Up against the wall

Now the the U.S. right-wingnuts want to jail journalists for doing their jobs. Just read this --  an adaptation of this blog posting by Glenn Greenwald. (I have added a couple of links for clarity.)

Yesterday, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau received well-deserved Pulitzer Prizes for "national reporting" based on their (year-long-delayed) disclosure of the President's illegal NSA eavesdropping program. That award has unleashed a slew of bitter commentary from Bush supporters, including (former Regan cabinet member Bill) Bennett, proclaiming that Risen and Lichtblau belong in prison. On his radio show this morning, the great free press crusader Bennett said: "I think what they did is worthy of jail."

Here is more of what Bennett said:

We had reporters from The New York Times -- Risen and Lichtblau -- and a reporter from The Washington Post, Dana Priest -- took classified information, secret information, published it in their newspapers, against the wishes of the president, against the request of the president and others, that they not release it. They not only released it, they publicized it. They put it on the front page, and it damaged us, it hurt us. How do we know it damaged us? Well, it revealed the existence of the surveillance program, so people are going to stop making calls. Since they are now aware of this, they're going to adjust their behavior.

On the secret sites, the CIA sites, we embarrassed our allies, who were hospitable enough to offer up their countries for these sites. We probably closed up other possibilities for doing this in other places. And by her own admission, Dana Priest said the story is boomeranging around Europe. And so, it hurt us there and, of course, led more and more people to condemn the CIA -- makes it harder for them to do their work. As a result, are they punished? Are they in shame? Are they embarrassed? Are they arrested? No, they win Pulitzer Prizes. They win Pulitzer Prizes. I don't think what they did is worthy of an award. I think what they did is worthy of jail, and I think this investigation needs to -- needs to go forward.

Today, Giant of Journalism Wolf Blitzer had a chance to go at Bennett on CNN but passed, instead giving Bennett a platform for more of his spew.

Oh, and here is one of the nutbars over at the totally whacked ain't-this-a-lovely-war-on-terrorism Power Line. (Emphasis mine)

Following in the footsteps of the AP last year, New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau won the Pulitzer Prize today for their treasonous contribution to the undermining of the highly classified National Security Agency surveillance program of al Qaeda-related terrorists.

Oh yeah. Like terrorists wouldn't know that they might be spied upon.

Isn't it treason by the preznit when he blithely ignores peoples' civil rights?

Comments

[Robert McClelland]

Bennett's vision of Amerika.

"Local journalists in Uganda also face increasing pressure from the government, Human Rights Watch said. On December 13, 2005, after the start of the election campaign, the state brought criminal charges of “promoting sectarianism” against editor James Tumusiime and reporter Semujju Ibrahim Nganda of the privately owned Weekly Observer. They face up to five years in prison. The paper had reported accusations from the opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) that the president and top military officials were persecuting its presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye, on ethnic grounds.

On February 1, the Ugandan army raided the Unity FM radio station in Lira, northern Uganda, and arrested station manager Jimmy Onapa Uhuru, journalist Paul Odonga and two others after the station reported that the government was busing people into the region to boost numbers at a rally for President Museveni. The district Deputy Police Chief Taire Idwege told local journalists that police had opened a criminal investigation of the radio staff.

On election day, Acting District Police Commander Charles Obella, of Soroti, eastern Uganda, visited Radio Veritas and ordered staff to cease broadcasting because they had “violated the law,” although he did not say how. The State Minister of Health Mike Mukula, a candidate for parliament in Soroti, then telephoned and ordered them to stop working. The station agreed not to broadcast any information about the poll from noon to 4 p.m. Mukula lost the election."
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/03/13/uganda12911.htm

The right whingers get more disturbing every day, don't they.

[Bill-Muskoka]

Personally, when it comes to the WH and Dubya, I do not actually expect an illiterate brat to comprehend something as clear as 'Its Against The LAW!' That is left to the lawyers in their Congress, who of course rushed to act.

[Ti-Guy]

The rightists have gone completely around the bend. They crow endlessly that freedom of conscience, of speech, and of the press are just about the highest ideals a people can support...when it comes to their own dishonesty and propaganda. But let the free-frow of information suggest there may be intolerable abuses of power going on, and all of a sudden, it's treason!

...Who exactly do they think they're fooling?

[sooey]

there are secret cia sites?! thank gawd bush doesn't issue gag orders on HIS guys...

[Mach Stelmacher]

Hey Azerb,

This just reminds me what an amorphous
nebulous place is that the Internet survives on.

It might seem a fairly obvious blanket type assertion, but it strikes me peculiarly that
these types of comments made such as "..think they should go to jail.."
would never make it to print in any national publication or deemed worthy of serious consideration. (The US has already jailed journalists remember?)

Along with freedom of speech and freedom of the Press to he or she that owns one, opinions are like sphincters, everyones got one.

Surely even a right-whinger or a right whiner
can see that people are people over and above political stripe or denomination and that since a potentiality to infringe upon peoples rights based on political views
exists, for instance lets say someone asserts something ridiculous like AQ existing in the US is a fabrication.

Just a nutty opinion but should such a person be muzzled, cuffed and tied? Maybe in Uganda or Cuba.

Since spying is illegal, the built in protection afforded by the overarching element of protection of freedoms and liberties and civil rights and privacy
protection that the U.S. stands for
is something that has withstood the
tests of time since the McCarthy era and
the legacy of Edward R. Murrow and should
be indeed something that is not whittled away at. Left wing right wing no wing whatever.

http://www.redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=7350