The risk of breaking the law apparently didn’t chill those who leaked the information to the AP. That’s what should be considered chilling.

The reality is that this is not a whistleblowing case. There are no heroes here, and the press in this instance was not protecting individuals trying to expose government malfeasance.

much more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fine-print-the-press-and-national-security/2013/05/20/04553d22-be3b-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story_1.html

[uponit7771]

1. +1

[dorkzilla]

2. When does the chilling effect on "journalist" trump the death sentence for spies?

Does the First Amendment take priority over the life of people inside al Qaeda or North Korea providing vital intel? Won't this have a chilling effect over people willing to help bring these murderous regimes down?

There should be no sacred cows. Just like we've been looking at the 2nd Amendment because weaponry has changed since the founding of our Nation, we should take a critical look at the 1st. I'm sure our Founding Fathers would not want to protect the likes of Rupert Murdoch and James Rosen, who are only interested in power, money and a "scoop". Yes, I DO believe that the press should be able shine a light on government tyranny, but that's not what the AP and Fox "scandals" are about. There MUST be a distinction for legitimate news organizations and journalists.

We should enact a press shield law, but in exchange for this insurance we should also bring back the Fairness Doctrine. I don't think we should be protecting assholes like Tucker Carlson and all the other lying sacks of shit who churn out lie after lie to a gullible public. Edward R. Murrow must be spinning in his grave.

[ctsnowman]

3. I like this idea.

"We should enact a press shield law, but in exchange for this insurance we should also bring back the Fairness Doctrine."

[Demoiselle]

10. Yes. We need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

[meow2u3]

13. The Fairness Doctrine would shut down Fox News

We can't have that. How else would they be able to peddle their propaganda? Passing out flyers and putting them on windshields?

[Demoiselle]

22. Yes. It's a cunning plan. (Sigh)

[JDPriestly]

24. "Fairness." Doesn't fairness depend on your point of view?

Who is to decide what is fair and what is not? Who is the arbitrator of fairness?

It's all much more complex than we want to believe.

[denverbill]

4. Well said.

[Dash87]

5. Problem is, Carlson and the like are "opinion" journalists.

That gives them a free pass to churn out a bunch of bullshit merely because it's their "opinion." While it sucks, I also don't think suppressing their opinion would be wise, and would probably violate the first amendment.

[dorkzilla]

17. Opinion "journalists" should NOT be covered by the 1st amendment

This is exactly what I am talking about. Fuck opinion "journalists" -- I am talking about the REAL press. Nobody should endanger the lives of informants, put citizens not only of our country but our allies at risk and jeopardize our ability to assure operatives and foreign intelligence that they we will protect their anonymity because of some asshat wanting to tell the world how brilliant he is. IMHO, this is entirely the class of hack that should be exempted from the 1st Amendment. If you cannot abide by the Fairness Doctrine, then you will not be shielded from prosecution.

I'm sorry for the tone...I'm not angry with your response, I am angry that we've been allowing these idiots to lower the bar on a once-honorable profession. Anyone with a computer and a Wordpress account calls themselves "journalists" now.

[Hissyspit]

29. Um, the 1st Amendment covers freedom of speech not just freedom of press.

I think you are right though. I think we should pass the Alien and Sedition Act again.

[dorkzilla]

30. Sorry I should have been more specific - 1st as it pertains to a free press...

in that i think these opinion journalists shouldn't fall under the auspices of the press.

[Hissyspit]

27. Pincus is not an opinion journalist?

The OP is opinion.

"Pincus also helped George H. W. Bush and Robert Gates during the Iran-Contra investigation. In an article published in July, 1991, Pincus called for the Senate to approve Bush's nomination of Gates as director of the CIA."

[Dash87]

28. I agree the OP article is opinion

[mountain grammy]

11. Very good! Well said!

[patrice]

15. KICK

[JDPriestly]

23. You make a good point about this complex issue.

Think of the Benghazi case. Imagine (God forbid!) that Obama had lost the 2012 election and that a Republican president had classified the e-mails that revealed the lies the Republicans and the press told and then refused to release them. What if a true whistleblower in the interest of fairness and full disclosure leaked the accurate wording of the e-mails -- the originals -- to a news reporter?

Now, Benghazi could be described as a continuing investigation because of the ongoing fight against Al Qaeda and because of its links, the terrorist links, to Benghazi. Would the Al Qaeda links justify punishing the whistleblower? What if the whistleblower instead of disseminating lies to create a scandal had simply leaked the true e-mails to correct a dishonest, libelous news story?

What if the whistleblower is revealing something that he or she firmly believes will SAVE lives? Wouldn't it have been great if, prior to the Iraq War, someone in the government had leaked the truth about Curveball? Maybe we would not have gone to war? Maybe thousands of lives would have been saved? So whistleblowing even of secrets can be a nobel act. It isn't always, but it can be. Where it is good or bad depends on the situation and is a subjective judgment that is probably limited to the information of the person making the judgment at the time of the judgment.

