Political Skullduggery

The odious Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) is thinking about broadening the laws against leaks of classified information to reporters.

The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that he may add language to the fiscal 2007 intelligence authorization bill to criminalize the leaking of a wider range of classified information than is now covered by law. He indicated the new measure would be similar to legislation vetoed by President Bill Clinton more than five years ago.

The leak of the NSA warrantless wiretap program to the New York Times, and the disclosure of the CIA secret prisons in Eastern Europe to the Washington Post, must really exasperate the old Republican codger.

Recalling the legislation Clinton vetoed, Roberts said, "Whether it's a reporter or just any individual or somebody by the water cooler who's upset or somebody who has just a very strong difference of opinion knowingly reveals classified information, that would be a felony."Since the Clinton veto, he added, "I think times have changed, and we may be introducing that in the intelligence authorization bill."...

Clinton vetoed a measure by Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) that would have broadened the law that criminalizes release of "national defense information."

Civil liberties groups and news organizations, which argued that the legislation would chill their ability to get information from officials, lobbied for the veto, which Clinton exercised in 2000.

In 2002, with George W. Bush in the White House, Shelby reintroduced his language, but then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that "rigorous investigation" and enforcement of existing laws -- not new legislation -- were the best way to fight leaks.

The recent AIPAC case appears to be part of the impetus for the new anti-leak push.

A lawyer familiar with the AIPAC case said administration officials "want this case as a precedent so they can have it in their arsenal" and added: "This as a weapon that can be turned against the media."

The media in this country is already subservient to a very large degree to the whims of the government, despite wing-nut claims to the contrary.

Leaks exposing egregious wrongdoing and blatant illegalities are the only way that the few people who still care about the United States can keep an eye upon the malefactors who have hijacked the nation.

The intentional attempts via legislation to dry up of this trickle of information means that the lawmakers who try to do this are co-conspirators in the crimes of the Bush administration.