Blowback on the Press.........

TheRightWing · May 2, 2006

May 01, 2006 Blowback on the Press

By Michael Barone
Blowback is what happens when the consequence of actions you have taken come full circle and slap you in the face. That happened to us in Afghanistan, after we supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets and then Muslim fighters installed the Taliban. Now we may be seeing blowback against the press.
Last month, The New York Times and The Washington Post won Pulitzer Prizes for their stories on National Security Agency surveillance and CIA secret prisons in Eastern Europe. Soon, they may be getting subpoenas. If so, the papers shouldn't be surprised.
In July 2003, when columnist Robert Novak printed the name of a CIA analyst, the Times self-righteously demanded an investigation of White House aides to determine if they violated the law by leaking her name. With glee, Bush haters charged that this disclosure wreaked grave damage on national security. In time, a special prosecutor was appointed. He has charged no one with violating the law at issue, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. But he did jail then-Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to testify, until she finally agreed to do so. Blowback.
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This may be only the beginning. Two weeks ago, the CIA fired analyst Mary McCarthy for disclosing classified information to a reporter. She was widely reported to be a source for the Post story on secret prisons, but her lawyer denies it. The leak is being investigated by the Justice Department. A prosecution, of leaker or leakee, could follow.
And so could a prosecution for the Times' NSA story. That will seem outrageous to many, as there have been precious few prosecutions of leakers of classified information in our history and none of journalists. And don't journalists have a right to protect their sources?
The answer to the last question is yes, in some states, but no in federal law, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1972 and as the trial and appeals courts ruled in the Judith Miller case. And the Espionage Act of 1917, as amended in 1950, very clearly makes it a criminal offense to transmit or receive classified information.
"If these statutes mean what they seem to say and are constitutional, public speech in this country since World War II has been rife with criminality," wrote law professors Harold Edgar and Benno Schmidt. "The source who leaks defense information to the press commits an offense; the reporter who holds on to defense material commits an offense."
Why haven't there been more Espionage Act prosecutions? One reason is that the government often fears a trial will reveal secret information. Another is that there is a widespread consensus that there is rampant overclassification -- the government sometimes classifies newspaper articles, but it isn't going to prosecute anyone for leaking them.
But the NSA surveillance and the secret prisons were things the government definitely wanted kept secret, and it has argued plausibly that their publication has damaged the interests of the United States. Bill Keller and Leonard Downie, the highly respected top editors of the Times and the Post, have said that they decided publication wouldn't hurt national security. But the law, perhaps unwisely, doesn't give them the final decision on that.
There have been only a few leak prosecutions under the Espionage Act. A retired CIA analyst was convicted for leaking documents to Jane's Fighting Ships in 1984. Defense Department employee Lawrence Franklin was sentenced in January to 12-and-a-half years in prison for disclosing classified information to two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. A prosecution is underway of the two recipients of the leak, who stand in the same legal shoes as the Times and Post reporters.
In effect, there has been an informal truce between prosecutors and the press -- Justice Department guidelines discourage asking reporters about sources. But in the Novak leak case, the press's demands for an investigation led to just such questioning.
So now the government can make a case for prosecution by quoting the Times' editorials on the Novak leak case. It's certainly plausible that there was much less damage to national security in that case than in the NSA and secret prison stories. There's an argument here for government forbearance: Prosecutions will dry up a lot of sources. But there's also an argument for forbearance by the papers. An argument about blowback.

Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate

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bblight · May 2, 2006

The Times editorial staff in Jail - that's the stuff dreams are made of! I hope it happens, since most of that crew are about as anti-American as you can get.

cussin'it · May 2, 2006

Anyone here have a list or know who sits on the Board of the Times???

919 · May 2, 2006

The New York Times Editorial Board </NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" "></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]GAIL COLLINS, Editor [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]
Gail Collins, the editorial page editor, is responsible for the two opinion pages The Times publishes every day. Her department includes the editorial board, as well as the Op-Ed and Letters departments. The editorial department of the paper is completely separate from the news operations and Ms. Collins answers directly to the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. She is assisted by Andrew Rosenthal, deputy editor, David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page, and Thomas Feyer, the Letters editor.
Under her direction, the 16 members of the board prepare the paper's editorials. The board holds regular meetings to discuss current issues. The editorials are written by individual board members in consultation with their colleagues, and are edited by Ms. Collins and Mr. Rosenthal.

Ms. Collins came to The Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board, and later became an Op-Ed columnist. Mr. Sulzberger named her editorial page editor in the summer of 2001. She is the author of three books: "America's Women, 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines" (Morrow, 2003), "Scorpion Tongues" (Morrow, 1998) and "The Millennium Book" (Doubleday, 1991) which she co-authored with her husband, Dan Collins. She is currently working on a book about American women since 1960. Before joining The Times, she was a columnist for New York Newsday and the New York Daily News. She has also worked for United Press International and papers in Milwaukee and Connecticut and has written for magazines ranging from Institutional Investor to Ladies Home Journal. In the 1970's, she founded and ran the Connecticut State News Bureau, which covered the state capitol for weekly and small daily papers around the state. At the time of its sale, the Connecticut State News Bureau was the largest news service of its kind in the country. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]ANDREW ROSENTHAL, Deputy Editor [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Andrew Rosenthal became deputy editorial page editor in September 2003. Previously he served as assistant managing editor and foreign editor of The Times. He also served as national editor for six months in 2000, supervising coverage of the presidential elections and the post-election day recount, and as Washington editor. As a Washington correspondent, Mr. Rosenthal covered the Bush administration, the 1988 and 1992 presidential elections and the Persian Gulf War.

