Re: [privacy] U.S. DoJ: Reporters May be Prosecuted for Leaks

["Thomas C. Greene" <dcvulture () comcast net>]

On Saturday 10 June 2006 2:03 pm, Florian Weimer wrote:
> What is "illegal"?  What is ethical?  Is paying your sources alright?
> Good leaks are worth a couple of kEURs over here.

It's a crime to entice someone to commit a crime.  Plain and simple.  As far 
as ethics goes, so long as what you do is legal, it's a judgment call; 
different publications have different standards.  I personally would never 
pay for information, but this has nothing to do with ethics: it's bad from a 
journalistic PoV.  As a journo, you're just asking to get punked.  Everyone 
tries to use the press to work their own agenda.  Everything is a press 
release in one form or another.  They're either trying to help themselves, or 
hurt an adversary.  So paying people to make a fool of you is pretty stupid.  
A sincere whistleblower who wants to release information in the public 
interest will always give it to you.  

> > Of course, it leaked, and Cicero decided to publish very detailed 
> > information from the report, in a way that maximized embarrassment to the
> > BKA and the German intelligence services.  Maybe even sources have been   
> > put in danger.  

I don't approve of publishing anything that could endanger lives. But one 
might reasonably publish the info if it's already become public. 

> > Even if the Cicero incident is isolated, the reaction in the press
> > shows that few journalists would exercise the restraint you demand.

The Feds failed to safeguard sensitive information. That's news.  So long as 
the damage was already done and the info had become public, I would defend 
the paper's decision. But if the info was theirs alone, and would not have 
come out otherwise, I would not defend them.  It would not have been 
necessary to publish so much detail.  

Often, governments use 'national security' as a smokescreen to conceal 
corruption and stupidity.  It's important that the press not allow itself to 
be intimidated by government appeals to 'national security' when the only 
real issue at stake is the government's embarrassment.  However, when there 
are real issues of national security involved, the press has an obligation to 
edit its news to get the nut of the story out to the public, without 
compromising operations, sources, methods, etc.  

> > This attitude is the "we're first-class citizens, and you are not"
> > attitude I find so disgusting.

I don't know about German law, but in the USA, freedom of the press is a 
fundamental pillar of liberty, plainly spelled out in the Bill of Rights. The 
Constitution trumps all other laws, so we're stuck with it.  

Now, there are rights, called concomitant rights, which are presumed in order 
to exercise an enumerated right.  In other words, the government cannot 
legally restrict the public in ways that would diminish an enumerated right.  
But this is exactly what they try to do in order to restrict the press.  They 
say, you're "free" all right, but you can't print this, or you can't use that 
source or this method; we can force you to testify about your sources, turn 
over your notes, and so on.

This is complete rubbish.  The enumerated press right is the right to publish; 
the concomitant rights, that give reality to the enumerated right, are rights 
such as publishing classified information, protecting sources and methods, 
granting anonymity, denying the government access to our notes and work 
products, and so on.  You can't have one without the other.

So yes, the press does have rights and liberties that the general public don't 
enjoy.  You may find it personally galling that we've been granted these 
rights, but that's the law.  Laws that restrict press rights exist, 
certainly, but they are invalid because the Constitution trumps them.  

Don't just take my word for it; the US Supreme Court decided it: 
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=403&invol=713

t.

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