(Nov. 1999 Chalabi-connected Iraqi defector "Curveball"—a convicted sex offender and low-level engineer who became the sole source for much of the case that Saddam had WMD, particularly mobile weapons labs—enters Munich seeking a German visa. German intel officers describe his information as highly suspect. US agents never debrief Curveball or perform background check. Nonetheless, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and CIA will pass raw intel on to senior policymakers. [Date the public knew: 11/20/05]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline

I have wrestled with this problem a long time, especially concerning Wikileaks, Assange and Manning. I did some reading about double agents and spying in WWII so I could understand it better. (Remember the "Loose lips sink ships." The decoding of the Enigma was kept secret although many, many people knew about it. That was amazing and a key to winning the war.)

I still vacillate on these issues. I think that it may be impossible to draw a line and make rules.

And without a line, without rules, a person like Manning who is, on the one hand, was told not to follow illegal orders and on the other to be silent about war crimes faces a very difficult choice. Appealing to a superior of his superior could have gotten Manning killed, and yet, what if Manning had revealed secrets that caused others to be killed? That probably was not his goal, but then, who has the overview to decide what is correctly classified and kept secret and what not?

This is just such a difficult issue. It is baffling. Our government should, in the first place, be very discerning about what it classifies and labels as secrets. That is the first step. But it does not decide the issue to say "Do no harm," because sometimes the wrong of our government is in putting people in harm's way so that whistleblowers put human life in danger when they expose the government's wrongdoing.

There just is no easy answer.

[dorkzilla]

31. Yes, it certainly is complex...

My opinion is ever changing as well. But its clearer every day that something has to be done. I don't pretend to know what the right answer is especially as each case is different, but some "rules" have to apply. Were it up to me, I would throw Jonathan Karl in jail right now, particularly in light of his absurd statement Sunday that the 'story stands' when CLEARLY it does not. Whether he was in on it or not, he now knows the truth which, to my mind at least, makes him an accessory. Lazy journalists should also be publicly and professionally censured for not fact checking.

[The Magistrate]

6. Exactly, Ma'am

Not a 'whistle-blower' case; not a case where malfeasance is exposed in the public interest. Merely an egregious bit of grand-standing at best, and a deliberate attempt to compromise a successful operation at best.

[leveymg]

32. Actually, it was a whistle-blower case. Brennan came out and admitted it when he said "controlled

operation", referring to the fact that the guy AQ gave the bomb to was a double-agent working for the CIA, Saudi Intel, and MI5.

The backstory that most people are missing goes back to the admission that Undersecretary of State Kennedy made to the Senate Committee in early January 2010 right after the Underwear Bomber ignited his bomb on Christmas Day aboard an airliner over Detroit, only to find it was a dud. Mostly. Same thing with the next "toner cartridge" bombs that were sent through FedEx flights, which also failed, that were allegedly made by the same Saudi "super-genius" bombmaker in Yemen. The guy was such a super-genius that the only bomb we know he made that actually killed anyone actually took his brother before he could get close enough to the Saudi Defense Minister to do any harm to anyone else.

The bomb deliverer was extracted in Sept. 2011, and there isn't a chance in the world that he was going to try to go back to Yemen. That story is just speculation and backfill from anonymous sources in response to the question: if the operation ended in September, and the AP printed its story the following May 7, how was the operation compromised by printing it? The fact is, the whole operation was border-line violation of new protocols that were issued after President Obama ordered a reassessment of the program involving Anwar al-Awlaki after the fatal Ft. Hood shooting and the Underwear Bomber was put on the plane by his handlers and was able to partially detonate the device on Christmas Day, 2009. Both the Ft. Hood shooter and the Underwear Bomber had been tracked by the CIA after they made contact with al-Awlaki, who was a living Venus Spytrap, while he was still alive.

Alwaki was the center node in a whole slew of AQ bombing cases, all of which involved defective bombs, along with every major AQ attack that succeeded going back to 9/11. He was droned in Sept. 2011, proximate to the extraction of this double-agent. The AP published its article the day after another AQ figure, al-Quso, who was involved in the Cole attack and 9/11, was also droned in Yemen.

BTW: The use of defective bombs and double-agents goes back to the 1993 WTC bombing, in which Ali Mohamed and probably another US operative was supposed to place inert material into the bomb that the Brooklyn Cell built and parked inside the Parking Garage at 1 World Trade Center, with all-too-effective results. As was 9/11. This use of double-agents is a highly dangerous program, and it was supposed to be closed down after the Underwear Bomber's device partially detonated over Detroit.

Do you see now how this was actually a whistle-blower case?

[The Magistrate]

34. No, Sir: Purely Sources And Methods

'Whistle-blowing' exposes malfeasance by persons in office.

In intelligence and counter-espionage, knowing a thing has happened can be quite important, and even if the operation was complete, it is not a good thing to hand to its target confirmation it took place at all.