Prior to joining The Times in March 1987, Mr. Rosenthal worked at the Associated Press, where he served as Moscow bureau chief. Born in New Delhi, India, Mr. Rosenthal graduated from the University of Denver with a B.A. degree in American history in 1978. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]HELENE COOPER, Assistant Editor [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Helene Cooper joined the editorial board in October 2004. Ms. Cooper was previously the assistant bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau, overseeing a group of reporters focusing on international economics and foreign policy. From 1999 to 2002, she was the Wall Street Journal's international economics reporter. Before joining the Journal, Ms. Cooper was a reporter at the Providence Journal Bulletin from 1987 to 1992.

In 2000 Ms. Cooper won the Raymond Clapper award for Washington reporting, for her stories on the negotiations on China's entry into the World Trade Organization. A native of Monrovia, Liberia, Ms. Cooper will publish a memoir, "The House at Sugar Beach" (Simon and Schuster), next fall. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]ROBERT B. SEMPLE JR. | Associate Editor[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Robert Semple joined the Washington Bureau of The Times in the fall of 1963. He covered housing and civil rights during the Johnson administration, spent a year covering President Johnson himself, and served as White House correspondent during Richard Nixon's first term. He served thereafter as deputy national editor (1973-75), London bureau chief (1975-77), foreign editor (1977-82), editor of the Op-Ed Page (1982-88) and associate editor of the Editorial Page (1988 to present). He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for his editorials on environmental issues. Mr. Semple was born in St. Louis, raised in Michigan and educated at Andover, Yale and the University of California, where he received a master's degree in history in 1961. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]DAVID C. UNGER | Senior Foreign Affairs Writer[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]David C. Unger was born and raised in Brooklyn. He is a product of the New York City public school system and worked for three years as an elementary school teacher in Staten Island and Brooklyn. After studying modern history at Cornell University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Texas, he joined The Times in 1977 as a news clerk for the editorial board. He has traveled widely on four continents and is now the paper's senior editorial writer on foreign affairs. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]PHILIP M. BOFFEY | Science [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Philip M. Boffey is an editorial writer at The New York Times. He formerly served as a reporter, science and health editor and deputy editorial page editor. Mr. Boffey was a member of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes: the first in 1986 for a series on the "Star Wars" missile defense system, the second in 1987 for coverage of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. He has been president of the National Association of Science Writers and is a director of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Mr. Boffey is the author of "The Brain Bank of America," an investigation of the National Academy of Sciences, published in 1975.

