SPIES LIKE US: Listening To Leakers Could Land You In Jail!

[kpete]

Spies Like Us
Listening to leakers could land you in jail.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, March 17, 2006, at 5:59 PM ET



If a recent ruling by a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., is accepted as the word of law, every national-security journalist and researcher in America stands in danger of going to prison.

This is not an exaggeration.

The ruling—made by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis on Jan. 20 and reprinted in today's edition of Steven Aftergood's invaluable Secrecy News—states that federal espionage laws apply not only to officials who leak classified information but also to private citizens who receive it. Speaking from the bench, the judge said:

ll persons who have authorized possession of classified information and persons who have unauthorized possession, who came into possession in an unauthorized way … must abide by the law. … So, that applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever.

more at:
http://www.slate.com/id/2138277/
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/franklin012006.pdf

[villager]

1. is it fascism yet?

n/t

[acmejack]

9. Down to a golden brown & Ready to serve piping hot!

Sit right down and get comfortable. WE said SIT, FOOL!

[villager]

11. totalitarianism: it's what for dinner

n/t

[Vincardog]

2. Duh what about the constitution?

1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances

[havocmom]

3. Back in the US Back in the US Back in the USSR!

x(

I didn't move. Where the hell did America go?

[Old and In the Way]

4. Is Ellis related to Bush?

Seems there is a line of Ellis's with direct relationships to the Bush clan. I wonder....

[file83]

5. Kind of hard to blow the whistle when your lips are sewn shut.

Yes, this is fascism.

[soothsayer]

6. Good, send that illegal wiretapping ape to jail, pronto! And all

his goons, too.

[Why Syzygy]

7. Does it need to be stamped

"CLASSIFIED"? How is one to know if it is "classified". Up to the court?
What a waste of time.

[acmejack]

10. They will tell you after you have heard it.

Or they tell me you will be only to glad to confess to hearing it after a few "Frat House pranks" are played on you!

[Why Syzygy]

12. That's what is sounds like to me.

Like did I know this was "classified". Seems sketchy. Like a I gotcha if I wancha? Very much so.

[Toots]

8. Well that would fix Novak

But also make whistle blowing a thing of the past. I think this may be a position for another court to review. People must have some transparency in government or we are no longer America.

[mdmc]

13. great OP title