[leveymg]

35. That this use of double agents with bombs continued is a scandal of the first-order.

You have to appreciate how significant the admission that Undersecretary Kennedy made (I'll link that in an update), and the magnitude of its implications. It seemed to signal a major change in CT policy by the White House about such operations. Apparently, not. That Brennan repeated the admission about the "controlled operation" is also extraordinary.

After the AP broke the story -- the May 7 article is very vague -- the rest of the details about sources and methods was connect-the-dots by the NYT and WaPo.

The AP (and NYT, WaPo) didn't tell AQAP anything it didn't already know.

[leveymg]

36. Here's the statement by Undersec. Kennedy about why DOS didn't revoke the Underwear Bomber's visa

Here's that link - 01/20/10 testimony (5+ / 0-) (Also, you might want to read the OP in which the below thread appears: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/02/940661/-Wikileaks-reveals-9-11-Team-B-hijack-team-got-away#

#
1/20/10: Statement of Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary of State ...
: Statement of Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for Management - Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Hearing on ...
http://travel.state.gov/law/legal/testimony/testimony_4635.html - Cached - Similar
#

News of that testimony got buried.

In addition to these changes, the Department is reviewing the procedures and criteria used in the field to revoke visas and will issue new instructions to our officers. Revocation recommendations will be added as an element of reporting through the Visas Viper channel. We will be reiterating our guidance on use of the broad discretionary authority of visa officers to deny visas on security and other grounds. Instruction in appropriate use of this authority has been a fundamental part of officer training for several years.

The State Department has broad and flexible authority to revoke visas and we use that authority widely to protect our borders. Since 2001, we have revoked 51,000 visas for a variety of reasons, including over 1,700 for suspected links to terrorism. We have been actively using this authority as we perform internal scrubs of our data with watchlist information provided by partner agencies. For example, we are re-examining information in our CLASS database on individuals with potential connections to terrorist activity or support for such activity. We are reviewing all previous Visas Viper submissions as well as cases that other agencies are bringing to our attention from the No Fly and Selectee lists, as well as other sources. In these reviews, we have identified cases for revocation and we have also confirmed that substantial numbers of individuals in these classes hold no visas and of those few who did, many were revoked prior to the current review. We recognize the gravity of the threat we face and are working intensely with our colleagues from other agencies to ensure that when the U.S. Government obtains information that a person may pose a threat to our security, that person does not hold a visa.

We will use revocation authority prior to interagency consultation in circumstances where we believe there is an immediate threat. Revocation is an important tool in our border security arsenal. At the same time, expeditious coordination with our national security partners is not to be underestimated. There have been numerous cases where our unilateral and uncoordinated revocation would have disrupted important investigations that were underway by one of our national security partners. They had the individual under investigation and our revocation action would have disclosed the U.S. Government’s interest in the individual and ended our colleagues’ ability to quietly pursue the case and identify terrorists’ plans and co-conspirators.

by leveymg on Wed Feb 02, 2011 at 08:20:36 AM PST

[ Parent ]

[ucrdem]

7. I'd say the hero is Holder.

Surprise, he's been doing his job and the Justice Department is on the ball and acting within the law. Who knew?

[patrice]

9. I have been thinking that for a while. & EVERYONE has been counting coup against him the whole time.

[ucrdem]

12. I was surprised myself.

National security is not a top issue on DU naturally but Holder takes it seriously and I think that resonates well with most voters, for better or worse. So I think he's going to come out of this round of scandals with some new respect.

[patrice]

14. The solutions to so many problems begin in the integrity, honesty, and strength of individuals in

government or in corporations. People DO have the capacity to make things better, no matter where they come down on the more political stuff. They can freely choose to do better, no matter who they are.

[patrice]

8. Now that's responsible journalism. The hallmark of a professional: professional self-discipline.....

Sorry to have to say that it's too bad it isn't more common.

Autonomous individual discernment is what is needed. With that, government will be able to more effectively represent the collective responsibilities this nation has charged them with.

[SunSeeker]

16. K & R

[asjr]

18. I have always felt that Holder and Pres. Obama have thought

things through before they do anything. But the media will take one word from a message from either and replace it with one word of their own and it could change the whole meaning. I have also always felt that the media are the ones to worry about. They have the power to do things to change everything.

[pmorlan1]

19. I'm With Froomkin

Dan Froomkin
.@WalterPincus says AP leak was a crime -- but White House outed CIA double agent to "control political damage"?? http://t.co/90tOwVL3Wp

LOL

[CJCRANE]

20. You cannot "out" something which is already out. The AP story came first. nt

[Hissyspit]

25. Pincus (of the Bush-water-carrying WaPo) is picking and choosing.

This is self-serving for the guy. Amazing that he is getting recs.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/mobile/MDpincus.htm

[Zorra]

21. Exactly. nt

[Octafish]

26. The son of MOCKINGBIRD should be ashamed.

The guy is paid to forget the First Amendment.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

33. “News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.” Lord Northcliffe