Born in East Orange, N.J., Mr. Boffey received an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, in history, from Harvard College in 1958. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]FRANCIS X. CLINES | National Politics, Congress & Campaign Finance [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Before joining the editorial board in 2002, Francis X. Clines spent 40 years as a reporter for The Times on the city, national and foreign news staffs. His assignments ranged from City Hall to Appalachia, from Ireland to Uzbekistan, from the Reagan White House to Communism's last stand in the Kremlin. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he won the Meyer Berger Award for his "About New York" columns, as well as a Polk Award for coverage of the collapse of the Soviet Union. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]ADAM COHEN | Law & Technology [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Adam Cohen is a lawyer and author, with a particular interest in legal issues, politics and technology. Before joining The Times editorial board in 2002, he was a senior writer at Time, where he wrote about the Supreme Court, Internet privacy and the Microsoft antitrust case, among other topics. Prior to entering journalism, he was an education-reform lawyer, and a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. He is the author of "The Perfect Store: Inside eBay" and co-author of "American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley, His Battle for Chicago and the Nation." A native of Manhattan, he is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Harvard College and Harvard Law School. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]CAROLYN CURIEL | Local Government, Social Issues, National Trends & Environment[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Carolyn Curiel joined the editorial board in 2002. She began her career in journalism as a sports reporter covering Big Ten football before shifting to national and international news reporting, editing and producing with United Press International, The Washington Post, The New York Times and ABC News Nightline. She served as special assistant to the president and senior presidential speechwriter in President Clinton's first term, focusing on race relations, and later became ambassador to Belize. As ambassador, she focused on issues concerning environment, trade, immigration and law enforcement. Ms. Curiel received a B.A. degree in Radio-TV-Film from Purdue University. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]LAWRENCE DOWNES | Suburban Issues[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Lawrence Downes joined the editorial board in 2004. Mr. Downes works mainly on editorials for the opinion sections which appear in the Westchester, Long Island and City weekly sections. Previously, he served as enterprise editor for the National desk and as the desk's deputy political editor in 2000 for the presidential campaign. From 1998 to 2000, Mr. Downes served as a weekend editor on the Metro desk and prior to that position, deputy weekend editor. He joined The Times in 1993 as a copy editor trainee. Before then, Mr. Downes served as a copy editor at Newsday from 1992 to 1993 and the Chicago Sun-Times from 1989 to 1992. Mr. Downes received a B.A. degree in English from Fordham University in 1986. He also attended the University of Missouri School of Journalism from 1987 to 1989. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]VERLYN KLINKENBORG | Agriculture, Environment & Culture[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Verlyn Klinkenborg was born in Colorado in 1952 and raised in Iowa and California. He graduated from Pomona College and received a Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University. Mr. Klinkenborg joined the editorial board in 1997. He is the author of "Making Hay" (1986), "The Last Fine Time" (1991) and "The Rural Life" (2003). His work has appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, National Geographic, The New Republic, Smithsonian, Audubon, GQ, Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living, Sports Afield and The New York Times Magazine. He has taught literature and creative writing at Fordham University, St. Olaf College, Bennington College and Harvard University and is a recipient of the 1991 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He lives in rural New York. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]NICHOLAS KULISH | Business[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Nicholas Kulish joined the editorial board in September 2005. He was previously a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the war in Iraq, the economy and antitrust. A native of Arlington, Va., Mr. Kulish graduated from Columbia University with a degree in political science in 1997. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]ELEANOR RANDOLPH | New York City & State, Media, Politics & Russia [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Eleanor Randolph is a native of Florida, a graduate of Emory University and veteran journalist who began working at a newspaper in Pensacola, Fla., in 1968. She has covered national politics and the media for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Her articles have appeared in Vogue, Esquire, the New Republic and other magazines. After working from 1991 to 1993 in Moscow, she wrote a book on Russian life called "Waking the Tempests." A member of The Times editorial staff since 1998, she is the author of the "Fixing Albany" series on state government. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]TINA ROSENBERG | Human Rights & Foreign Policy[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Tina Rosenberg was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Michigan. She has been an editorial writer at The New York Times since 1996, concentrating on foreign policy. She was a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Before joining The Times, she was a freelance writer of books and magazine articles. Her 1994 book, "The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism," won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. She has lived for six years in Latin America and currently writes from Mexico City. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]DOROTHY SAMUELS | Law, Civil Rights & National Affairs [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]A member of the editorial board since 1984, Dorothy Samuels writes on a wide array of legal and social policy issues. Prior to joining The Times, she briefly practiced corporate law with a big Wall Street firm, leaving there to pursue her interests in public policy and journalism. For four years, Ms. Samuels served as executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the largest affiliate of the national A.C.L.U. In 2001, in a change of pace, she published a comic novel, "Filthy Rich." Ms. Samuels is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Northeastern University School of Law. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]BRENT STAPLES | Education, Race & Culture [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Brent Staples joined The Times editorial board in 1990. His editorials and essays are included in dozens of college readers throughout the United States and abroad. Before joining the editorial page, he served as an editor of The New York Times Book Review and an assistant editor for metropolitan news. Mr. Staples holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago and is author of "Parallel Time," a memoir, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. [/FONT]

<HR SIZE=1>[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]TERESA TRITCH | Economic Issues & Tax Policy[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]Before joining the editorial board in 2004, Teresa Tritch spent 12 years at Money magazine, as a staff writer, Washington, D.C., bureau chief and senior editor, covering politics, finance and taxes. She has also been a contributing editor for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, covering nonprofits, and for the Gallup Management Journal, covering workplace issues, as well as co-editor of a book on Iraq, "America at War," a joint project of CBS and Simon and Schuster. Ms. Tritch, a Los Angeles native, holds a B.A. in German from UCLA and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University. In 2000, she was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in Business and Economics Journalism at Columbia. [/FONT]

cussin'it · May 2, 2006

Excellent germaine info 919, but I was referring to the Board, the owners.

xpanda · May 2, 2006

How are the editorial staff of a newspaper, any newspaper, supposed to determine precisely what is or is not 'damaging to national security', especially in light of whistleblower statutes and the public interest?

It seems to me that if journalists can be targeted under the espionage act, there will be a great deal of self-censorship among the media (more than there already is.) How can promoting such a thing be in the best interests of the public?

I could understand the gov't going after the people within their own ranks who leak to the press; these people know exactly what is or is not classified, and what is or is not required silenced for national security purposes. But asking the press to make this determination is ludicrous.

Whether the reporter in question is from the Times, Fox, CNN or bloody Newsmax should be irrelevant. Whether the leaker is blowing the whistle on a Republican or Democrat should also be irrelevant.

That the White House is making a concerted effort to prosecute journalists should worry you tremendously.

bblight · May 2, 2006

The Sulzbergers own the Times and the Boston Globe - two of the most liberal, un-American propaganda rags you'll ever find!

cussin'it · May 2, 2006

Seems as though the "strong-arming" tactics of the current leadership does fit their overall communicative agenda. Those on the right may also have a valid argument concerning national security, I'd suppose in their own mind.

Personally it's deeply troubling as "transparent" government has gone out the window.

Anyone know who the "masters of the universe" that sit on the Board of the times are??? I'd venture to guess they ain't all rabid Liberals.